The excitement became a pain in his chest. Ptolemy, now gazing into the cloudy-eyed woman’s brown face, understood that these feelings were strong enough to kill.

He smiled broadly then and said, “Girl, you a beam’a sunshine at the end of a long day of rain.”

He put the ring in his pocket. Shirley stared at him, smiling hopefully.

Hilly came up to them then.

“Okay, Papa Grey,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Gimme my money,” Ptolemy said.

“Later . . . at the sto’.”

“Now,” the old man commanded, “right here in this room.”

Hilly handed his great-uncle a paper envelope filled with bills in small denominations.

“This is Shirley Wring,” Ptolemy said. “Double-u ara eye en gee.”

He was no longer looking around the room, wondering at the changing faces. Ptolemy spread the envelope open and took out a ten-dollar bill. He gave the money to the woman and then took the emerald ring from his pocket.

“Will you take this gift from me, Shirley double-u ara eye en gee?”

Hilly moved his big, heavy head back and forth with a perplexed twist to his face. Shirley smiled. Ptolemy lifted the ring higher.

“You’re a sweet man, Li’l Pea,” she said, taking her collateral and squeezing it between gnarled fingers.

She put the emerald in its tissue and placed the pink paper in her velvet bag. Then she put the black velvet sack into the faded red-leather purse. Shirley Wring made a movement that was the start of a curtsy and then shuffled off to get on line to pay her phone bill.

“She a friend’a yours?” Hilly asked.

“That’s a woman there, boy,” Ptolemy replied, thinking about Coydog talking to him when he was young and didn’t know a thing.