An evening in late July. The Ford running smoothly, along the avenue of maples lining the road leading along the slow swell of grade toward town, the grounds of the Maplewood already along the north side: the sand traps and greens and the taller roughs. He wore a driving coat, leather gloves, a visored cap and goggles. Beside him Joey was wrapped in a duster buttoned at the neck and spreading down around her to cover even her shoes, her hair covered with a wide-brimmed hat with flags of gossamer that tied under her chin. At her feet a satchel of gowns and slippers, costume changes. They turned into the long drive of the Maplewood and he took the fork for the long way around to the Casino. It was still early.

“I’m cooking in this tent.” Dust the color of ash lay over her cheeks and nose. This was a routine conversation warm summer evenings.

“It’ll likely storm later. That’ll cool things down.” To the east the crown of Washington was outlined shale gray against a welter of thunderclouds, lightning like small jets of gold cutting the dark from time to time. It was too far away to hear. The late sun angled against them.

“I’d rather it was to storm, it’d do it earlier. Pretty evenings like this, they all stay out till dark, hiking or golfing or playing tennis. Half of them just want to eat dinner and soak in their baths and go to bed.”

“That’s right.” He nodded, then added, “But there’s always still enough to go around. It’s never dull this time of year.”

She was quiet then. People in groups and couples and some alone walked the roadway edge, all with the practiced remove of the guest not bothering to glance at whoever was arriving by motorcar.

He knew her thoughts. She worked now with the hotel orchestra. Two nights here, then one at the Fabyan House, one at the Mount Washington, sometimes at the Profile House in Franconia Notch. It was later after the ballrooms closed that she’d be cut loose to the small after-hours clubs where he’d always find her; then alone with no orchestra. Just the piano player, sometimes some sideman from one of the orchestras tailing her to sit in. Some horn player. And her schedule was no different from her desire to have every available person in her audience, each night, at whatever place, each time. It was a greed, he thought, the greed of talent. At best three and a half months, thin-stretched to four in good years, when she had the audience she felt herself worthy of. With the proof. The rest of the year was makework. But for now she was only herself, some purified rare creature in footlights and the single spot when the stage lights went down, a length of velvet or satin or late at night sheer contours limpid on a stool or prowling the small stages. Her eyes innocent and hooded, turned down toward herself and bold yet still; thrust up with a jerk to find the one man five tables back who had not succumbed—who thought her a lovely voice but trite, too contrived, not quite making the mark, not grand—and she would drop her raised eyes on that one man and sing half a line or part of a chorus and then turn her head back down and he would be finished. Jamie knew how she worked.