Caroline was in Key West for the Conference of Advertising Agencies, searching for something–what? Truth, goodness, beauty, more clients and projects? The rose-patterned wallpaper was the meaty pink of the insides of things. Hot light streamed in through the window, and palm fronds waved green in the yard, though it was late October. Back home, kids would be planning their Halloween costumes, pretending they were superheroes or witches. Outside her open window the hues were as bright as a Gauguin painting. The sounds too were coming to her in flat, broad colors, swaths of wind, of palm fronds brushing, whispering to her. When she first saw Gauguin’s paintings, she thought his characters averted their eyes, as if they had secrets to keep. Were the secrets full of doom? She shook her head at the exaggerated thought. On the wall hung the predictable print of ocean and beach to calm the mind of the weary traveler: no pounding surf and thunderous sky, only even, golden light.