“Okay …” He leaned back in his chair, staring up at the ceiling as if his story, the years and days between our good-bye and this moment, were etched there. This offered me the chance to stare at him, to find the Hutch I loved and knew. His face was wider, his eyebrows lower, his mouth was lined around the lips; but when he looked at me, stared at me, he was there behind his eyes. I remembered once in college when a new sorority sister had looked at a photo of Hutch on my bulletin board, she’d said, “He’s so cute,” and I’d been surprised, not because he wasn’t good-looking, but because it was never the thing I noticed about him. I loved the Hutch who hid behind his eyes.

He gave me the facts. He’d been married six years to Ginger, whom he’d met in Atlanta after we broke up. Divorced when she slept with her personal trainer—a cliché not worth talking about, he said. No kids. He was inspired by his work at the Atlanta History Center. He lived in Virginia Highlands and for six years had been dating a woman named Hillary. “Life,” he said, “never turns out exactly the way you think. And sometimes that’s good.”

“You’ve been dating her a long time … ,” I said.

“Is that your polite way of asking why I haven’t married her?”

I tried to hide my smile but couldn’t. “Probably.”

“I wish I had a really good answer for you … and for her. Because I do love her. But I promised myself I’d never marry again unless …”

“Unless what?”

The waitress dropped our bill on the table, and Hutch grabbed it. “My treat.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Now … unless what?”

He placed a credit card on the bill and slid it to the end of the table. “That is an entirely other lunch, okay?”

I nodded. “Okay.”

After he paid, we walked outside, then stood at the curb in that awkward moment of finding a way to say good-bye.

“Thanks for feeding me,” I said, smiling.

He took my hand. “See you in Bayside.”

I let go of his hand and slid my sunglasses over my eyes. “Hutch … I don’t know …”

“I do.”

He waved over his shoulder, and once again, we didn’t say good-bye.

I made a list of all the things I would take to the Summer House the next morning. I didn’t doubt, for one second or even a half second, my decision to go to Ms. Birdie’s. After the last pair of shoes were thrown into my suitcase, I wondered if I should bring another bathing suit. I rubbed my hand across the leather journal and then tucked it under a cotton T-shirt.