She motioned for Suzi to sit down on one of the twin beds, which she did. Rusty plopped down on the other, lying on her side in her baggy pink pjas, head propped up, staring at Suzi with her big blue eyes. It was a mysterious room, not what shead been expecting. All white, no other color to balance it out. No personality. It was like an inst.i.tutional room, like a room in a crazy ward. Girl Interrupted. The white bedspreads had nary a wrinkle in them.

Rusty mustave noticed her looking around. aI used to have all kinds of s.h.i.t in here, but I took it to the Goodwill.a aWhy?a Rusty shrugged. aI want as little of my actual self in here as possible. Itas my way of protesting.a aDang,a Suzi said. aThatas harsh. On yourself, I mean.a aThey can make me live here, but they canat make me enjoy it.a Suzi admired Rustyas zealous self-denial and wondered if she could strip her room bare this way. Nope. No way. She needed her comforting things. Her room was the polar opposite of Rustyas room. She and Rusty were opposite in every way, when you thought about it, but here they were talking. It was like a social miracle. Never wouldave happened outside this room. Rusty was two grades ahead of her but seemed way older. And she was easier to talk to than a lot of people. She didnat bother with meaningless chitchat, so Suzi decided to forgo it as well. aWhy arenat you watching Angel?a she asked Rusty.

aIave been deemed irresponsible.a aHow come you hate it here so much? Your dadas so cool!a aYou go right on thinking that. I know him, and he ainat cool.a aYou should see my dad.a aIave seen him.a They both shared a nasty little laugh.

Suzi asked what was wrong with Buff.

aLetas just say, his fixation on your sistera"itas not the first, and it wonat be the last.a aHow did you know he liked Ava?a For some reason, hearing this, rather than making Suzi angry or repulsed or frightened, gave her hope. aDid he tell you?a aItas obvious.a aDoesnat your mom care? Does she know?a Rusty sighed and rolled over onto her back. aSheas the Great Wall of China.a aHuh?a aShe knows, but she pretends she doesnat. She blocks it out. Even though heas been in treatment.a aWow,a Suzi said, but she didnat know exactly what this meant. In treatment for what? Did she want to find out? Not really.

aFor s.e.xual addiction,a Rusty added, staring at her ceiling. She sighed again.

aWow,a Suzi said again, thinking how peculiar it was for a daughter to be talking about her father this way. A minister with s.e.x-u-al addiction. What did this mean? That he couldnat help himself? Again, in a way that Suzi knew was sick and twisted, this gave her hope. But she didnat want to know more.

aWhat were you doing in here?a she asked Rusty.

Rusty rolled over and pulled a book from under the bed. aI bring in one book at a time, and when Iam done, take it out and bring in another. Usually I get them from the library. Otis gave me this one. Itas scintillating.a She held up an old white paperback book called Atoms to Electricity.

aHow do you know Otis?a Suzi asked, but she was wondering, Would she be able to hear Angel if she woke up?

aNight, night, Suze,a Rusty said, flopping back on the bed. aEnough questions for now.a * * *

The following Wednesday Suzi stayed late after youth group and watched as Buff cleaned up. All the other kids had left. Buff was supposed to give her and Ava a ride home, but Ava, of course, wouldnat lower herself to attend youth group. Buff was rearranging beanbag chairs in the chat room, scooping them up and slinging them into a corner, while Suzi, because of her knee, sat on a folding chair and watched. The muscles in his back and arms rippled under his white T-shirt as he bent over and picked up the multicolored beanbags.

He was scowling. Head been acting annoyed all evening. When one of the smaller boys, Nick, banged his elbow against a cabinet and doubled over in pain, Buff had told him to get over it. When one of the girls, Jackie, went on and on during check-in about a fight with her friend, head said, aThatas lame.a aWhereas Ava tonight?a he finally asked Suzi, kicking the beanbags into a mound. aDid we do something to scare her away?a aYou did,a Suzi said boldly. aShe doesnat like you.a Buff hesitated, glancing up at Suzi as if he were going to say something, then changed his mind. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the last beanbag chair, the one with a hole in it, and heaved it at the wall, and when it hit beans rattled out.

aBut I do,a Suzi said, her heart popping away like a string of firecrackers. aI mean, I like you.a She hoped Buff understood what she was trying to tell him.

aI like you, too,a Buff said, not meeting her eyes. He put his hands on his hips and surveyed the room.

