“Larry Nagel. Sure he is. He’s big in po biz. Like show biz,” she explained, because I was doing my famous impression of being slack-jawed and clueless. “Po biz is everything poets have to do to get their poems published and recognized and read and make some kind of a name for themselves and then they can get more stuff published and win a contest or two and then you can get a small press to do a chapbook and sell three copies of it at a literary festival and go home and write more poems.”

She set her wineglass down on the table a little harder than necessary for emphasis, and looked around the table, as if challenging anybody to disagree. Her pink glasses made it hard for her to look entirely serious, even when she was mad.

After a moment I said, “I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a good or a bad thing.”

“It’s just the way it is.”

Neither of us said anything for a time. “So, do you write poetry?” I asked, thinking it would be polite to take an interest.

She turned her head so the glasses stared at me. “I do. Night and day. Day and night.”

I tried to think of what else to say to that, something respectful and encouraging, but she said, “Never mind me. Viridian’s the one they’ll be talking about a hundred years from now.”

“Yes,” I said, fatuously, as if I had any business even offering an opinion.

“She’s the queen.”

“Yes,” I said again, wondering if we were still talking Alice in Wonderland. I didn’t think so.

Barb slashed her portion of ratatouille into small pieces but didn’t eat it. “Goddamn that Larry Nagel. He should have some respect.”

“She doesn’t seem upset,” I said, watching Viridian at the end of the table, smiling and looking lovely and untroubled.

“That’s because she’s above all the petty, grubby things that drive the rest of us crazy.

Her soul is larger than ours.”

“Oscar’s a good poet, too, isn’t he?”

She sniffed. “All he ever writes about is his wee-wee.”

“And the others?” I prodded her. “Are they, um . . .?” I didn’t want to say famous, because I hadn’t heard of them.