Russell held out his arm like an old-fashioned gentleman caller. I sighed and hoped that maybe, just maybe, Oscar would be more afraid of violating his parole than of being shown up. I linked my arm through Russell’s.

From there, things happened fast. Oscar pushed Russell from behind and Russell let go of my arm and grabbed the front of Oscar’s shirt and they tussled while I searched the shadows for Woodrow on his golf cart—where was he?—and then, the next thing I knew, Russell from Iowa City had Oscar in a death grip and Oscar was gasping for air. It looked like Russell was about to snap his neck and I found myself fearing that Russell was going to kill Oscar instead of vice versa.

“Now,” Russell said in a calm-but-disappointed-assistant-principal voice, “I’m going to let you go. But you are to leave Rosie alone. Do you understand me?”

Oscar choked out an affirmative and Russell tightened his grip so that Oscar squeaked like a chew toy.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

Russell let Oscar go. Oscar buckled at the knees, stumbled a few yards away, and bent over in the grass, turning his neck to be sure it still worked.

Russell offered me his arm again.

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked him once we were safely at my car.

“My father was a navy man,” Russell said.

I stood on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “My hero,” I said.

The next day, almost without thinking, I drove to the East End to Miss Vie’s at Hansen Bay. I was like a woman possessed because there was no good reason to go all the way out to that side of the island; normally, if I wanted to go to the beach, I parked at the National Park Service sign and hiked down to Salomon Bay. But I somehow convinced myself that, on the Saturday of the holiday weekend, even Salomon would be overrun and that the only way to escape the crowds would be to go to Hansen Bay. Besides which, now that it was in my head, I couldn’t shake my craving for Miss Vie’s garlic chicken and johnnycakes.

I told myself it had nothing to do with Russell from Iowa City. I wasn’t attracted to him, or I hadn’t been until the incident with Oscar—but having one’s honor defended is a mighty aphrodisiac. Still, Russell was old enough to be my father (I now know he’s forty-five, double my age), but that, in a way, was also attractive because what I was looking for was someone older, someone responsible and stable, someone adult. Oscar was older than me by seven years but emotionally he was a little boy who had a bone to pick with everyone.

I wore my white bikini and a white T-shirt knotted at the midriff and a pair of white denim shorts. White is my color.