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cycles so they wouldn’t have to ride them down to Florida themselves—a dubious business plan, as Toby pointed out. There was supposed to be room left over in the camper for Angie and the boyfriend to travel with the motorcycles and thus benefit from a paid winter vacation. Of course, it didn’t happen. Angie woke up and smelled the coffee, and the boyfriend’s blend was bitter. So just before sinking her trust fund into the camper, she backed out, on her own accord. There may be some in my family who are more startled than amused by Angie’s unpredictable antics, but Toby and I are in the fan club, and we were glad she was coming.
    â€œYou’re going to bring your scissors, right? I haven’t had a haircut since the last one you gave me.”
    â€œMy God, that was Thanksgiving!”
    â€œI know, but I don’t have much time for that sort of thing, and you’re the only one I trust anyhow. Let’s not even talk about how that diva in Santa Rosa scalped me last year.”
    â€œWell, if you’d get your hair cut more than once every six months, the stylist wouldn’t be so tempted to shear you like a sheep.”
    She could talk. Born with bones, as my mother used to say. That means the rugged jaw and high cheekbones that characterize the Boston Brahmins and signal “class” in our area of New England. Plus skinny genes, smooth blond hair that can be styled any which way, and, let’s face it, gloriously God-given beauty. I am five-five to her five-eleven (though her dating profile says five-nine), size 10 to her size 6, brunette to her blond, short-bobbed to her long-maned, and presentable-looking to her gorgeous. I can deal with that. She can’t. She’s always trying to make me over into her likeness, or maybe it’s some idealized vision of her beloved older sister.
    Anyhow, I realized we’d better change the subject before she started in on my list of chronic grooming errors. “You’ve rented a car with GPS, right?” I asked. “It’s a winding road to get here, but it will be really pretty.”
    â€œYeah, the car has one and they’re usually fine right up to ‘You have arrived at your destination.’ What does your place look like?”
    â€œIt’s the cedar-sided ranch house at the top of the hill, and there’s nothing but pebbles and poppies in the front. Yellow ones.”
    â€œSounds nice. I’ll call you when I leave the airport.” Only two days till the sisters would be reunited. It had been a long time since Thanksgiving.
    I made a second call that morning, to Rose Cassini, the woman who had consigned the icon that Charlie bought at the auction. We were discussing a time to meet when Toby emerged from the bedroom. Eavesdropping on the call, he pointed to his chest to say that he was coming along. So I set our arrival for eleven the next day, allowing for Toby’s slow mornings.
    T wo hours and six pieces of French toast later, we were on our way down the coast to meet with Al Miller. Al lives in a cozy Victorian on a crowded street in the Berkeley Hills. It was difficult, as usual, to find a parking space in his neighborhood, and once we did, it was a bit of a hike to his address. As we climbed the familiar wooden stairs to his front porch, I found my thoughts drifting back to my graduate school days. Al always invited his seminar students to his home, and I had happy memories of evenings sitting on his living room floor and joining in earnest debates fueled by generous amounts of wine and cheese. I was in his Giotto seminar, but he also taught a seminar on Russian icons, and though the subject itself wasn’t a draw, he had a devoted following of graduate students who prized his irreverence and wit. I remember the laugh he got one day when he was lecturing on Michelangelo’s statue of David. Michelangelo posed David in the nude, with a slingshot on his shoulder as he faces off