It was a very nice house, simple in design, only a few years old, and blessedly air-conditioned, which suited Angie very well on this first day of July. For the moment it was furnished with a scattering of upended crates and a dozen mismatched lawn chairs, one of which Angie claimed and dragged to a corner, out of the stream of people pouring through the door. Her headache had begun to recede but would be back howling if she pushed things.

“Hair of the dog,” Rivera said, stopping by to press a plastic cup into her hand. Angie put it down where nobody would knock it over and thought of getting up to get water.

Rivera was weaving through the crowd, talking to everybody. Parties were Rivera’s natural habitat, and this one looked promising. People came in bearing platters of chicken and cold cuts, bowls of salad, filled coolers, watermelons, Jell-O molds. Father Bruce showed up, peeking around a huge twenty-pack of toilet paper topped with a red bow. Everyone was talking to everyone, and loudly. Kai and Rob, both of them glowing with excitement and pleasure, moved back and forth from door to kitchen to stairs, eager to open closet doors and describe plans for the garden, the kitchen, the third bedroom they would turn into a study. All of this meant that Angie would be able to slip away within the hour, and maybe even before John showed up. She was gearing up for a long walk across town when Win Walker found her and hunkered down beside her creaky lawn chair.

““You’ve got to be dehydrated,” he said.

“True,” Angie said. “But I’m not courageous enough to go looking for the kitchen.”

“No need.” He handed her a cup of ice water. “Anything else I can do for you? Introduce you around?”

“That would take all night. Is there anybody not here?”

Win glanced around the room. “Kai and Rob are well liked. I think everybody in Ogilvie came to their wedding.” He looked at her. “Why do you look surprised?”

She shrugged. “I’m not surprised. Just trying to figure things out. The whole South is a little strange to me, still. Probably would always feel that way if I stayed here the rest of my life.”

It was an innocent enough thing to say, but Angie felt herself blushing. Maybe because Win Walker was looking at her so intently.

“You know when I said before I didn’t want to get caught up in my aunt Patty-Cake’s scheming?”

She nodded.

He rubbed a thumb along his jaw. “That wasn’t the whole truth. I’m a little uncomfortable about people coming down here from way up north. I don’t see how you can make a film about Ogilvie, not with your background.”