I said, “I don’t understand why she’d even want to put herself through going. Can’t she just stay home?”

Oscar said, “One, it’s kind of fun. Two, it pays well. Three, it pays well.”

We were back to money again. “Can’t she just sell—” I stopped myself as the other two turned to me. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand why she won’t let somebody publish the poems. The famous ones.”

“You mean,” Barb said, “the ones that are worth money now that the writer’s dead? If only that was some guarantee. We’d all hold hands and jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

“You exaggerate,” Oscar told her.

“If only.”

“Your friend Doug,” Oscar said to me, “wants to get his sticky hands on them. And it wouldn’t be the worst place for them to end up. But he’s not the only one. Remember Larry the Magnificent? He’d be only too happy to give the poems a home at his institute. That’s why he’s been dangling that job in front of her.”

“So it’s like, a bidding war?” Or logrolling. A word I remembered.

“Or she could make her own deal with a publisher, that’s always been an option. But she might be running out of options. You see, Miss Carla,” Oscar said, “perhaps this little flutter of the wings of the angel of death will give her a nudge in the direction of selling. Not to mention the medical bills and the rent coming round. But the other problem we have, say if she has some kind of brain event or if she dies, is that she’s never told anybody where she put the freaking poems.”

Doctors

Dr. Gandhi had good news. good being a relative term. Viridian showed no evidence of heart damage. Fainting could be precipitated by cardiac distress, and that was not the case here. Dehydration, the hot room—those were more likely culprits. However, the fainting and resulting fall were what the medical profession called an unmasking event, one that brought other conditions to light. Conditions often due to normal aging. The blood oxygen levels, for instance. A concern. And her unacceptably high blood pressure. It was very important that they bring the blood pressure down immediately. This was a splendid opportunity. Medication would be prescribed when she left the hospital, and she would need a follow-up visit with a doctor a few weeks from now.

“I don’t trust pharmaceuticals,” Viridian said. She was still lying back in bed, and her voice was still faint and creaky. She’d asked for a mirror and a comb and had set her hair to rights. She was not happy about being in the hospital. “I avoid them.”