'Doing okay,' she agreed, turning to me. 'I did did have several more calls than usual today. I'm suddenly quite popular.' have several more calls than usual today. I'm suddenly quite popular.'

'Uh-oh.'

'Most were hangups, but one gentleman took time enough to call me a c.u.n.t, and there was a lady with a very strong Yankee accent who said, 'Theah, you b.i.t.c.h, you've killed him. Aaa you satisfied?' She hung up before I could tell her yes, very satisfied, thanks.' But Mattie didn't look satisfied; she looked unhappy and guilty, as if she had literally wished him dead.

'I'm sorry.'

'It's okay. Really. Kyra and I have been alone for a long time, and I've been scared for most of it. Now I've made a couple of friends. If a few anonymous phone calls are the price I have to pay, I'll pay it.'

She was very close, looking up at me, and I couldn't stop myself. I put the blame on summer, her perfume, and four years without a woman. In that order, i slipped my arms around her waist, and remember perfectly the texture of her dress beneath my hands; the slight pucker at the back where the zipper hid in its sleeve. I remember the sensation of the cloth moving against the bare skin beneath. Then I was kissing her, very gently but very thoroughly - anything worth doing is worth doing right - and she was kissing me back in exactly the same spirit, her mouth curious but not afraid. Her lips were warm and smooth and held some faint sweet taste. Peaches, I think.

We stopped at the same time and pulled back a little from each other. Her hands were still on my shoulders. Mine were on the sides of her waist, just above her hips. Her face was composed enough, but her eyes were more brilliant than ever, and there were slants of color in her cheeks, rising along the cheekbones.

'Oh boy,' she said. 'I really wanted that. Ever since Ki tackled you and you picked her up I've wanted it.'

'John wouldn't think much of us kissing in public,' I said. My voice wasn't quite even, and my heart was racing. Seven seconds, one kiss, and every system in my body was red-lining. 'In fact, John wouldn't think much of us kissing at all. He fancies you, you know.'

'I know, but I fancy you you.' She turned to check on Ki, who was still standing obediently by the tree, watching the juggler. Who might be watching us? Someone who had come over from the TR on a hot summer evening to get ice cream at Frank's Tas-T-Freeze and enjoy a little music and society on the common? Someone who traded for fresh vegetables and fresh gossip at the Lakeview General? A regular at the All-Purpose Garage? This was insanity, and it stayed insanity no matter how you cut it. I dropped my hands from her waist.

'Mattie, they could put our picture next to "indiscreet" in the dictionary.'

She took her hands off my shoulders and stepped back a pace, but her brilliant eyes never left mine. 'I know that. I'm young but not entirely stupid.'

'I didn't mean - '

She held up a hand to stop me. 'Ki goes to bed around nine - she can't seem to sleep until it's mostly dark. I stay up later. Come and visit me, if you want to. You can park around back.' She smiled a little. It was a sweet smile; it was also incredibly s.e.xy. 'Once the moon's down, that's an area of discretion.'

'Mattie, you're young enough to be my daughter.'

'Maybe, but I'm not. And sometimes people can be too discreet for their own good.'

My body knew so emphatically what it wanted. If we had been in her trailer at that moment it would have been no contest. It was almost no contest anyway. Then something recurred to me, something I'd thought about Devore's ancestors and my own: the generations didn't match up. Wasn't the same thing true here? And I don't believe that people automatically have a right to what they want, no matter how badly they want it. Not every thirst should be slaked. Some things are just wrong - I guess that's what I'm trying to say. But I wasn't sure this was one of them, and I wanted her, all right. So much. I kept thinking about how her dress had slid when I put my arms around her waist, the warm feel of her skin just beneath. And no, she wasn't my daughter.

'You said your thanks,' I told her in a dry voice. 'And that's enough. Really.'

'You think this is grat.i.tude? grat.i.tude?' She voiced a low, tense laugh. 'You're forty, Mike, not eighty. You're not Harrison Ford, but you're a good-looking man. Talented and interesting, too. And I like you such an awful lot. I want you to be with me. Do you want me to say please? Fine. Please be with me.'

