“He’s someone who should never be on his own,” she said. “I didn’t see him for a few days last week, and when I did it was like he’d been away for a year, the look in his eyes. So much seems to be going on in him, and it all seems so important. I feel…left out, I guess.”

“Oh, Annie.” Raj threw his hand over his nose. “Couldn’t you wait?”

“That’s not me.”

A skunk waddled out of the margins of the cattail swamp.

“Oh, yeah, blame the wildlife, why don’t you.”

Annie took hold of Raj’s arm. “Let’s sit here for a while.”

“I’ve got—”

“Just a minute. You won’t be late.”

“The mosquitoes will eat me alive. They don’t bite you. You’re the mosquito queen.”

“Just one minute.”

They sat, looking out over the cattails and the water, this Indian summer seemingly endless, the whole place humming with life: enormous dragonflies, both particular and clumsy, like drunken conductors; red-winged blackbirds trilling and teetering on the cattails.

“We’ll all have to live in a big house together,” Raj said, his attention drawn by a heron rising from the water.

“You, me, and Lew?”

He nodded, watching the ungainly grace of that bird.

“What about Nora?”

“If she wants to.”

“She likes you.”

Raj shrugged. “She also likes Randy Gangle and His Boxcar Zydeco Band.”

“Are you not interested in her?”

“Haven’t thought about it.”

“Liar.”

“She’s nice.”

Annie noticed a large mosquito on his nape. She watched it for a few seconds before catching it between her thumb and forefinger, crushing it. Rubbing his neck, he turned to her. She showed him her thumb, on which lay the mosquito’s remains and a bloody smear. She raised it toward her mouth, putting out her tongue. Raj quickly grabbed her wrist.

“You are the mosquito queen.” He tried to stop her, but she dipped her head and got her tongue to her thumb.

“That’s disgusting!” He was still holding her wrist and staring at her incredulously. “You drank my blood. Give it back.”

She wiggled her tongue at him before drawing it in.

He rubbed the rest of the blood off her finger, his voice becoming high-pitched in imitation of Miss Kelly. “Out, damn spot. Ah, Shakespeare, Shakespeare, a hand there was that chucked his cheeks and called him her silly-Billy.”

Going quiet, he seemed abruptly captivated by the metallic sheen on the water. The hand with which he held her wrist loosened, but before it could fall away completely, she gently closed her fingers around his thumb.

“We should arrange to do something with Lew tomorrow,” he said, still not looking at her, his expression serious and absorbed. “We should see him as much as we can.” Turning to her after a little while, he said, “I thought you and Lew…?”