At the edge of the pool, Carter paused. He lifted his head as though sensing danger, and then he stepped into the pool and sank to the bottom. I yelled to Eddie, “He’s going to drown! You’ve got to save him!” Eddie looked at me in shock. He was a poor swimmer and he knew it. “Eddie, do something,” I begged. Eddie jumped into the pool, his cigarette still dangling from his lips.

I could see them in the pool. Carter was on the bottom. Each time Eddie would grab at him, Carter would swim away, and Eddie would bob up to the surface, gasping for air.

“Save him, Eddie, save him,” I pleaded. “He’s the only busboy I’ve got.”

Finally, when he needed air, Carter permitted himself to be rescued by Eddie. Joey helped me pull both of them from the water. Carter looked at Eddie, who was soaked and shivering, and cried, “You saved me! You saved me!” Then he lifted his arms in a prearranged signal and those who were watching in hiding jumped from behind the hedges, cheering and applauding.

“I got the son of a bitch,” Carter said smugly, pulling Libby to him.

“Carter, I think that’s mean,” Libby said playfully. She slapped at his dangling hand.

“Honey, it was one of the great moments in the storied history of the Catskill Mountains,” Carter told her. “Arch added it to his repertoire of tall tales. You were there, weren’t you, Amy?”

“I had to sneak out,” Amy confessed, smiling at the memory, “but, yes, I was there. And Libby’s right: it was mean, but it was also funny.”

“All my life, I’ve been trying to match that feat, and I never have,” Carter said. “Closest I’ve ever come is winning a court case one time because of it.”

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“I claimed my client was sleepwalking when he was arrested for stealing a couple of tires from a service station. Even the client believed it. He’d been so drunk, he didn’t know the difference. They let him off with restitution and a warning.”

Carter laughed softly and touched the wineglass to his lips, but he did not sip from it. He gazed at the amber coals of the cooling fire, then he turned his face to me and from me to Amy. He said quietly, “I’m a happy man, my friends, but I think that may have been the best year of my life.” He paused. His eyes began to mist. “It was magic. Magic. Even then, I knew it was.”

“Yes,” Amy whispered.

“It was,” I agreed.

“And here we are, back together,” Carter said. He lifted his glass. “To Avrum.”