Suzi knew what kind of like he was referring to. Pals. Buddies. aNo, not that kind of like,a she blurted out. aI like like you.a He finally turned, looking her up and down. aWhat exactly are you saying, honey?a Why was he making this so hard? aYou know.a He shook his head. aOkay, I know. But you donat know. Youare younger than my daughter.a aYour daughter hates you.a Because of all her sparring with Ava, Suzi had a knack for saying just the right thing at the right time, or maybe it was the wrong thing, depending on how you looked at it. But either way, her words usually had the effect she desired.

Buff walked over to the food table, where bowls of tortilla chip crumbs and plates of cookie crumbs waited to be taken to the kitchen. Buff slammed the table into the wall. aWait for me in my office,a he told Suzi.

Suzi stepped out of the chat room and stood a moment in the great hall, and she felt like cartwheeling across the cavernous room, dancing and whirling. She would have done it except for her lame knee. Ha-ha-ha, she was thinking, for some reason. Na, na, na. So there. She had no idea to whom these thoughts were addressed.

It seemed too good to be true, the morning that Suzi came knocking at her door. Marylou was wary about answering, because n.o.body ever rang the bell except Jehovahas Witnesses and the person who was hara.s.sing her, the coward whoad always run away by the time Marylou could step outside to look around.

Suzi had an eerie look on her face. Shead hobbled all the way over to Marylouas house on her bad knee, but the look on her face didnat seem to Marylou to indicate that she was in pain. On the contrary, it seemed like suppressed pleasure, the way Helen used to look when she came home from school, bursting with a story to tell her mother about some kidas bad behavior.

Marylou flung open the door, gave Suzi a hug, and invited her in, noticing that Suzi looked sloppy for Suzi, in an old T-shirt and sweatpants cut off into shorts and old flip-flops, her hair jammed down under a SeaWorld baseball cap.

aYou shouldave just phoned me, honey,a Marylou told her. aI wouldave come and got you.a aCould you take me to the library?a Suzi asked Marylou. aThe big one downtown? It has some books I need.a Marylou told her sure, wondering why she hadnat asked her mother to take her, but pleased that she hadnat. She explained to Suzi that theyad need to wait until her pineapple upside-down cake finished baking. While Suzi flopped down on the sofa in the living room with Buster to wait, Marylou busied herself in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and wiping counters.

She wanted to run over her options in her head once again, but shead recently had trouble thinking clearly. Maybe it was the torpid subtropical heat here. It was hard to focus.

Okay. Shead tabled her initial plan to murder Wilson, because there wouldnat be any satisfaction in murdering him if he didnat know, or understand, why he was being murdered, but it wasnat that she felt any sympathy for the wretched old coot. Even after that nighttime walk on Nunas Drive when he asked her to go ahead and kill him. Oh no. She did not feel a bit sorry for him. In fact, after meeting with him and talking with him and observing him, she hated him even more than she had when head simply been an abstract bogeyman. It was easier to despise him now that she had particulars to focus ona"his spotty, shaking hand waving in her direction like an underwater plant when he was trying to tell her something but couldnat form the words; his habit of farting like a pack mule when he walked; the way he sat three inches away from the TV screen and stared at the idiotic commercials for Depends diapers as if they were words of wisdom from on high. And hima"some smart research doctor who thought he was better than everyone else! A n.a.z.i doctor who treated pregnant women like his own personal guinea pigs! Shead stopped dropping in to see him because his decrepit condition depressed her. Shead decided to leave him be and take care of the rest of his family.

Marylouad decided that Suzi, the first family member shead met, was the person she wanted to focus on the most. She would continue to disrupt the lives of the others, but shead devote most of her trouble-making time to Suzi. But trying to decide how to best use Suzi was just as difficult as pinpointing the best method of ridding the earth of the sc.u.m named Wilson Spriggs, the American n.a.z.i. The problem was that she felt no desire at all to harm a hair on Suzias head. She liked Suzi. Plain and simple. In fact, she liked her so much that she wished she could adopt her. Who knew why you liked one person more than others? She and Suzi were nothing alike, so it wasnat that. Marylou was reserved and calculating and expected people to intuit her stellar qualities without her having to do a thinga"meanwhile ignoring all her weaknessesa"while Suzi was earnest, open and self-confident, and enthusiastic about life. Marylou felt good just being around Suzi. And Suzi needed her, too, since her own mother had checked out long ago. The two of them, she and Suzi, needed each other.

