The automatic smile, the laughing eyes, the hair grown ever so slightly longer so that it didn’t really qualify as a crew cut anymore but more the kind of shag Maynard Ferguson favored. Tim. In his glory. Smiling. “What’s weird?”

“I think I just had a flashback, if that’s what you call it.”

“Welcome to the club,” Tim said, opening his mouth in a yawn and locking his fingers to stretch his arms before him. “It’s an interesting phenomenon, isn’t it? You know what it says to me? It says it’s time to dive in again—when’s the last time you had a session?”

“Two weeks, three, I don’t know. I’ve been so busy with school—and packing—I’ve barely had time to come up for air.”

“Tell me about it—it’s an ordeal, isn’t it? But you’re all set, right?”

He was. Or nearly. Since their lease was up the first of August, he and Joanie had arranged to put the furniture in storage—and they were close to settling on a new place for September. Joanie had given notice at work. He’d brought the car in for servicing—tune-up, oil change, lube, radiator flush—and sprung for four new tires, or almost new. Charlie gave him a well-worn road atlas and Joanie found an ice chest at a yard sale so they could take sandwiches and drinks with them and not have to stop if they didn’t want to. As soon as he closed out the semester and Corey finished school, they were off.

He hadn’t let himself dwell on it—there was too much to do—but Mexico was never far from his thoughts, nirvana glowing on the horizon of the too-familiar campus and the dripping trees. Joanie was right there with him, poring over every guidebook she could find (“You realize how cheap everything is down there, Fitz? Those embroidered dresses and the cute white peasant blouses with the blue trim, the beadwork, silver, turquoise, all of it?”). And Corey—Corey was lit up like a rocket—he couldn’t stop talking about the beach, about snorkeling and diving and whether or not they’d have AquaLungs down there and all the fish he was going to spear, dorado and amberjacks and snappers and triggerfish, and who else was going, Jackie and the Roberts twins and who again?

“Yeah,” he said, “I think so.”

“All right,” Tim said, “good, good, good. Have a seat, why don’t you?”

He sat, propped the umbrella up against the desk. “I’m really looking forward to this,” he said. “Mexico, I mean.”