They changed planes in Atlanta, and at the gate, Desmond kissed Jane goodbye and waited for his connection to New York. This detour meant he’d miss a class or two at Deerforth, but someone who’d been hired to teach a course called Creative Nonfiction surely ought to be able to come up with a convincing excuse to tell his students.

An outer edge of the storm that had battered Gulf City had pushed up the coast, wrung the heat and humidity out of the New York air, and opened the door for autumn. Or a reasonable facsimile of autumn. In the taxi from JFK, the sky looked ocean blue, and the buildings of the city were gleaming.

The door to Morning in America was locked. At two in the afternoon? That was a first. He rapped on the glass and pulled at the handle. As he was trying to peer through the window, the carpenter from next door came up to him, sandwich in one hand, coffee in the other. “They asked me to put in a buzzer,” he said.

“Oh? Were they having problems?”

“Nothing like that. The neighborhood’s safer than ever.” He was a good-looking man with dark hair and a long, lean torso. He was wearing glasses, big brown ones, Desmond noted. Well, the world was full of eyeglasses. “If you don’t have a lock on the door, people assume there’s nothing inside worth buying.”

“I get it. And this is the bell?”

“Ring it,” he said, “and they buzz you in.”

The store was tidier than usual, and there was a Bruce Springsteen album playing on the vintage 1980s stereo near the cash register. He walked to the back of the store, and then down into the basement. The walls were covered with photos of Bill and Hillary Clinton. One Formica-topped table was labeled “’90s version of ’50s dining set.” A door to some dark recess of the decade opened, and Russell and Melanie pushed into the room, carrying a sofa.

“Desmond!” Melanie said. “You didn’t tell me he was coming in today, Russell.”

“I didn’t know,” Russell said. “I thought you were in Florida. That’s what your letter said, anyway.”

“Forget the letter,” Desmond said. “It wasn’t honest, it wasn’t truthful. I shouldn’t have sent it.”

They set down the sofa and Melanie pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket. “Time for me to go for a smoke. How long you staying around?” she asked.

“It depends.”

“Yeah, well, I won’t ask on what.” She patted his shoulder on her way up the stairs.

Desmond and Russell stared at each other for a moment as the silence of the dank basement gathered around them.

“Look, Desmond,” Russell finally said, “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but there are a few things I have to tell you.”