And now, in her cake-smelling kitchen, stacking hot clean melamine plates in her cupboard, Marylou had another hand-slap-to-the-forehead moment. Instead of trying to create trouble for Suzi, maybe she should pour her energy into creating a positive relationship with Suzi. Make Suzi want to come live with her! Suzi needed to spend time with Marylou, lots of time; and gradually shead become more and more estranged from her own parents; and soon she would turn, by her own choice, into the granddaughter Marylou had never had. The daughter shead never had. The daughter Helen wouldave been if shead been allowed by the American n.a.z.i to grow up like her friends had. Healthy. Smart. Kind. Loving. Responsible. Sweet. Funny. The truth was, Marylou loved Suzi. How could this be? But there it was. The feelings she had for Suzi both delighted and terrified her, but she couldnat ignore them.

It had already been harder than shead expected to drive any real wedge between Suzi and those hapless goats she called parents. The church thing, shead thought, would do it, but shead underestimated the motheras ability to avoid looking a gift horse in the mouth. What a strange expression that was. Was she, Marylou, the gift horse? She imagined herself with a horse head and Caroline peering into her mouth. One chomp would do it.

And shead also underestimated the fatheras determination to focus on anything but his job and that nasty, slatternly coworker of his. Gee-gee.

Shead hoped that Suzi would embrace fundamentalist Christianity and become a zealot, but she was wrong there, too. Shead underestimated Suzias ability to fold religion smoothly into her already well-rounded life like eggs into a batter.

It had also been hard to derail Suzi because she, Marylou, had so much to do! She was living in a new city; and living, period, took work. When shead first moved to Tallaha.s.seea"ah, those halcyon days!a"she had only her hatred of Wilson Spriggs to focus on. She knew n.o.body, had no place to go except the grocery store; and, on her first few visits to Publix, shead looked around and decided that every old man she saw pushing a cart must be Wilson Spriggs. She was in the town where he lived, and it seemed like everyone she saw must be connected to him in some way, like they were all in some unfolding drama starring the Radioactive Lady and the American n.a.z.i.

But now the people and places she saw in Tallaha.s.see had taken up their proper roles again. They were simply themselves, and she was forced to acknowledge them. She had to chat with the checkout girls at Publix and the woman at the hair salon (recommended by Paula Coffey) who cut her hair, and her coworkers at Florida Testing and a.s.sessment who liked to discuss American Idol and CSI while eating their bag lunches. She had to find new doctors. Keep up with her prescriptions. Locate a reliable lawn service and discuss the state of her yard with the workers. (She actually hated yard work, and shead put all the fake flowers around as a jokea"shead found them on sale one day at Walmarta"but it was like the emperoras new clothes. Everybody acted like they were real, so Marylou didnat bother to explain.) But mostly what took up her time was church. Even though it wasnat a Baptist Church, and it was the kind of church shead always turned her nose up at, she found she actually enjoyed going. It was her own fault, allowing Buff and Paula to pull her into their lair, but not having many other obligations she could use as excuses, it was hard to say no. So she was now going not just Sundays and Wednesday nights, but shead joined a womenas Bible study group, which met for breakfast on Thursday mornings, and a prayer group, which met for lunch on Fridays. And her Sunday school cla.s.s, the Wouldbegoods, was always doing community projects. Theyad talked her into helping with the food pantry and the clothing drive, and it all took time! Marylou was busier now than shead been in Memphis. aBusier than a one-legged man in an a.s.s-kicking contest,a Teddy used to say.

Six months after Helen died, Teddyad left Memphis and gone away, up to Wisconsin, where his sister lived, just for a visit, head said, but then he kept extending his stay. Finally he told her head gotten a job with the City of Madison Parks and Recreation Department and eventually asked her for a divorce. A few years later he remarried and had three boys who were now grown. She knew this because for years theyad exchanged cards at Christmas and the occasional letter, until one letter from Teddy, coming right after what wouldave been Helenas twenty-first birthday, informed her that he just couldnat write to her anymore, and asked her not to write to him. It was too depressing, he said, to be reminded of her and Helen, because the two of them went together in his mind, and always would, and Marylou understood. She and Helen did go together, but in her mind, Teddy went with them, and she was incapable of putting it all behind her, even if shead wanted to, which she didnat.

She was happy for Teddy that head been able to escape the weight of what had happened and create another life for himself, even if she hadnat been able to. Shead married Martin, of course, a few years after Teddy left, but, although he was a perfectly nice man, he was no Teddy, and she never could talk to him the way shead been able to talk to Teddy.

For years shead kept a notebook full of things she wanted to tell Teddy, things only she and Teddy would appreciate. Small things, mostly. The oak tree in the side yard got struck by lightning and it split the trunk right in half, but I wouldnat let them cut it down. I took swimming lessons at the Y, and it turns out Iam a natural! Remember Marcia Jenkins, that sweet but homely girl from down the street who was in my junior honors English cla.s.s? She married a Canadian Inuit! In their newspaper picture the two of them are rubbing noses. Remember how I used to hate prunes? Well, Iave gotten right fond of them in my old age. And so on.

