Eve made a show of clapping dust from her hands. “You might want to stand back,” she said. “This can get messy.” She braced herself against the kitchen counter and worked the screwdriver deep into the cork, twisting and pushing, until it broke through the bottom side. She pulled the screwdriver back out and handed the bottle to Keegan. She tied a knot in one end of the shoelace and cinched it tight. She took the bottle back and used the screwdriver to push the knotted end of the shoelace down through the hole she’d made in the cork. As she worked, Keegan admired the long, lean muscles in her bare arms. “This I learned in the most exclusive all-girl boarding school in the Bay Area,” she said. She wrapped the loose end of the shoelace around her fist, bit her lower lip and began to tug. “Do not try this at home,” she said, a little out of breath. “I’ve had plenty of practice.”

The cord whitened the skin of her fist, but, pulling it firmly, relentlessly, the cork edged up and then slid out with a pop. A splash of red wine splattered the kitchen floor. “Sorry about that,” she said, looking down at the tiles. She held up the shoelace between them. The cork bobbed at the end. “You might want to keep this shoelace handy in case you ever throw a formal dinner party.”

That made him smile. This one was quick-witted. He hoped he could keep up. He took down two of his mother’s best Royal Dalton teacups and set them on the table. Eve poured formally, her thumb in the hollowed bottom of the bottle, while Keegan dabbed the wine-splashed floor tiles with a paper towel.

They raised their teacups and clinked them. Eve took a sip and looked up at the ceiling. She swallowed and smiled. “Very good,” she said. “I believe I made an excellent selection. And, do you know, I think it tastes better out of a teacup.” She smiled again.

Keegan thought of what his mother would have made of this sight—stolen wine sipped from her best teacups, her son alone in her house with a woman nearly half his age. He took a sip. The wine was tart and mellow on his tongue, and it warmed his throat when he swallowed. He’d never had an appreciation for wine before, but now he wondered if he’d just never been able to afford the kind of wine worth appreciating. This was good. “Not bad,” he said.

He followed Eve into the living room, studying her every lissome movement as she crossed to the armchair facing the sofa and sat. Keegan abandoned the baseball game and tuned his mother’s old RCA radio to some big-band music. ‘Sleep Lagoon’. Perfect. He turned the volume loud enough to be a presence in the room without demanding attention.