“I’d invite you, but—”

“No, no. Please. I have food at home. I should get going as well.”

Outside, it was still light, but the sun was hidden behind a bank of dark clouds coming in from the west. There was a distant roll of thunder. “I’ll walk you home,” Harry said.

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s sort of on my way.”

They walked up the hill from the village, stopping outside the large redbrick Victorian where Grace had rented the room. There was an old Mazda RX-7 in the driveway and Harry wondered if it was hers.

“Let’s do this again,” Grace said, as a few fat drops of rain started to hit the sidewalk.

“I’d like that,” Harry said.

He turned and began to walk toward home, wondering if he’d get there before it really began to rain hard, when he heard Grace’s footsteps following him. “Wait up,” she said, and he turned.

For one brief moment, Harry thought she was going to keep coming and kiss him, but she stopped, a little breathless, and said: “I did know your father, a little bit, from down in New York. From Ackerson’s.”

“Oh,” Harry said.

“I felt bad lying to you about it.”

“Why did you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want you to think . . . We didn’t know each other well.”

“That’s okay.”

“Good night again,” she said, walking backward, smiling, nodding her head slowly, a gesture that seemed to say that she felt better now that she’d told the truth. But she hadn’t told the truth, at least not the whole truth. Harry was sure of that.

Chapter 15

Then

They sat on the beach together, up near the wall, each on one of the flat stones that clustered along the high-tide mark. It was high tide now, an occasional wave lapping at their feet.

Gina had wanted to come inside the condominium, but Alice had stepped out through the door, pulling it shut behind her, and said that they should go talk on the beach. It was clear that Gina was either drunk or seriously messed up on some kind of drug. Her eyes were red rimmed and unfocused, and her words sounded gluey in her mouth. Alice held her arm as they walked toward the water.

“I’m sorry, Al,” Gina said, “but I had to say something, because if I hadn’t then I’d keep thinking it, but now it’s ruined us and you’re my only friend in Kennewick, only real friend, and now you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Alice said.

“You don’t know what it’s like in New York. I, like, don’t trust anyone. Anyone. Everyone tells me I’m beautiful, and everyone tells me how I’m this big star, but I’m not, Al. Margery, you know Margery?”