After she got caught up with planning to murder Wilson, she shut that notebook, Notes to Teddy, for good. Teddy would never understand, or condone, her desire to get even. Living well is the best revenge, he always reminded her. Thatas what head said when she expressed to him her anger at her own parents, telling him how theyad abandoned her at her grandmotheras house in Little Rock so they could go off gallivanting in Hollywood. Teddy, while not making light of her anger, had encouraged her to forgive them, and after a time she had. But forgive Helenas death? Never.

Suzi Witherspoon was the first young person shead met, in all her years of teaching Sunday school and high school, whom she thought she could love the way shead loved Helen. She had to go carefully with Suzi. Not make any mistakes. It was even possible that if she was able to have a grandparent-grandchild relationship with Suzi, her anger about Helen would dissipate and she could get on with enjoying the rest of her life. Live and let live, as Teddy wouldave said. It could happen, couldnat it? Maybe it wasnat too late.

The timer dinged and she removed her pineapple upside-down cake from the oven. She was supposed to take it to a potluck supper her Sunday school cla.s.s was having that evening. Perhaps she could talk Suzi into coming with her.

The Leon County Public Library, where Marylou hadnat been before, was a two-story affair with large plate gla.s.s windows, built in the seventies. It was full, on this summer afternoon, of mothers with small children and office workers and scantily clad teenagers and people who appeared to be homeless napping in the air-conditioning.

Marylou had loved going to the Georgian-style, three-story library in downtown Little Rock when she was a child. Her grandmother would drop her off there a couple of afternoons a week, and in her memories of that library it was always summer. She relished the time by herself, the drowsy heat and whirring fans and smell of old book covers, sitting in the same plaid chair in the childrenas room and deciding which five books, in the stack of mysteries shead selected, she really wanted to check out, the same lady librarians working behind the counter, probably they were only in their forties but they looked, to Marylou, to be 140.

In the Leon County Library it was all DVDs and CDs and banks of computers. Suzi rode the elevator upstairs to get her books, and Marylou wandered to the back of the room downstairs where there was a childrenas section. She leaned against a long bookshelf and glanced through childrenas booksa"some of the same ones shead read to Helena"Three Little Horses by Piet Worm, that strange book with the gorgeous ill.u.s.trations of Blackie, Brownie, and Whitey dressed up like princessesa"but she was also secretly watching the children sitting around her, industriously coloring the free coloring sheets handed out by the librarian and fighting with their siblings while their mothers searched the library catalog on the computer.

After a bit Suzi reappeared, limpinga"shead left her crutches at homea"with three books she was clutching to her chest. aReady to go?a That excited look again.

aWhat you got there?a Marylou asked her casually.

Suzi blushed a deep scarlet under her SeaWorld cap. aJust some random books.a aOh. Okay.a But Suzi really wanted to show her. She crowded closer to Marylou, who was already jammed up against the shelf. Suzi displayed her books one by one: A Teenagers Guide to s.e.x, What Your Parents Wonat Tell You About Boys, and What Boys Are Really Thinking (and Should You Care?).

aHuh,a Marylou said, nodding, and sighed. Typical teenage stuff, she supposed. But did they have to get interested so young?

aCan I spend the night at your house tonight?a Suzi asked her. aSo I can read them? All my friends are busy or out of town.a Marylou decided to ignore that last part and said sure, but would Suzi like to attend the Sunday school potluck with her?

aNo way,a Suzi said vehemently.

So maybe Marylou was wrong about the folding in of the religion. Maybe Suziad already gone off it.

aThatas where the guy is. At church.a aWhat guy?a aHim.a Suzi held up the books again, glancing around as if she was afraid of someone listening in, although n.o.body was close enough to hear them.

aThe young man youare interested in?a Suzi snorted. aHeas not that young.a Remain calm, Marylou told herself. aHow old is he?a aOld. Really old.a Marylou felt faint and gripped the bookcase behind her. aItas just a crush, honey. Those come and go.a To her horror, Suzias eyes filled with tears. aWe did something we shouldnat have done.a Marylou led Suzi over to a miniature table and chairs and they perched, squatted really, on tiny kid chairs. Help, Marylou thought. What should she say? Shead never been a parent to a teenager. And the ones today were nothing like the ones shead taught years ago. Or maybe they were, but the ones shead taught in the 1950s knew to hide things better.

aSo you let him aa Marylou trailed off, wanting, and not wanting, to know the details.

aWe had s.e.x!a Suzi said, not even bothering to whisper.

