He hadn't heard anyone come down the stairs. Louisa might have warned him....

"You are just the man I wanted to see."

Jamie turned, rubbing at his foot through his boot.

It was one of the schoolteachers, a short, dark, mushroom-shaped woman he'd seen that morning upstairs. She was busy going through desks, cleaning out trash-since Wilson, the regular janitor, was in the hospital, the teachers were having to do things like that.

Jamie had made it clear to the princ.i.p.al; he was a repairman, not a janitor. He hoped she wasn't expecting him to mop her room.

"h.e.l.lo," Louisa said, extending her hand. "I'm Louisa Kahne." "Oh yes yes yes, everyone knows who you are. I'm Lucinda Maples, I teach fourth- and fifth-grade English, and I am also in charge of all the plays, the drama department. And when I saw you this morning, Mr.

Sommers, I thought, there is the man I wanted to see."

She fixed him with her bright dark eyes.

Jamie wrung his hands together, wiped the palms on his pants. Busy women like this made him nervous, gave him flashbacks to the nuns. He suddenly felt trapped down there with her and Louisa-I'd rather be locked up with a vampire, he thought.

"I want you to help us with the scenery. And the props."

"The scenery?"

"She means for the plays, Jamie," Louisa explained.

Jamie was irritated. She was always treating him like a moron. He would have figured it out.

"Yes, our props right now are pitiful, the children would love something more elaborate, like the sets they see on TV. I've toured the Hall, I know what you can do-you are quite marvelous at woodcraft."

"Well, thanks, but..."

"Of course it would be pro bono-there's barely any budget for materials."

"That means-"

"I know what it means, Louisa."

"But you would be giving to the community, practicing good citizenship, and the children would be so pleased. And, it wouldn't be so very time-consuming."

"It ain't-isn't the time, Miss Maples."

"I think there's a way you could use it as a tax write-off.

Mr. Hawkes might know."

Yeah, if it's a write-off I bet he does, Jamie thought. "No, it's not the money either."

"Well what? Speak up!"

Jamie felt like he was back in a cla.s.sroom, about to get whacked with a ruler.

"I-I-I d-d-don't think the parents would like it. Me bein'

around their kids."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Louisa was looking at him strangely, too.

"I mean, everybody knows I was a mental patient...."

"So? There are several people in this town who have been mental patients. Sometimes I think there is something in the water.... And, there are several more who should be. No one thinks anything of that."

"Well, and lot of people thought I was the person who kidnapped Katie Roddendem...."

"Mr. Sommers, you are deluded if you think people believe that. Katie Roddendem Morgan will tell anyone who listens that you are one of her dearest friends."

For a second, the sudden surge of love and grat.i.tude he felt toward Katie overwhelmed his senses; he felt tears jump to his eyes.

"And the Hawkeses have trusted you with their little prince and heir for years." Jamie realized she meant Ricky.

"Quite frankly, the town has had other things to talk about for some time now, Mr. Sommers."

Jamie remembered to shut his mouth. Grenville told him often enough it made him look like an imbecile to stand around slack-jawed. If what she said was true...

Then when Mr. Garvey said, "How's it going, Jamie?

What you planting this year?" he was inquiring, not feeling sorry for the poor loser Jamie.

And when Mayor Wells sat next to him at the counter in the Coffee Shoppe, and said, "What ya think, Jamie, we ever going to get any rain?" he was asking for an opinion, not checking up on lowlife Sommers.

And Riley, at the gas station, who kept bugging him to join the bowling team- The people who said, "Good morning, Jamie. What's Mr. Hawkes up to these days?" weren't secretly afraid of him, or despising him, or even thinking about him much.

He was just another citizen of Hawkes Harbor. He was awed by the thought.

"Well, uh, okay." He managed not to stammer.

"Good. Meet me upstairs in the gymnasium when you're finished here. We can start with the Christmas pageant. I have a wonderful idea for the manger...."

When she left, Jamie picked up his wrench and wondered what it was he'd been doing before she a.s.sailed him. The pipes? "Well, that should be a treat for you. Much more fun than helping me."

He jumped and managed to dodge the wrench. He'd forgotten all about Louisa. "Well, it might be."

At least making scenery sounded like more fun than unpacking volumes, artifacts, filing doc.u.ments.

Otherwise, he couldn't see much difference really, in being bossed by one woman or the other.

"You never did tell me why you've needed extra money."

"Well, I don't have to. But I guess it is your business in a way. I got a lot of lawyer bills to pay."

Louisa was as astounded as he'd hoped.

"Legal bills? Why on earth would you need a lawyer?"

Jamie thought about saying, "To sue you, like Dr.

McDevitt suggested."

But he didn't. Louisa could be exasperating, but he was very fond of her, too. He didn't want to hurt her feelings.

And he knew what he'd done would anger her.

