“Good night, son.” He turned down the hall and was in his room before Leo could say much. He undressed to his underwear, turned off the light, and lay there in air that was hard to breathe. The river made hardly a sound as it moved high in the trees behind the house. There were moonlight shadows on the wall, and he thought of fall coming. He thought of his whole senior year without Gerry. Without Allie. Because Chick was serious. He was packing up and driving his family up to one of those communities in Vermont. Leo remembered what Allie had said about her mother not believing in Chick anymore, not wanting to go to Mississippi, but Leo thought she might go to Vermont. Allie was too close to the situation to see, but her mother was devoted. If she wasn’t, why would she have given Leo the boot for the week? Why would she visit her husband every day? And shave him, and all that? Nope. They were definitely going. The top of Spoon Hill would be empty of them very soon. They were almost gone already.

Leo heard a car or truck pass by up on Paper Boulevard, and he thought of Gerry and his Corvair, the way he just had a car one day, and then was gone for World Adventure the next. GP wasn’t as thick as he seemed. He was going to do things, probably be a businessman like his pop, but richer, and he’ll marry another Betty with big breasts. But not me, Leo thought, I’m going to play the harmonica all the way around this globe, and he saw himself up on the stage in nightclubs like the one in his dream with Katie Faye and Big Bill Broonzy. New York City, London, and Paris.

He got up and stood in the moonlight in the middle of his room. He turned on the overhead light and counted the money in his drawer. Over $600. He looked up at Big Bill’s wide-eyed sweating face in the poster. Such a bluesman. What was better than being called that? Nothing, that was it. That was the only way to go.

“Hey.”

Leo jumped at the whisper. The doorway was empty and he couldn’t see past the screen because of the light over his head. He hit the switch and saw only darkness for a second.

“It’s me. Open up, it’s Allie.”

The moonlight came clear again and he could see the outline of her head, of her long blonde hair that right now looked ghostly. He pushed the screen up its track. Allie was halfway through the window before he could even offer his hand. She took it, stood, then placed her hands on each side of his neck and kissed him on the lips. Her breath was bad. He kissed her back, but didn’t hug her or anything.

“Howdy, long lost boyfriend. Miss me?”