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include his work?”
    â€œI suspect so,” Bill said. “He’s a friend of my wife’s brother, and I’ve known him socially for many years. It was through my instigation that he got the mural commission for Nationbank’s Dallas headquarters two years ago, so it also wouldn’t be the first time his work has had corporate backing.”
    â€œIn other words, you think he knows how far he can push a sponsor?”
    â€œI think he’ll make direct statements about obvious trouble spots, but for the most part his work offers subtler commentary.”
    â€œUnfortunately, it’s the trouble spots that stick out in my mind,” Natalie said. “Those are also his strongest pieces.”
    â€œThe question is: are there any trouble spots in APL’s recent past?”
    â€œNot that I can think of.”
    â€œI can’t recall any, either. APL uses nuclear power, of course. The general public doesn’t realize it, but large cities wouldn’t be able to function without some forms of nuclear energy. But I don’t recall them having any accidents or near misses.”
    â€œLet’s just hope it stays that way,” Natalie said. When Bill asked if she wanted a few days to think it over, she jumped at the chance. Not that there was much to think about—Matt Fillmore was probably the most appropriate artist around—but the more people she could draw into making this final decision, the less the burden would rest on her shoulders. And Jana was curator, after all; it should be her decision.
    â€œI guess we don’t have much choice, do we?” Jana stated more than asked. “We knew when we first talked about a show of environmentally concerned art that we might be dealing with some heavy issues, and the board agreed with us that it was important, right?” They waited two days, and spoke to the other board members. They threw Matt’s name out, and everyone’s reaction was pretty much the same as Bill’s had been: his work’s certainly appropriate; let’s hope for the best. No one came up with a better suggestion.
    Bill spoke with Matt Fillmore, then had Jana call and give him the particulars. “He seems like an easy-going guy,” Jana said out loud as she put the phone down. Larry Rivers called on Thursday afternoon to say the artist he’d suggested was willing to participate. Natalie thought she was being optimistic by promising to get back to APL with the names of these artists in three weeks; as it turned out, they had all the material together, including bios and letters of interest from the artists, by the end of the following week, and they arranged a meeting for the following Thursday. “This ought to be the last meeting with Frank, Ed, and Marsha,” Natalie prayed, delicately crossing her fingers. “After this it will be up to APL’s board of directors.”
    Natalie had appointments in midtown on Thursday morning. She wanted to go over the bios with Jana before the meeting, to double-check which aspects of these artists they should stress, so they met in a little coffee shop around the corner from the APL building. They were standing in the short line, waiting to be seated, when Ed walked in, alone. Before Jana could catch her breath and smile, she heard Natalie inviting him to join them. For a moment Jana wondered if Nat had planned this accidental meeting, then decided it wasn’t possible. Her boss might be a hopeless romantic, but she also had innate business sense; when contradictory aspects of her personality came into conflict, the level-headed executive won out.
    Jana stared at the white tile wall their table was set against. This place looked more like a bathroom than a coffee shop, and sorely lacked the individuality one found in coffee shops in Soho or the Upper East Side. She raised her fork and watched the tile catch its reflection. Ed, sitting across from them, seemed to be going