Beauty and the Brain by Alice Duncan Read Free Book Online Page A

about.”
    “You’re doing a research project on
cooking?” She looked puzzled.
    Colin was puzzled, too. “Cooking?”
    She wrinkled her brow in confusion. It was a
lovely brow. White, smooth, sort of glowy in the soft light of the
lodge’s magnificent dining room chandeliers. Mentally, Colin shook
himself
    “I guess I misunderstood you. I thought you
said something about culinary development.”
    He understood now. She wasn’t stupid after
all. Rather, her stupidity couldn’t be proven by this particular
conversational lapse, since it was his. “Oh.” He forced a small
chuckle. “I see what you mean. No. That was a slip of the tongue.
My tongue. That is to say—”
    She was staring at him as if he were a rare
and interesting life form. Colin couldn’t recall the last time he’d
been this embarrassed.
    “I mean,” he floundered on, “I was thinking
about the Gabrielino Indians, who did a lot of fishing, and, er,
thinking about some of their skills in preparing fish.”
    “Oh.” Her brow unwrinkled, but she still
looked confused. Colin didn’t blame her. “I see, I think.”
    They both turned to their plates, and Colin
shoveled in a piece of fish much less politely than his mother had
taught him to do. Brenda, he noticed as he chewed, was as dainty
with her silverware as she seemed to be with everything else. She
cut a very small bite of fish and gracefully lifted it to her
beautiful lips. Dash it, he wished he hadn’t thought about her lips
as being beautiful. She chewed like a lady.
    He noticed her hands, too. They were small
and smooth and porcelain-white. Her fingernails, although not long,
were shaped and buffed and very, very pretty. She must take awfully
good, care of them. And that, he snarled internally at himself, was
a stupid thing to think. Of course she took good care of her skin
and hands—and every other part of her delectable body. Her looks
were her livelihood, for heaven’s sake.
    All at once, he stopped chewing.
    Her looks were her livelihood. He peered at
her, hoping she wouldn’t catch him staring. Fortunately, her
attention had been caught by her right-hand neighbor, and she
didn’t notice his glance.
    He’d never considered what a burden it must
be to have to pamper and protect and cultivate the package one
presented to society, and to know that it was your only means of
income—and that, with the inevitability of the years, it would
fade, and you’d be without the means to earn your living. He hoped
very hard that Brenda was saving her money during these years of
her success.
    All he had to do to earn a living was be
himself—with the occasionally forced social grace tossed in for a
bonus—and he was set for life. When he got old and gray, he
wouldn’t be out of a job; rather, he’d probably have solidified his
academic reputation, and students would be flocking in droves to
take his classes.
    It was something to think about. And it was
a lot safer than thinking about the Gabrielinos’ penchant for fish.
He ate another bite of his present fish and enjoyed its savory
flavor. They’d used a mighty tasty sauce on it.
    “I do like fish, don’t you, Colin? When it’s
prepared as well as this one is.”
    All his nerves seemed to jangle at once, and
he cursed himself for being so sensitive to her voice, which wasn’t
all that great. All right, she had a nicely modulated tone, neither
too high nor too low, and not breathy. He couldn’t stand breathy
female voices. But she couldn’t seem to rid herself of traces of
that ghastly New York accent. Whatever the quality of her voice,
there was no reason for him to react to it like this. He gave
himself a hard mental shake.
    “Yes, it’s very good.”
    “Do you know what kind it is?”
    “Trout,” Colin said immediately. While he’d
never made a study of fish, he’d been on enough nature expeditions
in the course of his education to be able to recognize a trout when
he ate one.
    “Really? We don’t have trout back east.