Bob lowered his glass. “Yeah, Fran. One of her spies said she saw y’all out on Lazaretto. Said you couldn’t have slid a playing card between the two of you. And well—if Fran knows something, or thinks she does, the tide won’t change again before the whole island knows it, too. And as you are probably well aware of by now, you, my boy, are one of her favorite topics. You and your love life, that is, ‘or lack thereof,’ as she puts it.”

I took a contemplative pull on my beer before responding, “Women just hate to see an unattached man going happily about his business and enjoying the solitary life, don’t they?”

Bob snorted a short laugh. “There is nothing they hate worse than the idea of a single man. I don’t know why it riles women the way it does. It can’t be explained, it’s just one of those facts of female nature.”

“Well, Patricia and I are just...”

Bob held up a hand in the universal signal of Stop. “Whoa, partner, you don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m just filling you in before Fran water boards you. But I will tell you this: Patricia Latham is a remarkable young woman. There’s not a finer girl on Tybee Island, or in Savannah, for that matter.”

“I think I may find myself in agreement with you there, Bob,” I replied.

At that moment Big Tee arrived with a large platter and began to set the table for us. There was boiled shrimp, fried speckled trout, and roast oysters, along with hush puppies, coleslaw, and a large green salad.

When Tyrone had finished, he stood back with folded arms and looked at the table with professional satisfaction, before glaring and pointing a finger of accusation at Bob.

“Eat, Bob. You need to eat this food. You’re too damn skinny. Make him eat, Kennesaw. He don’t eat enough,” he said, casting an accusatory glance in my direction as though I were the source of the problem.

This was a surprise. I’d never heard Tyrone speak that many words all at one time. That amount of speech would usually be about a week’s worth for the big man watching Bob with a look of concern on his rugged ebony face.

“Leave it to me, Tyrone. I won’t let him up from the table until he cleans his plate,” I said with conviction, because I, too, was bothered by how thin our friend had become.

“Good,” Big Tee said in his deep bass rumble of a voice.

But as Tyrone turned to go, he hesitated, and then came back to the table, where he filled Bob’s plate with something from every dish. He then nodded his head curtly, as though to say, “There, take that,” before returning to his post at the bar.