Matt thought it only polite to wait for Roxie to finish her phone call before returning to the workshop’s conference room with her, so he stood at the end of the hallway, hands shoved in his pockets, and stared at a hideous abstract painting done in ugly pastels. He couldn’t decide if it was supposed to be a pretty tropical flower or some sort of subtle erotic design. The more he looked, the more he leaned toward the s****l subtext being the artist’s focus. No hibiscus plants he’d ever seen had such phallic-shaped stems protruding from the middle of the flowers. Or were they called something else? In the painting’s glass, he saw a reflection of Roxie approach and he pointed at one of the more grotesquely suggestive flowers. “Is this the stem?” he asked. “Don’t you think it looks a little…I