Marylou glanced around the kidsa section, wild-eyed. Every person she looked at, mother and child, was staring back at her.

Suzi went on, talking too loudly. aI thought I wanted to, because I love him, I really do, but I wish Iad waited. I wanted to wait till I got married. Or at least engaged.a Marylou whispered, aHoney. Youare not aa aNo!a This time Marylou didnat even bother to look around. She felt that righteous anger welling up in her again. Shead missed it. aDid he force you?a aIam such a s.l.u.t.a aYou are not a s.l.u.t.a Suzi went on like Marylou hadnat spoken. aI asked him. I thought I wanted to. I love him. And he wants to meet me again. Tonight! I told Sierra and she thought I should go tonight, but she probably thinks Iam a s.l.u.t and is telling everyone.a Marylou scooted her little chair toward Suzi and hugged her, comforting her as best she could. Why would sensible, sweet little Suzi do such a self-destructive thing? The poor kid!

Finally Suzi lifted her head from Marylouas shoulder and whispered, aDonat you want to know who it is?a No, she thought. But she said, aIf you want to tell me.a The lip quivering again. The repressed smile. This next revelation, Marylou realized, was really the shocking part about what Suzi wanted Marylou to know. The other stuff was just warm-up.

aItas against the law, having s.e.x with a young girl,a Marylou heard herself say. aWhoever did this to you could be arrested. Should be.a aI know, I know. I donat want him to get into trouble. His wife canat find out. Ever.a Marylou gripped the seat of her chair. aHe has a wife?a Shead been picturing some nasty, sly-faced older teenager, not someone with a wife.

aI canat tell you.a aYouave got to tell me. This canat go on.a aThatas why Iam telling you. I guess I donat want it to go on. I do and I donat. It all started because of Ava. Itas her fault. I just offered myself as a replacement for her. Since she wouldnat. His daughter told me thatas what he wanted, since he likes to look at pictures of young girls on the Internet. I felt sorry for him acause Ava was being such a jerk to him. She couldave said no nicely.a aWho is it, Suzi?a Suzi was sobbing now, and it look a long time before she could speak his name.

That night Suzi went to sleep in Marylouas bed, with Buster. Marylou skipped the potluck and sat on her screen porch in the dark. She had to figure out what to do, who to talk to, which of the emotions swirling inside her to express, and to whom.

Mostly she felt terrible for Suzi, because she knew, from her own experience with a nasty uncle, that this event would affect her the rest of her life. This sort of thing happened to a lot of girls, but that fact didnat lessen the pain of it, not one iota. She also felt terrible for Paula and Rusty and Angel, but not as bad as she felt for Suzi. It was awful, not being able to take away what had happened to Suzi.

Suzi had begged Marylou not to tell, not yet, and Marylou had promised; but of course she had no intention of keeping this promise. If Suzi wouldnat tell, she would. But who should she tell first, and how should she tell them? For some reason she found herself wanting to tell Wilson, the only person around who would listen and remain calm(ish) and help her come up with a plan. But, no, that was ridiculous. She couldnat tell Adolf. Should she tell Caroline? The police? Buffas wife? Buff himself? Shead always thought there was something slick and shifty about Buffa"a proper nickname for a grown man? So why was she so surprised? But a thirteen-year-old girl? That was different from fornicating with l.u.s.ty choir women. Reverend Coffey was depraved. She wanted to run over and pound on Buffas door, and she just might do it.

All those people must be told. She hated to be the one to tell, the one to start a chain reaction of events that would hurt lots of people and would draw attention to her in a way she wanted to avoid, seeing as most people she knew here didnat know her real name or why shead come to Tallaha.s.see in the first place. But she could deal with all that. What was worse was the paralyzing guilt, worse than shead ever experienced before; and she couldnat argue herself out of it, the way shead learned to do when she started berating herself about the radioactive c.o.c.ktails.

Because this whole thing was her fault. It was her fault. She had taken Suzi to that church for her own devious purposes and delivered her into the clutches of that creep. Could she ever stop ruining the lives of innocent people? First her own daughter and now Suzi. The Radioactive Lady, it seemed, was just as destructive as the nasty s.h.i.t shead swallowed.

