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He sang his big hit, “I Came Back to Say Good-bye,” and next he sang “Heartless Woman.”

Jenifer and I were at Dad's table, and I was trying to get Dad's eye, trying to tell him some way,
Hey, Pop, you pulled it off! You did it!
But Dad was watching him, nodding a little to the music, a smile at the corners of his lips.

When Chooch was through with the two songs, he said over the applause. “Let me eat in peace now, or no more music!”

The church ladies came hurrying out of the kitchen with hot chicken and mashed for him, and biscuits and gravy, and most of us helped ourselves to seconds to keep Chooch company.

“This is my son, Ted,” my father said.

Chooch said, “Chip off the old block?”

My father nodded.

Then Chooch said to me, “Lord, I hope not! I hope you're not the stuffed shirt your old man was in high school.”

I saw Dad's eyes blink while I tried to think of an answer to that.

Under her breath, Jenifer said, “That's not nice.”

Chooch wolfed down the chicken, mouth open while he chewed, and told everybody, “I couldn't believe Pastor Snore was on the horn to me. I told my manager: This I gotta see! This guy was a dead head in school, and I don't mean he followed around after the Grateful Dead. He was a dead head.” Chooch let his head drop on his shoulder, acting out what he was saying.

The kids were laughing.

“Of course, Edward, here—we always called him Edward. He was no Eddie, were you, Edward? Edward here probably never expected I'd turn up at his place for any reason other than to ask for a loan, or ask him to hide me from the law or something nefarious. How do you like that word—
nefarious
? You like it, Edward?”

“It's a good word,” my father said quietly.

“It's the way you think of me, probably. I haven't changed, either, if that's what you thought. There's no God in my blanking life, and thank you, Taylor Train, for saying ‘blanking.' When we all know what I
really
mean.”

The kids at our table were exchanging puzzled looks.

My mother said, “We really appreciate your coming out of your way to do this for us.”

“So you're the gal who married Snore?” Chooch said.

“I'm happy to say I am,” said my mother.

“Happy to say she is,” said Chooch, and then he dropped his head to his shoulder and made a snoring sound.

By the time he got up to do two more songs, Jenifer was whispering that he was a pig, not worthy of sitting at my father's feet, much less at his table.

There were four kids sitting there who'd heard Chooch. He'd barely taken a breath between insults aimed at Dad. The kids had grown quiet, and their smiles had faded as they began to realize that for some reason Chooch was bent on humiliating Dad. Mom was looking down at her lap, mostly, and Dad was looking straight ahead.

Everybody else in the place was up on their feet, arms in the air, hands fisted, crying out happily, “Whoa! Whoa!” at the end of each number, whistling, squealing. They had gotten what they'd come for.

I'll never know what made Chooch do four more numbers than he'd announced, or what made him take questions and sign autographs. I'll never know why he agreed to come at all.

Mom thought perhaps it was an attempt to soften his image, since he had seen to it that the next day newspapers would report his good deed.

Dad said that maybe he identified with the kids: the ones who couldn't afford the big dinner dance, the ones who weren't coupled, the loners, the cynics, the outsiders. You should have seen their faces that night. You should have seen Cal, Peter, Leary, and Judge!

Chooch even tossed Ellie Tutton his cap … which took guts because his hair was thinning.

All the kids were following him out the door except the ones at our table.

“He was mean to you, Reverend,” Billy Tonsetter said.

“He makes jokes, Billy.”

“He's not
all
bad,” Mom said.

“I don't like him anymore, though,” said Jenifer. “He's not respectful.”

“No, he's not,” Dad said. “But he kept his word.”

I thought about that evening forever.

I'll think forever about that evening.

My father must have known that anyone who wrote that in his yearbook, who had become a nefarious (thanks, Chooch) rock singer not known for his gentle demeanor, could probably not be counted on to behave politely toward a man of the cloth he'd never taken to when he was a boy.

