I drank a few sips of my recently arrived iced tea to quell the coughing. “Of course not,” I said. It was the safe answer, and mostly true, since I never had a cigarette unless I’d had good—make that great—sex first. Three weeks and counting since Tucker and I had gotten it on, so I was nicotine-free.

“Is it Lillian?”

“Partly,” I hedged, interlacing my fingers so I wouldn’t go after the bread and olive oil again. I didn’t exercise, and I wasn’t overweight, but a person never knows when their metabolism is going to turn on them. I’ve seen it happen.

“Tell me,” Jolie urged.

I described the Lillian situation as clearly as I could, without getting maudlin.

Jolie frowned at the mention of the Tarot cards Lillian had given me.

“Death, the Queen of Pentacles and the Page of Cups,” she reflected thoughtfully, when I was finished. “What do they mean?”

“I don’t exactly know,” I admitted. Sure, I’d looked them up in the Damn Fool’s Guide, but the descriptions had seemed superficial to me. I had the feeling that I was trying too hard to understand the images, and anyway, there was always the chance that Lillian hadn’t deliberately chosen them.

I said as much to Jolie, and then remembered the urgent way Lillian had urged those cards on me. “Take!” she’d said. “Take!”

Tears welled in my eyes. I longed for the old Lillian, the strong woman I used to know.

Jolie patted me again.

The spaghetti arrived.

The conversation stalled until we’d divided the meatballs.

“Maybe Lillian’s mind is gone,” Jolie ventured, cutting delicately at her share of the protein. I speared my meatball with a fork and nibbled at it like a Popsicle. If anybody’s written The Damn Fool’s Guide to Table Manners, I have yet to come across a copy.

“It’s possible,” I said. We both knew it was a tad more than possible, but the agreement was tacit.

“What else?” Jolie asked. She’d have made a great detective, but I guess when you get right down to it, forensic science isn’t all that different. Both involve gathering clues and putting the pieces together.

I put down the meatball Popsicle. I’d been starving when we came in, but now my appetite was subsiding. Maybe it was the loaf of bread I’d consumed while we were waiting for the main course.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” I ventured.

“No,” Jolie said, without hesitation, but she looked intrigued. “Why?”

“Because Nick popped in the other night.”

Jolie leaned back, studying me pensively. Probably wondering what I was on. “Shut up,” she said.

“It happened. You don’t have to believe me.”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Jolie retorted. “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.”