A familiar voice drew her gaze into the store. Elbows on the glass counter, Joe watched Dan do looping tricks with a pair of yoyos. Dan was definitely cleaner than he’d been and looked to be wearing about half the clothes. He glanced up at her, frowned, and said, “Remember the bears, Charlie.”

When Joe turned toward her, she tried for a sympathetic smile. The look on his face suggested she was a little pitchy. “Don’t go upstairs for a while.”

He nodded toward the painting of Elvis on black velvet. “You’re not the first to be telling me that.”

*   *   *

Charlie stepped out of the ornamental border and dropped down on the teak lounge next to Auntie Catherine’s. “You Saw this.”

“Can you think of another reason I’d be sitting by a hotel pool at six in the morning? Alone,” she amended after a moment. She nodded at the glass-topped table between them. “The coffee’s yours.”

The cardboard cup had been charmed to stay hot. Fortunately, Charlie could care less about how long ago it had been brewed. “This isn’t Vegas. Where are we?”

“Los Angeles. There’s a singer/songwriter I enjoy who’s playing at the Hotel Cafe on Friday and I dislike changing time zones at the last minute.” Her bracelets chimed softly as she twitched a fold of her batik skirt then chimed significantly louder at a get on with it gesture. “So, talk.”

Charlie pulled off the lid and stared at her reflection in the coffee. “Auntie Bea said I was like you, too big for the family. And now I think of it . . .” She looked up to see Auntie Catherine watching her, wearing what seemed to be an interested expression. “. . . that’s a weird way of putting it. Too big?”

“Our circle is larger . . .”

“Oh, dear lord, I feel a Disney song coming on.”

“. . . making the family a subset of the Wild,” Auntie Catherine continued, ignoring her. “Socrates is a cat. All cats are not Socrates.”

Fighting her way out of a sudden flashback to grade eight math, Charlie frowned. “They’re Socrates and we’re the cat?”

Auntie Catherine sighed and crossed her ankles. She was wearing opalescent silver-gray nail polish the same shade as her hair. “It isn’t time for you to be on your own yet,” she said, avoiding the question.

“And yet you’re always after me to . . . How did you put it? . . . slip Allie’s leash.”

“This isn’t about Allie. Go home.”

Because it was, by auntie standards, more of a suggestion than a command, Charlie returned a less than definitive answer. “I can’t.”

“You can. I Saw you there.”

“I don’t care.” She finished the coffee and crushed the cup. “I’m not going to be tamed by Auntie Bea.”

“On the one hand, good for you.” Bracelets chimed again. “On the other hand, she’s frightened. They all are. The asteroid is outside their circles, and they don’t want the world to end any more than you do.”