She could be sitting anywhere, on any screened porch in August, the heat cradling her, the cicadas in the live oak trees doing their metallic buzzing that sounded like hot, hot, hot, she could be in Memphis or Tallaha.s.see or Little Rock and it didnat matter because only her internal landscape counted at the moment, and it was a familiar landscape, a place shead found herself many times, a safe, cool numbing place she might call Freeze. Freeze wasnat like the Stop in Go-Stop, Go-Stop, behavior that Teddy had always teased her about. Freeze was more like: Iam checking into the Econo Lodge and Iall see you later. Shead spent time in Freeze after her parents had hopped into their Studebaker and driven away from her grandmotheras house, and for a time after Uncle Pat molested her. Shead lived in Freeze for years after Helen died.

She sat there in her teak patio chair for she didnat know how long, deep in the land of Freeze, not able to move, or think, or feel. Then she heard a rustle outside. Sometimes when she was sitting out here at night she imagined a giant c.o.c.kroach creeping through her backyard or an armadillo as big as a collie. There was something prehistoric about this landscape. But the rustling she was hearing now sounded like a person. A person creeping through the tangle of shrubbery and vines along the back of her house. It was nearly midnight, so her tormenter had just a.s.sumed that, as usual, shead be in bed. She remained motionless on the dark porch, barely breathing. When the shadowy figure came into view at the sliding screen door, it froze in surprise.

aGraahhhh,a Marylou bellowed, hauling herself out of Freeze with her own angry voice, not even sounding like a human being, lurching to her feet and s.n.a.t.c.hing up an empty candlesticka"the old lady did it on the screened porch with the candlestick!a"yanking open the screen door, letting the candlestick fly at the fleeing figure. It missed by a mile.

But shead seen who it was. Now, at least she knew.

Theread been five tropical storms and only one named hurricane so far this summera"Ernestoa"and Ernesto hadnat amounted to squat. With a name like that, what would you expect? All predictions had been for Ernesto to swing into the Gulf, but by the time he rumbled over eastern Florida, he was only a mild tropical storm. Now Vic had a new friend: Grayson. Another wimpy name, but who knew? Grayson was pa.s.sing over the Dominican Republic this very day, and all forecasts had him headed toward the Gulf.

The portfolio scoring was going swimmingly. Training sessions for portfolio scoring were over, and so for the scorers, the relative excitement of training and qualifying had given way to the drudgery of scoring, of just showing up and getting through the portfolios. Each had to be scored by two readers. Readers scored each essay on a bubble sheet and slipped the sheet into an envelope so that it wouldnat influence the other readeras a.s.sessment. Gigi had to be on call to answer the scorersa questions and resolve nonadjacent scores, and Vic was back to overseeing all the trainers. This batch of scorers, surprisingly sane and reliable, were working quickly, and it looked like theyad be finished ahead of schedule. Ron, Vicas supervisor, was as pleased as head ever been, and Vic expected a raise and a promotion when the project was over.

Nance was one of the stalwarts. She hadnat missed a day. She was there every morning at eight thirty, carrying her lunch in a red oilcloth baga"turkey sandwich on whole grain bread, a ziplock bag of pretzels and another of baby carrot sticks. She either ate with some fellow senior scorers or ate alone and perused People magazine. She never gave Gigi or him any more trouble about scoring; in fact, she never said much to Vic at all, but sometimes when he was chatting in a corner of the room with Gigi, laughing with her, making plans for after work, head glance over and catch Nance staring at him. It was unnerving.

He and Gigi had taken to eating their own lunches at a picnic table outside, telling themselves it was because they were the only two people at FTA who wanted to deal with the heat. Inside it was so cold that at first the heat felt wonderful, and being alone with Gigi felt wonderful, too. The picnic table, an old wooden one, was back under some giant pine trees, always covered with pine needles and sap, but that didnat deter them. It felt like time travel, like junior high, eating lunch with his girlfriend.

On this particular Friday, a week before the end of the project, they swept the needles off the table, plopped right down in the sap, and gobbled their brought-from-home sandwichesa"his peanut b.u.t.ter and honey and hers chicken salad wrapa"chewing and smiling but not talking. They both wore sungla.s.ses. His wire framed, hers white-framed catas eyes.

Vic shared his strawberries and blueberries and vanilla yogurt, and Gigi shared her sesame sticks and Milano cookies, and then they drained their sodas, wadded up their trash, and, leaving their lunch boxesa"his s...o...b..-Doo, hers Lily Pulitzera"went for a walk around the parklike grounds of FTA. By then the heat had thawed him and was cooking him, but he didnat want to go back inside, even though their lunch hour was nearly over.

It was strange how, when Gigi first started working with him, theyad done nothing but talk, and now they didnat talk much at all. As they strolled on a paved path through a weird little glen dotted with stone benches that n.o.body ever sat on, Vic felt pulled toward Gigi, the same way head once been drawn to his former FTA coworker Wendy, the pregnant one, the one on whom head practiced successfully his all-and-nothing technique of avoiding adultery. He and Wendy used to saunter along these paths on their lunch break, and he had wanted nothing more than to wrap her in his arms, big belly and all, but he never did. Theyad never even kissed, not once.

