She turned away from him, to her computer.
“Cary, huh?” he said.
“Cary,” she confirmed.
“Cary like ‘Carrie Anne, what’s your game now?’ by the Hollies, or Cary like ‘Carey, get out your cane’ by Joni Mitchell?”
Shiloh snorted. “The latter.”
She heard Tom snapping out a beat. When she looked up, he wasswaying from side to side on the other side of the desk. As soon as Shiloh met his eyes, he sang the first line of the Joni Mitchell song, giving it a jazzy swing.
Shiloh eventually joined in—she couldn’t not. She could never really say no to a bit, and she and Tom loved to sing. He was a grown-up show-choir kid. She let him have the best line—“Oh,you’re a mean old daddy, but I like you.”
“Cary, Cary, Cary...” Tom said when they were done goofing. “Sounds like a big old mess.”
Shiloh swung back to her computer. “Yep.”
“Good for you, Shiloh.”
Forty
“I don’t have to eat dinner with you,” her mother said. “I can go to my room.”
Shiloh was cutting up a honeydew melon. “No, I’m saying—Iwantyou to eat with us. So it seems more platonic.”
“Does Cary think it’s platonic?”
“Yes,” Shiloh said. “And when he walks in and sees you, he’ll know thatIthink it’s platonic, too.”
Her mother took a piece of melon. “It’s less of a mystery now, how the two of you never slept together.”
“Just stay out here until I put the kids to bed.”
“What happens then?”
“Well, at that point”—Shiloh was gesturing with her paring knife—“if you stay out here, it will seem like you’re chaperoning us.”
Her mom rolled her eyes. “Just wink twice when I’m allowed to go.”
Junie came into the kitchen. “Mommy, I’m starving.”
“You’re not starving.”
“I am.” Junie clenched her hands in her bobbed hair. “I’m so hungry, I can’t eventhink.”
There was a knock at the front door.
“I’ll get it!” Junie shouted.
Shiloh wiped her hands on her jeans. “Are you allowed to answer the door?”
Junie hung her head. “No.”
Shiloh went for the door. Junie was right behind her. Gus was sitting on the living room floor, playing with plastic cars. He was just getting to the age where Shiloh could leave him alone for a few minutes. Like, he could still kill himself if left to his own devices—but it would probably take more than five minutes.
Cary was standing on the porch in a Navy baseball cap and a blue T-shirt. Shiloh opened the door and got a better look at him. He was wearing brown ripstop pants—Cary’s pants always had several loops and pockets—and running shoes. Did Cary run?
“Hi,” she said.
