of the time, the checks even cleared the bank.
Calvin pushed his everyday glasses up his nose—he had better ones for important occasions. “I know the pool is closed for maintenance, Aunt Libby,” he said, “but the kid next door to us—Justin?—well, his mom and dad bought him a swimming pool, the kind you blow up with a bicycle pump. His dad filled it with a garden hose this morning, but Justin’s mom said we can’t swim until the sun heats the water up. I just want to be ready.”
Julie chuckled as she came out of the kitchen. She’d already managed to get flour all over the front of her fresh apron. “Hey, Mark Spitz,” she said to her son, “how about going next door for a five-pound bag of sugar? Give you a nickel for your trouble.”
Almsted’s, probably one of the last surviving mom-and-pop grocery stores in that part of Texas, was something of a local institution, as much a museum as a place of business.
“You can’t buy anything for a nickel,” Calvin scoffed, but he climbed down from the stool and held out one palm, reporting for duty.
Libby gave him a few dollars from the till to pay for the sugar, and Calvin marched himself out onto the sidewalk, headed next door.
Julie immediately stationed herself at a side window, in order to keep an eye on him. No child had ever gone missing from Blue River, but a person couldn’t be too careful.
“We’ve already got plenty of sugar,” Libby said.
“I know,” Julie answered, watching as her son went into Almsted’s, with its peeling, green-painted wooden screen door. “I have something to tell you, and I don’t want Calvin to hear.”
Libby, busy getting ready for the Monday-morning latte rush, went still. “Is something wrong?”
“Gordon e-mailed me,” Julie said, still keeping her careful vigil. “He’s married and he and his wife pass through town often, on the way to visit his parents in Tulsa, and now Gordon and the little woman want to stop by sometime soon, and get acquainted with Calvin.”
“That sounds harmless,” Libby observed, though she felt a prickle of uneasiness at the news.
“I don’t like it,” Julie replied firmly. She smiled, which meant Calvin had reappeared, lugging the bag of sugar, and stepped back so he wouldn’t see her. “What if Gordon decides to be an actual, step-up father, now that he’s married?”
“Julie, he is Calvin’s father—”
Julie made a throat-slashing motion with one hand, and Calvin struggled through the front door, might have been squashed by it if he hadn’t been wearing the miniature inner tube with the goggle-eyed frog-head on the front.
“Here,” he said, holding the bag out to his mother. “Where’s my nickel?”
Julie paid up, casting a warning glance in Libby’s direction as she did so. There was to be no more talk of Gordon Pruett’s impending visit while Calvin was around.
“I’m bored,” Calvin soon announced. “I want to go to playschool over at the community center.”
“You should have thought of that when you insisted on wearing swimming trunks and the floaty thing with the frog-head,” Julie responded lightly, heading back toward the kitchen with the unnecessary bag of sugar. “You’re not dressed for playschool, kiddo.”
“There’s a dress code?” Libby asked. She generally took Calvin’s side when there was a difference of opinion.
“No,” Julie conceded brightly, “but I’d be willing to bet nobody else is wearing a bathing suit.”
Two secretaries came in then, for their double nonfat lattes, following by Jubal Tabor, a lineman for the power company. In his midforties, with a receding hairline and a needy personality, Jubal always ordered the Rocket, a high-caffeine concoction with ginseng and a lot of sugar. Said it got him through the morning.
“Expectin’ a flood, kid?” he asked Calvin, who was back on his stool, shoulders hunched, frog-head slightly askew.
Calvin rolled his eyes.
Hiding a smile, Libby served the secretaries’ drinks, took their money and thanked them.
Meanwhile, Julie made sure she stayed in the kitchen. Jubal asked her to the movies nearly every time their paths crossed, and even now he was standing on tiptoe trying to catch a glimpse of her while the espresso for his Rocket steamed out of the steel spigot.
“He’s not so bad,” Libby had said once, when Julie had sent Jubal away with another carefully worded rejection.
“Julie and Jubal?” her sister had said, her eyes green that day because she was wearing a mint-colored blouse. “Our names alone are reason enough to steer clear—we’d sound like second cousins to the Bobbsey twins. Besides, he’s too old for me, he wears white socks and he always calls Calvin ‘kid.’”
The admittedly comical ring of their names, Jubal’s age and the white socks might have been overlooked, in Libby’s opinion, but the gruff way he said “kid” whenever he spoke to Calvin bugged her, too. So she’d stopped reminding her sister that there was a shortage of marriageable men in Blue River.
“Scones aren’t ready yet?” Jubal asked, casting a disapproving eye toward the virtually empty plastic bakery display case beside the cash register. “Out at Starbucks, they’ve always got scones.”
Libby refrained from pointing out to Jubal that he never bought scones anyway, no matter how good the selection was, and set his drink on the counter. “You been cheating on me, Jubal?” she teased. “Buying your jet fuel from the competition?”
Jubal looked at her and blinked once, hard, as though he’d never seen her before. “You want to go to the movies with me tonight?” he asked.
Calvin made a rude sound, which Jubal either missed or pretended not to hear.
“I’m sorry,” Libby said, with a note of kind regret in her voice. “I promised Tate McKettrick I’d have dinner with him.”
Julie dropped something in the kitchen, causing a great clatter, and out of the corner of her eye, Libby saw Calvin watching her with renewed interest. Since he’d been born long after the breakup, he couldn’t have registered the implications of his aunt’s statement, but that well-known surname had a cachet all its own.
Even among four-year-olds, it seemed.
“Well,” Jubal groused, “far be it from me to compete with a McKettrick.”
Libby merely smiled. “Thanks for the business, Jubal,” she told him. “You have yourself a good day, now.”
Jubal paid up, took his Rocket and left.
The instant his utility van pulled away from the curb, Julie peeked out of the kitchen. “Did I hear you say you’re going to dinner with Tate?” she asked.
Libby tried to act casual. “He asked me last night. I said maybe.”
“That isn’t what you told Mr. Tabor,” Calvin piped up. “You lied.”
