He seemed shy, looking up at her with his head slightly bowed. A smallish boy, with green eyes and a normal nose, he looked very little like his mother. Jo figured he took after his father, the man lost on Lake Superior. “Hi.” He lifted his hand briefly.

“Hello yourself,” Jo replied. She glanced behind her. “We’re holding things up.”

Grace Fitzgerald leaned toward Jo and spoke quietly. “I wonder if I could talk to you-soon.”

“Sure. What about?”

“Professionally.”

“You have my number. Just give me a call and we’ll set something up.”

“Thanks.”

They skipped the refreshments and headed to the car. As they drove home, Jenny said, “I thought she handled that guy pretty well.”

“I thought so, too.”

“He seemed so nice yesterday. If I was Grace Fitzgerald, I would have just told him to bite me.”

“‘Bite me’? What’s that mean?”

“Oh, you know, Mom.”

“No.”

Jenny shrugged. “It means fuck off.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“You wanted to know.”

Jo found that she was smiling, despite herself. “What do you think she wants to talk to you about?” Jenny asked.

“I don’t know.”

Jenny was quiet a moment. “Mom, I thought she looked kind of worried. Maybe even scared.”

“You know, I thought so, too, Jen.”

“I wonder why.”

“I guess when she calls me, I’ll find out. By the way, what did she write in your book?”

Jenny opened the cover and read proudly, “Someday you’ll be signing a book for me.”

12

CORK WOULD HAVE MADE MORE MONEY keeping Sam’s Place open after dark, but he liked his evenings free. At seven-thirty, he finished grilling a couple of Sam’s Big Deluxes and whipped up a couple of chocolate shakes for two teenage boys who’d motored up to the dock. Then he flipped the CLOSED sign outward and began to shut the place down. Stevie had helped a good deal during the day, but after his own dinner-a hot dog, chips, and milk-he’d fallen asleep on the bunk in the Quonset hut.