Behind them Lily sat on the porch floor, playing with the reflection of the Chautauqua building in her mind. When the breeze died down and the reflection in the lake grew clear and distinct, she could squint her eyes and make herself believe that the reflection was the building itself. This seemed to make anything possible, and she went on to imagine ladies in white lawn and gentlemen in bowler hats strolling in the lake yard, a drunken monkey on a red leash, a blue mule, and a mysterious stranger with a black mustache. Then a little breeze would stir up the ripples, the reflection would slur, and everything would shift back to real. Her mind would clamp down again, and there would be the banjo player on that cold, cold night, nudging her down the walkway and saying, “How could you have thought it was that important?”

“Hey,” said the spoon player, looking at her through the spindles. “It’s not your fault. You just let love get tangled up in your mind with a stringed instrument, that’s all, easiest mistake in the world.”

Lily smiled at him, the patient, weary smile of the brokenhearted. “You’re sweet,” she said.

“I can help you.” He wiped his hands on his pants and slid the spoons out of his pocket. “I can teach you to play the spoons.” He drew them slowly across his cupped palm with a little muffled cluck. “Hell, I can make you wish you were a spoon.”

“Let’s cook this duck,” said the old lady, standing up and tweaking the seat of her skirt straight. “You bring him in,” she said to Louise, “I’m not that strong.”

“The thing is about spoons is,” said the spoon player, “your ears do most of the work.”

There was a clatter of pots and pans, rattling and crashing from the kitchen, and a big, sleek rat dashed through the screen door and hurtled off the edge of the porch.

“Sinking ship,” said Lily.

The spoon player closed his eyes, screwed up his face, and started singing “Pretty Polly,” then came in on the spoons, chucka chucka chucka. From the kitchen they heard steady talking, then a frying sound. “I was digging on your grave the best part of last night,” sang the spoon player. They smelled cooking onions, garlic, and pepper.

“She’s browning it,” said Lily. “My sister can cook anything.”

“Look here,” he said, “you take the spoons back-to-back, you put this finger between here, that gives you your distance.”

“But I don’t want to learn to play the spoons. I just want to walk down there and look at the water,” Lily said.