14

KEATS WATCHED THE morning news and ate a soft-boiled egg on a piece of toast while Roxie showered after her long run.

She came out of the bathroom in her blue terrycloth robe, a towel wrapped around her hair, turban-like, and she carried a large bottle of moisturizer. She took a seat next to Keats on the couch.

He said, “Need a rubdown?”

“Not today. My foot’s the only part of me that’s cramping up, and it isn’t too bad.” She squeezed a dollop of moisturizer into her palm and rubbed her hands together to warm it. “You know that lady I told you about yesterday who bummed a cigarette while she was out for a run?”

Keats nodded absently, eyes on a commercial for mortgage refinancing.

“We bumped into each other again this morning,” she said. “Isn’t that something? She’s staying in one of those green houses up by Millard’s Cove, and she’d just started out north when we ran into each other. I convinced her to turn back and go see the magnolias with me. We ran a few miles together.”

“Imagine that helped the time go by.”

Roxie nodded. She shook the towel around her head free, and wet hair fell to her shoulders. “We’re probably going to meet up and run together again tomorrow morning.” She cracked her big toe.

Keats patted Roxie’s bare knee, which was peeping out from her robe.

“She and her family are from West Virginia,” Roxie continued. “Sounds like they don’t have much money. They’re with another family who got an all-expenses-paid deal, so they’re just along for the ride.” Roxie propped her foot up and examined a callus. She rubbed the underside of her foot with both thumbs, working at a cramp. “It’s nice to meet down-to-earth people on the island every now and then. You know? Easy to forget they exist.”

Keats scraped the prongs of his fork over a bit of sticky golden yolk that remained on his plate, to create a striped design.

Roxie sniffed the air, then punched the couch cushion next to her, releasing a cloud of dust and dog hair that hung suspended and colorless in the morning sunlight. “Yuck,” she said.

Keats said, “Talk to the dog, then. Tell him to quit shed-din’.”

Roxie laughed. “When we leave the island,” she said, picking at a loose thread on the couch and patting the cushion, “this old thing’s staying behind.”

“Fine by me,” Keats said.

• • •

John entered the house whistling, a large, greasy white box full of donuts under his arm. Poppy took the donut box from him, set it on the kitchen counter, and held a finger at her lips.

In hushed tones, Poppy told John about the phone call, the heavy breather. She showed him the number of the originating call, which she had called back and gotten no answer after twenty-some rings. Then Poppy explained that she had called the directory service to find out where in Wheeling the call came from, gotten the address, and discovered it was a pay phone on Mercer Avenue. She had ruled out anything concerning her parents. She had ruled out anything concerning Carol, or anyone who might have been calling on Carol’s behalf. There was no reason such a person would have called from a pay phone, she thought, and no reason they would have declined to speak when given the chance.