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Show 430 week. Lorin drove down every night that week after work, and looked at the guest book to see if anyone he knew had come in, and then strolled up and down pretending to be a patron, looking at the suspended canvases on all the walls, his arms folded across his chest, leaning forward here, stepping back there, his heart pounding. There were never any familiar names in the guest book, and he never saw anyone he knew in the gallery. There were never more than three or four people there at a time either, but they seemed to be a different three or four each night, and that pleased him. He listened to as many conversations as he could without appearing rude, but he could do that without much trouble because even very quiet voices carried in an uncarpeted gallery that didn't have many people in it. He liked to be fair, so he always strolled first past Brad Smith's collection. They were pleasant, he enjoyed looking at them. Brad did crowded cityscapes full of colored lights reflected off wet streets. His buildings and cars and shiny pedestrians had a gnarled, carbuncly look to them, an effect that Lorin knew he could never do himself, but he was content to let Brad Smith be the one who did them. He would always spend a few minutes after that looking at Susan Fellows' collection. Susan did smooth desert landscapes like tanned leather, that had dunes rippling toward you out of a middle distance and things like oblong flat mirrors suspended in the sky like a window. They were pleasant too. Susan and Brad both did pleasant work. Then he strolled past his own collection, fearful each time that he would not like it as well, but he always did. He always began with the peapod. The peapod was hung in an inconvenient place-if someone was at the drinking fountain you had to wait till he was through, and by that time you might have lost interest-but the light was good. The pod itself gaped open like a spread labia, a |