Clay chuckles. “I was young once too, honey.”

You still are, I think, wondering suddenly if he’s closer to my own age than Mom’s.

“C’mon, Samantha. You’re no coward. Take a bite.”

All right, I think. I won’t be a coward. I look him in the eyes.

“So who was that woman I saw you with?”

I expect him to tell me it’s none of my business. Or say he has no clue what I’m talking about. But he doesn’t miss a beat.

“Downtown? Have you been fussin’ about that?”

I shrug. “I’ve been wondering. If I should say something to my mom.”

He plants his hands on the counter, looking me in the eye. “Because you saw me having lunch with an old friend?”

The air has shifted a little. He’s smiling, but I’m not sure he means it now. “You did seem pretty friendly,” I say.

Clay studies me, still leaning casually against the counter. I meet his eyes. After a moment, he suddenly seems to relax. “She’s just a pal, Samantha. She was a girlfriend, a while back, but that’s history. I’m with your mama now.”

I make little indentations in the gravy with my fork. “So Mom knows about her?”

“We haven’t sat down and talked about our pasts much. Too much goin’ on right here and now. But your mama has no call to be concerned about Marcie. Any more than I would fret about your daddy. Want some OJ?” He pours me a glass before I can answer. “We’re grown-ups, sugar. We all have pasts. I bet even you do. But those don’t much matter compared to the present, right?”

Well…right, I guess. I mean, I can barely remember what I saw in Michael or Charley.

“We all have presents too,” he adds, “that we don’t tell even the people we love every little thing about.”

I look at him sharply. But no, that’s crazy. He’s here even less often than Mom. He couldn’t possibly know about Jase. But wait, does that mean…

“Like I said, Marcie’s the past. She’s not my present, Samantha. And you know me well enough to know I’m a heckuva lot more concerned with the future than the past.”

I’m polishing off the surprisingly good biscuit when Mom comes in, flushed from the heat, with a large stack of newspapers. Clay scoops them out of her hands, gives her a big kiss, pulls out a stool for her.

“I’ve been working on making a Southerner out of your daughter, Gracie. Hope you’ve got no objection to that.”

“Of course not, sweetie.” She slides onto the stool next to me. “That looks delicious. I’m famished!”

Clay gives her two biscuits and ladles on the gravy, and Mom tucks into it like a lumberjack. So much for her usual breakfast of cantaloupe and rye toast.

And so it goes. He’s in our lives, in our house, everywhere now.

That feels like the last I see of Mom for a while. She dashes out the door every morning with her change of clothes for the evening hanging off the backseat hook in her car. The longest conversations I have with her are by text, as she lets me know she’s at a cookout, clam broil, ribbon cutting, fund-raising harbor cruise, union meeting…whatever. She even falls behind on vacuuming, leaving Post-it notes directing me to pick up the slack. When she is home for dinner, Clay’s there too, and halfway into the meal he shoves aside his plate, pulling out a pad to scribble notes on, absently reaching for his fork from time to time, fishing a piece of meat or a bite of tomato off whatever plate he lands on—his own, mine, Mom’s.

You hear that phrase “he lives and breathes” about people’s enthusiasms, but I’ve never seen it in action quite like this. Clay Tucker lives and breathes politics. He makes Mom, with her relentless schedule, seem like a casual dabbler. He’s turning her into someone new, someone like him. Maybe that’s a good thing…But the fact is, I miss my mom.

Chapter Eighteen

“Ms. Reed! Ms. Reed? Could you please come here?” Mr. Lennox’s voice slices through the air, practically vibrating with rage. “This instant!”

I blow my whistle, put the Lifeguard Off Duty sign on my chair after making sure there are no small kids without parents in the water, and head for the Lagoon pool. Mr. Lennox is standing there with Tim. Once again Mr. Lennox looks a few breaths from an apoplexy. Tim, amused and a little wasted, is squinting in the midday sun.

“This”—Mr. Lennox points to me—“is a lifeguard.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Tim says. “I get it now.”

“No, you do not get it, young man. Do you call yourself a lifeguard? Is that what you call yourself?”

Tim’s expression is familiar, struggling to decide whether to be a smart ass. Finally he says, “My friends are allowed to call me Tim.”

“That is not what I mean!” Mr. Lennox whirls on me. “Do you know how many demerits this young man has accrued?”

He’s only worked at the B&T for a week, so I make a conservative guess. “Um…five?”

“Eight! Eight!” I’m almost expecting Mr. Lennox to burst into a ball of flame. “Eight demerits. You’ve worked here two summers. How many demerits do you have?”

Tim folds his arms and looks at me. “Fraternizing” on the job is worth four demerits, but he’s never said a word—to me or, apparently, Nan—about seeing me and Jase.

“I’m not sure,” I say. None.

“None!” Mr. Lennox says. “In his brief stint on the job, this young man has”—he holds up one hand, bending down finger by finger—“taken food from the snack bar—twice—without paying. Not worn his hat—three times. Allowed someone else to sit in the lifeguard chair—”

“It was just this little kid,” Tim interjects. “He wanted to see the view. He was, like, four.”

“That chair is not a toy. You have also left your post without posting the off duty or on break sign—twice.”

“I was right there by the pool,” Tim objects. “I was just talking to some girls. I would have stopped if someone was drowning. They weren’t that hot,” he adds this last to me, as though he owes me an explanation for this unaccountable sense of responsibility.

“You didn’t even notice me when I stood behind you clearing my throat! I cleared it three times.”

“Is not noticing the throat-clearing a separate offense from not putting up that sign? Or is it three different demerits because of the three times, because—”

Mr. Lennox’s face seems to contract and freeze. He straightens up as tall as a very short man can. “You”—finger jabbed at Tim’s chest—“do not have the Bath and Tennis spirit.” He punctuates each word with another jab.

Tim’s lip twitches, another bad move.

“Now,” Mr. Lennox thunders, “you do not have a job.”

I hear a sigh from behind me and turn to find Nan.

“A week,” she whispers. “A new record, Timmy.”

Mr. Lennox turns on his heel, calling, “Please return all items of your wardrobe that are club property to the office.”

“Aw, shit,” Tim says, reaching into the pocket of the hoodie draped over the lifeguard chair and pulling out a pack of Marlboros. “I was so hoping I’d get to keep the cute hat.”

“That’s it?” Nan’s voice rises unexpectedly in both pitch and volume. “That’s all you have to say? This is the fourth job you’ve lost since you got kicked out of school! Your third school in three years! Your fourth job in three months! How is it even possible to get fired that often?”

“Well, that movie theater gig was boring as all fuck, for one thing,” Tim offers, lighting up.

“Who cares! All you had to do was take tickets!” Nan shouts. Tim’s kept his voice low, but Mr. Lennox was loud and Nan, who hates a scene, doesn’t seem to care that she’s making one now. A group of small kids are staring, round-eyed. Mrs. Henderson has her cell phone out once again. “And you screwed that up by letting everyone you know in for free!”

“They charge crazy-ass prices for popcorn and candy—the management was hardly losing money.”