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grinning teenage faces, Trip’s stood out for its dark seriousness.
    â€œWhat made you think of him? You don’t see any of your old high school friends.”
    â€œAll-class reunion coming up. Anniversary of the founding of the school.”
    â€œYou’re going without me, I hope.”
    â€œWithout you,” she said. “But I would have remembered Trip regardless. Hard to forget. He asked me to the homecoming dance one year.”
    â€œDidn’t know your standards were so low.”
    â€œFunny.” She elbowed him in the ribs. “Didn’t go with him. Didn’t go at all that year.” She stopped paging for a minute and stared straight ahead. Remembering. “The guy I should have gone with . . . Denny . . . we had a fight. Made up after homecoming. Were planning on prom. He died that winter. With three other boys. Car accident. They’d been drinking. Roads were slick. Went off a curve and into a lake.” She turned to the first page of the yearbook and showed Jack the dedication. A photo of four boys in letter jackets. Grinning. Arms thrown around each other’s shoulders. Below that, lines from Longfellow:
We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
    What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
May be heaven’s distant lamps.
    Jack: “Four kids. Big loss, especially for a small school.”
    â€œHorrible. I’ll always regret missing that homecoming dance with Denny.”
    â€œWhat was the fight about?”
    â€œDenny and his buddies beat up Sweet because he asked me out.”
    â€œSweet?”
    â€œTrip’s nickname. One of the nicer ones. Another was Motorhead. Trippy. Freak.”
    â€œNice school you went to.”
    â€œSmall schools don’t have a lot of choices when it comes to cliques. If you don’t fit into one of a handful of groups, then you don’t fit in at all. Sweet was one of those kids who fell between the cracks. His creepy personality didn’t help him out. Check out what he wrote in my yearbook.” She turned to the last page and pointed to a neatly printed message in the upper right corner:
What goes around comes around, beautiful. Sweet Justice.
    Jack’s eyes widened. “Damn.”
    â€œYeah. I’m sure he blamed me for the beating. I never had the courage to talk to him again, tell him it wasn’t my doing.”
    â€œMaybe the reunion.”
    â€œI don’t think Sweet’s one of those sentimental alums who misses the old gang.”
    â€œWhat was your nickname?”
    She turned to the section of the book with individual student photos and pointed to a line under hers: “A.k.a. Camel Rider, Potato Head and Betty.”
    â€œI get the first two. What’s with Betty?”
    â€œPrivate joke between me and Denny. He was a closet Flintstones fan. He’d shut the door to his bedroom after school and watch. He told me I was his Betty. I gave him a Flintstones coffee mug. He kept it in his car. Filled it with change. I know it sounds stupid, but I wanted it back when they recovered his car. It was gone. Probably sitting at the bottom of the lake.” She closed the yearbook and set it on her nightstand.
    Jack shut off the television and handed her the remote. “Put this away, too. Bedrooms should be reserved for screwing and sleeping.”
    â€œIn that order?” She threw the remote on her nightstand.
    â€œBet your ass in that order.”
    â€œTalk’s cheap, baby.” She slid down so she was flat on her back. He reached over and shut off the bedside lamp.He peeled off his boxers and leaned over her and pulled her tee shirt over her head. Jack crawled on top of her. She loved the weight and warmth of him; it was like being buried in sand at the beach. Hot and heavy and wet.
    A passing barge pushed waves against the boat, but they didn’t notice. The rocking seemed part of the rhythm of their