O WHEN I wake up in the morning, alone again, I really have no one to blame but myself. I’m as clueless as I was yesterday. Perhaps I should make a list and mail it to him, because that man does something to my brain. Things to Ask Malone. 1. Are we seeing each other or just sleeping together? 2. Do you like me at all, or is this just a physical thing? (Unfortunately, I suspect the latter…at least on my part.)3. Can you tell me about yourself so I don’t feel like you’re a total stranger? 4. Why don’t you ever come into the diner?

Oddly enough, it’s the last thing that bothers me the most. The diner is a surprising little treasure in Gideon’s Cove. For the first few years that I ran it, I worked a second job over at the hospital, filing medical records from four until ten each night so that I could sink some money into the diner. It took me almost four years to completely restore it. I pulled up the linoleum that Granddad put down over the tile floors, painstakingly retiling the areas that needed it, scouring the grout with bleach until my hands were raw. Reupholstering the seats in their original red vinyl took some money, and I had to buy the bigger oven so that I could bake all the homemade goodies that we’re now known for. I’d like Malone to see it, to have that pie that I promised him.

Chantal comes in for lunch, something she does every Thursday, and because Judy is in a rare mood and actually working, I sit down and have lunch with the resident expert on the men of Gideon’s Cove.

“These fries are the best in town,” she says, popping another curly, spiced delicacy into her mouth.

“The only fries in town,” I correct her with a smile. When Chantal’s not busy seducing some man (or any man), she can be quite pleasant.

“You want to go to Dewey’s tonight?” she asks. “I could use a drink.”

“Um…well, no, I’d better not. I have stuff to do.” It’s true. Laundry. Bills. Possibly Malone. And speaking of tall, dark and not exactly handsome, I risk a question.

“Chantal, remember how you were telling me I should check out Malone?” I blush and take a bite of my cheeseburger to cover.

“Oh, Christ, I wasn’t serious,” she says. “He’s all wrong for you. Not husband material at all, if you know what I mean.”

“No, no. I know that.” I don’t, actually, but for some reason, I don’t want to admit to my…whatever it is that Malone and I are doing together. “No, I was just wondering if you ever…you know. Hooked up with him,” I ask, dreading the answer.

Chantal sucks up some milkshake through her straw, managing to look quite pornographic as she does, something I’m sure she practices. “Nope. I haven’t. Not yet, I should say, and not for lack of trying, mind you,” she says easily.

My shoulders drop in relief and, I admit, pleasure. “He turned you down?” I ask, surprised—Chantal could fill the bleacher seats at Fenway with the men she’s entertained.

“Well, sort of. I mean, I flirt with him, because he really is pretty hot in that ugly guy way, but he just kind of smiles and drinks his beer. I think he’s gay.”

Doubt that. “He smiles?” I ask.

“Well, maybe not. But there was this thing once, long time ago now, back when we were still in school…” She stops and drops her eyes, her thickly mascaraed lashes shielding her expression.

“What?” I ask, leaning forward.

“Well, it was nothing. I gave him a ride. Someone had roughed him up…this must’ve been when I was a senior, because I was driving my dad’s Camaro, I remember, and Malone was out walking by the blueberry plant, and I pulled over and drove him home.”

“Really?” This little nugget of history fascinates me, picturing Malone as a youth. “Did he say what happened or anything? Did you guys talk?”

“Not that I remember,” Chantal answers, chewing thoughtfully on a fry. “I just gave him some tissues for his lip, because it was bleeding. For a while, I thought he might have had a crush on me…you know, we had this little secret between us, and he was a year or so behind me in school, but nothing ever came of it.” She drains the last of her milkshake. “Still, that brooding thing he’s got going on is pretty steamy. Don’t you think? Or, no, I forgot. You like them all sunshine and light and goodness. And speaking of, there goes Father What-a-Waste.” Chantal’s voice drops to an unmistakable purr as Father Tim walks past, throwing us a wave and a smile as he goes about his business. “God, he’s delicious.”

“Now, now. You know he doesn’t like us to talk like that,” I say primly.

“Mmm. But he is, isn’t he?” she purrs, smiling widely.

I laugh, unable to resist. “Yes. He is.”

“I SLEPT WITH Malone,” I tell my sister later that day.

“What?” she shrieks, dropping the baby’s plastic bottle. “Jesus, Maggie! Give a person a little warning here!”

Being the one with the news packs a certain wallop. It’s definitely been Christy’s life that has grabbed the most headlines, aside from my own embarrassing forays into the Catholic church. And so dropping this choice little nugget is, I admit, incredibly satisfying.

It’s showering outside, a gentle, nourishing rain that patters in the gutters and against the lead-paned windows of Christy’s house, deepening the three inches of mud that already blankets the great outdoors. Violet is sleeping, Christy is tidying, I’m lounging.

Christy sits down across from me and takes a sip of her now-cold tea. “Let me warm this up,” she says, sticking her mug in the microwave and pressing some buttons. “I want to hear every detail. And Violet better not wake up, because she’s going to have to wait.”

