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five-thirty he’ll be sitting in the den with his second martini. He’ll be looking at the local news, thinking about the pool and how he’ll clean it in the morning, test the chlorine balance. The dogs, just fed, will be moving swiftly around the yard, looking for the right place to pee andpoop. Scratch will be trained by now, but if he lifts his leg in my mother’s rosebushes, my father will leap up and holler at him.
    “Have you seen Dad?”
    “Yeah. I went up there last weekend. Stupid.”
    “What happened?”
    My brother covered his eyes and groaned. “I don’t think I should tell you.”
    “What’s wrong with him? What’s the matter with Daddy?” I picture him on the kitchen floor, for some reason, unable to stand. I can see it so vividly. I stand up myself, as if I can go to him.
    “Nothing’s the matter with him, Daley. Have a seat.” He says this like a homeroom teacher. “He’s hooked up with—” He looks at me, deciding whether I can handle it. But it turns out I already know.
    “Patrick’s mother.”
    “I knew you weren’t as dumb as you look.”
    Mr. Amory and me went to Payson’s. Mr. Amory and me cleaned out the shed
. I’ve been reading about it all summer.
    At six, we walk to the Brigham’s where Heidi works. After my brother’s roasting pan of an apartment, the street is cool; Brigham’s is like walking into a fridge. Heidi is waiting on a boy and his grandmother. She gives us a small smile, then turns her back to us to make their frappes. A blue apron is tied loosely at her waist and her hair hangs in a frayed braid. She slides the tall drinks and two straws to her customers and takes their money without speaking to them. Her face is moist, despite the air conditioning. She looks different than I remember, faded somehow.
    “Hi there,” she says to me, but she is not glad to see me or Garvey. Her eyes are dull and olive, not the clear green I remember. “You made it.”
    Garvey and I share a raspberry rickey at a corner table untilher shift is over. Outside it is hot again, and the sidewalk is crowded with people coming up from the subway stairs or racing to them. After a summer in the woods, the chaos makes me uneasy. I stick close to my brother, who leads us to a Greek sandwich shop.
    “Haven’t been here since yesterday,” Heidi mutters.
    “I can’t really afford La Dolce Vita,” Garvey says, pointing to a fancy place down the street.
    “You wouldn’t know
la dolce vita
if it hit you on the head.” She smiles but my brother does not.
    The restaurant is hot and smelly and it’s no wonder Heidi doesn’t like it. We sit crammed in a corner. My brother orders me a falafel sandwich that tastes like sawdust mixed with onions. He has a big plate of diced meat and Heidi tells me to watch how he chews like a cow chewing cud. My brother tells her she should have stuck it out with Graham, and Heidi’s eyes get pink. She catches her tears with her thumb. They are drinking something called grappa and it seems to make them hate each other.
    That night my brother’s apartment is a cauldron, as if all the city’s heat has risen and gathered here. I lie on the remaining bed in the dark, my feet and hands swelling, my skin stretching like a sausage being boiled. They took the fan into Heidi’s room. No air is coming through the three open windows. I miss the water and its cool breezes. Neither Ashing nor Lake Chigham ever got this hot. Headlights and brakelights swim across the ceiling. The cars and people below begin to seem responsible for the heat. A siren blares, spewing hotter air. I dream that I am rebraiding Heidi’s hair over and over. I can’t get it tight enough. I wake up to the sound of a door shutting.
    Out the window my brother and Heidi are walking away, down the sidewalk, not touching. Garvey told me last night that they had to run an errand in the early morning and they’d be back by ten. Istay in the room as long as I can, but my hunger and need to pee