He was wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt open halfway down his chest, pleated slacks and Gucci loafers, no socks. He had a bottle of red wine in his hand.

"Hello," we said in unison.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure you can come in," Grandma said. "I guess we don't leave handsome men standing at the door."

He handed the wine to Grandma and winked. "Here you go, cutie."

Grandma giggled. "Aren't you the one."

"I almost never shoot people," I said. "Almost never."

"Me too," he said. "I hate unnecessary violence."

I took a step backward. "Excuse me. I need to help in the kitchen."

My mother hurried after me. "Don't even think about it!"

"What?"

"You know what. You were going to sneak out the back door."

"He's not my type."

My mother started filling serving dishes with food from the stove. Mashed potatoes, green beans, red cabbage. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's got too many buttons open on his shirt."

"He could turn out to be a nice person," my mother said. "You should give him a chance. What would it take? And what about supper? I have this nice chicken that will go to waste. What will you eat for supper if you don't eat here?"

"He called Grandma cutie!"

My mother had been slicing up the chicken. She took a drumstick and dropped it on the floor. She kicked it around a little, picked it up and put it on the edge of the plate. "There," she said, "we'll give him this drumstick."

"Deal."

"And I have banana cream pie for desert," she added to seal the bargain. "So you want to make sure you stay to the end."

Be still my heart.

2

I TOOK MY PLACE at the table, next to Eddie Kuntz. "You were trying to get in touch with me?"

"Yeah. I lost your card. I put it down somewhere and couldn't find it. So I looked you up in the phone book . . . only I got your parents. Good thing, too. Granny told me you're hard up for a man, and it turns out I'm between women right now, and I don't mind older chicks. So I guess this is your lucky day."

The chick made a valiant effort not to stab her fork into Eddie Kuntz's eyeball. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I got a call from Maxine. She said she had a message for me and it was coming by airmail tomorrow. I said tomorrow was Sunday, and there was no airmail on Sunday, so why doesn't she just tell me the message. Then she called me some names." He gave me a face like Maxine had hurt his feelings for no good reason. "Real abusive," he said.

"Was that it?"

"That was it. Except she said she was going to make me squirm. And then she hung up."