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required strategy and persistence.
        When she turned to him again, he had already slipped into his jacket and snatched the car keys off the foyer table. He put his left hand under her right arm, as though Agnes were feeble and in need of sup- port, and he swept her through the door, onto the front porch.
        He didn't pause to lock the house behind them. Bright Beach, in 1965, was as free of criminals as it was untroubled by lumbering brontosaurs.
        The afternoon was winding down, and the lowering sky seemed to be drawn steadily toward the earth by threads of gray light that reeled westward, ever faster, over the horizon's spool. The air smelled like rain waiting to happen.
        The beetle-green Pontiac waited in the driveway, with a shine that tempted nature to throw around some bad weather. Joey always kept a spotless car, and he probably wouldn't have had time to earn a living if he had resided in some shine-spoiling climate rather than in southern California.
        "Are you all right?" he asked as he opened the passenger's door and helped her into the car.
        "Right as rain."
        You're sure"
        "Good as gold."
        The inside of the Pontiac smelled pleasantly of lemons, though the rearview mirror was not hung with one of those tacky decorative deodorizers. The seats, regularly treated with leather soap, were softer and more supple than they had been when the car had shipped out of Detroit, and the instrument panel sparkled.
        As Joey opened the driver's door and got in behind the steering wheel, he said, "Okay?"
        "Fine as silk."
        "You look pale."
        "Fit as a fiddle."
        "You're mocking me, aren't you?"
        "You beg so sweetly to be mocked, how could I possibly withhold it from you?"
        Just as Joey pulled his door shut, a contraction gripped Agnes. She grimaced, sucking air sharply between her clenched teeth.
        "Oh, no," said the Worry Bear. "Oh, no."
        "Good heavens, sweetie, relax. This isn't ordinary pain. This is happy pain. Our little girl's going to be with us before the day is done."
        "Little boy."
        "Trust a mother's intuition."
        "A father's got some, too." He was so nervous that the key rattled interminably against the ignition plate before, at last, he was able to insert it. "Should be a boy, because then you'll always have a man around the house."
        "You planning to run off with some blonde?"
        He couldn't get the car started, because he repeatedly tried to turn the key in the wrong direction. "You know what I mean. I'm going to be around a long time yet, but women outlive men by several years. Actuarial tables aren't wrong."
        "Always the insurance agent."
        "Well, it's true," he said, finally turning the key in the proper direction and firing up the engine.
        "Gonna sell me a policy?"
        "I didn't sell anyone else today. Gotta make a living. You all right?"
        "Scared," she said.
        Instead of shifting the car into drive, he placed one of his bearish hands over both of her hands. "Something feel wrong?"
        "I'm afraid you'll drive us straight into a tree."
        He looked hurt. "I'm the safest driver in Bright Beach. My auto rates prove it."
        "Not today. If it takes you as long to get the car in gear as it did to slip that key in the ignition, our little girl will be sitting up and saying 'dada' by the time we get to the hospital."
        "Little boy."
        "Just calm down."
        "I am calm," he assured her.
        He released the hand brake, shifted the car into reverse instead of into drive, and backed away from the street, along the side of the house.
        Startled, he braked to a halt. Agnes didn't say anything until Joey had taken three or four deep, slow breaths, and then she pointed at the windshield. "The hospital's that way."
        He regarded her sheepishly. "You all