Suddenly she stopped eating. She dropped her fork on the plate and looked up at him, her face pallid. “Let’s get out of here.” Tom obediently paid the bill and they went out into the crowds thronging Eighty-sixth Street. Smoke billowed from chestnut stands, radios under the arms of geeks blared disco music. They passed a Chinese restaurant, a German restaurant, a Greek restaurant. Only when they had rounded the corner onto Second Avenue did the crowds thin.

“I’m going to lose my lunch, I’m afraid.”

“OK, honey.” He wasn’t surprised, the way she had eaten so much spicy food. “Can you make it—” She let go in the gutter. Fortunately, their building was just at the other end of the block and Herb, the late-shift doorman, had seen it happen. He trotted up with a towel in his hand. “Doctor Roberts,” he said in a gruff, surprised voice. “Jeez, you must have got the stomach flu, ma’am.”

Tom was holding her head. He brushed her sweating face with the towel. Cars rushed by three feet away. Pedestrians passed up and down the sidewalk. A fire truck, complete with balancing Dalmatian, roared by. Sarah coughed mightily.

“Oh, I feel awful,” she moaned. “Tom I’m so cold!”

“Come on, let’s get you to bed!”

“Can you make it, Doc? You want I should carry her?”

Sarah staggered to her feet. “No thanks, Herb.” She tottered into the lobby on Tom’s arm. His mind inventoried the various types of food poisoning it could be. The onset was too sudden for botulism. They hadn’t had mushrooms, so it couldn’t be that. Probably old friend salmonella, or just plain overeating. He’d keep her quiet and warm, she’d be on her feet in no time.

“Gonzalo,” Herb said into the housephone, “come watch the door. I’m goin’ upstairs with the Docs.”

They rode up quietly, the only sound in the elevator Sarah’s breathing. “Tom, it’s going to happen!” Her voice quavered.

They were at nineteen and rising. “Just another second, honey.”

Herb looked miserable, he was about to get one messed-up elevator. But he didn’t, she made it as far as their foyer. Tom was half angry with her, half pitying. She didn’t have to eat like a hippo, after all. But she was suffering for it, and he suffered with her. “C’mon, honey,” he said, “it’s bed and bucket time.” All he got was a moan.

He left her sprawled on the bed with their mop bucket on the floor beside her and strict instructions to use it. Then he went about cleaning up the mess in the foyer without getting sick himself. Herb had slipped away while he was bedding her down. The man couldn’t be blamed.

When he returned to the bedroom he was surprised to find her sitting up. “I’m better,” she said. She glared, as if daring him to contradict her.

At that moment the doorbell rang. “God damn, they never leave you alone—who is it!”

“Herb again. You got a package.”