I took the story into our bedroom, shutting the door so I could concentrate. And somewhere in the middle of the wheelchair repo man’s angst, mine began to disappear. By the time I finished, I was laughing so hard I was sobbing. The repo man was a Poor Soul: Charlie Chaplin eating his shoes, Buster Keaton with the wall falling around him. In one scene a ninety-year-old woman in a wheelchair was chasing the bumbling repo man, hitting him with her cane while he tried to apologize. Woody Allen could play this part, I thought.

The door opened. “Well?” Sister asked.

“It’s great!” I said truthfully. “He’s Everyman with a conscience and the job from hell. I wonder why that’s so funny.”

“Funny?” Mary Alice scowled. “It’s not. It’s sad, Patricia Anne.” Then, after a pause, “Come on, let’s go to the beach.”

Frances arrived about three; we had left a note on the door that we were at the beach. Mary Alice and I were in the shade of a huge umbrella, both of us half-dozing, half-reading, with Factor 45 sunscreen coating us, and Haley was taking a dip in the water when Frances flopped down on the sand beside us. She had on unwrinkled linen beige pants (don’t ask me how) and every strand of her blonde hair was caught in her usual chignon.

“Hey, y’all,” she said. “Did you order this weather?”

We admitted that we had. Eighty-three degrees and a nice sea breeze in June is a day to be savored in Destin.

“You want a Coke or a beer?” I asked. “Or do you want to go unpack first.”

“Beer first.”

“You got it.” I reached in the cooler and handed her one. “You want one, Sister?” I asked. We were still being polite to each other. She took one.

“I thought you were going to be at a writers’ conference, Mary Alice,” Frances said.

“It doesn’t start until tomorrow. It’s a three-day thing with a reading on Friday night.”

“Hey, Frances!” Haley called.

“Lord, look at that child’s shape!” Frances waved. “Did any of us ever have a waist like that?”

“Patricia Anne did,” Sister said graciously.

“But you had boobs and I didn’t.” We smiled at each other.

Frances looked at us, puzzled, but she was too polite to ask us why we were being so nice to each other. Instead, she scooped her hand into the sand and said, “Goodness, this is wonderful.”

Haley came up, got a towel, and found a place in the shade of the umbrella. There were two little girls building a sandcastle close to the water, and WUWF was playing Beethoven’s Sixth, nice beach music. There was no hurry; there was no supper to cook, no sweet Woofer dog to walk. Bless his heart. But Mitzi would be good to him.