Evanelle walked over to Claire, and they left together.

Fred clutched the bag containing the bottle and walked back into his office.

He took off his blazer and sat back at the desk, staring again at the small framed photo of a handsome man wearing a tux. The photo had been taken at Fred’s fiftieth birthday party a couple of years ago.

Fred and his partner, James, had been together for over thirty years, and if people knew the true nature of their relationship, it had gone on so long now that no one cared. But he and James had grown apart lately, and little seeds of anxiousness were starting to take root. Over the past few months, James had been staying overnight in Hickory, where he worked, a few nights a week, saying he was working so late that commuting back to Bascom didn’t make sense. This left Fred at home alone far too often, and he didn’t know what to do with himself. James was the one who always said, “You make wonderful pot stickers, let’s have that for dinner tonight.” Or, “There’s a movie I want us to see on television.” James was always right, and Fred questioned every little thing when he wasn’t there. What should he have for dinner? Should he set the things he needed to take to the dry cleaner out at night or wait for the morning?

All his life Fred had heard things about the Waverleys’ rose geranium wine. It signaled in the drinker a return to happiness, remembering the good, and Fred wanted back the good thing he and James had. Claire made only one bottle a year, and it was damn expensive, but it was a sure thing, because Waverleys, for all their blindness to their own way of living, were extremely accurate in helping other people see.

He reached for the phone and dialed James’s work number. He needed to ask him what he should make for dinner.

And what meat did you serve with magic wine?

Claire arrived at Anna Chapel’s home late that afternoon. Anna lived in a cul-de-sac neighborhood just outside Orion College, and the only way to get to it was through the campus. The neighborhood had been for the instructors at the college, the houses built at the same time the campus was constructed a hundred years ago. The intention was to keep the academic community as insular as possible. A wise move, considering the opposition to a college for women at the time. Today, the chancellor still made his home there, and a few professors, including Anna, lived in the original houses. But the neighborhood was dominated now by young families who had no association with the college. They simply liked the privacy and security of the place.

“Claire, welcome,” Anna said when she opened the front door to find Claire on her porch, carrying a cooler of things that needed to be refrigerated immediately. She stepped aside and let Claire enter. “You know the way. Do you need help?”