“In fact, I’ve gotten all of your messages.”

“Are you screening?”

Yes. “No, I was sleeping.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can call back. I just hate to keep calling you.”

“Then stop. Stop calling.”

“And I know you’ve been at the hospital. I spoke with your friend Claudia. I’m sorry about your loss. Your boss, I mean.”

“He’s actually doing better.”

“Is he?”

“I mean, he’s stable, they think.”

“Oh, good. Good.”

“Abigail, why don’t you tell me why you’re calling?”

“Yes, well, we have a situation which might require your help—”

“Just tell me what you want.”

“Okay, basically, it’s this.”

As she explained her “predicament,” my first impulse was to hang up the phone. Instead, I listened as Abigail Hosford described “a delicate situation” that needed “prompt attention” and a “savvy touch.” At the end of her spiel, and to my surprise, I said in a voice not my own, “Why, yes, I’ll be glad to help. In fact, why don’t we pay a visit to Mrs. Anna Brody-Ashworth this very afternoon and straighten out the entire matter?”

The reason for this meeting had to do with the proposed brochure for the Brooklyn Heights Association’s annual landmark house and garden tour: twelve pages in length, a glossy cover with colored photographs, a brief history of the Heights Association, a map of the Heights with the tour houses clearly delineated, the extensive list of house tour patrons, and most important, an entire page devoted to each featured house that year, including a detailed (five-to-six-hundred-word) description of each of the five homes.

Abigail filled me in on the particulars as we walked toward the Ashworth-Brody house. Months before, when Anna agreed to open her home to the community, she did so on one condition: She wanted approval of the copy. The Heights Association was happy to give her approval, because they always gave approval, and in the past, there had never been a problem. But there also had never been a house quite like hers. (Oh, there’d been 84 Remsen, and 70 Willow, and countless others, but no house in the Heights rivaled, really, the Ashworth-Brody house.) And now the brochure was a week late getting to the printer for one simple reason: Anna Brody was not pleased.

I stood off to the side as Abigail Hosford reintroduced Pamela Wyeth-Bacon. Then Abigail indicated me, saying, “And of course you know—”

Anna turned and looked startled. Clearly, she hadn’t been told I’d be joining them.

“Hello,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”