My father must have known what he'd be up against with Chooch, as surely as he'd known the only way to rescue the outsiders after the graduation ceremony was to get Chooch there … somehow.

And Dad did.

Choo Choo Train kept his word … and then more.

And my father, in my eyes that evening, became my hero again … and then more.

I'm the same unbeliever that I was before I went off to New York, but I know what grace is now … and I try for that.

I try to be like Dad.

GUESS WHO'S BACK IN TOWN, DEAR?

P
rom night. After Drew got sick, he sat in his new white sports car with the door open. He sat where he'd never sat, and would likely never sit again: opposite the driver's seat.

“Are you okay now?” Tory asked him.

Drew couldn't answer her right away. He was holding his head up with one hand, his hair falling over his face. He was blond and green-eyed like Tory. People said they looked enough alike to be brother and sister.

She had never seen Drew drunk. She knew he'd gone into the boys' john with some of the seniors so he wouldn't come across as a stuck-up preppie, too good for his old crowd.

“I have to go home, Tor. I'm really sorry.”

“That's all right.”

“No, it is not all right, and I'm sorry.”

She waited to see if he'd get behind the wheel. She wondered if he remembered that she didn't know how to operate a stick shift.

She stood there in her new long white gown. There was no way she could go to the after-prom party alone, even though Drew had paid the hundred-dollar-a-couple charge for the band and breakfast. No one went alone.

The highlight of the prom was the Elvis impersonator. Tory could hear him from the parking lot. He was singing “It's Now or Never.” He was good, too.

Drew was holding his face with both hands.

Tory looked down at the red carnation that had fallen to the gravel from his lapel. She thought of painting what she saw and calling it “Prom Night.” She picked up the flower and held it.

“Do you need some help, Miss Victoria King?”

He was the one who'd worn a pink dinner jacket to the dance. Drew had nicknamed him “The Flamingo.” His real name had been forgotten by most everyone, since he'd come to school in the middle of senior year.

He had black curly hair and brown eyes, was medium height and on the skinny side.

Tory said, “I don't think we've really met, have we?”

“My mother works for your mother.”

“You mean Maria?” She was the Kings' new maid.

He nodded. “I'm Horacio Vargas. How can I help here?”

Luckily, he'd come to the prom stag.

He drove Tory home first.

He was from New York City, he said, and someday he was going to write a novel. But first he would become a lawyer. He already knew a lot about law, and he read all the time.

When he asked her what she was planning to do, she said she was going to Vassar, and so was Drew.

“To become what?”

“College graduates,” she laughed. But when he didn't seem to think her answer was all that funny, she said, “Drew will go into real estate with my dad. He'll buy houses, and I'll fix them up to sell … maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“We'll see. … We're coming back here to live.”

“You sounded like there was more. You said ‘maybe' as if you had a secret wish.”

“We'll come back and live up on the lake. We both love the lake.”

Drew was curled up in a fetal position in the small space behind them.

“This city gives me the shivers, though,” said Horacio.

“Because of the prison?” Arcade was known for that.

“There it is to remind you how you can go so wrong.”

Horacio hitchhiked home that night after he helped Drew's father carry him inside.

He put the carnation she'd given him inside his Bible.

After he told his mother what had happened, he added, “If I had such a girl for my date, I wouldn't be passing the bottle in the boys' toilet.”

“Victoria King ruined your prom night,” his mom said. “You didn't rent that beautiful jacket to be a chauffeur!”

“What about her night?”

“Worry about yourself, Horacio, not them. They won't ever worry about you, you can count on that.”

Mr. Victor King, a prominent Arcade realtor, enjoys telling the following about a certain New Year's Eve in New York City.

Invited there by a client, he and Mrs. King were not unpleasantly surprised when it was explained that after dinner everyone was heading in limos to Grand Central Station, to hand out sandwiches to the homeless.

Mrs. King was secretly apprehensive that one of them might call her names or indulge in threatening behavior.

“Not to worry, Mrs. Best Friend,” Mr. King reassured, using his pet name for her. “The mayor himself is going to be there. You'll be well protected.”

