O+F | Page 9

guilty and responsible for her.
She had done the same thing as her mother: hooked up with an exotic
stranger--Muni Nakano, proper son of a proper Japanese family in
Honolulu. But, his mother hadn't stuck around for sixteen years. She'd
come back from Hawaii to Connecticut, pregnant, and eventually
married Owl Prescott. They raised him and Amanda, his half sister. His
mother had made a go of it in New England. Only once in awhile
would she show signs of her Italian childhood. "Topolino mio," she
used to call him when he was little and she'd been partying.
He poured a nightcap and put on a tape--Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.
I'm wasting my life, he thought suddenly. What am I going to do? He
knew that he needed to change, but it seemed hopeless. He looked at
the walnut boards. Maybe a box . . .
He sketched a little chest with a hinged top. He erased the straight
bottom lines and drew in long low arches. "That's better." The top
should overhang. Should its edges be straight or rounded? Straight was
more emphatic; he could always round them afterwards.
He could make each side from a single width of walnut. Dovetailed
corners. A small brass hasp and lock. Why not? He could make the
whole thing out of one eight foot piece and have two boards left over
for something else or for extra if he screwed up the dovetails.
"Here you go," he said to Verdi. He replaced the offending piece of
pine with the original scratched walnut. "Nothing but the best for Team

Oliver." He looked at the heart. "Team O." Verdi forgave him without
moving. "Bedtime," Oliver said.
On Monday, Oliver cut pieces for the sides, top, and bottom of the box.
He bought a dovetail saw and made several cardboard templates for the
joints. It was a way of thinking about them. They were tricky, had to
interlock perfectly, one end male, one end female.
"What have you been up to?" Jennifer Lindenthwaite asked on Tuesday
morning.
"Making a box," Oliver said.
"Oh, that's exciting."
"It's harder than it looks--for me, anyway."
Jennifer wanted him to look at her and not at an imagined box. She was
a solid blonde, Nordic, with broad cheeks and a big smile. "I worry
about Rupert when he does things around the house. Something usually
goes wrong."
"Ah . . ." Oliver said. "A minor flaw."
"Rupert is wonderful," she said. "Now, the mailing list. Hi, Jacky."
Oliver turned and was astonished to see Francesca's friend in the
doorway. "Jacky is one of our volunteers. She does a lot of the mailing
list work. I thought you could work together on this. Jacky, this is
Oliver Prescott."
Jacky stepped forward. "Jacky Chapelle," she said. She had strong
cheekbones and dark blonde hair, cut short and swept back. Her eyes
were hazel colored. She had a winged messenger look that lightened
her direct, almost blunt, expression and her powerful shoulders.
"Uh, hi." Oliver shook her hand. "Did you find any pasta sauce?"
"Eventually."
"Oh," Jennifer said. "You know each other."
"Not exactly," he said. Jennifer looked at him closely. _Hell is being in
one room with two women_, Owl said. Oliver cleared his throat.
"Where's the computer?"
"Just down the hall." Jennifer led them to another room. "Let me know
if you need anything."
"Well," Oliver said as they were left alone.
"You don't look like a programmer," Jacky said.
"Thank you."
She showed him a box of file cards--the mailing list. "Here is what we

have. It would be nice to be able to print mailing labels, and we need to
keep track of who has contributed."
"Sure," Oliver said. "And probably some other things."
"Yes," she said. "Some of the members are summer people. We need to
know their winter addresses."
"What's winter?"
"Labor Day to the 4th of July," she said.
"The Maine we know and love," Oliver said. "We can keep individual
winter start and end dates for each name, use defaults if we don't have
the information."
"Right," she said. "Ideally, the list would interact with other programs
someday. It has members on it, and people who aren't members but
who are interested. Also, media people. And legislators. Sometimes we
send special mailings. I suppose we'll need some kind of type code."
"O.K.," Oliver said. They discussed requirements and agreed to meet
the following Saturday morning. Jacky left, and Oliver gave a thumbs
up sign to Jennifer who was talking on the phone.
Not a bad little job, he thought, driving back to Portland. He'd been
itching to ask Jacky about Francesca, but something had stopped him.
He wanted to know Jacky better. She was sure of herself and moved
comfortably. Her breasts were invading his consciousness;