“Will we have water?” Leo’s tongue clicked dry against the roof of his mouth. He reached into the back seat for his harp harness and it was warm in his hands, the metal of the harmonicas probably even warmer. Jim squatted at the sideview mirror to knot his string tie. “You can have some iced coffee. Scared yet?”

“No more’n us, Jimmy.” Ryder already had his harness on around his waist. Leo was glad his strapped on like a bandolero. It would feel better stepping out in front of the picnic crowd with his chest covered like that. Ryder blew air through all his harps one at a time, checking for any dead notes. Leo did the same. Jim slipped the Mexican guitar strap over his head and started retuning his Dobro. He buckled a capo around the second fret and did a Missouri pick, sliding his finger thimble up and down the neck. Leo couldn’t hear his harps too well with Lars’s generator going, so he walked away from the car and the men. He kept all of his C’s in the bottom sheaths, then his B-flat, D, G, and A. The B-flat had a dull lisp in its mi note, and Leo tapped the harp on the palm of his hand, but the bad note was still there. He probably wouldn’t use that key tonight anyway, but it left him feeling a little undressed, not quite ready.

The sun was an hour from the tops of the Berkshires, and the only shade was in the Green where all the people were. Leo figured they thought Helena was Katie Faye, the ones who didn’t know Helena anyway. And there were probably two or three who knew Jim and had maybe even known Leo’s mother. From behind the Fremont, Leo did recognize a lot of the grownup faces, and there was a small group of kids from the high school sitting under a tree close to the gazebo. One of them was Billy Burrell. He was usually quiet like his old man, but now he was laughing very loud with a kid wearing glasses and a light blue suit jacket. Trying to be like college boys already, Leo thought, and he hoped Burrell would come up to him later so he could tell him he wouldn’t be back in Jewett’s class this fall either, he was gone too, off to bigger things, off to Paris with the U.S. Army. Then somebody touched Leo’s shoulder and he jumped back half a foot.

“Shit man, you scared me.” Ryder was wearing the dirty white Stetson cowboy hat he only wore two or three times a year, winter mainly. “Your daddy wants a powwow ’fore we go on.”

Jim was at the hood of the car pouring iced coffee from a red thermos into two paper cups. At the generator stood Officer Petrucci. He had his hands behind his back and smiled at something Lars was saying. He looked over at Leo and nodded.