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“With me.”

Before she could say anything, the waiter brought the check, and I reached for it as she gave me a look over the basket of bread.

“I can buy dinner,” she said.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“And yet.”

“And yet if I let you, my mother would hear about it before we reached the car and have me killed with a dessert fork.”

“A dessert fork?”

“She has standards.”

Lorrie laughed, and I was grateful enough that I almost left too large a tip.

Outside, the air had cooled slightly. The sidewalk smelled of garlic, cigarette smoke, rain. A car rolled past with “When Doves Cry” spilling from the open windows, loud enough that two women by the curb turned their heads.

Lorrie stopped, only for a second, but I stopped too.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

Her answer came too quickly.

I wanted to ask again, but didn’t. I told myself it was respect, and maybe part of it was. I’d been raised not to press a woman in public, not to force a confidence, not to make a scene. I opened her car door and let the question pass.

On the drive back to Maple Bluff, the radio gave us commercials, a baseball report, and then more Lionel Richie. Lorrie smiled faintly, but kept her eyes on the road.

Near the turn for her parents’ house, I said, “I’ll talk to my father.”

She turned toward me. “About what?”

“Cleveland. The dinner. Everyone assuming things.”

“When?”

“Soon,” I said.

I told myself I’d speak to my father tomorrow. Tomorrow was close enough to sound honorable and far enough away to let me drive her home in peace.

Lorrie didn’t answer. She only turned her face toward the dark window, and the reflection in the glass looked almost like the woman I’d picked up an hour earlier, except I knew better now. I’d brought her tulips because I remembered what she didn’t like. It wasn’t lost on me that I hadn’t asked what she did like.

9

Lorrie

Friday — August 17, 1984

Paul arrived a little after seven as Eddie Money, Shakin’ came on the radio.

He stood at the edge of the patio in khaki pants and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms, hiding the monogram on the cuff, his hair was slightly out of place as if he’d been running his hands through it. On another man, it wouldn’t have meant anything, but on him? It suggested he’d either driven with the window down or he’d had a rough day.