“Man.”

“I just wish you were fucking me right now,” Ronny said.

“Oh, you bitch. Don’t even bring that shit up.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You fucking cunt.”

“Man,” Ronny said.

“I would tear you up if I could get through this phone right now for bringing that shit up when I can’t do anything about it.”

Ronny laughed. After a minute Ben did, too. “I may need to get in a shower,” Ben said.

“Okay. We have to change the subject or I have to get off the phone. I’m in public.”

“Right. But nobody’s there.”

“The security people are.”

“You got no guts.”

“Like you’re any different standing there with Jen waiting right outside the room.”

“You hit that on the fucking head,” he said. “Tomorrow. On time this time.”

“But what about the beach?”

“Can’t. I already told Jen. I can’t leave Mom.”

Petty and wrong, but satisfying, to contemplate the fact that there would be no beach trip for Jennifer. He walked home very pleased.

In the afternoon on Sunday Ronny caught Sheila upstairs standing in the door of Jamal’s bedroom. When she saw him her eyes grew very wide. “Miss Dee’s not here,” Sheila said, quickly. “Besides, I can come upstairs, I just can’t go in the room.”

The lower part of Jamal’s belly was drooping over his jeans and there was a dark smattering of hair along the skin. He was carrying a can of beer and half a hamburger. He smirked at Ronny and kept chewing, leaning against the door.

“You trying to pretend you haven’t been in that room with that young man, miss? Do you think I was born this morning?”

Sheila hung her head and poked out her lower lip. “My mama would be so ashamed.”

“You guys keep my secret and I keep yours. Deal?”

She grinned at him. Her skin had such a brightness, really beautiful, Ronny thought, like milk. Her body looked ripe and had a sheen, a softness like light, all along it. “You have a secret?”

“I thought I was hearing somebody over there,” Jamal said, between bites.

Sheila hopped up and down a couple of times and made fists. “Ooh. Tell!”

“Oh, no. Why spoil the mystery?”

“That’s not fair at all.”

“The better part of valor, you know.” When she looked puzzled, he went on. “Discretion.”

She was wearing a tube top with what looked like pizza stain crusted on it near the seam. Flaking away the stain with her fingernails, not the least bit self-conscious. “You can trust us. Well, you can’t really trust Jamal. But you can trust me.”

The idea that he had a secret pleased Ronny no end. But at the same time he worried what he might reveal. “I’ve just had a friend here studying with me a couple of nights.”

“Unless you were studying professional wrestling,” Jamal said, “I have to cast aspersions on your veracity. That was not studying.”

Ronny looked at the guy, impressed. “Nice.”