Juliet waits and says, “Then you mix the dough. I mix it with my hands. Got to confess.” She opens her lips and slowly wets them. “After I mix it, I lick the dough off my fingers.” Sticking out her tongue, she places the tip at the base of her index finger. She slides the finger, slowly, very slowly, down her tongue. When she gets to the fingertip, she places it in her mouth and sucks. “Yuuummm. You got to make sure it’s delicious. Tastes just right before the next step.

“Then.” She places her hands on her hips and leans down. “You have to make the logs. First, you divide the dough into pieces.” She gathers invisible dough between her palms and pats it toward us. “The logs have to be at least six inches long.” Her hands separate about six inches apart. “At least six inches. Sometimes longer is better. Sometimes not. Depending on what you want.”

“I want eight inches,” Taylor shouts.

“Bigger is always better. I’ll take ten,” says Rosie.

“Then you’ll use it all up in one log.” Juliet turns toward her. “You can do it that way. But I want four or five.”

“Four or five?” Taylor squeals. “Lord! One’s all I can take.”

“But you have to make it two inches wide.” She spreads her thumb and forefinger about two inches apart and moves them back and forth over the sides of the invisible log. Back and forth.

“And don’t forget to be tender with the nuts.” By now we’re laughing so hard we can hardly hear one another’s comments.

“I can’t wait to taste these nuts.”

“You can keep the nuts. I want the dough. That six-inch log.” Allie giggles.

Juliet reaches in the large shopping bag and brings out packages made of shiny scarlet paper and tied with a profusion of tightly curled pink iridescent ribbons.

The packages of cookies are passed around the circle.

Charlene sits next to me. She puts her package in her bag and leans back to watch the revelry.

Allie continues. “You ever think about what we’re doing here? I mean the Freudian symbolism of it? He said what every woman wants for a present is a phallus. But we make one another something yummy and then wrap it pretty, very pretty, usually in some shade of red, and give it to one another. I always knew he was wrong.”

I search out Sissy, wondering how she’s doing, what she thinks of this ribald conversation, but she’s smiling and joking with Allie.

Laurie opens the package and retrieves the recipe. “Then we have to put it in the freezer. A deep freeze. Well, I guess that’s what I’ve been doing since we got Olivia.”

“These are delicious. It wasn’t just your memory. They’re fabulous even without coffee.”