A Note From an Old Acquaintance Read Online Free PDF

toweling dry, he returned to the room, grateful for the hiss of cool air flowing from the vent over Penny’s bed.
    Wssssshhhhh. Haaaaaaaaah.
    Wssssshhhhh. Haaaaaaaaah.
    Nothing had changed with Penny, not that he’d expected any. But it seemed as if the world looked and felt entirely different. He looked toward the desk where the computer sat. Its glowing screen beckoned.
    His head still aching, Brian eased himself back into the chair and typed in: www.google.com . When it loaded, he then typed in “Erik Ruby.”
    Two seconds later the screen flashed up with the first ten results out of a total of 3,990. He spent the next half an hour poring over dozens of web sites, most of them civic or charitable, and every one of them featuring at least one page with a picture of Ruby’s smug smiling face, glad-handing dignitaries of every stripe. There he was, his arm around His Honor, the Mayor, both men grinning like love-struck schoolboys. And there he was again handing over giant photocopied checks, the amounts on them obscenely large, and the recipients of which looking as if they might explode with joy. Still others showed him breaking ground on building after building, juxtaposed with shots of a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of the completed edifice.
    The photos he lingered on, however, were the ones showing Joanna standing off to his side. He lingered on them, not only because she looked beautiful and elegant in her formal attire, but because in nearly every photo, there was an ineffable sadness in her eyes, as if she knew she was there mainly as Ruby’s ornament, his trophy wife, and nothing more. Brian’s anger mounted. He switched back to Google’s main screen and typed in: “Joanna Richman.”
    The very first entry struck pay dirt:
     
    Harvest Gallery
    ... Gallery Artists: Joanna Richman. Joanna is a sculptor who builds apparatus that prompts the viewer to question his or her relationship with their world.
    www.harvestgallery.com/artists/aRichman.html - 10k - Cached - Similar pages
     
    There were other web pages from different galleries and shows, all with these wonderfully arcane descriptions of her work, accompanied by pictures of the works themselves. And every piece bore the unmistakable stamp of her distinctive style, though that style had grown and matured since he’d first seen examples of it years before. Brian stared, mesmerized by a piece entitled Corpus #5 , which depicted a white human form lying on a bed with all manner of tubes, sinewy fibrous forms and fiber optic strands—all colored in the same perfect white—entering the “body” and emanating from it. The entire piece glowed with a preternatural light, reminding Brian of Huxley’s Brave New World . It also reminded him of something else—
    Wssssshhhhh. Haaaaaaaaah.
    Wssssshhhhh. Haaaaaaaaah.
    “Jesus Christ,” he said, folding the laptop closed.
    The form in Corpus #5 had been female.
    A knock at the door made Brian look up, startled. Armen stood in the doorway. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.
    Brian shook his head and rose from the chair. “Just tired, I think.” He looked over at Penny. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, Armen. Maybe I should consider moving her. It’s so damned sterile in here.”
    Armen moved into the room and stood opposite his friend, with Penny’s bed between them. “Well, it is a hospital.”
    “Right.” Brian continued staring at his wife.
    Armen checked all the gauges and glanced at the chart before speaking. “I asked you this already, but are you sure you’re okay?”
    “I’ve been wondering that myself. To tell you the truth, I’ve also been thinking about taking a little trip, doing some signings. Just not sure I should.”
    “I think it’s a great idea.”
    Brian looked up from his wife’s bed. “You do?”
    “Absolutely. I know what I said at the restaurant sounded a little harsh—oh, hell, I sounded like a jerk—but I really do think you need to change