“Hey Suther, look.” Gerry stood to the right of the door in an all-white fry cook uniform. On his blocky head was a white cap with “UFO” printed above the visor. He held both arms out and turned around in a circle. “Promotion of the summer, man. More money, more grease, no pots. I’m in training so I’ll see you later; my old man’s picking me up at eight.” Gerry went back to the fryolator next to the grill and Beatrice’s huge thirty-year-old brother Sidney who always sweated and never smiled.

At the wash sink, Allie Donovan was untying her apron, smiling at Leo as she did.

“Since when do you work here?”

“About an hour. My real shift starts next week, you know, when summer starts.”

“Oh”

She dropped her apron in a canvas hamper and smiled at him. “Come to walk me home?”

“Where’s that?”

“Spoon Hill.”

Spoon Hill was a mile north of Beatrice’s on the other side of the river. The closest way across was back through town to the covered bridge built out behind The Hungry Pioneer Inn and the court house building. Leo and Allie walked through the parking lot to Thompson Green. She jumped over the white rails onto the grass, and when Leo did the same she called him a copy cat, walking backwards, smiling.

“Who, me?”

“Is Allison’s work more intriguing than yours, Mr. Suther?”

“Maybe.”

Allie turned and ran to the gazebo, her braid bouncing and swaying against her neck. Leo couldn’t believe his good luck and he wasn’t going to jinx it by running after her either. The night air smelled like pine sap and the fryolators from Beatrice’s. He walked slow and straight as Big Bill Broonzy.

When he got to the gazebo steps he stopped and watched Allie up on the floor swinging her arms in little semicircles like a conductor. She stopped almost as soon as she started, though. They were both quiet a second.

Leo put his foot up on a stair. “You want to live in that mansion you were drawing?”

“Want? Do I want? That’s immaterial, Mr. Suther. You like that word? I just learned it, I love it. I’ll probably have to use it down in Mississippi. Jackson, to be precise.”

“Jackson?”