Текст книги "Sweet Jiminy: A Novel"

Автор книги: Kristin Gore

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

Chapter 4

Jiminy began sneezing immediately upon entering the Fayeville Public Library. There were no other patrons inside the tiny two-room building to object, but the librarian behind the counter looked startled.

“May I help you?” she croaked.

Jiminy wondered if she was the first person to whom the librarian had spoken all day.

“Yes, thank you,” Jiminy replied, sneezing again. “Sorry, I’m allergic to dust.”

The librarian looked offended. Jiminy forged ahead.

“I’m trying to find information on something that happened in Fayeville in June of 1966. Do you have newspapers from that year?”

The librarian blinked once, twice, three times. Jiminy wondered if this was some physical manifestation of her mental process. Maybe she was flipping through options in her brain, clicking them forward with her eyelids like an old-fashioned slide show. Finally, she spoke.

“Nothing besides the Fayeville Ledger. You gotta head to the big city library for the big city papers.”

And the fast-talking, big city gals, Jiminy added to herself. The librarian didn’t seem to be using these terms with any sense of humor, but they struck Jiminy as fake, like they’d been written in a script to be used when outsiders came a-callin’.

Was she an outsider? Jiminy felt connected to this town through her family, though she’d really only spent a little over four months of her life here, all totaled up. She’d been raised elsewhere—not too far away, but definitely elsewhere. Her mother hadn’t ever wanted to come back to Fayeville, even before her breakdown.

“I’m Willa Hunt’s granddaughter,” Jiminy offered, to prove that she wasn’t completely out of place here. She felt it was important to make that known.

Sure enough, the librarian softened.

“Your grandma’s a good woman,” she said. “Taught me biology, matter a fact.”

Jiminy knew that Willa had been a schoolteacher, but she still had trouble picturing it.

“She encouraged me to be a doctor, actually,” the librarian continued. “Said there was no reason a woman shouldn’t be. Said she’d always dreamed of being one herself, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

This was a surprise to Jiminy. She’d never thought of her grandmother as someone who harbored unfulfilled dreams.

“You said June 1966?” the librarian queried.

Jiminy nodded, realizing she’d been mutely preoccupied with her inner monologue. Her tendency to do this didn’t do wonders for her social interactive skills. She goosed herself to speak.

“I’m looking for any write-ups about something that happened that month. A couple of murders,” Jiminy replied.

“Well that woulda been front page news, so it should be easy to find,” the librarian answered. “I don’t remember hearing about anything like that though. You sure you got your facts right?”

Jiminy nodded.

“All right, the old papers are over there.”

The librarian directed Jiminy to the Fayeville Ledger archives, which consisted of a stack of cardboard boxes filled with yellowed newspapers in various stages of decomposition. Jiminy found the “1966–68” box and sneezed her way through to June. Since the Ledger was published biweekly, there were only two thin copies from that month, and neither had any mention of Edward and Jiminy Waters.

There was an opinion piece that caught her eye, though. It was titled “Coon Season” and it was written by Travis Brayer. She assumed he was related to Bobby Brayer, who was currently running for governor. The Brayer family owned a huge old cotton plantation just outside Fayeville. Jiminy didn’t pay much attention to politics, but a person couldn’t help but notice the billboard at the edge of town that read, “Fayeville: Proud Home of State Senator Bobby Brayer.” Several “Brayer for Governor” signs had colonized the patch of grass beneath it, along with most of the yards in town.

According to Travis Brayer’s article, he was upset about the “Negro uprising” happening in a neighboring state and felt compelled to warn the citizens of Fayeville that such dangerous unrest could spread to their own backyard if they didn’t stand guard and tamp it down. He made reference to “that uppity Meredith boy” and urged his fellow townspeople to stay vigilant.

Jiminy closed her eyes and tried to remember what she could about the Meredith Marches of 1966. She knew they had something to do with desegregation, something to do with voting, something to do with Martin Luther King, Jr. Unable to come up with anything more, she opened her eyes and looked around for a computer, but there was none to be found. Fayeville’s dearth of Internet connections was simultaneously charming and inconvenient. Jiminy reached for the encyclopedia set on a nearby shelf, feeling very old-fashioned.

Forty minutes later, she better understood that the summer of 1966 had been one of inflamed passions, of galvanization and conflict, of the South near its boiling point. This apparently had made for a place and time when innocent people could be slaughtered and forgotten. But really? Could they really?

