Then she realized she knew this woman; she’d met this woman! This was Lu, the woman who had hired Maggie (away from Joy), and these boys were Maggie’s new charges. They were probably going to pick up Maggie now! Maggie had better hurry back to the shop. Go figure, the recovering alcoholic Joy had tried to force a drink on and then picked up by the side of the road was living right next to the woman who was stealing Maggie away from Joy. She sighed and turned her attention back to Anthony. “I’m sorry. I am, really.” Separated. That’s probably why he’d been crying. “Is this a new situation?”

He nodded. “Very new.”

“I’ve been through it. It’s awful, I know. But it gets better, with time. I promise you, it gets better.”

“In my case, I don’t think it will. For a lot of reasons. But thank you.” He opened the door, stepped one foot out. Pickles popped up and over from the backseat, panting. “Are you staying?” he asked.

“What? Of course not. Why?” She put her hand on Pickles’s chest and gently returned her to the backseat.

“You turned off your car.”

“Oh. No, I’m not staying. It’s just that we care about the environment here on our island, so we don’t idle. Locals don’t idle.”

He was standing outside the Jeep now. “That would be a good book title,” he said. “Locals Don’t Idle.” He looked pensive.

“I guess,” she said. “I’m not much of a reader.” Joy pulled a business card out of the Jeep’s side-door pocket, wrote something on it, and handed it to him. “My card,” she said. “My address is on the back. And now you have my number. In case Bob Herbert has any trouble getting the timing belt. I can always call my dad. Also in case you decide not to come to dinner tonight.”

“Why would I decide not to come to dinner? I accepted your invitation.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes people change their minds.” Maggie, for example. Maggie had been planning to eat dinner with Joy, and then she changed her mind.

“I won’t,” he said. “Thank you for the ride. See you later.”

“Sure thing,” she said. She started the ignition and watched him walk toward the cottage, crouch down, and remove a house key from underneath a flat rock. She started to turn around, stopped again.

“Hey!” she called. He had the key in the lock; he turned. “Hey. We forgot to do last names. Mine’s Sousa.”

“Okay,” he said. He seemed to be struggling with the key.

She waited. “So, that makes you . . . Anthony what?”

“Oh,” he said, looking from the lock back to her. “Anthony What will be fine.”

“Why don’t you come at seven o’clock for dinner,” she said. “Anthony What.”

Chapter 14

LU

LU WAS DRIVING Maggie and the boys home from Ball O’Brien Park. After Lu and the boys picked up Maggie outside of Joy Bombs, Maggie had watched the boys on the playground while Lu sat at one of the picnic tables in the pavilion and worked out a new salad dressing. She would test it the following day, when the boys were signed up for a summer program at Nancy’s club.