Amy laughed lightly. “I thought so. He told me I would like his date, but to be vague about his age.”

“He hasn’t changed very much over the years,” I said. “But he didn’t need to. I think he was always a step ahead of the rest of us. I have my friends in Atlanta—some good ones, some good people—but he’s Carter and that puts him in a special place.”

“I think it’s mutual,” she replied. She lifted her face to look at me. “Do you know that he wrote to me before your wedding, asking me to call you?”

“He did? Why?”

“He didn’t want you to get married. Not then. He thought I could stop it.”

I was puzzled. Carter had met Carolyn only once, in 1955, and he had been pleasant to her, but he had seldom mentioned her to me again.

“I didn’t answer his letter,” Amy said.

“Why didn’t you?”

“It was the one letter I didn’t want to receive, I suppose,” she answered. “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it, Bobo? Everything was either wonderful or painful. The wonderful was too wonderful to imagine; the painful was too painful to take.” The smile returned to her mouth, but it was a melancholy smile. “We were very young, weren’t we?”

“Yes. We were.”

Amy left a few minutes later. She gave me directions to her home—”Unless you want me to meet you at Carter’s,” she said.

“No. You’re with me.”

“What do we call it? A date?”

“Why not? That is, if I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission.”

She laughed. “Not this time. And I don’t think you’ll have to be afraid of anyone seeing us on the front porch.”

“This time, I don’t care,” I said.

I watched her drive away. She waved from her car window as she passed Arch’s and she pointed to the store with her finger. I knew what she was saying in her sign language: Do you remember the date?

Each summer, Arch Ellis closed his store on one night to everyone but the young people who worked in the resorts, and their dates. He moved the tables and display counters from the center of the room and made a dance floor, and then he provided coins dabbed with red fingernail polish for the jukebox. Every refreshment was half-price, but Arch did not allow the drinking of alcoholic beverages, regardless of how it was disguised. His reasoning was sensible: “I want mamas and daddies to know they can trust me. If their kids are with me, they’re safe.” His attitude was material for poor humor, but we were all glad that he meant what he said.