She checked the July issues of the paper, and the August and September ones, just to be sure. There was no mention anywhere.

“Find what you’re looking for?” the librarian asked between bites of the salad she’d brought for her lunch.

Jiminy shook her head.

“No, actually. There were two brutal murders of people who lived right here in Fayeville, and there’s not a single mention of them anywhere.”

“You must have your dates wrong,” the librarian replied. “You can check the 1965 box if you like.”

“It was 1966. Lyn Waters’s husband and daughter, Edward and Jiminy, were murdered that June. They were driving back from a leadership seminar Jiminy had won an essay contest to attend and they went missing. Two weeks later their car was found stripped and burned on the banks of the river. Their bodies washed ashore nearby.”

The librarian’s expression changed as Jiminy recited these facts. She put down her fork.

“Those aren’t the sort of deaths the Ledger covered back then,” she said evenly.

“Do you remember hearing about them?” Jiminy asked.

The librarian met her gaze.

“I remember hearing that Lyn’s husband and daughter had gone and got themselves drowned. I didn’t ask any questions. We don’t talk about things like that.”

Jiminy stared back, then sneezed powerfully, grateful that her body instinctively rejected such attitudes. Unfortunately this town seemed rife with them, and she was beginning to feel allergic to simply being here.

She took her leave and exited into the bright sunshine of the courthouse yard, where, slightly dazed, she made her way to the nearest tree and sank into its shade. With one hand on her diaphragm and the other propped beneath her head, she lay on her back, closed her eyes, and focused on her breath. She began to count how many heartbeats she could fit into one inhalation and had just stretched herself to three when she sensed someone standing over her. Her heartbeat surged as her eyes flew open. It was Bo.

“You looked so peaceful,” he said.

“It’s a good disguise,” she answered.

His grin was easily unfurled. She gazed at his white, white teeth and thought of sails on Lake Michigan.

“Do you wanna go get some food or something?” she asked.

It wasn’t like her to usher an invitation, but she’d come to realize that spending time with Bo delighted her. Her life had been short on delight and she felt greedy for it now.

Bo’s grin tacked starboard as he shook his head.

“I’d love to, but I haven’t earned it yet,” he answered. “I’ve got a long date with the lymphatic system,” he said as he held up his MCAT book. “Maybe later?”

“Lymph node hussies,” Jiminy muttered.

Bo laughed.

“You sticking around?” he asked. “This is my favorite spot to study.”

Jiminy thought about it.

“No, I’ve got things to do, too,” she replied. “But call me later?”

“Will do.”

His promise flapped in the air between them, crisp and clear and healthy.

Chapter 5

Whenever Willa walked into the HushMart superstore, she felt like she was arriving in another country and should have to show her passport for entry. An entire populace could live in the building and have everything they needed at their fingertips, at low, low prices. It was a wonder of a place.

She still occasionally happened upon entire sections that seemed new to her, and she wondered if the store was secretly expanding at night. The lot that had been zoned for it backed up to a limestone cliff, so there wasn’t anywhere obvious for it to grow, but Willa had a hunch that those light green–vested managers were far too innovative to let a little geology hamper their progress.

“Have you sampled our hickory-smoked chew toys?” a voice chirped.

It was one of the green-vests, offering what appeared to be a barbecue-scented shoe.

“No, thank you,” Willa replied.

“They’re for dogs. Do you have a dog?”

Willa shook her head.

“Then you’re in luck! The store’s opening a pet zone next month, so you can buy one!”

“Buy one? Fayeville’s already got more dogs and cats than people who want them,” Willa protested.

It was true. Puppies and kittens were regularly deposited at the large collection of Dumpsters near the interstate to fend for themselves, or dropped from the bridge into the river to end things more quickly. This wasn’t a town that was sentimental about such things.

“Those are all mutts,” the HushMart minion said dismissively. “We’ll sell purebreds here.”

Willa absorbed this as she glanced around at the floor-to-ceiling shelves that seemed to stretch for miles.

“Can you point me toward the silver polish?” she asked. “I get so turned around in here.”

“Straight that way, past the photo zone, third left into Household Care,” the employee replied obligingly, before turning to thrust the chew toys in front of another shopper.

