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table. “Do have some wine,” he said. “Ravenswood zinfandel, 2009.”
    Madeline picked up the bottle Ariel had poured from and filled the glass in front of her.
    When Rita had shifted four steaming plates from the tray, Scott said, “Rita, is there maybe a Coke in the refrigerator?”
    â€œI think maybe there is, Scotty,” she said and carried the tray back into the kitchen.
    â€œOn the wagon for all to see and admire,” observed Ariel, “with a bottle upstairs for dessert.”
    â€œScott hasn’t had a drink in more than a year,” said Madeline, cutting into one of her enchiladas with a fork. “He told me so.”
    â€œ Oh, ” said Ariel, “ well then.” She turned to Claimayne. “And we’ve got a bunch of high-hat strangers coming over here on Saturday. Do you have any other intruders lined up?”
    â€œThat man is coming over here on Thursday,” said Claimayne, “at one thirty, to talk about my mother’s unpublished books.”
    Ariel nodded. “That Ferdalisi guy. Your mother refused to see him.”
    â€œShe was paranoid in her old age. Thought the gas man was an agent from the Vatican.” Claimayne tried to lift his wineglass, but only managed to make the base of it rattle against the table. “‘Dip into the wine thy little red lips,’” he said to Ariel, “‘that I may drain the cup!”
    Ariel scowled at him, then sighed and rolled her eyes. “‘I am not thirsty, Tetrarch.’”
    In spite of his aching muscles and his embarrassment at Ariel’s unexpected scornful remarks, Scott couldn’t repress a reminiscent smile, for Claimayne and Ariel used to do this Salomé-and-the-tetrarch routine when all four of them were living at Caveat. It was lines from the dialogue frames of a silent black-and-white movie called Salomé that their aunt Amity had watched frequently.
    Claimayne had been a teenager in those days, older than the rest of them and too resolutely sophisticated and ironic to see any value in the strange, slow old movie his mother was so fond of, and his cousin Ariel, eight years younger, had happily cooperated in his mockery of the stilted sentences on the dialogue frames.
    Ariel, as Claimayne had frequently observed, was a genuine Madden. She had been orphaned at the age of seven, but her father, Sam Madden, had been the brother of Edward Madden, Claimayne’s father, and the fifteen-year-old Claimayne had had no objections when his mother took the girl in to live at Caveat. Scott and Madeline’s father, Arthur Madden, had merely been adopted by their grandfather, and though they had grown up with Claimayne and Ariel, Claimayne had never regarded them as real family. Young Scott and Madeline had laughed at Claimayne’s jokes but had seldom made any of their own.
    Scott recalled that Aunt Amity had stopped watching the movie when he had been in the sixth grade.
    Claimayne was still holding his wineglass and blinking at Ariel, who impatiently took his glass and drank off half the wine in it. When she clanked it back down on the table, it was light enough for Claimayne to lift it in his trembling hand.
    â€œAunt Amity’s unpublished books?” ventured Scott. “Thank you,” he added when Rita brought him a glass of Coca-Cola and ice.
    â€œIt’s good you quit the drinking,” old Rita said to him quietly. “You be careful here.” Scott nodded and mouthed Thanks .
    Claimayne gulped some wine and then began cutting up his enchiladas, gripping the knife and fork tightly. “ The Shores of Hollywood, in 1992, was my mother’s last published novel. She kept writing them after that—a good two dozen of them—but even in ’92 her vogue had passed.”
    â€œThe ones after ’92 were no good,” spoke up Ariel.
    Claimayne pursed his lips as he tried to work his fork under a bit of cheese and