Yes, this was about more than grat.i.tude - I suppose I'd known that even when I was using the word. I'd known she was wearing white shorts and a halter top when she called on the phone the day I went back to work. Had she also known what I was wearing? Had she dreamed she was in bed with me, the two of us s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g our brains out while the party lights shone and Sara Tidwell played her version of the white nana rhyming game, all that crazy Manderley-sanderley-canderley stuff?. Had Mattie dreamed of telling me to do what she wanted?

And there were the fridgeafator people. They were another kind of sharing, an even spookier kind. I hadn't quite had nerve enough to tell Mattie about mine, but she might know anyway. Down low in her mind. Down below in her mind, where the blue-collar guys moved around in the zone. Her guys and my guys, all part of the same strange labor union. And maybe it wasn't an issue of morality per se per se at all. Some thing about it - about at all. Some thing about it - about us us - just felt dangerous. - just felt dangerous.

And oh so attractive.

'I need time to think,' I said.

'This isn't about what you think. What do you feel feel for me?' for me?'

'So much it scares me.'

Before I could say anything else, my ears caught a familiar series of chord-changes. I turned toward the kid with the guitar. He had been working through a repertoire of early Dylan, but now he swung into something chuggy and up-tempo, something that made you want to grin and pat your hands together.

'Do you want to go fishinhere in my fishin hole?Said do you want to fish some, honey,here in my fishin hole?You want to fish in my pond, baby,you better have a big long pole.'

'Fishin Blues.' Written by Sara Tidwell, originally performed by Sara and the Red-Top Boys, covered by everyone from Ma Rainey to the Lovin' Spoonful. The raunchy ones had been her specialty, double-entendre so thin you could read a newspaper through it . . . although reading hadn't been Sara's main interest, judging by her lyrics.

Before the kid could go on to the next verse, something about how you got to wiggle when you wobble and get that big one way down deep, The Castle Rockers ran off a bra.s.s flourish that said 'Shut up, everybody, we're comin atcha.' The kid quit playing his guitar; the juggler began catching his Indian clubs and dropping them swiftly onto the gra.s.s in a line. The Rockers launched themselves into an extremely evil Sousa march, music to commit serial murders by, and Kyra came running back to us.

'The jugster's done. Will you tell me the story, Mike? Hansel and Panzel?'

'It's Hansel and Gretel Gretel,' I said, 'and I'll be happy to. But let's go where it's a little quieter, okay? The band is giving me a headache.'

'Music hurt your headie?'

'A little bit.'

'We'll go by Mattie's car, then.'

'Good thought.'

Kyra ran ahead to stake out a bench on the edge of the common. Mattie gave me a long warm look, then her hand. I took it. Our fingers folded together as if they had been doing it for years. I thought, I'd like it to be slow, both of us hardly moving at all. At first, anyway. And would I bring my nicest, longest pole? I think you could count on that I'd like it to be slow, both of us hardly moving at all. At first, anyway. And would I bring my nicest, longest pole? I think you could count on that. And then, afterward, we'd talk. Maybe until we could see the furniture in the first early light. When you're in bed with someone you love, particularly for the first time, five o'clock seems almost holy.

'You need a vacation from your own thoughts,' Mattie said. 'I bet most writers do from time to time.'

'That's probably true.'

'I wish we were home,' she said, and I couldn't tell if her fierceness was real or pretend. 'I'd kiss you until this whole conversation became irrelevant. And if there were second thoughts, at least you'd be having them in my bed.'

I turned my face into the red light of the westering sun. 'Here or there, at this hour Ki would still be up.'

'True,' she said, sounding uncharacteristically glum. 'True.'

Kyra reached a bench near the sign reading TOWN COMMON PARKING and climbed up on it, holding the little stuffed dog from Mickey D's in one hand. I tried to pull my hand away as we approached her and Mattie held it firm. 'It's all right, Mike. At VBS they hold hands with their friends everywhere they go. It's big people who make it into a big deal.'

She stopped, looked at me.

'I want you to know something. Maybe it won't matter to you, but it does to me. There wasn't anyone before Lance and no one after. If you come to me, you'll be my second. I'm not going to talk with you about this again, either. Saying please is all right, but I won't beg.'