Willa made her ambling way through the photo zone, marveling at the variety of cameras and camera accessories she passed. Her husband Henry had been a photography aficionado, and Jiminy clearly enjoyed her Polaroids, but Willa herself had never had much interest. She appeared in photos if another pointed a camera at her, but she’d never played an active role in capturing images. When it came down to it, she was a fundamentally passive person—someone whom things happened to, rather than someone who made things happen. Though she and her granddaughter had never been close, until recently, she’d felt they shared this characteristic. But lately, Jiminy had seemed almost intent on shaking things up. It went beyond the Polaroids—there was a new restless questing to her that surprised and unsettled Willa. Willa didn’t feel up to any fresh challenges. She felt weary and nervous.

“Now, what was it I was looking for?” she said aloud as she turned away from an aisle filled with albums.

What she wouldn’t give to have someone sure and trustworthy beside her, whispering the answer in her ear.

Don’t be a coward, don’t be a coward, Jiminy repeated in her head, waiting for it to seep in and give her strength. She’d climbed over the fence and taken a long walk down the hill toward the river, in search of fresh views and solitude to think and plan. But now she was trapped and terrified, looking around for weapons.

The rock in her hand wasn’t large enough, and the only other things she could spot around her were twigs. Why didn’t her grandmother have a dog? Some vicious, snarling, loyal dog who’d never let her go on walks by herself? If she got out of this alive, she swore she was going to get one.

“GO AWAY! GO! LEAVE ME ALONE!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

They moved closer, and she backed away farther, trembling.

 

“I guess she’s really scared of them.” Willa sighed as she stared out the dining room window. “That must’ve been why she was asking me how often they maul people. I thought she was joking. Who’s scared of cows?”

Beside Willa, Lyn chuckled harder.

Willa was aware that this was the first time Lyn had smiled in her presence since their uncomfortable phone call. Even the yellowcake had only elicited an expressionless “Thanks.” Willa beamed, grateful that her granddaughter’s cowardice could bridge this divide.

“Should we draw straws to see who has to go rescue her?” she asked.

Lyn looked at her, eyes sparkling.

“She ain’t my blood,” Lyn replied. “So you can go draw your own straw.”

Willa blinked in surprise, then burst out laughing, just as Lyn clutched her sleeve and pointed out the window.

“What’s she doing? Did she just drop to the ground?”

They both stared in disbelief.

“Sweet Jesus, she’s playing dead!” Lyn exclaimed.

Now they were both laughing uncontrollably, gasping for breath.

When Bo stuck his head into the room a moment later, Willa and Lyn were doubled over, holding onto each other, tears streaming from their eyes.

 

Every time Jiminy screwed up enough courage to try to cross the field again, the cows would crowd around her, practically pressing into her flesh. There were bulls in there, too. Any one of them could charge her, trample her. The only ones that looked harmless were the calves, but they were the most dangerous of all, because they came with mothers who would kill to protect them. She knew she wasn’t supposed to get between a calf and its mother, but when they all crowded around her like this, how could she keep track?

She never would have embarked on her walk in the first place if she’d thought there was any chance of this sort of encounter. Her grandmother had told her that the cattle had been moved to the fenced-in fields at the back of the farm for the next few months, so Jiminy had believed the fields between the house and the river were scary animal–free. But they’d appeared out of nowhere and descended upon her, and now she was pondering the very real possibility that her last moments alive would be filled with the smell of manure.

Just when Jiminy had closed her eyes to shut out the horror, she heard another voice.

“HUP, HUP, outta the way. HUP, HUP!”

She opened one eye tentatively. There was Bo, in the farm truck, parting the herd as he drove slowly toward her. He stopped a few feet away and climbed out. Unarmed, he continued his hup-hupping. The cattle didn’t disperse, but they moved enough out of the way to allow him to reach her.

She flung her arms around his neck.

“Thank God you came,” she exclaimed.

Only the fact that she was trembling stopped Bo from laughing.

“It’s okay, I got you. We’ll just walk back to the truck now.”

“Watch out for the big one, I think he might charge,” Jiminy whispered. “I’m just going to shut my eyes and hold onto your arm.”

Bo nodded and guided her.

Even when Jiminy was safely in the passenger seat of the truck, she still worried they were in danger.

“Just hurry, but not too fast to agitate them,” she said as the cattle continued to swarm. “If a couple of them charged, they could tip over the truck.”

Bo continued to work hard not to laugh.

“They’re not going to tip over the truck. They’re not going to kill us. They don’t want to kill us; they would like us to feed them. They’re used to people walking or driving through the field to put more hay out for them to eat. That’s why they hurry over to you. That’s all they want—hay.”

