Maybe I felt guilty about offending the ticket lady at Big Bertha, but Nancy was there to clear my conscience. She touched her glasses and said, “Mrs. Gish over there pickets Planned Parenthood every Sunday, with faked-up pictures of dead babies. Which is pretty funny, since her husband owns half the booths on the pier, including Funhouse Funnel Cakes, where I work, and he’s tried to cop a feel on just about every girl who ever worked for him.”

“Does he, now?” Jake asked. He was grinning, but there was a slow, sly chill in his voice that I knew from experience was a warning that we were wading into dangerous territory.

“Never mind, Jake,” Nancy said, and she kissed his cheek. “He only paws high-school girls. I’m too old for him now.”

“You ought to point him out sometime,” Jake said, and he looked this way and that along the pier, as if scouting for the guy right then and there.

Nancy put her hand on his chin and forcibly turned his head to look at her. “You mean I ought to ruin our night by letting you get arrested and kicked out of the service?” He laughed at her, but suddenly she was cross with him. “You dick around, Jake, and you could do five years. The only reason you aren’t there already is the marines took you—I guess because our nation’s military-industrial complex can always use more cannon fodder. It’s not your job to get even with every creep who ever wandered down the harbor walk.”

“It’s not your job to make sure I get out of Maine,” Jake said, his tone almost mild. “And if I wind up in the state prison, at least I’d get to see you on the weekends.”

“I wouldn’t visit you,” she said.

“Yes you would,” he told her, kissing her cheek, and she blushed and looked upset, and we all knew she would. It was embarrassing how tightly she was wrapped around Jake’s finger, how badly she wanted to make him happy. I understood exactly how she felt, because I was stuck on Geri just the same way.

Six months before, we had all gone bowling at Lewiston Lanes, something to do to kill a Thursday night. A drunk in the next lane made an obscene moan of appreciation when Geri bent over to get a ball, noisily admiring her rear in her tight jeans. Nancy told him not to be vile, and he replied that she didn’t need to worry, no one was going to bother checking out a no-tits cunt like herself. Jake had gently kissed Nancy on the top of her head and then, before she could grab his wrist and pull him back, decked the guy hard enough to shatter his nose and knock him flat.