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“Sorry, Mom. I still can’t get used to carrying it around.”

She ignored me. “Christopher, an
FBI agent
called here this morning,” she whispered.

“Mom, you’re whispering.”

“I am not,” she continued in a slightly less hushed tone.

“Nobody’s tapping the phone, Mom,” I said. At least, I didn’t think anyone was tapping the phone.

“Don’t change the subject!”

I gave up. “Some guy named Ward just left.”

“That’s who called us! You already spoke with him?” she asked. “What did he say? Did he harass you?”

“Mom, it’s cool. Just calm down,” I said. “Is Dad there?” She often needed my father to talk her off the ledge.

“I’m on the extension, Chris,” my dad said. “Just got home. Helluva day, too. Tried to set that sign at the new Applebee’s on 64, but the wind was just—”

“Allen!” my mother shrieked. “Our son has been interrogated by the FBI! Our Win is missing! No one cares about the sign!”

“It was no big deal,” I lied. “He just wanted to know about the trip, whose idea it was, if I’d heard from Win.”

“Have you?” my mother asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Since Coggans stopped calling last week, I sort of thought maybe that meant Win had come back.”

“Lydia Coggans hasn’t called me back in that long at least,” my mother offered. She’d been calling daily to see if they’d heard from Win.

“How about the nonexistent uncle in Seattle?” my dad asked.

“Also news to me,” I said.

“Why do you think they didn’t ever ask you about that one in all those conversations we had after you got back?” he asked.

“Probably the same reason Mr. Coggans didn’t give me a heads-up about sending an FBI agent my way.”

“Oh,
Christopher
,” my mother said. She only called me Christopher when she felt especially maternal or when I was in trouble. Now both applied. “Christopher, how could you not have known? How could he have lied about that?”

I sighed. “All I know is what I told you. What I just told the investigator. We’ve been through all this a hundred times.” After I showed up without Win and my mom wigged out, we must have been over the events at least that often. Mom was beside herself, Dad was concerned, and we even sat down with Win’s parents for only the second time in the history of our friendship.

“He believe you?” my father asked.

“I don’t know. I sound pretty stupid. I guess I did overlook a few details.”

“Just tell the truth, Chris,” my dad said calmly. “It’ll sort itself out.”

“Of course he’ll tell the truth, Allen,” my mother snapped. “Our son is an honest boy. If he says he doesn’t know what happened to Win, then I believe him.” She sounded near tears. She sounded as if she was trying to convince herself. She
doubted
me.

“You’re right, Nancy,” my father said in the same tone I’d heard hostage negotiators use in movies.

“Oh,” my mother cried, “I just hope Win’s all right. But how could he be all right if he hasn’t contacted his parents?” I wanted to point out that he’d apparently not spoken to them for the
entirety of our trip and was as happy then as I’d ever seen him.

“Mom, can I talk to Dad for a second?” I asked.

“Chris, you know you can tell me anything,” she said. But that wasn’t entirely accurate. Like what I’d been doing in the bathroom all those times. Luckily, my father intervened.

“Nance, trust the boy. I’ll fill you in. If he wants to talk to me, let him.”

I could sense my mother forming replies in her mind. Even imagined her opening her mouth once or twice to frame the words. But instead of a protest, finally, she said, “Well …”

“I’ll call you Monday, Mom,” I said. “After the detective guy comes again.”

“He’s coming back?” she yelped. “We have to get you a lawyer, you don’t have to talk to him—”

My father cut her off. “Honey, I’ll just be a minute with Chris.”

“Wouldn’t you like me to call Mr. Shaw?” she asked.

“Nancy, he’s a tax attorney,” my father said evenly.

She hesitated again. “Well … fine,” she said, adding, “I love you, Chris.”

“Love you, too, Mom,” I mumbled into the phone.

Mom’s connection went quiet. My father and I were silent a second.

“You okay, son?” he asked.

“Think so. It’s just … weird,” I said.

More silence. Then my father took a deep breath, like he was about to dive underwater. “What happened out there, Chris?” he asked.

“Everything, Dad,” I said. “Everything.”

