“You knew what?” I say, amused.
“What are we drinking?” Callie asks quickly, her cheeks pink from the cold and the walk.
“Bonfire Night punch. My contribution.”
“What’s in it?”
Dot shrugs, which I suppose is how most people make punch. “Bit of everything. Mostly rum.”
I take a sip. It’s good, super-sweet and strong. Like tropical fruit juice under the influence. I’d been planning to hunt down some coffee, but I guess I can get my fix later.
“I have my eye on a man,” Dot confides, looping an arm through mine.
I meet Callie’s eye, smile.
“He’s over there. The blond one with his back to us, faffing about with the marshmallows. What do you think?”
I struggle to judge a man I don’t know from the back of his head. “Well, he seems helpful. Capable.”
Dot mainlines her punch in silence. “Oh, you’re right,” she says eventually, coming up for air. “He’ssonot my type. He’s the club treasurer, for God’s sake! Just look at how carefully he’s turning those marshmallows.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s true. What was I thinking? There’s not even a hint of pyromaniac in that man.”
“Sorry,” I say mildly, wondering how I’ve managed to divert Cupid’s arrow so dramatically in the space of less than thirty seconds.
“Right. More booze.” Dot heads off toward the boathouse.
“Something I said?”
Callie laughs. “To be fair, you didn’t have very much to go on.”
“Although pyromaniacs are top of her list, apparently.”
“I wouldn’t worry. Dot’s benchmark for the perfect guy is literally inexplicable.”
We walk a few feet to the dark edge of the lake. It’s actually an infilled gravel quarry, fringed by trees and sandy footpaths. The water’s an inkwell, flecked with moonlight.
“I like Dot’s nickname for me.”
“Customer? Unique, isn’t it?”
“Stops me getting ideas above my station, I suppose.”
She laughs again. “She does know your name. I think it must have had something to do with the punch.”
“What did she mean when she saidI knew it?”
Callie lets out a staccato breath. “You know, I have no idea.”
At a regulation distance from the boathouse, Dot’s marshmallow man switches roles. A crowd draws together, dark like gathered penguins, as a stream of fireworks roars obligingly to life.
The air becomes abstract art, pigment-filled. A Jackson Pollock with the sound up high.
“I feel a bit like a teenager,” Callie says, as the first run of rockets scatters to a close. “Hanging around the country park after dark, drinking homemade punch.”
I feign a lightbulb. “Knew I recognized you from somewhere.”
