“Rivera, baby, sweetheart, darling, you owe me one. What’s up?”

Angie reached for the phone but he pushed her hand away.

“Oh, yeah, good shoot. Excellent. Wild old lady, you would have liked her—”

“You mope, let me talk to her,” Angie said, and he shook his head at her.

“—except now we’ll have to figure out whether we want to out Miss Zula for national distribution …. You did not.”

To Angie he said, “She says she already knew that Miss Zula was a lesbian.”

“She doesn’t know any such thing,” Angie said, and took the phone from him. To Rivera she said, “You don’t know any such thing, and neither do we. And we aren’t going to deal with this, not unless Miss Zula specifically asks us to.”

Rivera’s voice was harsh with static, but she was amused. “She takes a documentary film crew to meet Miss Anabel, what do you think she was doing?”

“No,” Angie said, “we will not move on this, not yet. Probably not ever.”

“Coward,” said Tony.

“Wimp,” said Rivera.

“I’m being cautious,” Angie said. “Somebody has to be.”

“Caution,” snorted Tony dismissively. He scowled at the rain. “I’m going to throw it to the wind and go explore Savannah.” He leaned over and kissed Angie on the cheek, and then yelled into the cell phone, “Bye, Riv,” and snapped the lid shut, to Angie’s considerable annoyance.

They were stopped at a red light and he put his hand on the door handle, watching her face.

“Be back by Monday,” she said. “We have to get ready for Tuesday’s shoot.”

“Tuesday?”

“The Fourth of July,” Angie said. “Independence Day, the Jubilee. Fireworks, parade, picnic. Pay attention, winkie. We’re here to make a documentary, remember?”

He saluted as the cab moved away.

John made the five-thirty train to Ogilvie, which was only fair of fate, given the reason he was taking the train at all. He propelled himself up the steps and into the last car just as the train started to move, to find that it was almost full, of course; it was the middle of the rush hour.

“John!” called a familiar voice. Harriet Darling was waving at him from the far end of the car, an armful of charm bracelets jangling. Across from her Pearl craned her head around and smiled, waving him on. He hesitated, not knowing what to pray for. He wasn’t much in the mood for an hour in the company of Caroline’s sisters, but if all four of them were on this train, he’d have to go find someplace else to sit. In another car. In another state.