“That’s right,” said Willie, straightening up to her nearly six-foot height. She was dressed in skin-tight beige riding pants, knee-high black boots and a grubby T-shirt that proclaimed she’d rather be riding. “My daughter Sassie, she’s the redhead. She mentioned that your daughter is on the squad, too.”

“Really?” Lucy couldn’t imagine what this was leading to.

“Well, what I was hoping was that we could work out some sort of carpool thing. I don’t know about you but I’m always coming and going with a million things to do and it would be a big help if I didn’t have to get over here every afternoon. Especially since you never know how long the practice is going to take. I mean, yesterday I was supposed to help out at my husband’s office, he’s a vet, you know, but I got stuck sitting here for almost an hour, waiting for them to finish.” She lowered her voice. “That’s Frankie LaChance, over there.” She cocked her head towards a cute little Volkswagen convertible. “She lives next door and her daughter Renee is on the squad, too, but just between you and me you can’t count on Frankie to be dependable.”

“Oh,” was all Lucy could think to say.

“So it’s a deal? We’ll take turns picking them up. I’ll do tomorrow, but I can’t do Monday.”

“Deal,” said Lucy, giving Willie’s hand a shake. “Monday. You can count on me.”

Then the girls broke formation and began picking up their things. Lucy watched as Sara walked across the field, accompanied by Sassie and another girl whose curvy figure and assured walk made her seem much older.

“That’s Renee LaChance,” hissed Willie, raising her eyebrows.

“How old is she?” asked Lucy.

“A freshman. Can you believe it?”

“Well, girls nowadays…”

“Believe me, that girl is trouble,” warned Willie.

That evening, after the supper dishes had been cleared, Lucy took her cordless phone and her battered Fannie Farmer cookbook out onto the porch and sat down in her favorite wicker chair, the one with the comfortably worn cushions. The book bristled with sticky notes and recipes torn from magazines and newspapers and she took her time leafing through it. There was that orange loaf cake she used to make, and the low-cal Caesar salad she’d never gotten around to making. And shish kebab, that would be good on the grill. Finally, in the very back, she found the list she was looking for, now yellow and brittle with age.