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table.
    “Well, I don’t know about
cool
, but . . . it’s a job.”
    “You write under your own name, or do you have a pen name?”
    “Under my name. Daniel Goodman.” Danny got asked that a lot. It was a polite way of saying
I’ve never heard of you.
    “I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I can never find the time. I got stories to tell. Maybe when I retire.”
    Danny was always amused when people told him they’d love to write if only they had the time. As if the only thing that held them back from a successful writing career was a lack of leisure.
    “Yeah, well, I guess I’m just lucky enough to have all this free time on my hands,” he said.
    Galvin chuckled. “Ya got me there. So, you write novels or what?”
    “Nonfiction.” He clarified: “Biography.”
    Galvin held up the bottle of wine Danny had brought and waggled it. “No, thanks,” Danny said. Galvin topped off his own glass.
    “Anything I’ve read?” Galvin said.
    “
The Kennedys of Boston
.”
    “Huh. That sounds familiar. About Jack Kennedy and his family?”
    “More about Jack Kennedy’s grandfather, ‘Honey Fitz’ Fitzgerald, who used to be mayor of Boston a hundred years ago. The founder of the Kennedy dynasty. A colorful character.”
    “
Colorful
usually means corrupt,” Galvin pointed out.
    Danny smiled. “Exactly. Corrupt yet beloved.”
    “Working on one now?”
    “Always.”
    “What’s it about?”
    Danny hesitated. The phrase
robber baron
might not sound so good to Galvin’s ears. Especially if Danny were about to ask him for a loan. “A biography of a nineteenth-century businessman.”
    “Yeah? When can I get my copy?”
    “Mom, will you tell Brendan to give me back my shoe?” Jenna said.
    “Give your sister her shoe,” Celina said.
    “I don’t have it,” Brendan said, poker-faced.
    “He, like, took it off with his feet,” Jenna said. “He’s like a
monkey
.”
    “All of you,
ya basta
!” Celina said. “Are you six year old?”
    Danny was grateful for the interruption, but Galvin didn’t give up: “When’s your new book go on sale? Maybe I’ll pick up a copy.”
    “You’ll have to wait a while,” Danny said. “I’m still writing it.”
    “Going well?”
    “A little slow, frankly. Life gets in the way sometimes.”
    “You ever get writer’s block?” asked Ryan, the older son.
    “Nope. It’s a job like any other. Plumbers don’t get plumber’s block, right?”
    “I like that,” Galvin said. “You hear that, kids? That’s called a work ethic. No one tells him to work. He just sits down every day and makes himself write, whether he likes it or not.”
    Danny nodded uneasily.
    A sudden blast of music came from somewhere. Danny recognized the opening guitar riff from “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, rendered tinnily as a ringtone. Galvin got up and took a BlackBerry out of the breast pocket of his suit coat hanging on a peg. He glanced at the number, answered it. “I’m at dinner,” he said abruptly. A long pause. “It’s dinnertime. I’m having dinner with my family.” Another pause, then he snapped: “I
said
 . . . I can’t.”
    Danny had the feeling he’d just seen a side of Galvin he didn’t like to show.
    Galvin jabbed at the BlackBerry to end the call. “Man oh man, ever have one of those days when it feels like everyone wants something from you?”
    Danny swallowed hard. “All the time.”
    Maybe asking him for a loan wasn’t such a good idea after all.
    “How’s the job search going, Bren?”
    Brendan shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “Let me know if I can make some calls for you.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “You don’t want to spend the summer on the beach in Nantucket again, do you?” his father said, a glint in his eye. “Be one of those losers in wet suits who spend all their time surfing?”
    “I’m trying,” Brendan said sullenly.
    “Aw, he’s in college, Tommy,” Celina said. “He can play. It’s okay for him to get a job