West 47th by Gerald A Browne Page A

soon she was conspicuously seated on a banquette with the stem of a crystal wine goblet between her fingers, acclimating, actually sort of parsing, as she usually did, the sounds in the large, high-ceilinged room. The polyphony of conversations punctuated by trills of laughter and the effects of the waiters serving. She enjoyed Lespinasse, had been there numerous times for either lunch or dinner, and was acquainted well enough with the layout of the place to make a solo trip to the ladies’ room.
    â€œThe stunning brunette two tables over,” she said out of nowhere.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe one who’s hitting on you. Sneakily but nonetheless hitting.”
    â€œTwo tables over?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œNo brunette, just three paunchy businessmen at that table.”
    A waiter brought rolls and butter. Maddie told him: “That attractive lady, at the second table from here, the dark-haired one …”
    â€œYes, ma’am?”
    â€œSee the one I mean?”
    â€œWith a diamond clip in her hair, yes ma’am.”
    â€œNever mind,” she said as though having a second thought. The waiter went about his business.
    â€œYou’re tricky,” Mitch said, wolfing a hunk of roll.
    â€œYou’re a fibber,” Maddie contended.
    â€œAnyway, the brunette in question hasn’t looked this way even once.”
    â€œNow how would you know that?”
    Mitch retreated to the safety of silence.
    Maddie went along with that for a short while, then let him off the hook by finding his hand and giving it three consoling pats. “Don’t despair, precious,” she said, “I was just guessing and happened to be right.”
    Again , Mitch came close to saying aloud.
    Over the years there’d been numerous such instances, some so accurate it seemed she was able to recover her sight at will. She always claimed they were guesses; however they were too right and too frequent for Mitch to accept that. He thought a more likely explanation for these coincidental observations, as he called them, was she had developed an extraordinary ability that sometimes compensated for her blindness.
    But wasn’t that just as far-fetched as off-and-on seeing? Mitch’s pragmatic side told him it was.
    He’d gotten the first indication of this faculty of hers shortly after they’d met. He and Uncle Straw were out on the terrace of the Sherry Netherland apartment playing gin rummy for a penny a point. Maddie was sort of neutrally kibitzing, not commenting, just hovering around. Mitch drew the nine of diamonds. Discarded it. Maddie moaned, she moaned before Uncle Straw picked up the nine. How could Maddie have known the nine was Uncle Straw’s gin card, Mitch wondered. Uncle Straw evidently thought nothing of it, just gave himself points and gathered up the deck to shuffle for the next hand.
    Mitch didn’t puzzle over the incident. But neither could he dismiss it. He tried to mentally re-create it, the sequence of it, and became less certain it had happened as he recalled.
    Still, he found himself on the lookout for such occurrences.
    For example, the three sapphires. Mitch had purchased them as part of an estate. Three oval cuts, each about six carats. Maddie’s birthday was a couple of weeks off, her first birthday since they’d been married, and he wanted to have one of the sapphires repolished and mounted into a ring for her. He brought the three sapphires home, told her what he intended to do and explained the differences between the three.
    One had a distinctive lavender cast, threw pink and cornflower blue scintillations.
    Another was a typical Burma tone, dark blue, inky.
    The other was a bright Ceylon that just missed because it was ever so slightly zoned, that is, it was a lighter blue in one area.
    â€œWhich do you think is most me?” Maddie asked, pleased by his thoughtfulness.
    â€œThe Burma is the more precious,” he told her,