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been more sensitive, but no. It was as if he were a potter, not a painter, and had been digging into her flesh in hopes of entirely reshaping the clay.
    On the nights when she saw the lust in his eyes, she cut their evening short. After all, she had to be fair to all of her boys. What she gave to one she must give to another and she would not turn her house into a bordello. Besides, at her age, sex was ridiculous. She hoped that her next husband would agree.
    She didn’t have to worry about Hank. His eyes barely grazed her when she came into the room. They were fixed on the television, the remote control gripped in his right hand. It was hard to say what he was taking in. He, poor lamb, had had a stroke, and though he was left physically able, with no apparent damage to his body, his mind was gone. She doubted he even knew who she was. She often cheated on him, leaving him alone before nine o’clock, because she was convinced that it made no difference to him.
    Those were her dutiful six nights of the week, two nights apiece spent with each of her ex-husbands. It was the least she could do. They were really not much bother, not at all demanding. Even so, she treasured the seventh evening, her evening of rest.
    She would go upstairs and call out from the hall:
    â€œGood night.”
    And they would chorus back in a charming harmony of male vocal power:
    â€œGood night.”
    She’d toss the crochet hook aside, kick off her lambskin slippers, roll down her support hose and relax. No reading, no television, no arts and crafts. Just time for Vera. Time alone. Time to think up her next move on the marry-go-round.
    Today, she thought she’d hooked a live one.

Chapter Twelve
    â€œIt’ll never work. You can’t keep all signs of modern life out of the village.”
    â€œThere’s not much in it now,” Marlene mumbled, as she slipped a tender mussel out of its shell.
    â€œGranted. But the men must have their trucks and ride-ons and the tourists their laptops. There’s Wifi Wednesday at the hall. We can’t do away with that.”
    A drop of garlic butter sauce dribbled down Marlene’s chin when she opened her mouth to protest. She dabbed at it with a napkin and looked out the large arched window that formed most of the back wall of the restaurant. The view of the dunes and the sand bar that stretched across the bay was magnificent. But the dull grey shingle shacks were pulling it down.
    She turned her gaze to the restaurant interior. A medley of blues. Fresh paint job. Nice enough. Solid tables and very solid chairs – recycled from a schoolroom, she had no doubt. They’d do, but –
    Her imagination hazed over the solid reality of the room, and turned it into a whimsical Paris café, with pretty little unstable wrought iron tables and chairs with checkered tablecloths. She saw not the stolid waitresses who had served them and called them “yous guys,” but undernourished French boys with thin reedy voices to match, bowing and scraping at the clientele. That would be more like it.
    â€œWho owns this place?”
    â€œAndy. The grumpiest fisherman on the wharf.”
    â€œOh, dear.”
    They ate in silence for a few moments.
    â€œI think I’ll have to call a public meeting. Can you help me with that?”
    â€œYes, of course…”
    â€œAnd of course, you’ll back me up on my ideas.”
    â€œWell, I – ”
    What had she got herself into? Hy had thought this community liaison thing would be a piece of cake.
    She hadn’t reckoned on Marlene Weeks.
    Following their lunch, Marlene shoved flyers in Hy’s leaky mailbox on a rainy day. They were calling for a community meeting and came with a note: To be distributed . Hy hauled the sodden mass out and dumped them onto her harvest table to dry.
    They lay there like an accusation.
    Resentment built in Hy.
    I’m not her dogsbody, she thought. The sooner she knows that,