John Lescroart - The 13th Juror

Jennifer Witt rechecked the table. It looked perfect, but when you never knew what perfect was, it was hard to be sure. There were two new red candles – Larry had a problem with half-burnt candles, with guttered wicks – in gleaming silver candlesticks.

She had considered having one red candle and one green candle since it was getting to be Christmas time. But Larry didn't like a jumble of colors. The living room was done all in champagne – which wasn't the easiest to keep clean, especially with a seven-year-old – but she wasn't going to change it. She remembered when she'd bought the Van Gogh print (A PRINT, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! YOU'D HAND A PRINT IN MY LIVING ROOM?) and the colors had really bothered Larry.

He liked things ordered, exact. He was a doctor. Lives depended on his judgment. He couldn't get clouded up with junk in his own home, he told her.

So she went with the red candlesticks.

And the china. He liked the china, but then he'd get upset that things were so formal in their own home. Couldn't she just relax and serve them something plain on the white Pottery Barn stuff? Maybe just hot dogs and beans? They didn't have to eat gourmet every night. She tried hard to please, but with Larry, you never knew.

One time he wasn't in the mood for hot dogs and beans; he'd had an especially hard day, he said, and felt like some adult food. And Matt had had a bad day at school and was whining, and one of the plates had a chip on the side.

She shook her head to clear the memory.

Tonight she was making up with him, or trying to, so she decided to go with the china. She could feel his dissatisfaction… it got worse every time before he blew up… and she was trying to keep the explosion off for a few more days if she could.

So she'd fixed his favorite – the special veal kidney chops that you had to go get at Little City Meats in North Beach. And the December asparagus from Petrini's at $4.99 a pound. And she'd gotten Matt down early to bed.

She looked at herself in the mirror, thinking it odd that so many men thought she was attractive. Her nose had a hook halfway down the ridge. Her skin, to her, looked almost translucent, almost like a death mask. You could see all the bone structure, and she was too thin. And her eyes, too light a blue for her olive skin. Deep-set, somehow foreign-looking, as though her ancestors had come from Sicily or Naples instead of Milano, as they had.

She leaned over and looked more closely. There was still a broken vein, but the eyeshadow masked the last of the yellowish bruise. As she waited for him to come home, checking and rechecking, she had been curling her lower lip into her teeth again. Thank God she'd noticed the speck of coral lipstick on her tooth, the slight smear that had run beyond the edge of her liner.

Quickly, listening for the front door, she stepped out of her shoes and tiptoed over the hardwood floor – trying not to wake Matt – to the bathroom, where the light was better. Taking some Kleenex, she pressed her lips with it and reapplied the pencil, then the gloss. Larry liked the glossy wet look. Not too much, though. Too much looked cheap, like you were asking for it, he said.

She walked back to the front of the house. When she got to the champagne rug, she slipped her pumps back on.

Olympia Way, up by the Sutro Tower, was quiet. It was the shortest day of the year, the first day of winter, and the street lights had been on since she had gotten back from shopping at 5:00 p.m.. She checked her watch. It was 7:15.

Dinner would be ready at exactly 7:20, which was when they always ate. Larry arrived from the clinic between 6:50 and 7:05 every day. Well, almost every day. When he got home he liked his two ounces of Scotch, Laphraoig, with one ice cube, while she finished putting dinner on the table.

7:18.

She wondered if she should turn off the oven. Would he still want his drink first? If so, what about the dinner? She could put it out on the table, but then it might be cold before he got around to it. Larry really hated it when his meal was cold.

Worse, he might think she was trying to hurry him. What he didn't need after a long day seeing patients was somebody in his home telling him to hurry up.

The asparagus was the problem.

What if Larry walked in the door in exactly one minute and wanted to go right to the table and the asparagus wasn't ready? It had to cook in the steamer for ninety seconds – if there was one thing Larry really couldn't abide it was soggy limp asparagus. Maybe, if he came in and sat right down she could dawdle over serving the rest of the meal and the asparagus would be perfect just at the right time. That's what she'd do.

It was a little risky but better than putting it on now, thinking he'd get home on time and want to sit down right away, and then having him be late and the asparagus be overcooked.

No sign of his Lexus coming up the street. No one was coming up the street. Where was he? Damn, she was biting her lower lip again.

7:20. She turned the heat off under the rice. At least that would be all right for a while if she kept it covered – each grain separate just the way Larry liked it.

She made sure the water was right at the boil and that there was enough in the steamer. Everything depended on the asparagus being ready to go as soon as Larry walked in the door. As soon as she heard him, even. If the water wasn't boiling, or if it ran out underneath, that would ruin everything.

By 8:15 she had taken the chops out of the oven, refilled the water in the steamer three times and added butter to the rice to keep it from sticking, but there wasn't any hope now. At 7:35, she had poured Larry's Scotch and added the ice cube, now melted long ago. At the hour she poured the diluted drink into the sink.

She heard the footsteps on the walk outside. God, she hoped he'd found a parking place nearby. Sometimes if you got home late there wasn't anywhere to park within blocks, and that always put him in a real bad mood.

The dinner could, maybe, be saved. She knew what she could do… she'd pour him the new Scotch now, with a new ice cube, greet him at the door and let him unwind for twenty minutes until the second round of rice was cooked. She could microwave the chops on low power and they probably wouldn't get too dry. The asparagus wouldn't be any problem.

She had the drink in her hand, ready for him, when he opened the door. He was tall and very handsome – with his cleft chin and his body still young at forty-one. He had all his hair, wavy and fashionably long. An Italian suit, colorful tie with a snow-white shirt – colors, he said, were okay in a tie, so long as they didn't clash. She put the drink in his hand, pecked his cheek, smiled up at him.

"Where have you been?"

God she hadn't meant to say that. It had just come out, and right away she wished she could take it back.

"What do you mean, where have I been? Where do you think I've been?"

"Well, I mean it's late. I thought… I was worried."

"You were worried. I like that." He seemed to notice the drink for the first time. "What's this?"

"It's your Scotch, Larry. Why don't you sit down, relax."

"What time is it? You know when I get home this late I don't like to drink before dinner. I'd like some food in my belly."

"I know, but I thought…"

"Okay, you thought. You're trying. I appreciate it. But I'm starving. Let's just go and eat, all right?"