“Even?”

“Even with the homeless or something. I don’t know,” Delia said. “I don’t know what I mean!”

Eliza leaned forward and set her cheek against Delia’s. “You’re going to be fine,” she told her. “This little rest is going to work wonders, take my word. And meanwhile, Dee -” She was about to turn away, but one last thought must have struck her. “Meanwhile, remember Great-Uncle Roscoe’s favorite motto.”

“What was that?”

“‘Never do anything you can’t undo.’”

“I’ll bear it in mind,” Delia told her.

“Uncle Roscoe may have been a grump,” Eliza said, “but he did show common sense now and then.”

Delia said, “Drive safely.”

She stood watching after Eliza-that short, economical, energetic figure-until she disappeared down the sidewalk. Then she went back in the house for her bag.

Climbing the stairs, she thought, But if you never did anything you couldn’t undo-she set a hand on the splintery railing-you’d end up doing nothing at all, she thought. She was tempted to turn around and run after Eliza to tell her that, but then she couldn’t have borne saying goodbye all over again.

8

Her book that night was The Sun Also Rises, but she didn’t manage to finish it because she kept getting distracted. It was Friday, the start of the weekend. The traffic beneath her window had a livelier, more festive sound, and the voices of passersby were louder. “Hoo-ee! Here we come!” a teenage boy cried out. Momentarily, Delia lost track of the sentence she was reading. Around eight o’clock someone crossed the porch-not Belle but someone in flat-soled shoes walking slowly, as if weary or sad-and she lowered her book and listened. The front door opened, he entered the house, the stairs creaked upward one step at a time. Then the doorknob across the hall gave a rattle, and she thought, Oh. The other boarder.

She returned to her book, but every now and then a sound would break through her concentration-a hollow cough, the sliding of metal hangers along a closet rod. When she heard the shower running, she rose and tiptoed over to her door to make sure it was locked. Then she climbed back into bed and reread the paragraph she had just finished.

An hour or so later, Belle arrived. She had a man with her. Delia heard his hearty, booming laugh-not a laugh belonging to anyone she knew. “Now, be serious!” Belle said once. The TV came on downstairs, and the refrigerator door slammed shut with a dull clunk.

Mr. Lamb turned out to be an emaciated man in his forties, with straight brown hair and sunken eyes. Delia met him in the upstairs hall as she was setting out on some errands the following morning. “Hello,” she said, and passed on, having resolved in advance to keep their exchange to a minimum. But she needn’t have worried. Mr. Lamb flattened his back against the wall and smiled miserably at his shoes, mumbling something unintelligible. He was probably no happier than she about having to share the bathroom.

She was looking for a bank that kept Saturday hours. She wanted to cash Friday’s paycheck. The check was drawn on First Farmers’, just north of the square, but she found First Farmers’ closed, and so she walked on to Bay Borough Federal. It was a cool, breezy day, with dark clouds overhead that turned the air almost lilac; and this part of town, which she had not seen since the afternoon she arrived, now looked completely different to her. It looked out of date, somehow. The buildings were so faded they seemed not colored but hand tinted, like an antique photograph.

“Would you be able to cash this for me?” she asked the teller at Bay Borough Federal.

The teller-a woman in squinty rhinestoned glasses-barely glanced at the signature before nodding. “Zeke Pomfret? No problem,” she said.

So Delia signed over the first real paycheck of her life and received a few crisp bills in return. She was surprised at how much the taxes and whatnot could eat away from a salary.

Weber Street, East Street. Diagonally across the square. She carried her head high and set her feet down with precision. She might have been the heroine in some play or movie. And her intended audience, of course, was Sam.

It wasn’t that she looked forward to his visit, certainly. She dreaded having to explain herself; she knew how lame and contradictory all her reasons would sound to him. And yet as early as yesterday afternoon, some part of her mind had been making its devious calculations. Let’s say it’s two hours to Baltimore. Eliza could get home around, oh, say, four-thirty, so Sam could be here by six-thirty. Maybe seven. Or supposing he decided to finish up at the office first, supposing he had to buy gas… And then later that night: He must be waiting for the weekend. That would be much more sensible.

Imagine if he came upon her this minute, heading toward the library for Saturday’s book. Or pausing on the way home to rummage through a table of mugs in front of Katy’s Kitchenware. Or stepping out of the Pinchpenny with the navy knit dress in a bag. Imagine if he were watching from the boardinghouse porch as she rounded the corner of George Street. He would see her skimming along, wearing professional gray, entirely at ease in this town he had never laid eyes on before. He would think, Could that really be Delia?

Or imagine if she climbed the stairs and found him waiting at the door of her room. “Why, Sam,” she would say serenely, and she would draw her keys from her handbag-so official-looking, room key and office key on Mr. Pomfret’s chrome ring-and open the door and tilt her head, inviting him inside. Or he would be inside already, having persuaded Belle to admit him. He would be standing at one of the windows. He would turn and see her entering with her burdens-her library book and her tea mug and new dress-and, “Here, let me help you with those,” he would say, and she would say, “Thanks. I can manage.”

But he wasn’t there after all, and she set her things on the bed in total silence.

She went downstairs to pay her rent. Belle was home, she could tell. She heard sounds from behind the celery-colored door leading off the hall. She knocked and Belle called, “Come in!” meanwhile squeaking something, whirring something. It was a stationary bicycle, Delia discovered when she stepped inside. Belle was pedaling madly, flushed and overheated in a pink sweat suit strewn with tiny satin bows. “Whew!” she said when she saw Delia. Her living room, like the rest of the house, seemed furnished with pieces earlier tenants had discarded. A dingy plush sofa faced the TV; the coffee table bore a loopy design of ring-shaped water stains.

“I just wanted to pay my rent,” Delia told her.

“Oh, thanks,” Belle said, and without slowing her pedaling she stuffed the folded bills up one sleeve. “Everything all right?”

“Yes, fine.”

“Great,” Belle said, and she leaned diligently over the handlebars as Delia closed the door again.

Delia planned to go next to the Gobble-Up for some lunch things, but just as she was leaving the house a young man in uniform arrived on the porch. She thought at first he was some kind of soldier; the uniform was a khaki color, and his hair was prickly short. “Miz Grinstead?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I’m Chuck Akers, from the Polies.”

It took her a moment to translate that.

“Think I could have a word with you?” he asked.

“Certainly,” she said. She turned to lead him inside and then realized she had nowhere to take him. Her bedroom was out of the question, and she couldn’t very well use Belle’s living room. So she turned back and asked, “What can I do for you?” and they ended up conducting their business right there on the porch.

“You are Miz Cordelia F. Grinstead,” he said.