Free The Glimpsing by James L. Black, Mary Byrnes Page A

for perhaps one hundred guests.   Each was set with a white tablecloth, a neat arrangement of silverware, and cream napkins.   The chairs were a light wicker.   A short white brick wall topped with an elegant black gate sealed the area from the street outside.   The morning’s blistering sun, which sat like a white-hot pupil in a sea of blue, bathed the area in hard golden light.
    Gabrielle proceeded forward in a dreamy haze, not noticing the relatively small number of patrons occupying the patio enclosure.   There was an elderly couple seemingly lost in unspeaking silence as they worked their meal; a well-dressed man consumed in his copy of the Wall Street Journal; and a pair of twenty-something lovebirds who, every few minutes, had been leaning forward to kiss one another.
    Gabrielle blithely wandered to the farthest part of the patio.   She turned, facing the restaurant, and then took a seat beneath the massive tree there.   Looking out over the patio, she felt like she had just awakened from a dream.
    She’d been so engrossed in thought that she could only loosely remember how she’d gotten here: hazy bits and pieces of the drive, a mental snapshot of herself passing through the restaurant’s main doors, the already seemingly distant memory of stepping onto the patio.   Now she realized something else: the people on the patio had stopped what they were doing to stare at her.
    Gabrielle believed at first that they had recognized her as the actress from a movie they’d seen (she was still trying to get used to such adoration by fans).   But when they failed to wave or even smile, she became confused.   They looked at her with faces that suggested something of disbelief.   She wondered if they weren’t really looking at her at all but a squirrel or a chipmunk performing some eye-catching feat near the tree.   She turned to see if that was the case, but was met only by the wrinkled girth of the tree’s trunk, a row of neatly trimmed bushes, and pavement covered with scores of flower petals that had fallen from the tree.   By the time she had turned back, everyone had resumed what they were doing.   Strange.
    She sat there doing her best to clear her mind, to soak up the solemnity of the patio, but as had been the case all morning, her thoughts turned back to the previous night.   She simply couldn’t stop wondering how something that had been going so right could have turned out so wrong.
    She had arrived at Jack’s birthday party long after it had started.   The gala was being held in Jack’s large and lavish banquet room.   It was filled with plenty of men in stylish tuxedos, women in elegant dresses, and of course, plenty of champagne bottles.   She’d entered, blending in to the crowd and chatting contentedly.
    Her late arrival had been intentional.   Jack had insisted on keeping their relationship secret and doing so was part of the façade.   She was careful to cross paths with him only once, as he stood in the company of Dan Piper and James Dell—the former his lawyer, the latter his doctor.   She had kept it brief, thanking him for getting her the contract with Clique, a new magazine whose cover she was to appear on, and for such a wonderful party.   She had then moved on to mingle with the other guests.
    It did bother her how good Jack seemed to be at this part of things, this pretending they hadn’t a fleeting care for one another.   Several times she had tried to catch his eye from across the room.   He never looked up.   Not even once.   In fact, the only time he did acknowledge her was during the opening of his gifts.   He had offered a slight bow, a polite thank you, and that was it.   No subtle glance.   No veiled comments.   Nothing.   He was quite the play-actor, this Jack Parke.   Or maybe she was missing it.   Maybe he wasn’t acting.   Because maybe he really didn’t care at all.
    Toward the end of the party, however, after the liquor had no doubt dampened