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in her baby carriage and took her for a walk, taking it for granted that Rufus would mind the store in her absence.
    “Who’s the baby’s father?” I asked him.
    He looked at me hard for a second as if unsure whether to tell me. Then he said: “Scott. Eliza’s my niece. But my father doesn’t know so you have to keep it to yourself. Franny refuses to let me tell him.”
    “But Scott knows?”
    “Oh, Scott knows all right but he won’t do a damn thing about it. Says he’s not interested in being a father. And to be honest, Franny likes it that way, says she wants Eliza to be a Cook not an Abernathy.”
    “But how did it happen?”
    “Nobody ever told you how babies get made?” Rufus winked at me. “One-night stand after the Fourth of July picnic on the beach last year. Franny was drunk. Scott took her back to his place—I saw them leave together. But something wonderful came out of it.We have Eliza.”
    At that moment a customer demanded his attention and he left me to go to the cash register.
    The bell began to ping repeatedly as the screen door opened and shut several times and half a dozen people converged on the store, helped themselves to coffee, and crowded into the small space in front of the cash register to pay for it. I became aware of a man standing beside me, scanning the shelves. I saw his hand, large and ugly with fingers like sausages, reach out and pluck a packet of Oreos. I was annoyed because it was the last one and I had been planning to buy it myself. I turned to see who had

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    thwarted me and I saw him open his jacket and place the Oreos inside against his ribs. I watched, stunned, as he zipped up the jacket and looked straight at me for several seconds before walking out the door.
    He’d had black hair brushed forward to frame a hard, brutal face in a style reminiscent of a Roman emperor, and a Roman nose to match. I suppose he was handsome if you went for the Tony Bennett type but he’d scared me and I’d behaved like a complete wimp. I’d let him walk out of the store and I hadn’t said a word.
    When Franny walked in a few minutes later I knew I had to tell her she’d had a shoplifter.
    “What’d he look like?” she asked me.
    I described the man and she nodded.
    “You know who it was?” I said. “Listen, Franny, I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. I was just thrown. I don’t know what came over me.”
    She nodded again. “Yes, I know exactly who it was,” she said slowly, “and I totally understand why you didn’t do anything. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not the first time it’s happened and I’ve never done a thing about it.”
    And then before I could say anything else, she pushed past me to wheel the baby carriage behind the counter just as the members of the SLRA arrived for their meeting. The president, Louis Nichols, was an attractive well-preserved man who I guessed to be in his middle fifties. Rufus whispered to me that his family had been one of the first to build a vacation home in Stone Landing in the late fifties. In fact his parents had started the SLRA. Some people felt there was an element of droit du seigneur in the way he had assumed the presidency when it became vacant but no one could deny that he had worked tirelessly to keep the Association going.

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    He summoned everyone to the table and opened the meeting.
    “I was going to put forward Franny Cook’s name today since she’s been so kind as to let us use her store.”
    “Did I hear my name mentioned?” Franny sauntered over to them.
    Louis got up and offered her a chair.When he reached out to take her arm, I sensed that maybe Rufus wasn’t the only one interested in her. “Join us for coffee,” he said. “We need another person on the board.”
    “Yes, I heard.” Franny ignored Louis’s hand and remained standing, turning to one of the other members. “Abe, you left a message about some logs. How many you want? Half a cord