A stiffness is settling into her neck. Turning slightly, she looks past him, at the layers of chain-link fence that separate one backyard from another all the way down the block. “There’s Mrs. Bennett again,” she says, spotting the woman on her patio four houses away with a garden hose in her hand. “Third time today. She must be dying to know what we’re up to. Don’t look over here.”

“I have to,” Frankie says. “I’m drawing your hair.”

“Not you; Mrs. Bennett. Ugh, she’s waving.” Teresa smiles. She lifts a hand beneath the tablecloth, offering the slightest wave back. “And she’s just drowning that bush.”

“Is she the lady who comes by to sell you makeup?”

“That’s Mrs. Granger on Bahama Drive. Mrs. Bennett is the one who’s been on the warpath about that tower.”

“What tower?”

“Oh, they’re putting up some sort of cell phone tower in the woods at the end of the block, and she’s fit to be tied.”

“You know, when the Visitors get here, they might not actually speak.”

“English?”

“Words,” he clarifies. “What if they communicate with electronic signals? That tower could come in handy.”

“Well, don’t tell Mrs. Bennett. She called here twice last week asking if I’d join a demonstration in front of the phone company. Can you imagine—me, swinging a sign around and shouting at strangers?”

As if he hasn’t heard her, he says, “I wonder what frequency they’d use.”

“Now she wants to come by with some petition she’s trying to get all the homeowners to sign. As if a piece of paper can stop a bunch of bulldozers. I’m sorry, but the pen is not mightier than a bulldozer. Yes, hello, we see you.” Teresa waves again, grimacing.

“Hold still,” he says.

“If you ask me, this whole crusade is really about Mrs. Bennett. She’s nothing but a gossip and a snoop. She loves to get inside people’s houses and find out their business.”

“She wears those puffy outfits?”

“That’s her.”

“She’s the lady who asked my computer if you drank.”

Teresa flinches. “What?”

“Whoever came down the sidewalk got to write one question on an index card and feed it into the computer. She wrote, ‘Does your mother drink?’ ”

“Why on earth—when was this?”

Frankie shrugs. “Remember when we got that new refrigerator? You said I could have the box, and I turned it into a computer. I stuck Lite Bright pegs through the front of it, and lit them up from the inside with a flashlight.”

“That was back before … that had to have been 1975, at the latest.”

“I guess.”

“And she asked you if I drank? What did you tell her?”

“I wrote yes on the index card and fed it back through the slot. I thought she meant water.”

Teresa rolls her head around. “Oh, god, Frankie.”

“Hold still.”