“I kept telling him not to feel guilty—if it wasn’t for the infection, I wouldn’t have met all of you,” I said, but I was relieved Oswald wasn’t seeing anyone yet. “Back to your grandfather. Think of all the things he could tell us about Edna when she was young and behaved badly.”

“I think she’s afraid of just that. Granddad and Oz are talking all the time. They’ve bonded over being workaholics who fell for party girls.”

“What’s he going to think about your grandmother’s addled young lover?” I asked, referring to the actor Thomas Cook, who adored Edna almost as much as he adored himself.

“Thomas is hanging around Grandmama so close that he’s crowding out her shadow. I think she’s looking forward to his next movie, when he’ll be on location in Miami.”

As we talked, I felt an aching homesickness.

“I’m making you sad,” Gabriel said.

“I just miss it all. Oswald and the whole family gathering in the evenings as the sun set. Our conversations, the laughter, the warmth …”

“What you used to call espíritu de los cocteles,” he said, “the spirit of cocktail hour.”

“Yes, that,” I said. “And I think about my dog being buried in the field with no one to visit her grave.”

“I’ll put some flowers on Daisy’s grave the next time I visit,” he said. “Let’s play a surveillance game. Ten points for spotting shoplifters and fifteen points for store dicks, and the first one to fifty points pays for dinner. I’ll spot you twenty points to start.”

“Then all I need is two dicks to win.”

“If only. We’ll rendezvous here in thirty minutes.”

I raced across the mall to a teen shop and right away I saw two kids switch out their old shoes with new ones. I surreptitiously snapped a photo of them with my phone. Only ten points to go.

I went to a department store’s perfume department and followed a customer for ten minutes as she walked around with a sample bottle of expensive eau de parfum half hidden behind her Hermès handbag.

I was crushed when she returned to the counter and told the clerk that she wanted to buy a bottle.

My phone rang and when I answered, Gabriel said “I just scored fifty points” at the same time that a man’s hand came on my arm and the man said, “Miss, may I have a word?”

The man was dressed in a track jacket and jeans.

“Are you a store dick?” I asked him, and held the phone out for his answer.

“I work for the store,” he said grimly. “Can you step aside with me for a moment?”

I put the phone back to my ear and said, “Store dick! Fifty-five points. I win!”