Leo laughed and went into the kitchen. He took the meat loaf from the oven, cut himself a heavy steaming square of it, put it on a plate in the fridge to cool while he washed up, and changed into a pair of clean jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, and sneakers. In Jim’s room, he sprinkled Old Spice cologne on his comb and ran it through his hair. In the stand-up portrait on the bureau, Katie Faye was looking right at him. She was leaning on the hood of a black Ford Ryder had owned before Leo was born. A kerchief was on her head. She wore tight high-waisted slacks and a dark short-sleeved blouse. Her legs were crossed at the ankles and she was looking right into the camera, not showy, Leo thought, or like she was thinking how she looked. Katie Faye Suther’s face said, “I’d kiss you if that camera wasn’t in the way.” Leo went into the kitchen and ate his cooled meat loaf. Jim and Ryder’s music sounded greased and steady out in the parlor, and Leo pictured fast-talking Gerry Poitras working alongside Allie up at Beatrice’s UFO Show. He scraped his plate, brushed his teeth, and was booking it for Paper Boulevard just as Lars’s Rambler turned down Saunders Hill Road.

8

But there was nothing to worry about. Even with half the counter stools taken and all the booths filled with boys in cuffed jeans and tennis shoes and loose short sleeves, the girls in skirts and sleeveless tops, Allie interrupted an order to rush over and kiss Leo. There was only one other waitress working the floor, and she was way at the other end of the diner. Beatrice stood behind the cash register ringing up a check, peering over her half-glasses at Leo as if this on-the-job kissing was his idea.

“I’m done pretty soon, honey heart,” Allie said. “Have a seat.”

Leo sat one stool down from Beatrice and the cash register. To his left were two girls he didn’t know. They both had dark shoulder-length hair. The one closest to Leo had hers held back with a tortoise-shell headband. They were talking about Jayne Mansfield getting killed in a car accident down in Louisiana. Leo listened up because he hadn’t heard a thing about it.

“Her poor children,” the headband one said. “Can you imagine seeing your mother’s head get lopped off?”

Her friend covered her face with both hands and shook her head real fast. Allie took two plates of gleaming french fries from the grill window and placed them in front of the girls. When she served them their Cokes, she slipped one to Leo, smiling as she walked around Beatrice and the register carrying three dishes of vanilla ice cream on a tray.