“I wouldn’t say that,” I replied.

Bud looked over at Jordan. “You think she’s a hero, don’t you, Jordan?”

“I do,” Jordan said.

“And I bet you are, too,” Bud said. “Terrible tragedy. Terrible.” He shook his head as if needing to display physically just how terrible this tragedy was. “I represent the folks down at the plant, and I can’t tell you how broken up they are about this.”

“That’s good to know,” I said evenly.

An awkward pause hung among us.

“Well, anyway,” Bud said, slapping me on the shoulder again, “tell your pretty mama I said hi. Bye, y’all.”

“Bye,” Jordan and I said in unison as he turned to chat with more people on the sidewalk as if he were a politician working a cocktail party.

“Well, you were a cool breeze on a hot day,” Jordan said to me as we walked away. “What was up with that?”

“‘Pretty mama.’ Ugh,” I said.

“I hear you, but he had you at hello.”

“I hate that guy. He gives me the creeps.”

“He is a bit slippery,” Jordan acknowledged.

“What gave you that impression? The ads on benches telling you that if someone gave you a painful hangnail, you should call 1-800-BUD-WINKLE?”

“Actually, I haven’t seen those benches since we got back.”

“It’s too many numbers, anyway. It should be 1-800-BUD-WINK.”

“Aw, those extra two letters don’t make any difference. Maybe he thought ‘Bud Wink’ sounded too much like ‘Hoodwink.’”

“Exactly. Anyway, he’s dating my mom.”

“Oh.”

Aside from a car cruising down Main Street and some chit-chat up the block, the silence between us lingered for a few moments. Jordan finally broke it.

“What do you think he meant about representing the folks down at the plant?” he asked.

“He’s the plant’s lawyer, I guess?”

“Curious,” Jordan said. “Not sure why those people in particular should be all broken up about the explosion in our neighborhood.”

I realized we both were looking down at the sidewalk as we walked. This was a cheerful non-date.

“Would it be entirely inappropriate,” I asked, “if I suggested we redeem our ice-cream rain check?”

“Sure.”

“Sure, it would be inappropriate?”

“Shut up and let’s get some ice cream,” he said with the hint of a smile.

The Tastee Freeze was just a few blocks out of our way, and other people had seized upon the same idea. Jordan’s buddy Tico was in front of us in line chatting up my friend Suzanne, a curvy, chirpy girl with a photographic memory and some occasionally startling anger-management issues. Had they arrived together?

Jordan and Tico exchanged one of those bro-handshake/pat-on-the-back hugs. Suzanne and I said, “Hey.”

“You guys okay?” she asked. “We heard.”

“Jordan, man, trouble is following you around,” Tico added with a smile.

Jordan smiled back unconvincingly.

“His house is destroyed,” I said. “And you heard about the Carters and the Moores …”

Tico and Suzanne nodded grimly in unison.

“I was actually looking forward to school,” Suzanne said. “Now everyone’s off coming up with their own conspiracy theories. We need to come together at last.”