“Not that you had to work too hard to get me going. So many of my conversations are with kids, it’s a novel experience to talk to an adult. Anyway, I moved back up here two and half years ago, with my belly about to burst. It wasn’t my plan, coming back to Maine. Nothing in my life has ever gone according to plan.”

“Whose does?”

“Bibi Chamberlain’s. You were about to ask me about her, right? You know we’re friends.”

“How well would you say you know her?”

“What does that mean?” she asked with sudden sharpness. “You’ve been talking with Tina Dillon, haven’t you? Because Bibi’s gay, everyone up here assumes I am, too. I think there may be a little projection going on. Did you know that the most popular porn watched by women is girl-on-girl?”

Felice Bazinet had a talent for shocking me into silence.

“What else did the Dillons have to say about me?” she asked.

I cleared my throat. “That you’re Bibi’s drug dealer.”

“You’ve found me out. Now you understand how I pay for this lavish lifestyle. The Porsche is in the shop being detailed, by the way. And you didn’t see the cases of Cristal I got hidden behind the trailer.”

The jokes were funny, but they didn’t add up to a denial.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“If that isn’t what you’ve been doing, I’m eager to hear what you consider an actual invasion of my privacy.”

“How’d you end up here, Felice?”

“On the hill? I already told you. Pregnant. Bankrupt. A couple of bench warrants out for me in Georgia. Not drug-related. My hubby forgot to pay certain taxes on our business. I should’ve taken the hint. When you marry a snake, he’s bound to turn on you, too, eventually.”

“Where is he now? Your husband?”

“Somewhere in the Caribbean would be my guess. One of those islands where his income can’t be garnisheed for child support. I picture him on a boat with a twenty-two-year-old in a bikini. Meanwhile I’m back home, waiting tables, living in a rat trap. I thought I’d seen the last of Maine after I left college. The day I graduated from Bates, I loaded a van and never looked back—until I ran out of money and chances.”

“You went to Bates? I went to Colby.”

“Good for you.”

I waited for an apology, but none was forthcoming.

“Colby, huh,” she said. “That explains a few things. The other wardens I’ve met have trouble speaking in complete sentences. Yeah, I majored in theater, but my thing was dance. A lot of good that did me in the working world.”

“For some reason, I thought you’d been in the military.”