I tell her, starting with the kiss when he drove me home and ending with waking up alone this morning.

“Wow,” she sighs. “This is…wow. And I have to say, I told you so. Remember?”

“Yes, I do. Well done.” I salute her with my mug.

“So…Malone. He’s really…well, what’s he like? What do you guys talk about?”

I blush. “That’s a good question. Of course, it’s only been a couple of days. We haven’t talked much.”

“Oh, really?” Christy purrs. “So. Okay. He’s sexy, we knew that. I love the scruffy ones.”

“You do?” I ask. Will is quite tidy and clean-shaven.

“You always want what you don’t have,” she tells me with a wink. “More about Malone, please. What else?”

“Okay, well, we covered the great in bed part. Incredible kisser. Doesn’t talk much. That’s all I know.” I sigh. “He really hardly talks at all, Christy.” I frown and trace the rim of my cup. “To tell you the truth. I’m sleeping with a guy I really don’t know very well. It’s a little slutty.”

“Is that how he makes you feel?” Christy asks, mirroring my frown with one of her own.

I think about that. “No. He makes me feel…beautiful.”

Christy’s frown morphs into a smile. “Oh…that’s nice,” she sighs. “Beautiful is good.”

I smile, too. “Yes, it is. I just wish…”

“What?”

“Well, I just wish he was more…talkative. More like…” I wince but tell my sister the truth. “More like Father Tim.”

“Well, I for one am glad he’s not,” Christy chides. “Father Tim is a—”

“I know, I know. Save it. What I meant was, I wish Malone would just…open up a little.”

“He will, Mags, he will,” Christy assures me, not that she has any authority over Malone. “You know how they grew up, the Malone kids,” she adds.

“Actually, I don’t,” I say. First Chantal had something on him, now my own sister. Does everyone know more about Malone than I do?

“Oh, no? Well, it—” she pauses, considering. “It wasn’t good.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“His sister was in our class, dummy,” Christy informs me. “Allie Malone. Don’t you remember? She was shy, black hair like Malone’s…pretty quiet.”

I wrack my brain for some recall. “Oh, okay, okay. God, I hardly remember her.”

“Too wrapped up in Skip.”

“Yeah. True. So tell me what you know,” I prod.

Christy takes another sip of her tea. “Well, I never went over there or anything,” she says. “And I don’t exactly remember how much she told me and how much was just what the kids said. But we were lab partners junior year, and we were kind of friendly.”

She stiffens as Violet rolls over, the rustling clearly audible over the monitor, but when no coo or cry follows, she goes on. “I guess the father was abusive. I don’t think sexually, thank God. But there was definitely some bad stuff. The police came once, I remember Allie talking about that. She was crying in the bathroom one day and told me that her brother and father both spent the night in jail…”

“Yikes,” I murmur.

“So, anyway, I really don’t know more than that. She went away to Boston and we never really kept in touch.”

“Did you ever hear that Malone hit his wife?”

Christy frowns. “No. I never did. He’s not—you know, rough or anything, is he, Maggie?”

“Oh, no. No, no.” My cheeks grow hot. “Not rough at all…just…intense.”

“I wish you could see your face right now,” my sister says, laughing.

“Listen, don’t tell anyone about this, okay? About Malone and me. It’s not like we’re actually seeing each other…we’re just…I don’t know….”

“Fuck buddies?” Christy laughs.

“Christy! No! Oh, hell, maybe.” I can’t help laughing, too.

“Can you imagine what Mom would say?”

“I really don’t want to think about that,” I answer truthfully. Mother is not one to be sympathetic to hormonal urges. Young people today are so trashy, she’s fond of saying. Don’t they have any self-respect? Even if Malone and I had a real relationship, he’s not exactly what Mom has in mind for me. Why can’t you meet a doctor, Maggie? Or a lawyer? Or maybe that Microsoft executive on Douglas Point? If you’d just clean yourself up a little, you’d be quite presentable, you know. You need to stop lighting your fire under a bushel.

At this moment, my niece lets out a coo over the monitor, signaling the end of her nap. Christy gets up and goes upstairs, and I sit at the table, mulling over what she’s told me.

I stay to play with Violet, rolling on the floor with her, encouraging her to grab the little moose puppet Jonah gave her at birth. She finally does, and Christy and I cheer as the genius baby stuffs an antler into her drooling mouth and chews on it. Christy convinces me to stay for supper, and I do, drinking in their domesticity and happiness.

On my way home, I try to imagine Malone acting like Will, laughing, pulling me onto his lap the way Will does to Christy, kissing his baby and practically leaping at the chance to change her diaper. I can’t. Malone doesn’t inspire thoughts of husband and father.

So what are you doing with him, Maggie? Mom’s voice asks in my head. Killing time until the real thing comes along? Or just scratching an itch?

I’m pretty sure I don’t want to answer those questions, but I have a long time to think about them. Malone doesn’t come over that night. He doesn’t call, either. And I don’t call him.