By the time Leo got through town and to Thompson Green, the sun was down and he was sweating. When he saw all the Buick Wildcats and Ramblers, even a motorcycle in Beatrice’s lot, he wished he’d gone back into his house to change into a fresh shirt and comb his hair, which lately he’d been letting grow out at the top. Gerry’s after-school shift got over at seven and Leo was going to meet him at the back door so they could pal around awhile, maybe go to Gerry’s house which was only a half mile back through Heywood and down the same road the school was on. He hoped that’s what they were going to do. It was a week night so he would only be able to stay an hour or so, but that would be sixty minutes in a living room where the whole Poitras family was gathered together until bedtime.

GP’s father would be in the big chair under the standup lamp. His shoes and tie would be off, his white shirt unbuttoned past his T-shirt collar. Sometimes he’d have a bunch of papers laid out on his briefcase in his lap. Gerry’s sister Ruth, who was twelve and pudgy but cute in the face, she’d be in her pajamas already, laying belly down on the rug watching Danny Kaye or “The Patty Duke Show.” Betty always sat on the side of the couch closest to the kitchen in case anybody needed anything. Most times when Leo was there with Gerry, she’d bring them tall glasses of cold chocolate milk and a plate of warm oatmeal cookies. Once Betty patted Leo’s arm and remarked how nice it was having him over. She went back to her knitting and Gerry whispered in Leo’s ear how she just found out he didn’t have a mother-who knows, maybe she’ll let you touch her boobs.

From the parking lot, Leo could hear the jukebox playing inside Beatrice’s. The Boxtops, it sounded like, though with all that laughing and talking going on in there he couldn’t be sure. He walked around to the kitchen door out back. Somebody had stuck a mop handle under the knob to hold it wide open, and Leo smelled fry grease and dish soap, heard meat sizzling, something else getting water-sprayed. He poked his head inside and looked left down at the pots-and-pans sink because where else would a night manager who thinks he’s funny put a kid named Poitras. But it wasn’t flat-topped tubby Gerry Leo saw there. Instead he found himself looking at a girl’s back. Her blonde hair was tied off in a braid, her apron strings dangled right along her round and soft-looking butt.