“Good to see you again,” she said enthusiastically.

“You two know each other?” Rick asked.

“I bought the chaplain a pizza the other night,” Laura said. “It wasn’t a date or anything, but I think he’s smitten. Probably here to ask me out. You think I should go?”

“I think you should go out with me,” he said.

“I don’t date married men,” she said. “Besides, he’s cute. In a discarded-mutt sort of way.”

We turned to walk out together.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Rick asked.

“What’s that?”

“What’d you come out here for?”

“Just stopped by to say hi. You know, making the rounds.”

“It’s obvious he came out here to see me,” Laura said. “When he saw my truck, he nearly ran across the compound.”

I smiled as I turned to leave. “And it was worth it. For the abuse if nothing else.” I walked out ahead of her.

“Wait up,” she said as she caught up to me. “You’re not going to break your neck running over here and then not even ask me out, are you?”

“Think about it,” I said, flashing her another smile.

“Well, hell. My mom would die if she heard this, but . . . I guess I’ll just have to ask you out.”

“Don’t do that. I couldn’t bear to be the cause of your mother’s departing. Would you go out with me? I’ll pick you up Saturday morning.”

“Saturday morning? The hell kind of date is that?”

“I have to go to Tallahassee. You can come along and we’ll make a day of it.”

“Doing what?” she asked.

“It’ll be a surprise.”

“Okay. I’ll try anything once.”

“Where do I pick you up?”

“You going to the jamboree? Find me at the game, and I’ll tell you where to pick me up. And if you lose that little priest outfit you have on, I just might let you help me chaperone my little sister’s jamboree dance.”

22

It is the chief paradox of Florida that the south part of the state resembles the north part of the country and the north part of the state resembles the south part of the country.

There are two Floridas.

The one that most people are familiar with, that of Disney and South Beach. The second one that most people drive through or fly over on their way to the first one—the Florida of pickup trucks and gun racks, house trailers with cars on blocks in the yard, the rural Florida of poverty and pine trees.

Pottersville was a part of the second Florida, Gloria Jahoda’s Other Florida, a rural town much like those of South Georgia and Alabama.