He was. And he reached up to take Fitz’s hand, peering over his sunglasses as if to get a better look at him. “So I’m shaking the hand of a psychologist, right?”

Fitz nodded.

“So it’s true—you’re all psychologists, then? Jesus. I mean, you’ve got to see it to believe it, right?”

“I’m not a psychologist,” Lori said.

Alice, who’d had her back to them, chatting with two of the other strangers, turned round now and said, “I’m not a psychologist either.” She was barefoot, in a pair of wet shorts and a wet blouse. Her hair hung limp in her face.

The guy looked up at her, grinning wider. “Whew,” he said, making a gesture as if he were wiping sweat from his brow, “that’s a relief. For a minute there I thought I was back in the bin again—” He took hold of the post and pulled himself up, his equipment dangling in a way that managed to be purely natural and offensive at the same time. “Relax, it’s a joke, man,” he said. “Us? There’s not a psychologist among us—or a shrink either. You know why? We’re as normal as normal can be.” And here he called out to one of the men in the boat—“Lee? Lee, you hear that?”

“No, what?” the one in the boat said.

“I said we’re as normal as normal can be,” and he tailed it with a laugh and Lee laughed too.

In that moment, while the conversation jumped off in a whole new direction, the three in the boat all adding asides to show how witty and relaxed they were, how with it, how cool, Fitz leaned down to Lori and whispered, “I’m thinking of going into Poughkeepsie if you want to come along. To the record shop there? Remember, I promised you?”

The look she gave him—and she wasn’t wearing her sunglasses so he got the full benefit of her big unadorned eyes—seemed to close everything down. “You mean now?”

“Yeah,” he said, the sun punishing his eyes, “now.”

She made no move to get up, but just stared at him. He heard Dick laugh and glanced up to see him standing in a group at the end of the dock, in congress with the one in the cowboy hat, who, he realized, must be Kesey, the novelist, the celebrity, and all he could think was where’s Maynard when we need him, match celebrity to celebrity, check and mate. He turned back to Lori. “Well?” he said, and she was already shaking her head.

“No,” she said, “uh-uh. I don’t think so.”