He and Gigi had already kissed, many times. Theyad been having drinks and sometimes dinner every night after work. Hugging good-bye in the restaurant parking lots had escalated to kissing good-bye and finally to making out in her car like a couple of adolescents at a drive-in movie. It was ridiculous, shameful, and exhilarating.

Now he wanted more, or told himself he wanted more. He wasnat sure which. As they moved together down the path, he was aware of the curve of her breast, the dimple in her left cheek, her hair bouncing on her bare shoulder. They walked down a little hill, Gigias sandals clacking on the pavement, and followed the path into a grove of pines, Gigi a few steps ahead of him. The hem of her wildly colored dress. .h.i.t her a couple of inches above her knees, her freckled calves tightening each time she took a step. He imagined lifting her dress over her head, revealing nothing but her underneath. What was she thinking? Why didnat she say anything? But he didnat say anything either. He wasnat ready yet. He was committing petty crimes, getting used to the idea of himself as a criminal, working up to the felony. It wasnat too late to go straight, he reminded himself. He savored the excitement of teetering on the edge, feeling young and reckless. Nowhere near dead.

Gigi had stopped and turned toward him, one hand on her hip, like a model posinga"Hipster in Hicksville. The two of them were at the edge of the FTA property line, marked by a barbed-wire fence. Across the fence was a pasture; and way off, under an oak tree, a group of Cracker cattle, brown with white spots, stood patiently waiting for the sun to go down. Little egrets hopped among them, eating bugs.

He pulled Gigi into his arms and kissed her neck, her ear, her lips. aYou feel so good,a he managed to say.

She struggled away from him. aHow long are we going to play this little game?a she asked him, sounding more hurt than angry.

Drunk with l.u.s.t, no blood in his brain, he took the question literally. How long? Huh. Letas see. Out in the field, fire ant mounds were scattered around like huge brown sand castles. aWould you look at the size of those ant hills?a he said.

Gigi harrumphed and gave him a shove. aSuch a boy,a she said, and began clomping back up the path toward the low, flat-roofed brick building, sixties faux-prairie architecture gone amok. A landscaping guy on a golf cart crossed behind Gigi and waved at Vic. Had he seen anything? Why was he waving?

Gigi, a siren in her mod dress, kept walking toward the building and another afternoon of game playing, and before he knew it he was jogging after her.

Later that afternoon, after the scorers had gone home, Vic wandered into the language arts scoring room to ask Gigi if she was ready to go to Andrewas. She had her back to him, so he snuck up on her as she sat at a long table under those G.o.d-awful lights, bent over a portfolio, her hair now drawn back in a messy ponytail with a plastic grip, moss green sweater wrapped tightly around her. As Vic tiptoed toward her, holding his breath, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and nuzzle her neck again. His all-and-nothing plan of action hadnat worked worth a d.a.m.n. And to answer her earlier question, he wanted to end the game right now. He was ready, even eager, to do something incredibly stupid and cruel and destructive. There was an almost painful relief in this realization. Letas just go to a hotel, he would say. Forget the drinking and the dinner and the extended foreplay. In his mind, he was already there. They were already there, the full length of their naked bodies locked together on a bed, her legs parting.

Just as he was about to lean down and embrace her, he saw what she was doing with her yellow number-two pencil on the bubble sheet. She was erasing one scoreras score and changing it so that it matched the other. He watched her do this to another score sheet without even looking at the portfolio, let alone reading the essays to determine which was the right score. For a few seconds he actually considered pretending he hadnat noticed, but as he watched her change score after score, his desire shriveled up and anger replaced it. Finally he said in a low voice, aWhat are you doing?a She shrieked and threw her pencil. af.u.c.k!a She turned to Vic, her face flushed, from either embarra.s.sment or surprise or both. She didnat answer his question but stood up and backed away from him, trying to recover her equilibrium.

aHow long have you been doing that?a She shrugged, like one of his teenagers. aI donat know. Couple of days.a There was noise in the hall, a clanking sound, which could have been the janitor emptying the trash can. There could be straggling scorers lurking about or other FTA employees. He tried to keep his voice down. aYouare compromising the whole project! How can you know which is the right score unless you read them?a She took a few more steps away from him, arms folded on her chest. aWhat difference does it make? I mean, come on!a aOneas right and oneas wrong. Thatas the difference.a Ironic, him saying that, after what head just been thinking about s.e.x and hotels.

aOh, really?a she said, trying for coy. aDidnat you say yourself that all holistic scoring just pretends to be unbiased?a aI said it tries to be unbiased.a Gigi smiled a tight little smile and displayed her palms, like, same difference.

