They exchanged phone numbers, and Harry got up to leave. She watched him through the greasy window of the diner as he walked to his car. In her head, she spoke to Grace. He’s not your type, she said, and Grace laughed.

Too young, right?

Far too young.

He’s all yours, Caity. Besides, as you now know, I’m dead. She laughed again, and the sound was perfect in Caitlin’s head, exactly how Grace laughed, loud and breathless, and usually at something she’d said herself.

Chapter 25

Then

After college Jake Richter worked at a succession of banks, first as a teller and eventually graduating to branch manager, before deciding to go back to school for his MBA at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. After graduation, most of his fellow students went to New York City or Boston to look for jobs, but Jake stayed in Rochester, accepting a job as an investment manager at a local bank. He stayed there ten years, buying a brand-new town house and working out at least five days a week at one of the new gyms that had cropped up downtown. He was in his midforties but looked younger, slim but muscled, and with a full head of hair. He left the greying temples alone because he thought they made him look even more handsome.

Some of the women who worked at the bank, mostly married bank tellers, would interrogate Jake on why he wasn’t married yet. “Still having too much fun,” he would answer, winking. It was essentially true. But the twentysomething girls from the gym that he dated were becoming less and less interesting to him. They were as experienced as he was, already cynical of the dating realm in which they existed. Jake was most attracted to the high school girls who traipsed through downtown after school let out, fantasizing about introducing them to sex.

Sometimes a group of teens, led by Joan Wilkes, the daughter of one of those married tellers, would come into the bank to get lollipops from the dish that sat on the lacquered table in the waiting room. Joan had flawless skin and natural blond hair, and she was always pestering her mother to take one of her fifteen-minute breaks to give her a ride home. On a cold and rainy November day Jake came out of his glassed-off office while Joan was lingering around, waiting for her mother’s break. He said, loud enough so everyone could hear, that he had a few errands to do, and did anyone need anything.

“Ooh, Mr. Richter, can you drive me home?”

Emily Wilkes, currently unoccupied at her station, said, “Joan! That’s not appropriate.”

Jake laughed. “That’s fine. I don’t mind her asking. And I don’t mind taking her, but that’s up to you, Emily.”

“Please, Mom.”