'I don't - '

'There's a pot with tomato plants in it by the trailer steps. I'll leave a key under it. Don't think. Just come.'

'Not tonight, Mattie. I can't.'

'You can,' she replied.

'Hurry up up, slowpokes!' Kyra cried, bouncing on the bench.

'He's the slow one!' Mattie called back, and poked me in the ribs. Then, in a much lower voice: 'You the slow one!' Mattie called back, and poked me in the ribs. Then, in a much lower voice: 'You are are, too.' She unwound her hand from mine and ran toward her daughter, her brown legs scissoring below the hem of the white dress.

In my version of 'Hansel and Gretel' the witch was named Depravia. Kyra stared at me with huge eyes when I got to the part where Depravia asks Hansel to poke out his finger so she can see how plump he's getting.

'Is it too scary?' I asked.

Ki shook her head emphatically. I glanced at Mattie to make sure. She nodded and waved a hand for me to go on, so I finished the story. Depravia went into the oven and Gretel found her secret stash of winning lottery tickets. The kids bought a Jet Ski and lived happily ever after on the eastern side of Dark Score Lake. By then The Castle Rockers were slaughtering Gershwin and sunset was nigh. I carried Kyra to Scoutie and strapped her in. I remembered the first time I'd helped put the kid into her car-seat, and the inadvertent press of Mattie's breast.

'I hope there isn't a bad dream for you in that story,' I said. Until I heard it coming out of my own mouth, I hadn't realized how fundamentally awful that one is.

'I won't have bad dreams,' Kyra said matter-of-factly. 'The fridgeafator people will keep them away.' Then, carefully, reminding herself: 'Ree-fridge-a-rator.' She turned to Mattie. 'Show him the crosspatch, Mommy-bommy.'

'Crossword. But thanks, I would've forgotten.' She thumbed open the glove compartment and took out a folded sheet of paper. 'It was on the fridge this morning. I copied it down because Ki said you'd know what it meant. She said you do crossword puzzles. Well, she said crosspatches, but I got the idea.'

Had I told Kyra that I did crosswords? Almost certainly not. Did it surprise me that she knew? Not at all. I took the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and looked at what was printed there:

d go w ninety2

'Is it a crosspatch puzzle, Mike?' Kyra asked.

'I guess so - a very simple one. But if it means something, I don't know what it is. May I keep this?'

'Yes,' Mattie said.

I walked her around to the driver's side of the Scout, reaching for her hand again as we went. 'Just give me a little time. I know that's supposed to be the girl's line, but - '

'Take the time,' she said. 'Just don't take too much.'

I didn't want to take any any, which was just the problem. The s.e.x would be great, I knew that. But after?

There might be be an after, though. I knew it and she did, too. With Mattie, 'after' was a real possibility. The idea was a little scary, a little wonderful. an after, though. I knew it and she did, too. With Mattie, 'after' was a real possibility. The idea was a little scary, a little wonderful.

I kissed the corner of her mouth. She laughed and grabbed me by the earlobe. 'You can do better,' she said, then looked at Ki, who was sitting in her car-seat and gazing at us interestedly. 'But I'll let you off this time.'

'Kiss Ki!' Kyra called, holding out her arms, so I went around and kissed Ki. Driving home, wearing my dark gla.s.ses to cut the glare of the setting sun, it occurred to me that maybe I could be Kyra Devore's father. That seemed almost as attractive to me as going to bed with her mother, which was a measure of how deep I was in. And going deeper, maybe.

Deeper still.

Sara Laughs seemed very empty after having Mattie in my arms - a sleeping head without dreams. I checked the letters on the fridge, saw nothing there but the normal scatter, and got a beer. I went out on the deck to drink it while I watched the last of the sunset. I tried to think about the refrigerator people and crosspatches that had appeared on both refrigerators: 'go down nineteen' on Lane Forty-two and 'go down ninety-two' on Wasp Hill Road. Different vectors from the land to the lake? Different spots on The Street? s.h.i.t, who knew?

