Larry S Favorite Chocolate Cake

Arthur Franklin is dangerously depressed. His boss has just fired him, his wife is filing for divorce. Emotionally disoriented, he wanders into an art gallery only to be overwhelmed by "The Seduction of Chaos," a painting of hypnotic intensity. He is joined by Jackie, a good-hearted gallery guard eager for someone to talk with. Kristina Lambrisi, the painting's unstable creator, appears. When she tells Arthur that it depicts her horror as a young child in having witnessed the murder of her parents at the hands of a knife-wielding fanatic and commands him to destroy the painting, the three undergo an emotional crisis that changes them forever.

It is the end of summer and Jessica is going in for tests. Michelle, in her 20s, has come to assist in putting her high-spirited grandmother's affairs in order. In unravelling a complex tapestry of lifelong dreams and deceptions, Jessica and Michelle bequeath to each other intimate, and sometimes painful, gifts of love. Intertwined throughout the scenes is a young girl who, both real and imagined, enters their world and revitalizes their mutual love of life.

Seven years ago, Wesley and Marian's son, beset with a multitude of inherited maladies, died a tragic death. Vowing they would never again have a natural child, they have contacted Designer Genes, Inc., to create the perfect son who will bring them only happiness and joy. Alice Fleming, the company rep for Designer Genes, Inc., arrives with her sample cases to make her pitch golden hair and blue eyes, the flexibility of a gymnast, the mathematical computation skill of an Einstein whatever they wish. But there have been glitches along the road to genetic bliss. Some experimental subjects exhibited bizarre behavior, sometimes aggressive, sometimes well, unnatural in the worst sense of the word. Designer Genes, Inc., cannot guarantee their work.