As the campfire began to ebb, so did the carousing. The boom box racket faded away, and one by one the college kids teetered in exhaustion. Moments after the last of them had fallen, Sammy Tigertail liberated himself from the palmettos. Rifle in hand, he headed for the beach where the canoes were lined up. He selected the tangerine-colored one and quietly flipped it over, scattering boxer shorts and bikini bottoms.

“Take me with you,” said a voice from the shadows.

Sammy Tigertail whirled and raised his rifle.

“Don’t shoot,” the voice said.

“Come closer,” the Indian whispered hoarsely.

It was one of the student campers. She had tangled chestnut hair and wide-set green eyes and sand stuck to her chin and nose, from dozing facedown on the beach. She wore a fanny pack on her waist, and a rumpled sleeping bag was bunched like a blanket around her shoulders. She reminded Sammy Tigertail of Cindy, his ex-girlfriend, except that Cindy had a better complexion. The college girl’s cheeks were mapped with angry crimson welts.

“Take me along,” she said.

Sammy Tigertail lowered the gun. “Go away before you get hurt.”

“The guy I’m with, he’s such a loser.” She motioned with her head toward the campfire. “He brought along these rubbers with SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs on the tip. Cartoon condoms, and he can’t figure out why I won’t fuck him. What’s your name? I’m Gillian.”

“Sit and be quiet,” Sammy Tigertail said. He remembered that he was being tested by mystical forces.

“You an Indian?” she asked.

He was pleased that she’d noticed, but he tried not to let on. He glanced back at the camp to make sure that none of the other kids were stirring.

“Why can’t I come with you?”

“I said be quiet.” Sammy Tigertail grabbed the bow of the canoe and began sliding it toward the water.

“These aren’t zits,” Gillian said, pointing to her cheeks. “They’re mosquito bites. I’m allergic.”

“Please shut up.”

“Look, I’m a Seminole, too!” With a playful smile she shed the sleeping bag to show off a baggy gray sweatshirt. FSU was emblazoned in tall burgundy letters on the front.

It was too much for Sammy Tigertail. He let go of the canoe and walked up to the girl and touched a hand on her neck to make sure she wasn’t a spirit. Her skin felt warm and she smelled like stale beer and marijuana.

“School’s a drag,” she said.

“Not my problem.”

“I’m majoring in elementary ed. What was I thinking?”

Sammy Tigertail said, “Do you ever stop talking?”

He nudged the canoe into the water and waded in behind it, aiming the bow into the light chop. Carefully he set his rifle between the seats and prepared to climb in.

Gillian asked, “And where do you think you’re goin’?”

“To find a new island.”

“Yeah? Then you might need this.” She held up the paddle.

Sammy Tigertail grimaced.

“I had a sorority sister, the one who talked me into my major,” Gillian said, “her senior year she did spring break at Panama City. And one night she gets supertrashed, right? So when this crew from Girls Gone Wild shows up at the tiki bar, she jumps up on a chair and flashes her titties. And she was so hot they put it in the video-Girls Gone Wild number six. You ever see that one?”

Dazedly, Sammy Tigertail shook his head.

“After graduation she ends up teaching sixth grade down in Delray, right? First week on the job, some smartass kid brings in the video and switches it out for one on the Battle of Gettysburg. And this little shit’s only eleven years old! What’s with that?” Gillian was indignant. “Anyway, there was my sorority sister up on the screen, shakin’ her hooters for her whole class to see. Can you believe she got fired? And the kid who switched out the tape, all he gets is detention!”

“Give me the paddle,” said Sammy Tigertail.

“I want to be your hostage.”

“I don’t need a hostage. I need peace.” He sloshed toward the beach, hauling the canoe behind him.

Gillian backed up. “What if I start screamin’ and wake everyone else? You got enough bullets for all of us, Tonto?”

Sammy Tigertail thought: This one is not like Cindy. This one is worse.

“Get in the canoe,” he said.

Seven

Disappointment was the fuel that cranked the aging pistons of Della Shreave Renfroe Landry-disappointment in the father who’d cashed out his Shell Oil pension early and invested every dollar in the DeLorean Motor Company; disappointment in the mother who’d refused to hock her heirloom earrings and send Della to a prep school favored by the tall rangy sons of petroleum tycoons; disappointment in the three successive husbands who’d died without leaving Della wealthy and carefree; disappointment in the one daughter who’d run off to follow a rock band called Phish, then married a public defender who was a known Democrat and quite possibly a Jew; disappointment in the other daughter, who’d taken a nursing degree and, instead of bagging the first available neurosurgeon, hooked up with the World Health Organization and moved to Calcutta.

And disappointment-corrosive and bottomless disappointment-in her only son, who after thirty-five years had failed to distinguish himself either professionally or socially, displaying to Della’s hardened eye not a speck of ambition.

“Don’t tell me you got fired again,” she said as he sat down across the table.

“As a matter of fact, I’m getting promoted,” Boyd Shreave said, and then to the waiter: “I’ll have the jerked chicken sandwich with extra mayo.”

Della glared. “Are you trying to make me vomit? Extra mayo?”

“Why would you think I got fired?”

“’Cause that’s the only time you ever have lunch with me, when you’ve got stinking rotten news and you don’t want me to make a fuss. You know damn well I won’t raise my voice in a restaurant.”

Boyd Shreave shrugged. “Last time you called me a lazy sack of muleshit.”

“Yes, but quietly.” Della stirred her jumbo Diet Coke with a straw. “So what are you getting promoted to-deputy chief telephone harasser?”

“Floor supervisor,” Boyd Shreave lied pleasantly. Not even his mother’s taunting could spoil his sunny mood. He was flying away with Eugenie Fonda!

“That come with a raise, or is it all glory?” Della grumped.

“Two hundred extra a week, plus commission bumps.” Boyd Shreave was pleased to see that his mother was disarmed by his fictional success.

“Guess what else,” he said. “I had the most sales leads of all callers last month, so Relentless is sending me on a free vacation to Florida.”

Della studied him doubtfully. “Where in Florida?”

“It’s called the Ten Thousand Islands.”

“Never heard of ’em. How many did you say?”

“Thousands. It’s just like the Bahamas,” Boyd Shreave said. That’s what the lady telemarketer had told him, and that’s what he believed.

Wistfully Della said, “Your father and I honeymooned in Nassau. I liked it so much I made both your stepdads take me there, too.”

With horror Boyd Shreave realized that his mother was angling to accompany him. “I wish I could bring you along,” he said tightly, “but they only gave me one ticket.”

“And you couldn’t spring for another? Now that you got this big fat raise?”

Shreave felt the sweat collecting under his collar. “Mom, it’s a company junket. I can’t even take Lily.”

Della Shreave Renfroe Landry grunted and reached for the soup crackers. “Boyd, are you screwing somebody from work?”

He gripped the edge of the tabletop. “What?”

His mother gnawed at the cellophane wrapper on the crackers. “Oh, come on,” she said. “Who gives away a free vacation where you can’t bring your wife or even your mom? For all I know, you could be running off with some dumb tramp from the call center.”

Boyd Shreave was shocked to hear himself say: “She’s not a tramp. She’s one of the Fondas.”