“See?” she said. “Tell me your name again.”

“Noah Underwood.”

“You're Paine's oldest?”

“That's right,” I said.

Shelly tossed me a Coke from the refrigerator and said, “Your daddy's a curious specimen.” Somehow it sounded like a compliment.

I guzzled the soda in about thirty seconds while I edged toward the door. The perfume that Shelly had on was making me dizzy. It smelled like a bag of tangerines.

She sat down on a cane stool and motioned me to do the same, but I stayed on my feet. I wasn't sure what would happen if Lice Peeking woke up, and I wanted to be ready to run.

Shelly said, “I've known Paine since back when he and Dusty used to fish charters out of Ted's. He was always a gentleman-your daddy, I mean, not Dusty.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“How come you're actin' so skittery, Noah?”

I couldn't come out and tell her that she was the reason, that everything about her-from her face to her feet-was at least twice as big as my mother's.

So I said, “I'm going to be late for violin practice.”

Which was incredibly lame, because we don't even own a violin. Abbey takes piano lessons on a portable electric keyboard that my father bought from a consignment shop in Key Largo.

“Now, Noah,” Shelly said, “that's not the truth, is it?”

“No, ma'am. I'm sorry.”

“Please don't grow up to be one of those men who lie for the sport of it,” she said, “and most men do. That's a fact.”

As Shelly spoke, she was staring down at Lice Peeking, and not in an admiring way. “That's why the world is so messed up, Noah. That's why history books are full of so much heartache and tragedy. Politicians, dictators, kings, phony-baloney preachers-most of 'em are men, and most of 'em lie like rugs,” she said. “Don't you dare grow up to be like that.”