Just as Barry proclaimed his lying theory of Middle East politics, he rubbed his leg against Samantha’s. Her leg remained aligned with his.

“Well, I don’t think Sharon is a crazy person and I still think there are good old-fashioned American values and telling the truth is one of them.” Paul had another sip of wine.

“Hear, hear.” Judy lifted up her glass. “To telling the truth!”

“Hear, hear.” Arnie Berkowitz lifted his glass and gestured to the waiter to refill it.

“Have you read The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen? It’s on the best seller list,” Judy deliberately shifted the conversation away from the Middle East and onto literature.

Samantha looked over at Charlie, who seemed happily engaged in a conversation with Frankie. Barry’s hand, when he wasn’t gesticulating about Israelis or Palestinians, was now on her knee. She was grateful to Frankie for keeping Charlie’s attention and perplexed by her own inability to move away from Barry’s touch. Her eyes wandered to Clarice, who looked like a far kinder woman than Judy, and was, therefore, in some perverse way, far less interesting.

Since the book discussion didn’t catch, Judy moved on to films. “Barry, tell us what films you liked this year.” She cocked her head toward him.

“Every movie this year is shit.” Barry pushed his leg up and down Samantha’s while he leaned into Charlie Rose. “I’m the culture sheriff. If it weren’t for me, there would be no integrity. Don’t you think so, Samantha?” He squeezed her thigh under the table.

Samantha inhaled. “I thought it was the artist who had to have integrity.”

“Artists suck! They can be bought and sold,” Barry snorted.

“I completely disagree with you,” Albert said forthrightly from the other end of the table.

“That’s because you don’t have to deal with them.” Barry leaned back in his chair, finally letting go of Samantha’s thigh. If this trust-fund baby wanted to talk about artists, he was ready for it. “Artists get a lot of credit for having fuzzy minds,” he continued, “and not knowing shit about the real world or getting anything made.”

“I don’t think you can ignore the integrity of the individual voice.” Albert began a long tirade about writing and sporadically cited passages from The Song of Roland, Balzac, and Proust. “You’re talking about movie writers, and let’s face it: even the great screenwriters are craftsmen and not true artists, since screenwriting is an expertise in which form dictates the content.” Albert signaled the waiter to bring in another bottle of wine.

As Albert went on pedantically quoting Goethe in German and the Aeneid in Latin, Judy felt her heart racing. She didn’t keep Ativan at the dinner table and the waiters were late with the desserts. In honor of Samantha, Judy had had her cook re-create old-fashioned flaming baked Alaska to be wheeled in on a silver trolley. She tried to catch the headwaiter’s attention by bobbing her head and gently pointing.

“Personally, I think the more writing becomes about the opinions of producers and marketing M.B.A.s, the lower the quality of our culture will be,” Albert concluded.