W HEN I GOT TO SPAGO, Celia was already seated. She was wearing black slacks and a gauzy cream-colored sleeveless blouse. The temperature outside was a warm seventy-eight degrees, but the restaurant’s air-conditioning was on high, and she looked just a little bit cold. Her arms were covered in goose bumps. Her red hair was still stunning but now clearly dyed. The golden undertones that had been there before, the result of nature and sunlight, were now slightly saturated, coppery. Her blue eyes were just as enticing as they always had been, but now the skin around them was softer. I'd been to a plastic surgeon a few times in the past several years. I suspected she had, too. I was wearing a deep-V-necked black dress, belted at the waist. My blond hair, a bit lighter now from the gray that had been creeping in and cut shorter, was framing my face. She stood when she saw me. “Evelyn,” she said. I hugged her. “Celia.” “You look great,” she said. “You always do.” “You look just like you did the last time I saw you,” I said. “We never did tell each other lies,” she said, smiling. “Let’s not start ” now. “You're gorgeous,” I said. “Ditto.” I ordered a glass of white wine. She ordered a club soda with lime. “I don’t drink anymore,” Celia said. “It’s not sitting with me the way it once did.” “That’s fine. If you want, I can toss my wine right out the window the moment it gets to the table.” “No,” she said, laughing. “Why should my low tolerance be your problem?” “I want everything about you to be my problem,” I said. “Do you realize what you’re saying?” she whispered to me as she leaned across the table. The neck of her blouse opened and dipped into