Vic dropped down onto a nearby table. It was happening again, and head so hoped that it wouldnat, not with Gigi. He was weary, so weary, of being saddled with the task of trying to make unreasonable people see reason, which head been doing, it seemed, all his life. The most unreasonable people of all had been his own parents.

Caroline swore that the Aspergeras gene, if there was such a thing, mustave come from Vicas side of the family, and he really couldnat argue with that. Vicas father always wore his trousers, as he called them, belted up above his waist and too short besides. You could always see his black socks, even in the summer when he wore sandals. Vic drew his fatheras attention to these fashion errors, but his father couldnat have cared less. For a while Vicas father played drums, badly, in a small circus that toured Iowa, and before Vic knew enough to be embarra.s.sed, he went to hear his fatheras band accompany Tonja, the henna-haired trapeze artist, as she swung by her knees over their heads. The absurdity of it was stunning. But Vicas father was a college professor, and, among his university colleagues, eccentric behavior was tolerated, even expected. The man taught in the English Department, after all. He taught the Bible as literature, and he was an atheist! What sense did that make?

His mother collected unbeautiful, unnecessary thingsa"magazines, dolls, Kleenex boxesa"and stacked them around their house, forcing the occupants to walk ever narrowing pathways between the rooms. Forget about sitting on the furniture. His mother never once answered the phone or the door, not wanting, she explained, to be put on the spot.

By the time his parents went into a.s.sisted living they decided, after never exchanging a cross word in their entire marriagea"or not one Vic remembereda"that they hated each other so much they had to have separate apartments. But even that wasnat enough, because they ran into each other around Melrose Meadows and became offended by the otheras cruel or show-offy or childish behavior. They called Vic to complain about each other, but nothing he said made a bit of difference, and they died, three years apart, bewildered about why theyad ended up alone.

And the unreasonableness went on. There was his wife, who was convinced that Nance was one of Wilsonas radiation victims, even though she had no evidence whatsoever for her theory. There was Ava, to whom head explained over and over again that if she didnat learn to deal with her anger and quit physically attacking her sister shead attack somebody else someday and end up in jail. Suzi, who wouldnat do her physical therapy exercises, even though she claimed she wanted her knee to get better. Otis, who hid out in that infernal shed all the time. Wilson, who wouldnat go out of the house by himself anymore because he was convinced that a bogeywoman was waiting to get him.

Vic had a.s.sumed that he wouldnat have to take up the mantle of village explainer, or village scold, with Gigi, not because of her behavior, which had never been especially reasonable, but because of how he felt when he was with her. Head thought, head hoped, that he could be unreasonable, too, at least for a while, when he was with her, but it seemed that it was not to be. Sigh.

aWeave got to try to make scoring as accurate as possible,a he told Gigi. aThatas what weare here for. Thereas a lot of money riding on this project.a He sat down on the edge of the table, hating himself for saying these things and her for making him.

She shrugged and looked down at the floor. aItas so boring, reading all those essays.a aLots of kids are going to get the wrong scores. Doesnat that bother you? What if it happened to Travis?a She wrinkled up her nose and grimaced. aI havenat been doing it the whole time. I was just trying to hurry, so we could get out of here.a She stepped forward and started to hug him, pressing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest. How easy it would be to give up, give in, say to h.e.l.l with his job the same way head been planning toa"letas admit ita"say the h.e.l.l with his marriage. But he kept his arms at his sides.

She finally gave up and dropped her arms, c.o.c.king her head and making Bambi eyes at him. aLetas talk about this at Andrewas,a she said.

aIam not going to Andrewas,a he said. aIam going home. I need to figure out what to do about this.a aIam really sorry,a she said, stepping back, her face now pale. aI really didnat think this was that big a deal. You didnat act like it was.a He hadnat? Maybe he hadnat known how important the project was to him. How important his job was. aIave got to think,a he told her. But so far, thinking too much, about the wrong thingsa"in other words, rationalizinga"was what had gotten him into this mess.

aFine.a She started gathering up her stuffa"her gla.s.ses, her pens and pencils, her pack of gum, not looking up at him.

When he turned around to leave, he saw Nance in the doorway, her small neat figure, standing there, watching them, purse slung over her shoulder, that red lunch bag clutched in her hand.

aWhy are you still here?a He had no idea how much shead overheard.