“Hello,” he said. “It’s me again. The pest.”

She dropped her leg and looked at him. The smile appeared, as predictable as sunrise in the east. It was her armor. There might be someone behind it who was hurt as well as angry, but she had determined no one in the world would see that. Except, perhaps, for Missy. Who was not in evidence this morning.

“Why, it’s Mr. Carey,” she said. “And sporting a number. Also a front porch, and I do believe it’s a little bigger.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said. “And hey, maybe it’s just a pillow under there, something I wear to fool people.” He held out one of the cups. “Would you like a coffee?”

“No. I had oatmeal and half a grapefruit at six this morning. That’s all I’ll take until halfway. Then I’ll stop at one of the stands and help myself to a cranberry juice. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’d like to finish my stretches and my meditation.”

“Give me a minute,” Scott said. “I didn’t really come over to offer you a coffee, because I knew you wouldn’t take it. I came to offer you a wager.”

She had grasped her right ankle in her left hand and was starting to lift it behind her. Now she dropped it and stared at him as if he had grown a horn in the center of his forehead. “What in God’s name are you talking about? And how many times do I have to tell you that I find your efforts to . . . I don’t know . . . ingratiate yourself to me are unwelcome?”

“There’s a big difference between ingratiation and trying to be friendly, as I think you know. Or would, if you weren’t always in such a defensive crouch.”

“I’m not—”

“But I’m sure you’ve got your reasons to feel defensive, and let’s not argue semantics. The wager I’m offering is simple. If you win today, I’ll never bother you again, and that includes complaining about your dogs. Run them on View Drive all you want, and if they poop on my lawn, I’ll pick it up, with never a single word of protest.”

She looked incredulous. “If I win? If??”

He ignored this. “If, on the other hand, I win today, you and Missy have to come to my house for dinner. A vegetarian dinner. I’m not a bad cook when I put my mind to it. We’ll sit down, we’ll drink a little wine, and we’ll talk. Kind of break the ice, or at least try to. We don’t have to be bosom buddies, I don’t expect that, it’s very hard to change a closed mind—”

“My mind is not closed!”

“But maybe we can be real neighbors. I could borrow a cup of sugar from you, you could borrow a stick of butter from me, that kind of thing. If neither of us win, it’s a push. Things can go on the way they have.”

Until your restaurant closes its doors and you two blow town, he thought.

“Let me make sure I’m hearing this. You’re betting you can beat me today? Let me be frank, Mr. Carey. Your body tells me that you’re a typical overindulgent, under-exercised white American male. If you push it, you’ll either go down with leg cramps, a sprained back, or a heart attack. You will not beat me today. Nobody is going to beat me today. Now please go away and let me finish getting ready.”

“Okay,” Scott said, “I get it. You’re afraid to take the wager. I thought you might be.”

She was lifting her other leg now, but she dropped it. “Jesus shined-up Christ on a trailer hitch. Fine. It’s a bet. Now leave me alone.”

Smiling, Scott put out his hand. “We have to shake on it. That way, if you back out, I can call you a welsher right to your face, and you’ll have to suck it up.”

She snorted, but gave his hand a single hard grip. And for a moment—just one small glimmer of a moment—he saw a hint of a real smile. Only a trace, but he had an idea she had a fine one when she really let it rip.

“Great,” he said, then added, “Good discussion.” He started away, back to the 300s.

“Mr. Carey.”

He turned back.

“Why is this so important to you? Is it because I—because we—are a threat to your masculinity somehow?”

No, it’s because I’m going to die next year, he thought, and I’d like to put at least one thing right before I do. It’s not going to be my marriage, that’s kaput, and it’s not going to be the department store websites, because those guys don’t understand that their stores are like buggy-whip factories at the start of the automobile age.

But those things he wouldn’t say. She wouldn’t understand. How could she, when he didn’t fully understand himself??

“It just is,” he said finally.

He left her with that.

CHAPTER 4

The Turkey Trot

At ten minutes past nine, only a little late, Mayor Dusty Coughlin stepped in front of over eight hundred runners stretching back nearly a quarter of a mile. He held a starter pistol in one hand and a battery-powered bullhorn in the other. The low numbers, including Deirdre McComb, were at the front. Back in the 300s, Scott was surrounded by men and women shaking out their arms, taking deep breaths, and munching last bites of power bars. Many of them he knew. The woman to his left, adjusting a green headband, ran the local furniture shop.

“Good luck, Milly,” he said.