“My God, yes.” She ran her fingers through her thick hair, exclaiming that Bron was the key to an authentic American experience. “I mean, everything comes together, not exactly through him, but around him, anyway: the squalor, the heartache of these girls imagining that their basketball may get them out of the neighborhood, the school itself, and then Bron Czernin’s story—truck driver trying to support a family on those wages. His wife works, too; she’s a clerk of some kind at By-Smart. My next step is his firm, By-Smart, I mean, the firm he drives for. One knows about them in a vague way, of course: they’ve been making European retailers shake in their boots since they launched their transatlantic offensive three years ago. But I didn’t realize the head office was right here in Chicago, or at least in one of the suburbs. Rolling-something. Fields, I think.”

“Rolling Meadows,” I said.

“That’s right. Bron tells me old Mr. Bysen is incredibly pious, and that at headquarters the day starts with a prayer service. Can you imagine? It’s utterly Victorian. I’m dying to see it, so I’m trying to organize an interview up there.”

“Maybe I should come with you.” I explained my efforts to enlist the company as a sponsor for the team. “Billy the Kid might get us in to meet his grampa.”

She flashed her enthusiastic smile at me. “Oh, Vic, super if you can manage it.”

We’d ended the evening still in relative harmony, which was a mercy, but I still didn’t sleep well. I slipped out of Morrell’s place early this morning, while he was still asleep, so I could drive to my own home and give the dogs a long run before my day started: today would take me down to coach again at Bertha Palmer, and I had promised Josie Dorrado to talk to her mother after practice.

The dogs and I ran all the way down to Oak Street and back, about seven miles. All of us needed the workout, and I thought I was feeling a lot better until Mr. Contreras, my downstairs neighbor, told me I was looking seedy.

“Thought with Morrell coming home, you’d perk up, doll, but you’re looking worse than ever. Don’t go tearing off to your office now without eating a proper breakfast.”

I assured him I was fine, truly fine, now that Morrell was home and mending well, that my current overload was temporary until I found a real coach for the girls at Bertha Palmer.

“And whatcha doing about that, doll? You got anyone lined up?”