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leapt forward in her seat and embraced the pad in her fists. “Is this me?”
    “ We can pull down the upper lip and plump the corners,” Weinberg said dryly.
    Jerry was also shocked by the change. Chelsea had been rendered ordinary by the adjustments on paper. Some men might say beautiful, but she was already the most beautiful woman Jerry knew, inside and out.
    “ We’ll plump the lower to match,” Weinberg continued. “You’ll be pleased with the result.”
    Chelsea stared down at the pad, as if gazing into a magic mirror. Jerry wished he knew what she was thinking.
    “ It’s desirable to show some teeth,” Weinberg said.
    “ A little teeth?”
    “ I call it a Venetian crest. I have photo catalogues for you to browse.”
    A phone started ringing in the office. After a while, Chelsea and Weinberg were staring at Jerry.
    “ What?” Jerry said.
    “ It’s you.” Chelsea dropped the pad in her lap. “It’s the cell phone.”
    Jerry dug into his jacket pocket. He wasn’t comfortable with the device yet. Whenever a phone rang in the past, it typically wasn’t for him, even when he used to pray for the job service to call with a prospect. Now he received phone calls day and night. Each call seemed like nonsense, but the nuances of his day suddenly held value to others.
    “ The green button picks up,” Chelsea said.
    “ Got it.” Jerry put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
    “ Jerry, my friend.” Haskell Cogdon was his upbeat self, ready to ratchet up their lives another notch. He was their attorney, financial advisor, and estate planner rolled into one. Jerry didn’t know if they needed that. He only knew Chelsea liked having Haskell around.
    “ It’s Haskell,” Jerry called across the room.
    “ What does he want?” Chelsea said.
    “ What do you want?” Jerry repeated into the palm-sized device. He felt as if he was talking into a calculator and any minute someone might smirk and hand him the actual phone.
    “ I have something to show you. I’m coming over.” The sound of Haskell’s Mercedes hummed in the background. Jerry recognized the ping of the German diesel engine. At the GM plant, if someone drove a foreign car, they had to park in the furthest spot from the entrance.
    “ I’m not home.”
    “ I know where you are. I’ll meet you out front in ten minutes.”
    “ Hello?” Jerry shook the phone and returned it to his ear. “Hello?”
    “ What did he want?” Chelsea twisted in the chair. She wore capri pants, which exposed a band of skin around her ankles.
    “ He just hung up.”
    “ That’s it?”
    “ He said he’d be here in ten minutes. He has to show me something, then he hung up.”
    “ And?”
    “ He just hung up.”
    “ You don’t have to say good-bye on cell phones.” Chelsea glanced at Weinberg for affirmation. “You just make your point and move on.”
    Weinberg shrugged. The sleeves of his white coat bunched near his collar.
    “ What should I do about Haskell?” Jerry asked, confused by the new jargon in his life. It wasn’t just the cell phone lingo. He struggled with the terms for their tax shelters and retirement plans, and that literature from Cogdon, which piled in front of their toaster oven, might as well have been pages ripped from a medical journal. A man best suited for machines and power tools felt lame once he acquired the means to employ contractors and lawyers. He suddenly knew very little.
    “ Go with him?” Chelsea said.
    Weinberg nodded, clearly desiring Jerry’s absence.
    Chelsea turned to the doctor. “We have things to discuss.”
    “ Aren’t we about finished?” Jerry asked, but she had that look in her eye, determined, set on a course he’d discover later.
    “ Go with Haskell. I’ll call the car service.”
     
     
     
     
     
    Jerry sunk in the soft leather seat of Haskell Cogdon’s Mercedes. They cruised over the pitted back roads of Mercer County without incident. Blackbirds swarmed overhead. Yanni oozed from the