“Yes?”

“I just was wondering how things are going for you.”

“What things?”

“I mean, I guess I forgot to ask earlier how you are doing with-you know-everything that has happened to you.”

“It got to me for a few days, but I think I’m doing a lot better now. It was hard for me to keep my balance, you might say. Friends help. You help.”

“I do?”

“Yeah, sure you do.”

She started to cry.

“Oh, for pity’s sakes, Barbara,” I said, putting an arm around her. “I didn’t say that to make you cry.”

She bit her lower lip and sniffed, wiping the tears away in a really ladylike way. I was proud of her. I would have used the cuff of a sweatshirt or something.

“I’m a mess,” she said.

“You just need some rest and an occasional change of scenery.”

“I’ll try to take your advice.”

That will be a first, I thought. I gave her shoulders a squeeze. I looked around and saw a pay phone. “If you’re okay now, I’m going to go make a phone call.”

“Why not come in and make your call from Kenny’s room?”

From Barbara, this was an exceptionally generous offer. But she instantly read my hesitation.

“Oh, this is a private call, isn’t it?” she said, breaking into a grin. “Are you calling that detective?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering why I didn’t lie.

“That’s great!”

“Barbara, I said ‘I’m calling him,’ not ‘I’m marrying him.’”

“I know, I know,” she said, but she still had that grin. Better than tears, I guess. “Well,” she said with a girlish giggle, “I’ll see you later.”

She practically skipped into the hospital. Barbara is a charter member-nay, the founder-of that club that’s worried about my marital status. It was sad that the club was so desperate for any glimmer of hope. I could see the minutes of the next meeting: “We are happy to say Irene called an eligible male for other than business purposes.” Applause thunders in the meeting hall. For a moment, it made me think of just spending the rest of the day by myself.

But then there were those dreams from the night before. I made the call.

Frank answered with his last name again.

“Kelly,” I said back.

“Hi. Coming over?”

“Leaving St. Anne’s right now. See you in a few.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

I hung up and allowed myself the same kind of grin I had just seen on Barbara.

36

ITURNED ON THE RADIO and listened to rock and roll from the modern world so that I wouldn’t sing oldies all day. It was a good day for a drive down to the beach. I pulled up in Frank’s driveway and went to the door. He opened it, and I must confess to giving him a very unladylike stare. Barbara would have been appalled. But she wasn’t looking at Frank’s legs for the first time.

He was wearing a pair of shorts and some sandals, and his legs were tanned and muscular. He had on a T-shirt that didn’t make the top half look so bad either. Yowza.

By the time I got up to his broken nose and bruised eyes, I realized that I was being pretty obvious in my assessment of him.

“Hi,” I said, feeling the color rise in my cheeks. “Been out in the sun?”

“Just out back for a few minutes. Are you up for a walk on the beach? If I don’t get out of the house for a little while, I’m going to start climbing the walls.”

“A walk sounds great.”

He closed up the house and we made our way down to the beach at an easy pace. Frank walked a little slow and still seemed a little stiff because of the ribs, but he was moving around a lot better than the day before.

We reached the boardwalk, where a double stream of humanity strolled in each direction past food vendors, street musicians, and little booths offering sunglasses, beachwear, jewelry, sandals, and every kind of T-shirt imaginable. We forded the stream without getting jostled, a real accomplishment. Of course, Frank looked as if he had just stepped out of a boxing ring, so people tended to back off from him.

“Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” he asked, noticing their reactions. “Once I’ve shaved, I tend to forget that I look like this.”

“Not embarrassed in the least. Besides, I figure you earned some of those bruises on my behalf.”

“Just the way things happened.”

“No sale, but the modesty does make you more charming.”

“You are impossible.”

“No, but I’m not easy either.”

He shook his head as if to say he gave up, and we started walking again, this time winding our way between bodies tanning on towels. The soft sand was harder for him to manage. I could see he was relieved when we made it to the wet, firm sand near the waves. I stopped to tie my shoes. He watched me, and smiled.

“I can’t believe it. You still don’t know how to tie your shoes.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, though I knew exactly what he meant.

“I just remember that in Bakersfield, you always had trouble keeping your shoes tied. I remember figuring out that you tied them backward-you’re the only person I know with shoestring dyslexia.”

“Blame my father. I learned to tie shoes by tying his for him in the morning before he went to work. So I still tie them as if they were on someone else’s feet.”

“Yeah, but how long ago was that?”

“Never mind how long ago. Besides, they come untied because I step on my own laces.”

“I can see how it would make you feel better to believe that,” he laughed.

“You better quit it, Frank, you’ll make your ribs sore again.”

“Tell you what-let’s take our shoes off-then we won’t be interrupted all the time while we walk.” He eased himself down onto the sand, and we took off our shoes. It felt good, sitting there in the warm sand, a few feet out of the reach of the waves.

“Seems like I spent whole summers running around barefoot,” I said.

“I can see why.”

“Enough about the shoelaces, already.”

“Okay, okay. I spent whole summers barefoot, too. Drove my mother nuts. ‘You’ll step on a piece of glass!’ she’d say, or ‘People will think I don’t buy you shoes.’ But after the first week or so, my feet were so tough I could have walked on razor blades.”

“My mother used to say the same things to me. Barbara would be inside, trying on my mother’s high heels, and I’d be barefoot, climbing the tree in the front yard.”

“You had lunch with Barbara, didn’t you? How’s she doing?”

“Other than the fact that she spends too much time sitting there staring at four walls and trying to cheer Kenny up, she seems all right. We actually got along with one another today. I don’t know. We’ve never been real close, but we were okay until my father’s illness; then Dad died and she got married to Kenny, and except for a brief spell after Kenny dumped her, we haven’t had much to do with each other. We always seem to get on each other’s nerves.”

“I didn’t know your dad had died,” he said.

“It was before you moved down here, about seven years ago. He had a long fight with cancer.”

“I’m sorry.” He was quiet for a minute, watching the waves. “My dad died three years ago.”

I looked over at him.

“I guess I should be grateful,” he said. “It was quick. He had a heart attack.”

“Not any easier on you.”

He was quiet for a long time, but then said, “Maybe not.”

“How’s your sister?”

“Cassie? She’s doing great. She and my mom still live in Bakersfield. She’s married and has two kids.”

“Two kids? Your little sister has two kids?”

“Two boys, four and six-Brian and Michael Junior-hellions, both of them. But I’m crazy about them. Her husband is with the Highway Patrol. Cassie did okay by marrying Mike-he’s good to her. We’ve turned out to be one of those real cop families: my dad, Mike, and me.”

For a long while, we didn’t say anything.

“You know what’s crazy?” I asked.

“Yeah-the fact that we didn’t get in touch with each other more often.”