Jiminy absorbed this. Bo watched her cheeks blush crimson as she looked anywhere but at him. He reached out to touch her arm.

“Hey,” he said gently.

“I heard you the first time,” she snapped. “Could you please just drive?”

Bo kept his hand on her arm.

“No.”

Jiminy turned to him. On him, really.

“What kind of rescuer are you? Just get me out of here. Please! I’ll drive, if that’s the issue. Just scoot over.”

She made a move to switch places with him.

“You’re being silly,” he said. “You’ve got nothing in the world to be scared of, do you understand?”

“Move!” she replied.

She tried clumsily to switch spots with him, throwing her leg over his lap and reaching her hand past him to grab the edge of the driver’s seat to help hoist herself over. There wasn’t anything graceful about her maneuver, and she was about to be stuck in an awkward position if he didn’t help her out. So he obliged, scooting beneath her to the passenger side as Jiminy climbed all over him. It was the most intimate they’d ever been with each other, and for a brief moment all Bo could think about was how her breast had brushed his shoulder and how much her hair smelled like coconuts.

Jiminy was similarly flustered. She gripped the steering wheel to steady herself, acutely aware of how Bo’s skin had felt against hers, and that she wanted to touch him more. Her cheeks blazing, she kept her eyes averted and hurried to switch the gears from park to drive. But she stopped abruptly, distress joining the other emotions playing across her features.

“What’s the matter?” Bo asked.

Jiminy said something in a voice several decibels too soft for a human ear to decipher.

“What?” he asked again.

When she spoke this time, it was just barely audible.

“I didn’t know this was stick. I don’t know how to drive stick,” she whispered.

When she looked up, Bo kissed her.

 

Jean Butrell was aiming her rifle at some deer when she heard tires on the gravel. She sighed and put the rifle down. At least the sound of the car would scare the deer away from her flowers for an hour or so. But if they came back when she was alone, she’d pop ’em. To think that she’d once put a salt lick out there for their enjoyment. How naïve she’d been. Salt one day, prize-winning geraniums the next. They deserved to die.

The car had to be Jiminy, who’d been coming to Jean’s regularly ever since she’d discovered that Jean had an Internet connection, a rare and precious hookup among Willa’s friends. Most of them didn’t consider themselves members of the technological age and were happy to be bypassed by tweets and blogs, even by online shopping, which many of them would have found extremely convenient. The Home Shopping Network and the telephone were still their tools of choice.

Jean was an aberration. She’d had an Internet connection for five years now, and prized it above all else. During thunderstorms, she dreaded losing electricity almost solely because it would mean getting knocked offline. She had a real passion for games like Halo 3 and the ones on Pogo—the kind you could log on to and play against people from all over the world. Her grandsons had introduced her to them over a Christmas holiday, and she’d come straight home and ordered up service. She was addicted.

“Knock, knock,” Jiminy called from the porch.

“Who’s there?” Jean called.

She hoped for a knock-knock joke, but Willa’s granddaughter was too literal.

“It’s Jiminy.”

“Come on in,” Jean replied, covering her sigh with a bright smile. “Can I pour you some iced tea? It’s hot out there.”

Jiminy shook her head.

“No, thank you, I don’t need anything. How’s it going?”

Jean appreciated the attempt at small talk.

“Oh, I’m all right. My suck-egg dog of a son called again, but I screened him.”

The elder son who’d confiscated her driver’s license. Not the one who’d fathered the two grandsons who’d taught her how to play blackjack online. That son was a saint.

“Maybe he’s just worried about you,” Jiminy offered.

“I hope so! I hope he worries his little conniving, controlling squirrel brain sick,” Jean replied. “The computer’s all yours, sweetheart. I don’t have a game appointment for another few hours.”

“Thanks,” Jiminy said gratefully.

She hurried to the living room desk and logged herself on to her saved searches. There was the article that she’d come across the previous afternoon and been yearning to investigate further. Jiminy scanned it quickly, looking for the name she’d spotted.

Were it not for the tireless efforts of Carlos Castaverde, this long-ago murder would have remained unsolved, languishing in the cold case file cabinet in the basement of the Putner County Courthouse. But Mr. Castaverde refused to let justice die along with an innocent victim.

