“I’m a team player,” Baker says. “Sign me up!”

And the hits keep coming! On Baker’s next outing with Frances, they look at a villa called the Happy Hibiscus. It’s a beautiful stone home with cathedral ceilings, two bedrooms, two baths, a modern kitchen, a laundry room, and a small jewel of a pool out back in the garden. It has a gas grill, cable TV, and a yard planted with bismarckia trees. It’s a bit beyond Baker’s budget but he likes it so much, he bends. The house is on the flat part of Fish Bay and has no view; frankly, looking at it, you wouldn’t even know you were on an island. Is Baker going to let this bother him? He’s not. The house is directly across the street from Ayers’s place; he can see her little green truck in the driveway when he stands at his front door. This is more of a downside than the price or the lack of a view; Baker doesn’t want to crowd Ayers or have her think he’s stalking her. How will he ever explain that he’s now renting the house across the street? She’s going to think he’s psycho. It’s a small island, but not that small. If he rented any other house, it would give her more breathing room.

Frances must sense his momentary hesitation because she chimes in, “You’d be a fool not to take it, son.”

“I’m no fool,” Baker says, though he suspects he’ll feel like one when he tells Ayers they’re neighbors. “I’ll take it.”

Baker and Floyd go out to dinner to celebrate. Baker stays away from La Tapa. It’s too fancy for Floyd, plus Ayers works there, plus Swan Seeley was lurking in the school parking lot that afternoon (waiting for him?), and she told Baker that she would be having dinner at the bar at La Tapa that evening around seven and why didn’t he join her? The invitation had unmistakable romantic intent, so now Baker has to avoid Swan at all costs.

They try the Banana Deck, but from the bottom of the stone steps, Baker can see Cash sitting at the bar by himself. It’s surreal, bumping into his family around the island (Baker saw his mother at the market). Under other circumstances, Baker might say, What the heck, let’s eat with Uncle Cash and catch up. But the truth is, he’s not quite ready to fill his brother in on everything that’s been happening, meaning that he doesn’t want to break the news to Cash that he’s renting a two-bedroom place that doesn’t have space for him (except a sofa to crash on in case of emergency) and that is directly across the street from Ayers’s house. Ayers might not call him a stalker to his face, but Cash most certainly will.

“Let’s go, buddy,” Baker says, wheeling Floyd around. They check at Lime Inn, but there’s a forty-five-minute wait, and that won’t work—Floyd is four years old; Baker has to get him fed. The Longboard has a line, and High Tide is still filled with happy-hour revelers.

What about Cruz Bay Landing? Someone at the Westin pool this past week was raving about the shrimp appetizer, which sounds good to Baker, and he can get Floyd a burger. They go over, and there are a couple of seats at the bar and a guitar player singing “Waiting on a Friend.”

“Ooh, making love and breaking hearts, it is a game for youth,” Baker sings quietly. He orders a beer for himself and a ginger ale for Floyd and checks out the menu. He’s so happy to not be eating ramen noodles with hot dogs again tonight that it takes him a minute to realize that he knows the guy sitting a few stools away with a rum punch and a Corona and a velvet ring box in front of him, a bucket-headed American Staffordshire terrier leashed to his bar stool.

It’s Mick.

Baker is halfway off his bar stool, ready to leave—they can just go to Ronnie’s for pizza—when Mick sees him.

“Hey,” Mick says. “Banker! It’s Banker, right?” Mick sounds like the town drunk, his voice overly loud and his speech slurred. The guitar player ends the song; the bartender says, “Easy, Mick,” as though he’s expecting a scene. But there’s not going to be a scene. Floyd is there. Does Mick see Floyd, Baker’s little boy?

“Baker,” Baker says, extending a hand. “How’ve you been, man?” Baker asks the question in earnest, though anyone can see Mick has not been well. What’s with the velvet box? (Baker can guess.) And the poor dog. Floyd clambers down off his bar stool and stands a respectful distance away, regarding the dog.

“Can I pet him?” Floyd asks Mick.

“Sure!” Mick says. “His name is Gordon. Old Gordie-Gordo. You can take him for a walk around the park if you want. He could use the exercise.”

“Is it okay, Dad?” Floyd asks.

No! Baker thinks. It’s getting dark and Powell Park is cast in shadows. But the park is only a couple steps away from the restaurant patio and what kind of father tells his son he can’t walk a dog? “Why not?” Baker says. “Once around only, okay? Stay on the path. Don’t let him go.”

“Gordie won’t run off,” Mick says. “He’s a good dog. Likes to sniff things.”

Floyd takes Gordon’s leash and, looking self-important and three inches taller, leads him a few steps away. Baker puts in an order with the bartender for the shrimp appetizer, a grilled mahi sandwich, and a kid’s burger.

Then Baker drains his beer and pretends to watch the basketball game on TV, Duke against North Carolina. Mick is here, and Floyd is walking Mick’s dog, so there are no hard feelings. Everything is fine. Is everything fine?

“Word on the street?” Mick says.

“Excuse me?” Baker says.

“Word on the street is that Ayers is pregnant,” Mick says.

Baker flags down the bartender for another beer, then puts his eyes on Floyd. Floyd has stopped to let Gordon sniff. Ayers is pregnant.

“Really,” Baker says. He thinks of the text she sent him. I’ve come down with something. It’s bad and I wouldn’t want you or Floyd to catch it. I’ll call you when I’m better. She’s pregnant?

“That’s what I heard,” Mick says. He raises his Corona to Baker. “So I guess congratulations are in order.”

Baker feels like he’s suffered a grave injury—lost a limb, maybe—but has yet to feel the pain. “Yeah, man, congratulations.” He would like the congratulations to be accompanied by giving Mick a sock in the mouth or pouring Mick’s drinks over his head. Mick doesn’t deserve Ayers. He sure as hell doesn’t deserve to have a baby with Ayers. But that’s the way the world always works, isn’t it? The jerks win.

“Congratulations to you,” Mick says. “The baby’s not mine.”

“What?” Baker says.

“It’s not mine,” Mick says. He drains his rum punch in one long swallow and bangs the empty glass on the bar. “It’s yours.”

Huck

He sees the Jeep with the tinted windows idling at the base of Jacob’s Ladder in the morning when he and Irene take Maia to school, then he sees it again in the National Park Service lot when he and Irene are letting off their charter clients. The clients were a couple, the husband reeking of weed and high as a kite and the wife spending the entire six-hour offshore trip glowering at him from under her wide-brimmed sun hat. Irene had tried to draw the woman out, tried to put her on a mahi, but the wife was having none of it. That was fine; Irene cut bait and left her alone. It wasn’t her job to make friends or play marriage counselor.