Heart of the Matter by Emily Giffin Page B

with something better.”
    I picture her pacing in her kitchen, her lean, tennis-toned arms and legs working overtime as always. “Oh! I got it . . . I just made the most yummy carrot muffins. They’d be perfect.”
    Nick winces—he hates food adjectives like yummy and tasty and, his least favorite combination of them all, moist and chewy.
    “Hmm. Yeah. Not so sure I have time to make muffins,” I say.
    “They’re soo easy, Tessa. A cinch.”
    To April, everything is easy. Last year, she actually had the audacity to call beef Wellington “a cinch” when I told her I had to come up with something for Christmas dinner. Incidentally, I ended up ordering the entire meal and then getting busted when my motherin-law asked me how I made the gravy, and my mind went perfectly blank as to how to make any gravy, let alone the kind residing on my table.
    “Yeah. I think I’ll have to go store-bought on this one,” I say, taking the phone off speaker to spare Nick from hearing more.
    “Hmm. Well, there’s always fruit skewers,” she says, explaining that I need only pick up little plastic stirrers at the party store and then spear the grapes, strawberries, pineapples, melon. “Then just pick up a few bags of organic popcorn . . . that Pirate’s Booty stuff is pretty tasty . . . although popcorn is listed as a leading choking hazard in a recent consumer report, along with grapes, hot dogs, raisins, gum, and candy . . . So maybe not such a good idea . . . Choking always scares me. That and drowning. And God. . , not to be a total downer, but that’s . . . sort of why I’m calling . . .”
    “To warn me against choking hazards?” I say, knowing that it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
    “No . . . Didn’t Nick tell you?” she asks, her voice returning to a whisper.
    ”You’re off speaker,” I say. “Tell me what?”
    “About the accident?”
    “What accident?”
    At the word accident, Nick shoots me a look—somehow, we both know what is coming.
    “The little boy in Grayson Croft’s class . . . Charlie Anderson?”
    “Yeah?” I say.
    “He was burned at Romy’s house—in a campfire accident.”
    I am speechless as my mind ticks through the few degrees of separation which are so typical in Wellesley: Romy Croft is one of April’s closest friends on her tennis team. Romy’s son and April’s daughter are in the same kindergarten class at Longmere Country Day, apparently along with Nick’s patient.
    Sure enough, April says, “Isn’t Nick his doctor? That’s the word going around . . .”
    “Yes,” I say, marveling that the rumor mill can churn so efficiently over the weekend.
    “What?” Nick asks, now staring at me.
    I put my hand over the phone and say, “Your patient Friday night. He was at Romy Croft’s house when it happened . . .”
    “Who?” he asks, proving once again how bad he is with names and any sort of social networking. He is so bad, in fact, that sometimes it seems as if he is doing it on purpose, almost as a point of pride. Especially when it involves a high-profile type, like Romy, who throws lavish, renowned dinner parties, is involved in just about every charity in town, and is on the board of Longmere—which I hope Ruby will attend next year.
    I shake my head and hold up one index finger, indicating that he’ll have to wait a second. Meanwhile, April is telling me that Romy is beside herself with worry.
    “How did it happen?” I ask.
    “I don’t know . . . I swear she must be going through post-traumatic stress syndrome where she sort of blanked out the details.”
    “She doesn’t remember anything?”
    “Not really . . . No specifics, although she was right there, along with Daniel, carefully supervising . . . But at some point, Daniel ran in to get more Hershey bars or graham crackers or marshmallows . . . and Romy was alone with the boys .. . and I guess a few of them started to roughhouse . . . and somehow Charlie must have tripped and fallen . . . She