"Last week me and Leonard Pagano went up to Terrace View to see Dr. McDevitt. He gave me every test he could think of, and he said I was probably the sanest person in Hawkes Harbor. Having a bad memory, being a little bit nervous don't make you crazy, he said.

"I ain't in your custody anymore, Louisa, and I got papers and legal witness. You want a forcible commitment, you'll have to go through the courts, and prove me a danger to myself or others, and Dr.

McDevitt will show up at any hearing. And he's on my side. And my lawyer will be there, too.

"So don't tell me you're gonna send me back to Terrace View anymore, Louisa. You're not sending me anywhere. Not ever."

Louisa's jaw dropped. First at his audacity, then at the realization he'd taken her seriously all these years.

Grenville is right, Jamie thought absently. You do look stupid standing around with your mouth hanging open.

He wasn't going to tell her all of what Dr. McDevitt had told him-Louisa's days of running Terrace View were over.

"She's not a bad person, Doc."

"No, Jamie, and she is a very good anthropologist. But she has no business dealing with patients and you very well know it. And now her grandfather knows it, too."

Still, Jamie thought, let him tell her. This will be bad enough.

He braced himself, knowing nothing angered Louisa Kahne more than any loss of power; he watched her search her mind for the next plan of attack, knowing what she would come up with- "What's Grenville going to think of all this? He's going to be furious."

Jamie swallowed, though he had prepared for that possibility. "Well, Louisa, Grenville may be mad at me, maybe he'll even fire me.

"I just don't think he's going to kill me anymore." Louisa Kahne was speechless.

Later that night at dinner, she recounted to Grenville the whole episode-with much heat, and a little exaggeration of Jamie's disrespectful att.i.tude.

He listened in silence, nodding.

Finally she sputtered to a stop.

"Well?" she said.

"You don't suppose we'll have to attend school plays just to view his handiwork, do you?"

"No, I mean, what do you think about the other-"

"I think I'll give him a raise," Grenville said. "He shouldn't have to take extra jobs on his days off."

He paused. "I wish he'd asked my advice about a lawyer. Pagano's fees are outrageous."

The money was welcome, but Jamie appreciated the gesture much more.

Day After Christmas The Boardinghouse Hawkes Harbor, Delaware Christmas Day, 1978 "It always beats me why you two would rather eat Christmas dinner here than up at the Manor."

Mrs. Pivens handed Jamie the sweet potatoes.

"Food's better," Jamie said. He looked up at the late arrival, annoyed.

"I had to put in an appearance, sorry. The company's better, too." Rick Hawkes flung himself into a kitchen chair, yanking at his tie. He winked at Trisha. She tried to ignore him but couldn't help a smirk.

"I'd be in the kitchen with the rest of the staff," Jamie said. "They're sn.o.bbier than the Hawkeses themselves.

Noses so up in the air they'd drown in a rain. And here n.o.body's going to count the silverware after I leave."

"And n.o.body's going to gasp and cry if I break a priceless antique whatever that we only use for Christmas." Rick went on with the list of why the boardinghouse Christmas dinner was better than the elegant affair at the Manor.

"In an hour Father will be drunk and quarreling with Aunt Lydia. Barbara has brought home some freak she's found at Berkeley. The Boston branch is sitting there horrified. At least I think that's it. They're so inbred that may be the only expression they can come up with. Louisa and Grenville are already snipping at each other-are they ever going to get married, Jamie?"

"I doubt it," Jamie said. "Grenville's pretty set in his ways. 'Sides, he's been married twice before. He does like to rile her up, though."

"Can't blame her for trying," Trisha said. "He's still the s.e.xiest man in town."

Mrs. Pivens laughed, while Rick made a growl of protest.

"Oh sorry," Trisha corrected. "Jamie."

"Really, Jamie, how old is Grenville, anyway?"

"A little older than he looks," Jamie said blandly. "A little long in the tooth."

He fought a snort of laughter as Trisha's mouth fell open, as Rick stuttered for a change of subject. He'd always wondered how much those two knew ... when Rick was just a kid...

"Father says I can't go to Fort Lauderdale for spring break."

Rick found a new subject. "He wants me to go to London. For business! London! It won't even be spring there! Is there any ham left?

"Anyway," he resumed, sliding back in the chair with a plateful of ham and turkey and mashed potatoes, "Grenville was on my side. Said London would be cold and rainy."

"He's right," Jamie said. London had never been one of his favorite places. "You need to go somewhere warm.

Too bad Havana-" Jamie stopped abruptly. He had a vivid memory-not of Havana, where he'd never been, but of a hot dusty train car in the south of France. He could hear Kell's voice so clearly, over the rattle of the train. Kellen-describing Havana-the beaches, the palm trees, the soft hot nights, the nightclubs. He could almost smell the flowers, the women, the fancy cigars.... "It's too bad you missed Cuba in its heyday, Jamie. The women in Havana are just your type."

They'd gone to New Orleans, instead, he and Kell.

Jamie hadn't been too much older than Rick, then.