“Everything about high school is behind you boys,” Winston Coggans the
Second
said proudly that night at dinner after graduation. Winston the
Third
and I had managed to get through the marching and ceremony without incident. It was this part I’d truly been dreading. My parents had invited Win and his family to join us for dinner. I don’t think any of us were more surprised than Win that they accepted. But it was nothing compared with the shock Win’s mom experienced after arriving at the restaurant Win and I had chosen—the same place we celebrated my birthday last summer.

“Are those peanut shells on the floor?” she asked as a waitress clad in a tiny tank top, huge belt buckle, and tight jeans showed us to our table. Roundup was one of those fake-saloon, Western places,
complete with the swinging half doors on the bathroom stalls and the bucket of raw peanuts on the table to shell and eat while you waited for your food. They also had monster steaks. Win and I figured we’d be eating peanut butter and ramen noodles all summer, so milking our parents for a free slab of meat was the only real choice.

“You’re not allergic, are you?” my mother asked her.

Win’s mother made a face that sort of looked like she wished she were. “Not technically.”

After we’d ordered, and Win’s parents had ceased looking like they’d stumbled into some foreign country, we tried to talk a little over the too-loud country music they piped in to make sure we remembered we were in a honky-tonk meat palace.

“Winston here’s heading to Dartmouth, you know,” his father said again, nodding to his son but looking to my father. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he seemed proud. But I did know better. If he was proud, it was only of himself for pulling in the right favors and leaning on the right people to get Win’s 3.2 GPA into the Ivies.

“His grandfather played football for the Big Green, you know,” Win’s father said. “I was supposed to play lacrosse, but I injured my knee right before my freshman year. I loved it there, though, just like my father said I would. Just like I’m sure Win will.”

Win nodded, smiling weakly. He was even less excited about school than I was.

“Funny how we sort of turn into our fathers, don’t you think, Collins?” he asked my dad, reaching for a peanut.

Dad shrugged. “Hard to say. Mine died when I was nine.”

“Shame. But I bet you are like him. I’m just like mine. He was like his before him,” he said, extracting the peanut carefully from
the shell, brushing away the papery hull. He seemed lost to himself for a moment. A half smile played at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes projected something else. Regret, maybe? I couldn’t be sure. I’d never seen him like this.

He tossed the peanut into the ashtray. “In fact, Win’s the fourth generation of Coggans men to join the Ivy League,” he said.

“Yeah, but I’m the first to need a life coach to do it,” Win said. I laughed. In addition to open manipulation by his father, his mother had made Win’s acceptance her priority project during the spring of our junior year. She hired someone to help Win out with the application, get him into some volunteer work, and essentially pad his résumé.

“Winston,” his father growled. My parents looked awkwardly at each other and to me. We all knew the show Coggans was putting on, but Win wouldn’t let it go. I willed Win to leave well enough alone. We were saved by an unlikely source.

Win’s mother had spent the entire postgraduation hugfest on her cell with a travel agent. It rang again as we sat waiting for our salads. After a brief exchange she hung up and turned to us. “I’m finally getting back to Tuscany,” she said, snapping shut her tiny silver phone and reaching for her water glass, from which she plucked the straw as if it were a hair or something.

I couldn’t remember when the woman
wasn’t
on vacation. Win had gone with her only a couple of times—once to Europe, that I remembered, and another time she made him go with her to Ecuador, where they delivered a bunch of books and stuff to this school her Women’s League sponsored. When she was home, she took a weird interest in Win, dragging him along to various
charitable organizations she chaired, fund-raising events that she threw her name and money behind. Win told me once that he sort of thought it was her way of spending quality time with him.

His dad was always too busy working to go with them anywhere, and when we hit ninth grade, she claimed she didn’t feel right about pulling Win out of school. Most of the time she traveled with her sister. Mrs. Coggans never fit in West Virginia anyway.

“You must be very proud,” I said to Win.

He nodded. “They grow up so fast, don’t they?”

“Stop it, Winston,” his mother said, almost playing along. “You know it’s been a while. I just hope Cinque Terre hasn’t become too overrun with those backpackers,” she gushed, looking to my mother for sympathy.

“Either way you’ll have a lot of stories to swap with the boys when everyone gets back,” said my mother, who’d only been as far as Niagara Falls.

