“Okay, okay,” he mumbled. “Joke, Bobo. Joke.” He laced his fingers in his lap and crossed his legs at his ankles, a pose imitating the old people who used the lounges in the heat of the day. “But we need to talk about something,” he added after a moment.

“And what’s that?”

“About Amy.”

“What about her?”

“I haven’t said anything about it, because I didn’t think I’d have to, but sometimes, Bobo, you’re such a goddamn hick you miss things.”

“And what have I missed?” I asked.

Carter again turned his head to me. “That little remark about your brother and the rabbi. I think you missed it.”

“What about it?”

“Bobo, Amy’s Jewish.”

His voice was uncharacteristically deliberate and serious, and it surprised and angered me.

“I know she is,” I told him.

He sat up on the side of the lounge, facing me. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands dangle between his legs. “Do you know why I want to be a politician?” he asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“Part of it is because my daddy’s a lawyer and I want to take it one step more up the ladder,” he answered. “But the real reason is because I think I can read people. It’s a little like you when you draw somebody. You see them from the outside, but I see them from the inside, see who they are. I think people who can do that should be politicians or priests, one of the two. I like politics better than pulpits.”

“What does all of that mean?” I asked.

“With Amy, it means you know she’s Jewish, but you don’t know what being Jewish means. Not up here,” he advised quietly. “And I’ll bet you don’t even know what it means back in Georgia. You asked me if I thought her mother believed the story about all of us going to the movies, and I told you she didn’t. I meant that. Why do you think her mother’s so nervous around you? She knows what’s going on, Bobo. I don’t know how she knows, but she does, believe me. Maybe Amy told her. But after tonight, she’ll be watching you like an eagle.”

Carter fumbled for another cigarette and lit it. He fell back into the lounge chair and flipped small smoke rings into the night air with his tongue. He said pleasantly, “Does it get this cold at night in Georgia?”

“Not in the summer.”

“Then I think I’ll move down there,” he mumbled. “I hate freezing my ass off.”

“Down there, you sweat it off,” I told him. Then I asked, “Carter, what does it mean to you—Amy being Jewish?”