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every time the phone rang. She reached out to rearrange an olive slice and nodded in satisfaction. The potato salad not only looked appealing but also was made with sour cream dressing, a good source of calcium. Since her mother also needed a high concentration of protein, she arranged choice slices of turkey, rare roast beef, and ham in an overlapping design, topping each slice with a sprig of fresh parsley, rich in iron, from her greenhouse herb garden. She added a radish rose and a few crisp carrot curls, then frowned as she realized that yesterday’s guests had eaten the last of the kaiser rolls. There was no way she’d spoil her mother’s plate by adding a slice of Tony’s Bunny Bread.
    Tony’s favorite brand of bread was snowy white and tasteless, so fluffy that he could squash a piece into a marble-sized ball. Tony called these pellets “bread pills,” and Allison couldn’t hide her disgust when he rolled them between his fingers and popped them into his mouth. Tony regarded bread primarily as a vehicle to keep peanut butter off his fingers, and he had never understood Allison’s rhapsodies over brioche, pumpernickel, dark rye, and sourdough.
    Allison opened the freezer door and smiled as she spotted a package of brown ‘n’ serve whole wheat rolls. When she smiled, Allison’s pretty girl-next-door face turned into an object of stunning beauty. The transformation was almost magical as her brown eyes sparkled with golden highlights and her highly defined cheekbones lost their severity.
    When Allison had been an aspiring actress, long before she’d married Tony and given up that ambition, she had once been chosen for a deodorant commercial on the strength of that transformation. She’d been solemn for the first shot, breaking into a sudden smile as she’d held up the sponsor’s product. The director had told Allison that her appeal was subliminal. A woman watching the commercial might think that she’d be beautiful, too, if she used the sponsor’s deodorant.
    As Allison turned on the oven to preheat, she wished again that she could make a decent loaf of bread. After two abysmal failures that might have been hilarious if they’d happened to anyone else, Allison had tabled her attempts at bread making for times when Tony was out of town. She still remembered her first flop, and her delicate ivory complexion took on the bright rosy hue of embarrassment. She had mixed up the dough exactly as the recipe had directed and kneaded it with strict adherence to the instructions. Everything had gone along perfectly until she’d placed the dough in a warm place to rise for a few hours. Then she’d dashed out to pick up some crew socks for Tony, and while she was waiting for the clerk to ring up the sale, she’d run into her former agent. Would Allison please join her for lunch? There were some people she simply must meet.
    The restaurant was a show biz spot where people greeted each other in exclamations. Darling! You look stunning! It’s been simply ages! How marvelous to see you again! There was the usual flurry of near-miss kisses, the point of contact aborted at precisely the last second by a common concern for makeup. Allison found herself wedged in a two-person booth with four people. One of them was the same director who’d done her deodorant commercial. Was she still working? How about a high-budget toothpaste commercial? There was a casting call in an hour if she was interested. He’d take her in personally and introduce her, right after lunch.
    When Allison had arrived home after the casting session, which had turned out to be nothing but a cattle call, she’d found Tony pacing the floor impatiently, waiting to take her to dinner. They were meeting several big names and it was a command appearance. Could she be ready to go in ten minutes?
    Allison had been ready, they’d driven to the restaurant, and she’d spent