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"Teasing me?"

"Teasing myself," I said. "So let's stop before I break out inpimples."

He laughed.

"Who told you that would happen. Mrs. Geary?"

"No. I made it up," I said. My sense of humor kept him smiling even though I knew he was frustrated. I was too. but I'd die before confessing it.

If he asks me out again. I'll know he really cares for me. If not. I thought. I've been lucky. That was something Mommy taught me,

Maybe I wasn't such a little girl. Maybe turning sixteen was an understatement. Maybe I was old and wise for my age and all the things Mrs. Geary thought and feared about teenagers today simply didn't apply to me. Maybe I was too arrogant.

Maybes hovered everywhere, bouncing about me like the balloons tied to all the trees.

I ran down Mommy's ramp in front of the house and joined Daddy at the tables. The patty was being organized like a camp event. All my guests had been encouraged to bring their bathing suits. Four years ago. Daddy had gotten Uncle Roy to construct a raft which they placed at the center of the lake. We had pedal boats and two kayaks as well as two rowboats. The lake had catfish and bass. However. Uncle Roy complained that fishing in it was like dipping your hook into a goldfish bowl. He said there was no challenge.

He was over by the dance floor making sure it was laid down properly. I looked about, expecting to see Harley, too, but he wasn't anywhere in sight,

"Hi, Uncle Roy," I called approaching. He turned from the floor where he was kneeling and looked up at me.

"Hey. Princess. Happy birthday." He had been calling me Princess for as long as I could remember. Once. when I walked in on a conversation Uncle Roy was having with Mommy. I heard him wistfully say. 'She could have been my daughter,' I had no idea what he had meant at the time. but I knew he meant me.

"Thank you. Uncle Roy."

"The way some of you kids dance these days, this thing could splinter up in minutes," he

complained. "I told them I wanted thicker boards."

"It'll be fine. Uncle Roy," I assured him.

"Umm," he said skeptically and stood up.

When I was younger, Mommy often described how safe and secure she would feel when she walked in the streets of Washington. D.C., holding Uncle Roy's hand. It wasn't merely his size, his muscles, his large hands that surely swallowed hers in a gulp of fingers that gave her this security. Uncle Roy had an aura of power about him, a danger that came from his sleeping rages. I thought. Although no one could ever be as sweet and loving to me as he was-- with the exception of Mommy and Daddy, of course-- I always sensed the tension and blood-red anger lurking just below the surface of his every smile, his every word, his every glance and look.

Even Chase remarked to me one day that my uncle reminded him of a secret service agent or something,

"He looks at me like he expects I might try to assassinate you.

He makes me nervous. Man, I wouldn't want to face him in some dark alley."

"He's a pussycat," I said even though I secretly agreed.

Mommy told me Uncle Roy was so hard and distrusting because of all the disappointments in his life.

I didn't really understand what was the biggest, not yet, but soon enough I would.

It would be another gift from time and age, the sort you wished remained wrapped and left under the Christmas tree forever and ever.

"Where's Harley?" I asked Uncle Roy.

He did what he always did whenever Harley's name was mentioned. He tightened his lips and lifted his shoulders as if he was preparing to receive a blow to his head,

"Thinking up some crime or misdemeanor," he replied. "Uncle Roy," I said smiling.

"I don't know. He didn't come down to breakfast, which isn't unusual. That boy sleeps more than he's awake and especially sleeps late on weekends. Soon, he won't be able to soon, he'll have to work for a living," he said with relish.

Uncle Roy was referring to the fact that Harley, if he passed his finals. would graduate high school this year. He attended the public school.