Mr. King borrowed an old baseball cap from his host and put on his Nike running clothes, which he took everywhere with him since his cholesterol had gone over 300.

At Grand Central, he set off to hand out salami heroes in the tunnels around the subways, while Mrs. King joined the ladies at the tables in the main waiting room.

The thing is—on Victor King's way back, as he was walking along by himself, someone tried to give
him
a sandwich!

Victor King always cracks up telling the story, and when he gets control again, he says, “I had to tell the fellow, thanks, but
I'm
one of
you
!”

“Thanks for the other night,” Tory said.

She'd gone purposely to the A & P to find him, after Maria'd told her that was where he worked.

Drew parked outside, waiting for her, another couple in the back of his car. They were all old friends who'd been sailing their Stars and Comets alongside one another and swimming at the club together since they were little.

Drew had given Tory an envelope with a fifty-dollar bill inside.

“Is this money?” Horacio said, not waiting for an answer. He shook his head and handed back the envelope.

“It's not from me, Horatio. It's from Drew.”

He had on a long white apron, and he was carrying a mop. He was cleaning up after someone who'd dropped a jar of pickles on the cement floor.

“But how can I ever return the favor?” Tory asked him. “It's not fair to make me indebted to you, Horacio.”

His shirtsleeves were rolled. There was a silver identification bracelet clanking against his Timex.

Drew never wore jewelry, not even a class ring.

Neither did Tory's father.

Both of them agreed rings were not right for men, not even wedding rings.

“I like books,” Horacio said. “You can buy me a paperback. You can buy me any paperback by Gabriel García Márquez.”

Tory wrote down the name, since she had never heard of that author.

“A gift for the maid's boy?” Mrs. King said, amazed.

“I told you about it. You never listen.”

“I listen. It's a little extreme, darling. Do you know why Maria moved to Arcade?”

“I suppose you're going to say she's some prisoner's relative.”

“I'm afraid I am. … Her husband is in Arcade Prison.”

Tory remembered her father's harangues about the “riffraff” moving right into Arcade, instead of just visiting their jailbird relatives. Mr. King often said he didn't mind paying taxes for schools and roads and hospitals, but he
did
mind shelling out for welfare for the “junkies' families.”

“Those are junkies inside those walls. They're not like our old convicts,” he'd say, as though he had fond memories of thieves and murderers from bygone days.

“Maria works hard,” Mrs. King told Tory while Tory tied a red ribbon around the package for Horacio. “But her husband got in there because of drugs, so I thought I'd just not mention anything. You know how your father hates addicts.”

“What about some of his friends up at the country club? You could pour them out of there weekends.”

“Oh, that's apples and oranges you're trying to compare, Tory. Why, you even drew one of your little sketches on the wrapping paper, and is that a note you're enclosing?”

“It's just a thank-you note, Mother … and yes, I did one of my little sketches on the paper.” Tory hated that certain condescending tone her mother would get at times.

This is the note Tory'd written to Horacio:

I read a little of this and I love it, so I bought a copy for myself too.

Thanks for telling me about this author, Horacio.

Next time I see you we can discuss
Love in the Time of Cholera
. I do have a secret wish. It is to be a painter.

She'd signed her name
Victoria,
though no one called her that except for him, that first time on prom night.

Another story Mr. King enjoys telling always begins with the time he called upstairs to his wife, “Laura? Guess who's back in town, dear?”

He often retells it when they're out dining with their special crowd, all long-time Arcadians, all with clear memories of Richard Lasher.

Only teachers called him by his first name.

He was a troublemaker from the start, so good-looking more than one Arcadian said some talent scout ought to see him. Let Hollywood deal with Lasher!

Mrs. King thought he was like some wild and beautiful weed appearing suddenly on a grand green lawn.

He'd come to Arcade because of the prison, too.

But he'd come as the new warden's son.

Everyone said it was a good thing he knew his way around the prison. He'd have no trouble finding things when he got sent there.

