“So what kind of artist are you?” I prompted him.

He shook his head. “I’m an attorney. But I work in artist representation.”

“I’m acting like I know what that is, but I don’t.”

“We represent visual artists, mostly, but writers, too. When they have contract issues or property disputes. Mediations. Copyright questions.”

So some artists, big-time painters, say, had wealth that needed lawyers attached to it. He said, “Doug’s the artist in the family. The poet. And he’s been the editor of Compass Points for a few years now. That’s how we know Viridian.”

I hadn’t quite understood everything, like, what was Compass Points?, but at least now I knew I was talking to Ed. I said, “I guess I know her sort of by accident. I mean I don’t really know her. I’m going to do some garden work for her,”

Ed looked at me, in a measuring way. “That’s nice. Viridian has a talent for finding useful friends.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant. It felt as if I was being implicated in something. Luckily, I saw Aaron walking along the breezeway. He spotted me and waved.

“Excuse me, I think my boyfriend’s looking for me.”

“I don’t suppose he’s an artist,” Ed murmured, and I said no, sorry. Aaron was like gay catnip. We always joked about guys hitting on him, he was a good sport about it. Then I saw that Ed wasn’t looking at Aaron, but at Doug, who was, and before things got too complicated, I said it had been nice talking to him.

“Come help me with the oysters,” Aaron said once I reached him. “Oscar went inside and left them to me.”

“They’re really easy.” Which was true, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t screw them up. We went out to the courtyard and counted out the two dozen oysters that Oscar had told Aaron to get ready, put them on the grill, and waited. “Do you need another beer?” I asked him.

“That guy who looks like a Nordic serial killer took the last one.”

“Oh. That’s Anders. He’s, ah  . . .” I wasn’t sure what he was.

“Carla? We’re not staying real late, are we?”

The oyster shells opened, so we knew they were fresh. Aaron pried them the rest of the way and pasted them with barbecue sauce. We loaded them on trays to take into the house.

“Thank God,” Oscar said, when we reached the kitchen. He was pouring a pan of boiling water into a colander in the sink, and the steam turned his face nearly as florid as his shirt. “Get those outside, try and make people sit down and eat them while they’re hot.”