"All-You-Can-Eat Sushi and Shocking News"

Scene: an all you can eat sushi restaurant in New York City. Characters: Jason Blue, a chemistry professor from Texas being interviewed by a chemical company; Carolyn Blue, his wife, a food writer along for the gourmet dining and to meet her agent and editor; their hosts for an evening of dining and opera, industrial chemist Sean Ryan and wife Patsy.

"When is Max’s funeral to be?" Jason asked. "I’d like to attend."

"Beats me." Sean was devouring hamachi, piece after piece, and answered with his mouth full. "I don’t suppose Charlotte can make any plans until the police release his body."

"The police?" Jason and I spoke in shocked chorus.

"Sure. Since he was murdered, there has to be an autopsy."

My husband and I exchanged stunned glances. "Our driver didn’t say Max was murdered," said Jason. "He seemed to think Max had died over a plate of pastrami."

"He did, but the pastrami didn’t kill him. He was stabbed. They don’t know what with, last I heard."

"It was probably some crazy street person," said Patsy. "I’ve seen very disreputable men hanging around the front of that deli."

"They’re delivery boys," said Sean.

"No matter what the mayor says," she continued, "this is a dangerous city. Crazy people talking to themselves on the subway, the homeless attacking innocent pedestrians with bricks. Thank God we’ve moved to Connecticut where the children can grow up in a safe, sane environment."

"Oh, right!" said Sean. "Now they’re out in the backyard eating dirt and getting lead poisoning."

"They’re not eating dirt," his wife protested.

"There’s a parkway two lots over, been there forever," Sean said to Jason. "Hundreds of thousands of cars speeding by every day for God knows how many years."

"It’s walled off," snapped Patsy.

Jason was nodding over a bite of raw shrimp. "Unleaded gasoline."

"Bet your ass," said Sean. "More green space you got in an urban area, the more lead settled into the ground before lead-free gasoline. That’s why New York has less lead poisoning than Philly. Philly has more green space."

"Well, I’m not paving over the backyard." Patsy had poked her unused chopstick into the wasabi. Before I could stop her, she raised the chopstick to her mouth and sampled the hot mustard paste, then emitted an agonized shriek. The roar of conversation stilled, and the rail thin, black-garbed manager with his shaved head came rushing over.

Sean grinned at him. "White ghost female eat wasabi."

The manager glared at both of them and bustled away. He handled everything from greeting guests, to reprimanding waiters, waitresses, and sushi chefs and running the cash register.

Jason ignored them all. "Max was murdered?"

"Looks like it. Fucking New York." Sean waved the waitress over to order more sushi.

Murdered? How terrible! And frightening! I hardly noticed the rest of the meal, or the hullabaloo when Sean, paying the bill in the crowded aisle by the cash register, turned and swept an order of sushi, board and all, onto the floor with his briefcase. After that we ran—not my favorite activity--in pouring rain to Lincoln Center, where the fountains were shrouded by tents, but the huge arched windows fronting the Chagall lobby paintings beckoned to us. At the sight of those sparkling lights, the excitement of opera at the greatest house in the world overcame my gloom.