Read Online Color Blind by Jonathan Santlofer - Free Book Online

show.”

    “I’m finished. The show is less than two weeks away. The paintings have all been shipped.”

    “Willie. Last week you told me you were still working on watercolors for the show, that you were going to bring them home with you on the plane. So don’t lie to me.”

    “The watercolors don’t matter, Kate. I need to be there with you. Right now.”

    But Kate had held firm. “This is the most important show of your career, Willie. A new gallery for you, and one of the best in New York. You have to finish everything.” She took a deep breath, and lied: “I’m doing okay. I’ll see you at your show. And you are not to come home one day earlier. You hear me?”

    Finally, Willie had agreed, but only because Kate insisted.

    It had taken Kate a few hours after the phone call to realize why she had argued so vociferously. The truth was she did not want Willie to see her unglued; for some absurd reason she needed him to go on believing she was a super-woman—his fairy godmother who could cope with anything. Maybe, she thought, if she convinced someone else, it might actually be true.

    Richard’s mother was doing the official thing, sitting shivah, in her Boca Raton condo, but Kate could not bring herself to go there, to sit with Edie on her airy Florida terrace, to chat and smile bravely. She adored Richard’s mother, but no, it just wasn’t possible. Not right now.

    So what was it she needed to do? Kate played with the sash of her white terry robe, unconsciously plucking out individual strands of straying cotton. She had no idea.

    She had never imagined herself like this, immobilized by grief, had always been able to cope, to deal with the most horrific things. Somehow she had survived.

    How had she done that?

    Kate gazed down at the view through her tall bedroom windows, a strip of faded green treetops, a sort of crew-cut view of Central Park against a gray sky that suited her mood.

    A blur in her peripheral version; Kate flinched. “Jesus, you scared me.”

    Liz Jacobs strode into the room, plopped herself into the overstuffed chair opposite Kate’s bed, and took stock of her oldest, dearest friend. “God, you look awful,” she said, shaking her head.

    “Thanks a lot.” Kate narrowed her green eyes in mock anger, though there was no way she could be mad. “How did you get in? I specifically told the doormen no solicitors .”

    “An FBI ID opens a lot of doors, sweetie. And after kissing my boss’s fat ass to get away from my Quantico desk for a full day, there is no way I was going to let some stuck-up Central Park West doorman tell me to get lost!” Liz offered a warm smile. “And I’m coming back in a few days, taking my two-week vacation here, in New York.”

    “To watch over me?”

    “No. I needed a break, and I was about to lose my vacation days if I didn’t take them. Going to stay with my sister in Brooklyn, do a little catch-up with her and the kids.”

    “Liar.”

    Liz squinted at Kate. “Are you eating? You’re a stick, which personally pisses me—and every other size-twelve woman—off!”

    Kate knew what Liz was doing, trying to kid her out of her misery. It was the way the two women had helped each other through their various tribulations for years—and it was almost working. Kate actually smiled. “I’m really happy to see you.”

    “And why wouldn’t you be?” Liz took another close look at her friend. “Now really, Kate, you’re destroying my image of you as the perfect woman—your hair’s a mess, no makeup, you’re a wreck. By next week you’re gonna look like me !”

    Kate laughed, but seconds later the laughter gave way to tears. “Oh, Liz…”

    Liz wrapped her arms around Kate and patted her back while she sobbed.

    But after a minute Kate pulled away, whipped a couple of tissues from the bedside table, dabbed at her eyes, nose. “Tell me something, Liz. How did I do it? I mean, when Elena died, how did I survive that,