@@@@@Tennis balls all around her feetMore
@@@@@Tennis balls all
around her feetMore floating in on the incoming
waves
That girl had been Reba, but also Ilse, andwho
else? Elizabeth Eastlake?
The idea came out of nowhere, but I thought yes
487
The water runs faster now, Elizabeth had said
Soon come the rapidsDo you feel that?
I felt it
"Daddy, are you there?"
"Yes," I said again"Honey, be good to yourself,
okay? And try not to get too spun upMy friend
down here says in the end we wear out our worries
I sort of believe that
"You always make me feel better," she said
"How many bunches?"
How many years since she'd asked that? Twelve?
Fourteen? It didn't matter, I remembered the
answer
"A million and one for under your pillow," I said
Then I said goodbye and hung up and thought that
if Carson Jones hurt my daughter, I'd kill him
The thought made me smile a little, wondering how
many fathers had had the same thought and made the
same promiseBut of all those fathers, I might be
the only one who could kill a heedless, daughterhurting
suitor with a few strokes of a paintbrush
488
xi
Dario Nannuzzi and one of his partners, Jimmy
Yoshida, came out the very next dayYoshida was a
Japanese-American Dorian GrayGetting out of
Nannuzzi's Jaguar in my driveway, dressed in faded
straight-leg jeans and an even more faded Rihanna
Pon De Replay tee-shirt, long black hair blowing
in the breeze off the Gulf, he looked eighteenBy
the time he got to the end of the walk, he looked
twenty-eightWhen he shook my hand, up close and
personal, I could see the lines tattooed around
his eyes and mouth and put him somewhere in his
late forties
"Pleased to meet you," he said"The gallery is
still buzzing over your visitMary Ire has been
back three times to ask when we're going to sign
you