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still lifes were amazingly luminous.
    “Callie, are you okay living here?”
    “What do you mean by that?” Callie possessed a voice that was, well, nasal. She sounded a lot like a spacey high-school girl. Looked like one, too, for that matter. She was twenty but she could easily pass for sixteen. Barely five feet tall with long, straight blond hair, chubby chipmunk cheeks and big gray eyes. Mitch doubted she weighed over a hundred pounds. She hid her slender figure inside an oversized, paint-splattered T-shirt and baggy jeans.
    “I mean that Winston is getting worse. Has he ever?…”
    “Not to worry, Mitch. He’s totally harmless.”
    “Plus it smells awful inside of that house. Maybe we should find you somewhere else to stay.”
    “No way. I’m totally cool here. My room has an incredible view of the water. And the girls let me fling paint half the night out on their sun porch. I can put on an old bikini—or not—and just let it fly. Which, like, totally keeps me sane. Because once you walk in the door of the academy everything you do has to represent . I have a great set-up here, honest. Besides, when Winston’s lucid he’s really very insightful about my work. He was a marvelous draftsman. Um, okay, maybe sometimes I…” Callie hesitated, her lower lip clamped between her teeth. “I do get the feeling he’s, you know, watching me when I’m flinging paint. From outside the window, I mean. But that could just be my imagination. And, hey, if it makes him happy to stand out there eyeballing my tush, it’s no big. Besides, I have an open invite to crash with June on board the Calliope any time.”
    Callie had been romantically involved with June Bond for a couple of months. Thanks to him, she’d landed a cushy part-time gig as the Bond Girl on those inane “Just ask Justy” commercials that ran day and night on local TV.
    “Can I give you a lift to school? We can throw your bike in back.”
    Callie shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Why not?”
    He hoisted her bike into the back of the Studey and made room for her on the front seat. She got in next to him and Mitch eased the truck down the long, rutted gravel drive. He offered her a donut. Callie declined. He helped himself to one. “How’s June doing?”
    “He’s fine,” she answered as Mitch inched out into the traffic snarl on Turkey Neck. “Except he doesn’t want to sell cars anymore. Never did, if you ask me. He’s just been trying to please his father. As if.”
    “What does he really want to do?”
    “Sail the Calliope down to the Florida Keys. His dream is to work on sailboats there full-time. Restore them and sell them for a profit. It’s something he’s real good at, Mitch. The Calliope was an absolute wreck when he bought her. Now she’s a thing of beauty. He … sort of wants me to sail down there with him,” Callie added with a casual toss of her hair.
    “And when would you do that?”
    “This weekend.”
    Mitch shot a startled look at her. “That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it?”
    “It’s totally sudden. He just dropped it on me last night. He really, really wants the two of us to get away from this place.”
    “Are you saying he wants you to quit the Dorset Academy?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you going to?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t decided.”
    “I don’t get it, Callie. What’s the big rush?”
    “Don’t ask me. He’s just real unhappy here.”
    “Are things okay between June and his dad?”
    “As okay as they ever are. Justy rides him awful hard.”
    “And how about between you and Justy?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Oh, puh-leese. Not you, too. Everyone figures that because I’m so sucky in those commercials that I must be doing him. Darlene, the last Bond girl? She totally was. I hear Bonita caught the two of them getting busy on the sofa in the customer lounge. An epic screechfest went down. Next thing anybody knew there was a sudden opening for a Bond girl.” Callie changed her mind and reached for