Mourning Becomes Cassandra Read Online Free PDF Page B

good. What did…Felicia…make for dinner?”
    “Close. Her name is Phyllida, but we call her Phyl. If it helps you remember, her name means ‘greenery’ or something, and she’s a total enviro-freak. Tonight she made a politically-correct chicken casserole.” I pointed to the microwave, trying to stand my ground and not step back from him.
    His very blue eyes met mine sharply. “Look…Cass…sorry about the name problem. I’m not very good with them.”
    “It’s okay,” I replied, moving away from him on the pretense of hanging up the dishcloth. “I meant sincerely that you were close when you guessed Felicia. Just like you were close when you guessed ‘Cathy’ for me. I’m terrible at names, so I’m impressed you actually get in the ballpark.”
    He grinned then and went to punch the buttons on the microwave.
    Having finished cleaning, I debated whether or not he would want to make conversation while he ate and decided probably not. But it was weird to share a house with another person and not make any attempt to get to know him. Well, he could always take refuge in the Lean-To if I got too annoying.
    “Joanie says you’re a lawyer,” I began. “What kind of lawyer?”
    He stuffed a giant bite of casserole in his mouth and had to chew for a minute, looking measuringly at me all the while. Maybe most women who addressed him uninvited were hitting on him. Ugh. I was pretty sure I’d kept my tone businesslike.
    He reached for the pepper mill, and I thought of Esther appearing before Ahasuerus without first being summoned. Would Daniel hand me the mill, like the royal scepter, and bid me speak, or would he behead me? Instead, he gave a few grinds and replaced it.
    “Intellectual property,” he answered at last. “Trade secrets, that sort of thing.”
    “Do you mean inventions?”
    “Sort of and sometimes. Companies develop anything—new technologies, inventions, even software programs or architectures—and they need legal protection for these things to keep their competitive advantage. If another company steals these things or benefits from them, they should have to pay for it, just like you would have to pay if you were a musician and wanted to record a cover of someone else’s song.”
    “So if I invented something and wanted to get it patented and protected, I could go to you?”
    His mouth twisted in amusement. “Are you speaking hypothetically? What kind of invention?”
    I pulled one of the barstools closer to the table and sat down. “Oh, I’ve thought of all kinds of things. What about contact lenses that darkened in sunlight, like those glasses which turn into sunglasses automatically?”
    No response. He kept eating, so I tried again. “And then I thought of a chair, like a disc on a stiff bungee cord, that you could suspend from the ceiling and sit on, so that when you were holding a baby, the baby would think you were still standing, but you would know you were sitting.”
    “What?” he looked mystified. “What would be the point of that?”
    I forgot babies were completely unknown quantities to him. “Because when babies are fussy, they like you to hold them while you walk around or bounce up and down, and that gets exhausting for the parent after a while.”
    He shrugged, losing interest. “Well, we don’t really handle personal inventions.”
    Now he tells me.
    There was a pause, while I waited for him to take a turn asking me something, but he seemed content to eat in silence. I hid a smile. I had forgotten how, when Joanie got frustrated with him, she would say, “Daniel is complete in himself—or is that completely into himself?”
    Once more into the breach. “Do you have to work a lot of weekends?” I asked.
    “Depends on the caseload. One of the partners is on family leave now, so some of us are taking up the slack.” His grin came and went again. “Maybe Josh might be interested in your disc bouncy chair now.”
    “Well, it’s my idea, so he’d have to pay