That was it: Carlos Castaverde. According to this article and another one in the Greenham Gazette, Carlos Castaverde was a persistent journalist-lawyer who had successfully reopened and solved seven civil rights cold cases. His latest efforts had led to the conviction and imprisonment of an eighty-four-year-old ex-Klansman who had kidnapped and lynched a young man by the name of Jackson Honder for “leering” at a white woman in September 1955. According to law enforcement officials at the time, no one in Jackson Honder’s small town had seen or heard anything, and no arrests were ever made. Until over a half century later, when Carlos Castaverde began investigating. After interviewing Honder’s brother and sisters, along with some neighbors and a sheriff’s deputy, Castaverde determined that contrary to the official record, pretty much everyone in town knew exactly who had committed the murder. A few more months of legwork and two eyewitness accounts later, and Carlos had his man. The Honder family expressed their incredulity and gratitude to the Greenham Gazette:

“When Carlos first came round, I thought, let’s let bygones be bygones and be done with it,” said Honder’s sister Maggie Jayce, aged eighty-two. “But now that Jackson’s killer is behind bars, I feel like somethin’ that was turned upside down in the world just got set right again.”

The killer was someone who’d continued to live right alongside the Honder family for fifty-three years. And they’d all known. All of them. Jiminy couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. How do you greet a man who murdered your brother? How do you stand in line at the post office with him, or pass him in the dairy aisle, or pump gas alongside him, knowing all the while? How did they stand it? And would they just have kept on standing it, day after day, had Carlos not come along?

She Googled Carlos Castaverde and immediately came across several hate websites. One claimed he was an illegal immigrant with a grudge against red-blooded Americans. Another listed his home address and offered a bounty for his head.

A more friendly site called him an unsung hero and thanked him for his service. Carlos himself didn’t have a website and seemed to prefer a low profile, though Jiminy was able to find a bio piece on him in the Greenham Gazette that detailed how, after being raised in Texarkana by a Caucasian mother and Mexican father, Carlos had gotten his degree in journalism and then put himself through law school at night while working for a string of small town newspapers. He’d first made a name for himself seven years ago, when, in the course of covering a disputed school board election, he’d stumbled across an account of an unsolved shooting that had taken place in 1964. His subsequent investigation had eventually led to the conviction and incarceration of the superintendent of schools. The town had been outraged; the victim’s family, grateful.

Since then, Carlos Castaverde had opened and pursued six other cases. He hadn’t won convictions in all of them, but he had forced several towns to confront their unpleasant pasts. Not all of them appreciated the experience, and they’d made their wrath known. In a short interview conducted after the Jackson Honder case was won, the forty-four-year-old Castaverde was asked what made him get up every day and pursue the life he’d chosen. He’d answered, “Consideration of the alternative.”

Abrupt gunshots startled Jiminy out of her admiring reverie. She whirled around, her heart throbbing furiously.

“Dammit, missed again,” Jean muttered as she sauntered in from the backyard, a rifle slung over one shoulder. “Sorry for the noise, I was trying to shoot the geranium-gobblin’ demon deer,” she explained.

Jiminy breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself down. It was only Jean. And everything was still alive.

“Do you hunt often?” she managed to ask.

Jiminy herself had never held a gun.

“Oh, darlin’, that’s not huntin’, that’s gardenin’,” Jean answered.

Jiminy nodded, eyeing the rifle.

“Where do you keep that?”

Jean glanced down at the gun.

“Wherever. In the corner by my bed, in the car occasionally—back when I was allowed to drive—but it’s by the kitchen sink generally. So I can grab it quick when those overgrown rats with antlers come around.”

Jean finally registered the terror in Jiminy’s eyes and left the room to put the gun away somewhere out of sight. When she returned, she was carrying two glasses of iced tea.

“I know you said you didn’t want any, but house rules are you gotta have at least a glass in exchange for computer privileges.”

Jiminy smiled and took the glass Jean offered.

“I should be bringing you things,” Jiminy said. “I really appreciate you letting me come here. I’m happy to get the chance to work on this stuff.”

Jean nodded indulgently.

“And what is it exactly that you’re working on?” she asked.

Willa had told her a little bit, but not much. Jean had initially appreciated being spared the details, but now her curiosity was getting the better of her.

“I want to find out more about who killed Lyn’s husband and daughter,” Jiminy said. “I can’t believe their murders were never solved. You knew them, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” Jean answered.

Fayeville was a small place, and it had only been smaller back then. She’d known Edward since they were kids, and Lyn since he’d married her. The same year Jean had married her husband, Floyd the prankster.

