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The thing about Gigi was, he could never predict how she’d respond to a question or what take she’d have on a situation or a subject. Of course, if he’d been married to her for twenty years, she might have been as predictable as he found his wife to be. But he realized that he didn’t really know Gigi well at all, and he wanted to remedy this situation. He looked forward to hearing what she had to say, even if she disagreed with him.

“I suppose you like Bob Dylan better,” was Gigi’s response to his complaining about having to listen to Elvis music nonstop.

“Well, yeah. He wrote his own songs, for one thing.”

“Dylan was a poseur! Rich Jewish kid pretending to be an Oakie. He did write some great songs. It’s apples and oranges, anyhow. Elvis was an interpreter. He drew from all sorts of music and put his own stamp on it.”

“He didn’t have such hot taste. ‘In the Ghetto’? Come on.” Vic was surprised to find himself feeling energized, and it wasn’t just the Mountain Dew. Unlike the spats with his family, he was actually enjoying this little tiff with Gigi.

Gigi tossed her loosely curled blond hair over her shoulders. High-maintenance hair, Caroline called it. Caroline had recently cut her hair short and stopped coloring it. It was her hair—she could do what she wanted to with it—but looking at Caroline’s gray streaks made him feel old.

“Here’s the thing,” Gigi told him. “Elvis didn’t get access to some really good songs because the Colonel insisted that Elvis get all the royalties. You have to understand Elvis’s background to understand why he didn’t fight the Colonel. You’re just like everyone else who doesn’t like Elvis because he was white and Southern.” She poked Vic in the chest with her well-manicured index finger. “Face it, Vic Witherspoon. You are a snob.”

Vic swatted her finger away. “Didn’t know you were such an Elvis fan.”

“I’m not,” she said. “It’s just my duty to fight Yankee misconceptions. I’m a Johnny Cash fan, myself. Now. Listen up. Is this a good example of a three?” She held up an essay and read a pitiful little movie review of The Incredibles that was four sentences long. The first sentence said, “Listen up, dudes and dudettes,” and the last sentence said, “You just gotta see the movie your own self!”

“Any misspellings? How’s the punctuation?” Vic asked her. “It might be more of a two.”

“I can’t bear to give this poor kid a two,” she said. “He’s got some flair.”

“How do you know it’s a he?”

“This is a three or I’m walking right out of here.”

Vic swept his hand toward the door. “Feel free. Dudette.”

She checked her big red watch. “How long till happy hour? Can you go out after work for one drink?”

“Maybe. Just one.”

Gigi, who must’ve picked up on his reluctance, smoothly shifted gears and asked about Suzi’s knee injury. “Must be hard on all of you,” she said.

Vic felt she’d seen through him, knew that he cared too much about Suzi’s soccer career. He had yet to inform the director of the Olympic Development soccer camp that Suzi wasn’t going to be there. He read their thrice weekly e-mails, enthusing about the upcoming camp, the outstanding coaches, the successes of former campers. He just wasn’t ready to give it all up yet. “Actually, Suzi’s doing really well,” he lied. “She’s been going to church with Nancy Archer. That church where your brother is a minister.”

“Suzi has too much common sense to fall for that nonsense. How’s Oats?” Gigi used Suzi’s baby nickname for Otis.

“Oats is Oats.” Vic told her about the smoke detectors, and about how he’d just seen Otis taking a box of old alarm clocks into the shed.

“What’s he doing with old clocks?”

“It’s a big secret.” Vic was ashamed to let people know how little he really communicated with his son. His only son. He wanted to communicate with him. He tried. Just last week he’d taken Otis to see X-Men, but during the previews Otis exploded when Vic gently pressed him about exactly what he was doing with the smoke detectors and clocks. Otis got up and stormed out of the theater before the movie’d even started.