“Lunch? I just had breakfast.”

Yes, it was morning still, wasn’t it. She felt dizzy and disoriented, almost drunk. “A Coke or something, then,” she said.

“Okay.”

Turning him in the direction of Rick-Rack’s gave her an excuse to touch him again. She loved that hard tendon at the inside crook of his arm. Oh, she might have known it would be Carroll who finally came for her! (Her most attached child, when all was said and done-her most loving, her closest. Although she would probably have thought the same if it had been either of the other two.)

“There’s so much you have to bring me up-to-date on,” she told him. “How’s tenth grade?”

He shrugged.

“Has your father had any more chest pains?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Ramsay and Susie all right?”

“Sure.”

Then what is it? she wanted to ask, but she didn’t. Already she was falling back into the veiled, duplicitous manner required for teenage offspring. She led him west on George Street, very nearly holding her breath. “Is Ramsay still seeing that divorcée person? That Velma?” she said.

Another shrug. Obviously, he was.

“And how about Susie?”

“How about her.”

“Has she figured out yet what she’ll do after graduation?”

“Huh?” he said, looking toward a Bon Jovi poster in the record store.

He was as frustrating as ever, and he hadn’t lost that habit of ostentatiously holding back a yawn each time he spoke. She forced herself to be patient. She steered him past Shearson Liquors, past Brent Hardware, and through the door of Rick-Rack’s.

“Dee-babe!” Rick hailed her, lowering his copy of Sports Illustrated. She would have known from his greeting alone that his father-in-law was sitting at the counter. (Rick always put on a display for Mr. Bragg.) “Who’s that you got with you?” he asked.

“This is my son Carroll.” She told Carroll, “This is Rick Rackley.”

“Hey, your son!” Rick said. “How about that!”

Carroll looked dazed. Delia felt a prickle of annoyance. Couldn’t he at least act civil? “Let’s sit in a booth,” she said brusquely.

Teensy was nowhere in sight, so Delia took it upon herself to grab two menus from the pile on a stool. As soon as they were seated, she passed one to Carroll. “I know it’s early,” she said, “but you might want to try the pork barbecue sandwich. It’s the North Carolina kind, not a bit sweet or-”

“Mom,” Carroll whispered.

“What.”

“Mom. Is that Rick-Rack?”

“What?”

“Rick Rackley, the football player?”

“Well, yes, I think so.”

Carroll gaped at Rick, who was topping off his father-in-law’s mug of coffee. He turned back to Delia and whispered, “You know Rick-Rack in person? Rick-Rack knows you?”

This was working out better than she could have hoped. She said, “Yes, certainly,” in an airy tone, and then, showing off, she called, “Where’s Teensy got to, Rick?”

“She’s over at House of Hair,” he said, setting the coffeepot back on the burner. “You-all going to have to shout your order direct to me.”

“Well, is it too early to ask for pork barbecue?”

“Naw, we can do that,” Rick said.

Carroll said, “I just had breakfast, Mom. I told you.”

“Yes, but this is something you wouldn’t want to miss,” she said. “Not a drop of tomato sauce! And it comes with really good french fries and homemade coleslaw!”

She didn’t know why she was making such a fuss about it. Carroll was clearly not hungry; he was still staring at Rick. But she called, “Two platters, please, Rick, and two large Cokes.”

“You got it.”

Mr. Bragg spun his stool around so he could study them. His thin white crew cut stood erect, giving him the look of someone flabbergasted. “Why!” he cried. “What’s happened with this boy?”

Delia glanced toward Carroll in alarm.

“How’d he shoot up so fast?” Mr. Bragg asked. “How’d he get so big all at once?”

She wondered if the old man had somehow read her mind, but then he said, “Last Christmas he was only yea tall,” and he set a palm down around the level of his shins.

“Oh,” Delia said. “No, that’s Noah you’re thinking of.”

It was common knowledge by now that Mr. Bragg was failing, which was why poor Rick and Teensy couldn’t send him back wherever he came from.

“Who’s Noah?” was his next question.

“Who’s Noah?” Carroll echoed.

“Just the boy who…” She felt rattled, as if she had been caught in some disloyalty. “Just the son of my employer,” she said. “So! Carroll. Tell me all that’s been going on at home. Has the Casserole Harem descended? Lots of apple pies streaming in?”

“You haven’t asked about Aunt Liza,” Carroll told her.

“Eliza? Is she all right?”

“Well. All right, I guess,” he said.

“What is that supposed to mean? Is she sick?”

“No, she’s not sick.”

“Last Christmas you were just a shrimp,” Mr. Bragg called. “You and her were drinking coffee together, tee-heeing over the presents you’d bought.”

“Eliza is still taking care of the house, isn’t she?” Delia persevered.

But Carroll seemed distracted by Mr. Bragg. He said, “Who’s he talking about?”

“I told you: my employer’s son.”

“Is that why you’ve got that bag with you? Tasteful Clothing for the Discerning Young Man’? You buy this kid clothes? You tee-hee together? And what’s that you’re wearing, for God’s sake?”

Delia looked down. She wasn’t wearing anything odd-just her Miss Grinstead cardigan and the navy print housedress. “Wearing?” she said.

“You’re so, like, ensconced.”

Two plates appeared before them, clattering against the Formica. “Ketchup, anyone?” Rick asked.

“No, thanks.” She told Carroll, “Honey, I-”

“I would like ketchup,” Carroll announced belligerently.

“Oh. Sorry. Yes, please, Rick.”

Carroll said, “Have you forgotten you have a son who puts ketchup on his french fries?”

“Honey, believe me,” she said, “I would never forget. Well, maybe about the ketchup, but never about-”

A plastic squirt bottle arrived, along with their Cokes in tall paper cups. “Thank you, Rick,” she said.

She waited till he had left again, and then she reached across the table and touched Carroll’s hand. His knuckles were grained like leather. His lips were chapped. There was something too concrete about him; she was accustomed to the misty, soft-edged Carroll of her daydreams.

“I would never forget I have children,” she told him.

“Right. That’s why you sashayed off down the beach and didn’t once look back at them.”

Someone said, “Delia?”

She started. Two teenage girls stood over their table-Kim Brewster and Marietta something. Schwartz? Schmidt? (She brought Joel homemade fudge so sweet it zinged through your temples.) “Well! Hello there!” Delia said.

“You won’t tell Mr. Miller you saw us here, will you?” Kim asked. Kim was one of Delia’s remedial pupils; lately, Delia had been volunteering as a math tutor over at the school. “He would kill us if he found out!”

“We’re cutting class,” Marietta put in. “We saw you in here and we figured we’d ask: you know how Mr. Miller’s birthday is coming up.”

Delia hadn’t known, but she nodded. Anything to get rid of them.

“So a bunch of us are chipping in on a present, and we thought you might could tell us what to buy him.”

“Oh! Well…”

“I mean, you know him better than anyone. He doesn’t smoke, does he? Seems like a lot of gifts for guys are smokers’ stuff.”

“He doesn’t smoke, no,” Delia said.

“Not even a pipe?”

“Not even a pipe.”

“He’s always so, you know, distinguished and all, we think he’d look great with a pipe. Maybe we should just get him one anyways.”

“No, I really think he would hate that,” Delia said firmly. “Well! It was good seeing you girls.”

But Kim was studying Carroll now from beneath her long silky lashes. “You don’t go to Old Underwear,” she informed him.