“Good. Working at the bookstore. Taking care of the animals. Making sure my aunts and my mother stay out of trouble. Reading books. The usual.”

He smiled at me, but I saw what was behind his eyes. “I don’t think anything about your life is usual.”

“It is. All usual.” Except for the premonitions. I was positive he knew about my premonitions. It was a small island. People talk. My guess is that he thought I was absolutely bonkers or delusional, or he respected my privacy and didn’t want to confirm that I am bonkers or delusional.

“I heard your mother and aunts brought the house down the other night at Bennie’s bar.”

Oh groan. I pet Virginia Alpaca to soothe her, although she seemed calm. I think she has a crush on Marco, too. “You heard about that?” I’d heard what was happening and headed down to drive them home as I knew they would need a sober driver. Everyone in the bar was singing along, swinging beer mugs back and forth through the air.

“Small island.”

“They had too much scotch. It’s their sinful drink. My mother says it catches up to her when she’s not looking. Plus, those three have scotch contests and throw them back like drunken sailors.” I shook my head. “I don’t know why they do that. They’ve been doing it since I was a kid, but you would think in their seventies some of this would have slowed down.”

“I thought it was hilarious. Heard they got up on the tables and danced to ‘Greased Lightning.’”

“It’s their go-to dance together. They’ve choreographed it. It’s better, if I’m honest, than if those three dance individually.”

“Why?”

“They like to wriggle around a lot. They’ve got that whole hip-swinging thing down.” My aunt Iris, tough as she is, could swing those hips like a twenty-five-year-old stripper. I’ve heard she still turns on men forty years younger. “It’s a bit lewd. Suggestive.”

He laughed. “They keep things exciting around here.”

“You could put it that way.”

“I heard you got up on the bar and danced and sang, too.”

“I had to,” I said primly. “Family loyalty. And they told me they wouldn’t come home unless I sang with them. It was bribery, clearly.”

He laughed.

Not only do my mother and aunts sometimes drink too much scotch and dance at one of our two bars, my mother and aunts invent impromptu parades. One parade was “Bring Your Pet.” They didn’t get a permit, “officially,” but the mayor is a longtime friend of theirs and scurried around, found a permit, and stamped it an hour beforehand, then he went home to get his pig, Pinkie. Mayor Than loves Pinkie and refuses to eat her. The streets were closed off downtown for horses, dogs, alpacas, goats, sheep, and cats in cat strollers, many in ribbons and hats and other animal costumes.

Each year we have a Hat Parade, too. To be in the parade, you have to wear a hat. My mother and aunts give out prizes at the end for Biggest Hat. Smallest Hat. Best Hat. Most Radical Hat. Most Scary Hat Without Being Violent. Best British Hat. Best Hippie Hat. Best Crazy Hat. They are the judges, but their own hats and any hat they made are disqualified so that people have a “hope in hell of winning.”