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Inside, Otis and Suzi were whizzing around the rink under the disco lights, and although he was annoyed by the crowds and the blaring music and the flashing lights in the dimness and the smell of grease and sweat and by having to come inside to get his kids—again!—it also did his heart good, as they say, to see his children enjoying themselves, even though they did it in very different ways.

Suzi swung around the rink hand in hand with Davis, a dark-haired kid who was a couple of inches shorter than she was. Davis was something of an Eddie Haskell type, somebody who could charm any adult he saw fit to charm, but Vic liked him. He came to most of Suzi’s local soccer games. He left messages on their voice mail, pretending to be Bob, a Sears appliance guy, because he knew Vic thought it was funny.

Suzi skated carefully and had Davis to hold on to, and Vic was glad. He had to keep himself from forbidding her to do any activity that might cause an injury and ruin her chance to go to the Olympic Development soccer camp in July. She hadn’t made the cut last year, but it was just so cool that she’d have the chance to participate this year and hopefully get chosen to go on to regionals in New Orleans in January. And then … but, no, he wouldn’t let himself get his hopes up too high.

Free spirit Otis, on the other hand, swooped around the rink alone—around and around and around he went, skillfully avoiding other people, just as he did in real life. Otis never seemed to need, or want, any attention or affection, so most people eventually let him be, even, to a degree, his own parents; but it was either let Otis be or struggle with him constantly. Skating was the only physical activity Otis had ever enjoyed, and he was damn good at it. Even so, Vic had to force him to go skating on occasional Saturday afternoons, and he had to drive him there because Otis wouldn’t waste his own gas. The only place Otis ever really wanted to be was working on his science project in that hideous shed. This place, at least, was an improvement over the shed. Without noticing his father, Otis swung past again, wearing a glow-stick necklace, which meant he’d once again won the boys speed skate for his age group.

Vic was standing there, admiring his progeny, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Victor? Victor Mature?” Only one person ever called him after the B-movie actor from the forties and fifties—the chump who played opposite Rita Hayworth in the forgettable My Gal Sal. Vic smelled her perfume before he turned around. Prada—the same scent Caroline used to wear before she pitched her bottle along with all her fancy face lotions.

There stood Gigi Carter with the tousled blond hair, a smart Southern belle who was going to seed, in a sexy way. Gigi was a friend of Vic’s from graduate school at FSU. Gigi had finished her Ph.D. in English—focusing on Southern women’s literature—but she had a trust fund income and didn’t have to look for a full-time teaching job. He saw her occasionally in the halls of Florida Testing and Assessment, where she temped from time to time. She preferred temping, she’d said, because it gave her more time to ride horses and write.

Vic gave her an awkward hug.

Gigi was wearing a sundress, so obviously she wasn’t skating. She didn’t seem like the skating type. In fact, Gigi wasn’t athletic looking—she was pale and knobby—but in her case, appearances were misleading. She trained and boarded horses and taught riding lessons and was a skilled rider herself. She’d given riding lessons to Ava and they’d gotten along famously—until Ava had fallen off one of Gigi’s horses and hadn’t wanted to go back.

Gigi asked Vic where his family was, and he happily pointed Suzi and Otis out to Gigi, who hadn’t seen them in a while and made the appropriate fuss about how grown-up and good-looking they were.

“Is Travis here?” Vic asked her over the refrain of “YMCA” by the Village People. Travis, her son, was Ava’s age.

“Travis wouldn’t be caught dead in here,