One time he was picked up for shoplifting in the A & P and another time he drove off in someone's car on County Fair Day. He'd crawl into the Schine Cinema window from the fire escape, or he'd break into the YMCA after midnight for a skinny dip. He set a pig loose down a church aisle on a Sunday and he stole the iron balls from the Civil War memorial cannon on the village green.

Then when he grew up, it was girls. It was fathers keeping guard over their daughters, for fear he'd break one of their hearts or worse. Mostly it was “or worse” they worried about when it came to Lasher.

He was charming, devilish, a looker, and he had his own car. A van.

A
big
van, decorated hippy style, stereo inside and heaven knows what else.

And then … and everyone in Arcade remembered it—it was Lasher and Laura Waite.

“Before my time,” Mr. King likes to say, with that cocky smile of his.

Mrs. King gets red, always. It is a story she doesn't think he should tell, not because she cares that Lasher has become a prison guard in Florida and a Born-Again. “Bald now, and
fat
? He breaks chairs. Swear it!” Mr. King often has to stop laughing before he can continue. “I didn't know who he was, he's so bloated.”

For Mrs. King this particular story is not about what Lasher has become, as much as it is about what passion does to love when passion has a say in it.

Who didn't know what was going on between them? Who'd never seen the two of them together, how they couldn't keep their hands off each other, couldn't stop grinning and looking into each other's eyes?

Victor King continues: “Says, ‘How's my Laura?' to me.
His
Laura!” Mr. King slaps his knee.

No, it is not what Lasher turned out to be that makes Mrs. King embarrassed for her husband.

No one can take back the fact that Laura Waite
was
Lasher's girl. Mrs. King thinks of it as ages and ages ago, the year she wrote the poem.

Her mother found it at the back of Laura's diary and demanded an explanation.

Laura said, “Why don't
you
explain why you snooped?”

“
Lips your lips on mine,
” her mother read sourly, “
And wet your eyes, eyes, eyes,/Not yet, not yet.
What does that mean?”

But Mrs. Waite knew the answer to that question. That fall Laura found herself attending Miss Grey's for Girls, off in Pennsylvania.

In all her life she'd only written the one poem.

“What did you like about it?” Horacio asked.

Tory'd been passing by, somehow, just as the supermarket was closing for the night.

“That the hero was so intense, I think,” said Tory. “And that it was really much more than just a love story.”

“You know the author, García Márquez? I was born in the town where he was born. Aracataca, Colombia.”

He took her hand then, just like that. Of course, they had come to a crossing, but he was going to hold it after they got to the other side. She knew it.

He said, “All that intensity is my birthright.” He looked at her to test how her eyes would take that and he saw them shining back. Now he was almost sure of what he'd dared to hope when he first saw her lingering outside.

A night of firecrackers and stars.

They sat in the canvas chairs along the front lawn of the club, facing the lake. Drew had on white pants and a red T-shirt, long and lean in this, the last summer of their youth.

Tory had called it that a moment ago, holding a sparkler away from her yellow halter dress. Drew stretched his legs out in front of him and said that he expected his youth to last until the end of college.

“But it's the last time we'll be living with our parents, full-time. Did you ever think of that?”

“This will always be home,” Drew said. “Did I tell you what dad's giving us for a wedding present? Four of the ten acres he owns up on the lake. Neat, huh?”

“That's four years away,” Tory said.

The Fourth of July was at full pitch, loud and spectacular in the sky above them.

“Dad's not developing his six acres, either. He and Mother will build on three and save three for the grandkids. We'll have our own compound.”

“Do you love me, Drew?”

“No,” he said, “I'm marrying you out of habit.”

“That's not funny.”

“Of course I love you. Who do I love if I don't love you?”

“Who do I love,” she said, “if I don't love you?”

“Exactly,” he said.

“No, not exactly.” She started to tell him. … She was going to begin by asking him if he was ever curious what she did those evenings he spent watching sports on TV or going to ball games.