She took the cheese tray back into the living room and had just set it down on the wooden crate they used as a coffee table when the doorbell rang.

“Oh,” Patricia said in the tone of someone who’d forgotten to buy half-and-half. “I forgot to mention that James Harris wanted to stop by and join us tonight. I hope no one minds.”

“Who?” Grace asked, sitting bolt upright, neck stiff.

“He’s here?” Kitty asked, flailing to sit up straighter.

“Great,” Maryellen moaned. “Another man with his opinions.”

Slick looked around wildly at everyone, trying to figure out how she should feel as Patricia scurried from the room.

“I’m so glad you could come,” she said to James Harris, opening the front door.

He wore a plaid shirt tucked into blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and a braided leather belt. She wished he hadn’t worn tennis shoes. It would bother Grace.

“Thank you so much for the invitation,” he said, then stepped over her threshold and stopped. He made his voice so low she barely heard it over the screaming insects behind him in the yard. “I have over half in the bank. A little each week. Thank you.”

It was more than she could bear to hear him talk about their shared secret with people right in the next room. Her arms prickled with goose bumps and her head felt light. She hadn’t even deposited the two thousand three hundred and fifty dollars he’d given her into her and Carter’s bank account. She knew she should have but instead it sat in her closet, tucked inside a pair of white gloves. She liked having it in her hands too much to let it go.

“Don’t let the air conditioning out,” she said.

She led James Harris into the living room and when she saw everyone’s faces she realized she really should have made those phone calls and prepared them.

“Everyone, this is James Harris,” Patricia said, putting on a smile. “I hope y’all don’t mind if our new neighbor sits in tonight.”

The room got quiet.

“Thank you all so much for letting me join you,” James Harris said.

Grace coughed softly into a Kleenex.

“Well,” Kitty said. “Having a man around will certainly liven things up. Welcome, tall dark stranger.”

James Harris sat down on the sofa beside Maryellen, across from Kitty and Grace, and everyone pulled their legs together, tucked their skirts beneath their thighs, and straightened their spines. Kitty reached for the cheese tray, then pulled her hand back and held it in her lap. James Harris cleared his throat.

“Did you read this month’s book, James?” Slick asked. She showed him the cover of her copy of The Bridges of Madison County. “We read Helter Skelter last month, and we’re reading Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me next month, so this felt like a nice break.”

“You ladies read a strange assortment of books,” James Harris said.

“We’re a strange assortment of broads,” Kitty replied. “Patricia says you’ve decided to live here even after what your aunt did to her.”

Patricia brushed her hair over her left ear and opened her mouth to say something nice.

“Great-aunt,” James Harris said before Patricia could speak.

“That’s cutting it a bit fine,” Maryellen said.

“I’m surprised you don’t mind the notoriety,” Kitty said.

“I’ve been looking a long time for a community like this,” James said with a smile. “Not a neighborhood, but a real community, away from all the chaos and change in the world, where people still have old-fashioned values, and kids can play outside all day until they’re called in for supper. And just when I’d given up on ever finding someplace like that, I came to take care of my great-aunt and found what I’d been looking for all along. I’m a very lucky man.”

“Did you already join a church?” Slick asked.

“And there’s no Mrs. Harris joining you?” Kitty asked over her.

“No,” James Harris said, addressing Kitty. “No children. No family, besides my great-aunt.”

“That’s peculiar,” Maryellen said.

“What church do you belong to?” Slick asked again.

“Who do you read?” Kitty asked.

“Camus, Ayn Rand, Herman Hesse,” James Harris said. “I’m a student of philosophy.” He smiled at Slick. “I’m afraid I don’t belong to any organized religion.”

“Then you haven’t really thought it through,” Slick said.

“Herman Hesse,” Kitty said. “Pony read Steppenwolf in his English class. It sounded like the kind of thing boys like.”

James Harris turned the full force of his smile on Kitty.

“And Pony is your…?” he asked.

“My oldest boy,” Kitty said. “Everyone calls his father Horse, so we call him Pony. Then there’s Honey, who’s a year older, and Parish, who turns thirteen this summer and is driving all of us crazy. And Lacy and Merit, who can’t stand to be in the same room together.”

“What does Horse do?” James asked.

“Do?” Kitty said, and sputtered out a laugh. “I mean, he doesn’t do anything. We live on Seewee, so he has to clear scrub, and do burns, and there’s always something to fix. I mean, when you live at a place like that it’s a full-time job just to keep the roof from falling in.”

“I used to do property management out in Montana,” James said. “I expect he could teach me a lot.”

Montana? Patricia wondered.

“Horse? Teach someone?” Kitty laughed and turned to the rest of the room. “Did I tell y’all about Horse’s pirate treasure? Someone came along looking for investors to hunt underwater pirate treasure, or Confederate artifacts, or something improbable like that. Well, they had this fancy slide presentation and real nice folders, and that’s all it took for Horse to write them a check.”

“Leland could have told him that was a scam,” Slick said.

“Leland?” James asked.

“My husband,” Slick said, and James Harris turned his attention to her. “He’s a developer.”

“I’ve been thinking of investing in real estate if I could find the right project,” James Harris said.

Grace’s face looked carved from stone and Patricia really, really wished they’d talk about anything besides money.

“Right now we’re working on a project called Gracious Cay.” Slick beamed. “It’s a gated community we’re building out by Six Mile. It’s going to really elevate the surroundings. Gated communities let you choose your neighbors so the people around you are the kind of people you want around your children. By the time this century is over I expect just about everyone will live in a gated community.”

“I’d be interested in hearing more about it,” James said, which prompted Slick to go into her purse and hand him a business card.

“Where are you from, Mr. Harris?” Grace asked.

Patricia started to say that his father was in the military and he’d grown up all over when James Harris said, “I grew up in South Dakota.”

“I thought your father was in the military?” Patricia asked.

“He was,” James Harris said with a nod. “But he ended his career stationed in South Dakota. My parents got divorced when I was ten, so I was raised by my mother.”

“If everyone’s finished with the third degree,” Maryellen said, “I’d like to get this month’s book over with.”

“Her husband’s a police officer,” Slick pointed out to James. “It’s why she’s so direct. By the way, maybe you want to join us this Sunday at St. Joseph’s?”

Before he could answer, Maryellen said, “Can we please put this book out of my misery?”

Slick gave James Harris a We’ll continue this later smile.

“Didn’t y’all just love The Bridges of Madison County?” she asked. “I thought it was such a relief after last month. Just a good old-fashioned love story between a woman and a man.”

“Who is clearly a serial killer,” Kitty said, keeping her eyes on James Harris.

“I think the world is changing so quickly that people need a hopeful story,” Slick said.

“About a lunatic who travels from town to town seducing women, then killing them,” Kitty said.

“Well,” Slick said. Thrown, she looked down at her notes and cleared her throat again. “We chose this book because it speaks about the powerful attraction that can exist between two strangers.”

“We chose this book so you’d stop going on about it,” Maryellen said.

“I don’t think there’s any actual evidence he’s actually a serial killer,” Slick said.

Kitty picked up her copy, bristling with bright pink Post-it notes, and waggled it in the air.

“He doesn’t have any family ties, no roots, no past,” Kitty said. “He doesn’t even belong to a church. Very suspicious in today’s world. Did you see the new driver’s licenses? They have a little hologram on them. I remember when they were just a piece of cardboard. We are not a society that lets people roam around with no fixed address. Not anymore.”