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  “So,” he said, moving his hand. “All right. Why don’t you want to be part of the American Way?”

  She chewed with her eyes closed, and he looked down her sweater again and had impure thoughts. Then she swallowed and said, “I have to give birth to be a good American? No. There are more than four million babies born in this country every year. The American Way is covered. If it worries you, you can have extra to make up for mine.”

  “Me?” Cal sat back away from distraction. “I don’t want kids. I’m just surprised that you don’t. You’d make a great mom.”

  “Why?” Min stopped with the sandwich halfway to her mouth.

  Because she looked soft all over. Because she looked like she’d age into the kind of mother he’d have killed for. “Because you look comfortable.”

  “Oh, God, yes,” Min said, glaring at him. “That’s exactly the compliment every woman longs for.”

  She leaned forward to bite into her sandwich, and he watched transfixed as her breasts pressed against the lace again.

  “It’s a very sexy comfortable if that makes it better,” he said.

  “Marginally better,” she said, following his eyes down. “You’re looking down my sweater.”

  “You’re leaning over. There’s all that red lace right there.”

  “Lace is good, huh?” Min said.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “My mother wins again,” Min said and bit into her hot dog.

  Cal picked up his hot dog. “How’d your mother get into this?”

  “She’s pervasive.” Min swallowed, frowning. “So if you don’t like kids, how’d you end up coaching?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like kids,” Cal said, trying to think of something besides Min’s red lace. “I said I didn’t want kids. There’s a difference.”

  “Good point. And yet I ask, why coach?”

  “I got shanghaied,” Cal said. “We both did. Harry hates baseball as much as I hate coaching.”

  “Who’s Harry?”

  “My nephew.”

  “Why don’t the two of you go AWOL?”

  “Turns out there are other kids on the team besides Harry,” Cal said. “Who knew?”

  “Funny. So you’re out here every Saturday morning?” Min shook her head. “That must have been some shanghai.”

  “I got hit by the best.” He picked up a pickle and bit into it. “It’s not that bad. Roger and Tony do most of the work. They like it.”

  “Roger,” Min said. “Ah yes, Roger. I have some questions about Roger.”

  “Not Tony?” Cal said.

  “Tony is seeing Liza,” Min said. “If Tony turns out to be a rat, Liza will exterminate him.”

  “Tony’s hard to put down,” Cal said, “but I get your drift. So Bonnie’s not like that?”

  “Bonnie is no pushover,” Min said. “She’s smart and she’s tough but she has this one blind spot. She believes in the fairy tale, that there’s one man in the world for her. And she thinks your friend Roger is her prince on very little evidence. So tell me about Roger.”

  “Roger’s the best guy I know,” Cal said. “And he’s crazy about Bonnie. He’s going to get banged up if she walks away. Tell me about Bonnie.”

  Min shifted on the blanket as she reached for her Coke can, and Cal watched her, aware of every move she made, of the smooth curve of her neck as her sweater slipped toward her shoulder, the ease in her round body as she leaned back and smiled at him, the swell of her calf under her checked skirt as it blew toward him again. “Bonnie,” she said, bringing him back to the subject at hand, “spent a year and a half looking at couches. Couches are very important, they’re right up there with beds in the hierarchy of furniture, but even I thought a year and a half was a long time looking for a couch.”

  “Yes,” Cal said, trying to think of Roger instead of curves. “But—”

  “Then one night we were on the way to the movies and she stopped in front of a furniture store window and said, ‘Wait a minute,’ and went in and bought this horribly expensive couch in about five minutes.” Min leaned forward again, and Cal looked down her sweater again and thought, Don’t do that, I’m getting a headache from the blood rush. “She had to put it on two different credit cards,” Min went on, “and it took her two years to pay it off, but it’s a great couch and she’s never regretted it, and when she had it reupholstered, the upholsterer said it would last forever.”

  “Great,” Cal said, still looking down her sweater. She was breathing softly, just enough for the rise and fall to—

  “Hello,” she said and he jerked his head up. “Not that I’m not flattered, but I’m making a point here. Roger is Bonnie’s new couch. She’s always been sure that some day her prince would show up, and she’s done a lot of dating looking for him, and now she’s taken one look at Roger and she’s sure he’s the one, and she’s going to buy him in about a minute. So if he isn’t a good guy, I want to know now so I can break it to her. Tell me he’s not a rat.”

  “Roger took a year to buy a couch, too,” Cal said, regrouping.

  “What kind of couch?” Min said.

  “Sort of a La-Z-Boy with a thyroid problem,” Cal said. “I think it’s brown.”

  Min nodded. “Bonnie bought a reproduction mission settle with cushions upholstered in a celadon William Morris print.”

  “I think I know what ‘mission’ is,” Cal said. “Everything else, you were speaking Chinese.”

  “Roger’s couch is toast,” Min said. “Will he mind?”

  “She can chop it into kindling in front of him and he won’t blink,” Cal said.

  “Can he take care of her?” Min said. “She probably won’t need it, but in a crunch—”

  “He will throw his body in front of her if necessary. You have nothing to worry about with Roger. He’s the best guy I know. If I had a sister, I would let Roger marry her. It’s Bonnie I’m worried about. She’s got that efficient look that usually means she likes to boss people around. And since she’s so little, there’s probably a Napoleon complex—”

  “Nope,” Min said. “She’s solid. Roger’s a lucky guy.” She finished the last of her hot dog and then licked a smear of ketchup off her thumb, and Cal lost his train of thought. “So they’re okay and we don’t have to worry,” she said when she’d wiped her hands on a napkin.

  “Yep,” Cal said. “How about dessert?”

  “I don’t eat dessert,” Min said.

  “Really?” Cal said. “What a surprise.”

  “Oh, bite me,” Min said. “I told you there’s this bridesmaid’s dress—”

  Cal pulled a waxed paper bag from the cooler. “Doughnuts,” he said, but before he could go on, a too-familiar piping voice came from behind him.

  “Can I have one?”

  He sighed and turned around to see his skinny, grubby, dark-haired nephew standing at the end of the picnic table. “Shouldn’t you be home by now?”

  “They forgot again,” Harry said, putting a lot of pathetic in his voice. It helped that he wore glasses and was small for his age. He peered around Cal. “Hello,” he said cautiously to Min.

  “Min,” Cal said, glaring at Harry. “This is my nephew, Harry Morrisey. He was just leaving. Harry, this is Min Dobbs.”

  “Hi, Harry,” Min said cheerfully. “You can have all the doughnuts.”

  Harry brightened.

  “No, you can’t.” Cal took out his cell phone. “You’d just throw them up again.”

  “Maybe not.” Harry sidled closer to the doughnut bag.

  “You do remember the cupcake disaster, right?” Cal said as he punched in his sister-in-law’s number.

  “Can’t he have one?” Min smiled at Harry as he drew closer, her face soft and kind, and Cal and Harry both blinked at her for a moment because she was so pretty.

  Then while Cal listened to the phone ring, Harry looked at Min’s skirt and poked it with his finger.

  “Harry” Cal said, and Min pulled out one of her sandals.