I tried to think about John Storrow and how unhappy he was apt to be if he found out there was - to quote Sara Laughs, who got to the line long before John Mellencamp - another mule kicking in Mattie Devore's stall. But mostly what I thought about was holding her for the first time, kissing her for the first time. No human instinct is more powerful than the s.e.x-drive when it is fully aroused, and its awakening images are emotional tattoos that never leave us. For me, it was feeling the soft bare skin of her waist just beneath her dress. The slippery feel of the fabric . . .

I turned abruptly and hurried through the house to the north wing, almost running and shedding clothes as I went. I turned the shower on to full cold and stood under it for five minutes, shivering. When I got out I felt a little more like an actual human being and a little less like a twitching bundle of nerve endings. And as I toweled dry, something else recurred to me. At some point I had thought of Jo's brother Frank, had thought that if anyone besides myself would be able to feel Jo's presence in Sara Laughs, it would be him. I hadn't gotten around to inviting him down yet, and now wasn't sure I wanted to. I had come to feel oddly possessive, almost jealous, about what was happening here. And yet if Jo had been writing something on the quiet, Frank might know. Of course she hadn't confided in him about the pregnancy, but - I looked at my watch. Quarter past nine. In the trailer near the intersection of Wasp Hill Road and Route 68, Kyra was probably already asleep . . . and her mother might already have put her extra key under the pot near the steps. I thought of her in the white dress, the swell of her hips just below my hands and the smell of her perfume, then pushed the images away. I couldn't spend the whole night taking cold showers. Quarter past nine was still early enough to call Frank Arlen.

He picked up on the second ring, sounding both happy to hear from me and as if he'd gotten three or four cans further into the six-pack than I had so far done. We pa.s.sed the usual pleasantries back and forth - most of my own almost entirely fictional, I was dismayed to find - and he mentioned that a famous neighbor of mine had kicked the bucket, according to the news. Had I met him? Yes, I said, remembering how Max Devore had run his wheelchair at me. Yes, I'd met him. Frank wanted to know what he was like. That was hard to say, I told him. Poor old guy was stuck in a wheelchair and suffering from emphysema.

'Pretty frail, huh?' Frank asked sympathetically.

'Yeah,' I said. 'Listen, Frank, I called about Jo. I was out in her studio looking around, and I found my typewriter. Since then I've kind of gotten the idea she was writing something. It might have started as a little piece about our house, then widened. The place is named after Sara Tidwell, you know. The blues singer.'

A long pause. Then Frank said, 'I know.' His voice sounded heavy, grave.

'What else do you know, Frank?'

'That she was scared. I think she found out something that scared her. I think that mostly because - '

That was when the light finally broke. I probably should have known from Mattie's description, would would have known if I hadn't been so upset. 'You were down here with her, weren't you? In July of 1994. You went to the softball game, then you went back up The Street to the house.' have known if I hadn't been so upset. 'You were down here with her, weren't you? In July of 1994. You went to the softball game, then you went back up The Street to the house.'

'How do you know that?' he almost barked.

'Someone saw you. A friend of mine.' I was trying not to sound mad and not succeeding. I was was mad, but it was a relieved anger, the kind you feel when your kid comes dragging into the house with a shamefaced grin just as you're getting ready to call the cops. mad, but it was a relieved anger, the kind you feel when your kid comes dragging into the house with a shamefaced grin just as you're getting ready to call the cops.

'I almost told you a day or two before we buried her. We were in that pub, do you remember?'

Jack's Pub, right after Frank had beaten the funeral director down on the price of Jo's coffin. Sure I remembered. I even remembered the look in his eyes when I'd told him Jo had been pregnant when she died.

He must have felt the silence spinning out, because he came back sounding anxious. 'Mike, I hope you didn't get any - '

'What? Wrong ideas? I thought maybe she was having an affair, how's that for a wrong idea? You can call that ign.o.ble if you want, but I had my reasons. There was a lot she wasn't telling me. What did she tell you you?'

'Next to nothing.'

'Did you know she quit all her boards and committees? Quit and never said a word to me?'

'No.' I didn't think he was lying. Why would he, at this late date? 'Jesus, Mike, if I'd known that - '

'What happened the day you came down here? Tell me.'

'I was at the printshop in Sanford. Jo called me from . . . I don't remember, I think a rest area on the turnpike.'

'Between Derry and the TR?'