Jean suddenly didn’t feel like talking anymore, but Jiminy was looking at her expectantly.

“Do you have any idea who might have killed them?” Jiminy asked.

Jean stared out the window, toward the woods that bordered her lawn. She stared a little too long.

“You do, don’t you?” Jiminy pressed. “You know something.”

Jean closed her eyes, wishing she’d been raised to know how to politely kick a guest out of her house. She felt a migraine coming on.

 

The river that curved around Fayeville was slow and cold. It was filled with rainbow trout and water moccasins that slithered across the surface and made their home along the bank. Jiminy had never been on or in the river. She’d never fished it, never swam it, never even stuck a hand or toe in it. Now that she knew about Edward and the first Jiminy, it made sense to her that the people who would’ve naturally taken her to do such things avoided the river as a matter of course. Still, you’d think they would’ve provided her with some substitute. You’d think they might have brought her to the pool in town, particularly on the hot summer days that made kids fall into sweaty boredom comas. But Jiminy had never been there, either. Until now.

As she pulled into the parking lot, she wished she wasn’t alone. At least there weren’t any cattle in sight.

The Fayeville Municipal Pool was shaped like a kidney bean and included a waterslide that was slightly the worse for wear, though the kids flinging themselves down it didn’t seem to mind. On the far side of the pool stood a tall lifeguard chair positioned to watch over all. The lifeguard was the one Jiminy had come to see.

Before she could make her way to him, someone called her name.

“Jiminy Davis, is that you?”

An enormously pregnant belly sandwiched by a bikini had asked the question. Technically, the mouth on the head attached to the belly had asked it, but all Jiminy could focus on was the belly. She forced herself to look up from it to acknowledge its owner’s face.

“Suze?” Jiminy asked.

Suze Connors had grown up on the farm across the river from Willa’s.

The smiling round face nodded.

“Yep, it’s me. Can you believe it?”

Jiminy wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a more pregnant woman.

“Congratulations!” Jiminy cried. “You look great!”

“Thank you, what a nice thing to hear,” Suze responded. “Some people say I shouldn’t be wearing a two-piece, but I say they should GET THEIR OWN LIFE,” she continued in a near shout, directing the accusatory part of her sentence toward a slender woman suntanning a few chairs over. The woman rolled her eyes and whispered something to her friend. Both of them giggled. Suze fumed.

“So, when are you due?” Jiminy asked, attempting to avert a rumble.

She was taken aback by Suze’s sudden fury. Jiminy remembered her being a mild-mannered girl—someone she’d played with a handful of times during her childhood visits.

“Tomorrow,” Suze answered. “But my first three were all a week late, so I’m not holding my breath.”

“This is your fourth kid?” Jiminy asked.

Suze was nodding.

“Bryce! Savanna! Come meet Jiminy,” she called to a blond-haired boy and girl who’d been playing on the waterslide. “Melody’s with her grandma,” she explained to Jiminy as her kids started swimming for the pool ladder.

“Oh, don’t bother them, it’s okay . . . ,” Jiminy attempted.

But the kids were already hurrying to obey their mom. Jiminy was surprised at how quickly they were in front of her, gazing upward.

“Jiminy and I used to play when we were around your age,” Suze told her son. “Are you here for a while?” she asked Jiminy.

Jiminy wasn’t sure how to answer.

“I think so. Probably another few weeks, at least.”

“We gotta get together then!” Suze cried.

Jiminy nodded.

“Sure, that’d be great, definitely. I mean, you’ll probably be pretty busy with your baby and your other kids, but if you get some free time . . . Are you married?”

Suze looked offended.

“Well, I should hope so! What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—I just didn’t want to assume—of course you’re married.”

“Brad’s on a tour of duty overseas now, but he should be home by Christmas. SAVANNAH, DON’T YOU DARE PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH!”

Jiminy jumped. Behind her, Savannah released a small frog she’d caught in the grass by the side of the pool. She obeyed her mother, but she wasn’t happy about it.

The shouting had caught the lifeguard’s attention. He stood up quickly, gave a disapproving glance, then resumed his vigil. For an old man, he seemed remarkably spry and alert.

“I need to go,” Jiminy said to Suze. “It’s good to see you again, and meet your kids. I’ll see you around.”

Suze smiled and nodded, but she was already preoccupied with helping her son wrestle a pair of flippers onto his feet.

“Don’t forget to come see me,” she replied distractedly.