Win’s mother looked confused, though whether it was mention of the bike trip or the prospect of conversation with her son, who could say?

“Oh! The bike trip! Right. I only wish they’d gone last summer. All that self-discovery and adventure and whatnot. Colleges eat that stuff up,” she said to Mom, before turning to Win. “But we managed, didn’t we, sweetie?” she said, reaching for Win’s hand. “Still, I can’t imagine how much smoother that interview might have gone if you’d had that to fall back on,” she said, shaking her head lightly.

After a beat Mom tried again. “I don’t know if I could have been talked into it last year, but I’m pretty excited for the boys now,” she said. “Though I confess I’m more than a little nervous.”
She’d been crying quietly off and on all afternoon and began dabbing her eyes with a napkin.

“They’ll be fine, Nancy,” my father said, reaching behind my mother and rubbing the nape of her neck, stroking the few hairs that had escaped the clip that held the rest of it up. With the other hand he loosened the tie she had made him wear for the occasion. “Adventure’s good for a couple of young men.” He gave us both a smile. “Don’t you think this trip is a pretty good way to spend a summer, Coggans?”

For a moment I panicked. It struck me that if Win’s parents actually talked long enough to my mom and dad, they’d all four figure out that no one had actually granted us permission.

“Oh,” Win’s father said, “I suppose it’s all right.” He turned to Win. “Just get it out of your system so you can come back and get serious about your life.”

My parents didn’t say anything, though my dad looked like he had just eaten a rotten peanut.

“Will do, Dad,” Win said evenly. “Will do.”

Win’s mother’s cell rang again, and within moments she was yelling at her travel agent. “What do you mean Air Italia only has coach tickets left for the Milan flight? Check the other airlines!”

The salads arrived and were set before us. I dumped the carafe of ranch dressing over mine and dove in, glad for a reason not to talk.

Win’s father placed his napkin in his lap and reached for his fork. His mother said something into her phone and pulled it away for a moment. “She’s got a ticket. For tomorrow afternoon. But that means I have to catch the early connection out of Charleston to make it. Can you drop me?” she said to her husband.

“What time? I tee off at nine,” he said.

“You’ll make it.”

Then they looked at Win. “What time are you leaving?” his mother asked.

He looked quickly at me, then at my mom and dad. “Eight, probably.” Win and I hadn’t discussed our departure time at all. “I can just stay at Chris’s tonight. My stuff’s already there anyway.”

“But you’ll miss the big send-off,” my mother said to his parents.

Mrs. Coggans pretended not to hear her. “You’re sure you don’t mind, Winston? This is really important to Mommy,” she said, flashing a perfect smile. “If I grab this flight, your aunt Claire and I will have a whole extra day in Rome to recover before we sail for Capri.”

“It’s fine,” Win said.

“But—” my mother began before Win cut her off.

“Really,” he said, adding as he looked across the table at Mom, “no big deal.”

Win’s mother turned back to her phone and ordered the agent to buy the ticket. His father descended on his salad.

And that was the best Win might hope for in the emotional good-bye department. Their embraces of him in the parking lot after dinner seemed forced. Win’s mother did look like she might tear up a bit as she held him, but then her phone rang again and she wandered away toward their car.

“See you soon,” his father said, shaking his hand.

Win nodded. “Yeah. Soon.”

His father held the grip a little longer, reaching out with his other hand and placing it on Win’s shoulder. “You’ll be careful. And you can call me if you need something,” he said.

Win nodded. “Yeah.”

“I meant what I said earlier, though,” his father said, his tone hardening as he dropped his hand and stepped back.

“I know,” Win said, sneaking a hand up to his face to wipe at his nose as his father turned away.

We all stood in the lot and watched them drive off. Finally my father shook his head and unlocked the car. “You guys need to get home and get some rest,” he said. “Big day tomorrow.” Win and I climbed in the backseat and got lost in the details of preparing to go.

At home my folks parked in the driveway and left us in the garage to finish our packing.

“Nice dinner, huh?” Win said finally.

“Painless enough, I guess,” I said.

We busied ourselves with the careful packing of our panniers. The pile of stuff grew smaller as we found more ways to make it fit, checking each item off a list I’d made as we worked.