“Come out to the truck with me,” Raoul said. “I want to talk to you.”

“I want to talk to you, too,” Jacob said. “That’s why I showed up today.”

Raoul got a bad vibe from the sound of Jacob’s voice. “You go first, then. What’s going on?”

“I have something difficult to tell you, man. I don’t even know how to say it.”

They moved outside into the sun. Raoul’s head felt like it was splintering apart. “Can you just break it to me gently, please?” Raoul said. “I’ve had one hell of a weekend.”

“I know. I really don’t want to add to your worries, Raoul, but I’ve got to tell you this one thing.”

“Tell me.”

Jacob took a deep breath. “I quit.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m moving away, actually. I decided last night.”

Raoul grabbed his truck bed to steady himself. “How long have you worked for me?”

“Eight years.”

“Eight years, and you’re the best finish guy I have, and now you’re telling me you decided in one night that you’re quitting and moving away.”

“That’s right,” Jacob said. “Sorry, man.”

“Why?” Raoul said. “Are you going somewhere with Val?”

“No.” Jacob turned his baseball cap forward, then backwards again. He looked up into the sky. “Actually, we broke up.”

“You broke up?”

“Yeah,” Jacob said. “Last night.”

“So you’re moving away because you broke up with Val?”

“Not exactly,” Jacob said. “I’m not going to explain the whole thing to you, Raoul. And believe me, you don’t want to know. But basically, now that she’s left her husband she wants me to marry her, and I can’t. I don’t want to. It’s time for me to get out of Dodge. Trust me.”

“I was going to yell at you for smoking a joint with my wife, but I don’t think I’ll bother,” Raoul said. “It sounds like you had more on your plate last night than you needed.”

“Right.”

“So. So you’re moving away. Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe to live with my brother. He works on a good crew.”

“In Arizona?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re sure about this? You’re really fucking sure?”

“Yep.”

Raoul glanced into his truck and saw a bottle of Advil on the floor of the passenger side. “Give me your Coke,” he said to Jacob. He downed three Advil and finished the rest of the soda, wondering how long it would be until he felt better. “Okay, come see me in the office on Tuesday, then. To get your check. We’ll have to figure out what you want to do with your retirement account.”

“Can you just send me that stuff in the mail?” Jacob asked. “I want to leave today.”

‘Today?” Raoul was overwhelmed. Nothing was working the way it was supposed to. But before he could figure out what was going on, really, with Jacob, a car screeched into the dirt driveway. It was a BMW. Val. Raoul moved for the driver’s side of his truck. The last thing he wanted was to get in the middle of some crazed, jilted-lover scene between Jacob and Val. He needed to get home.

Raoul waved to Val and then climbed into his truck. “Come see me Tuesday,” he said to Jacob. Raoul started the engine, but Val pulled right up to his front bumper, blocking his way. He cursed at her under his breath. Now he was stuck.

Val got out of the car and marched to Raoul’s window. When she lifted her sunglasses, Raoul saw that her eyes were puffy and red. She had the hic-cuppy breathing of someone who’d been crying for a long time.

“Did he tell you?” she said.

“Yeah,” Raoul said. “He did. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” she said. “You’re sorry?” She glared at Jacob, who just stood there, balanced on the balls of his feet like he was ready to dart away. “Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t beat him bloody.”

“It’s really none of my business,” Raoul said. “I’d rather not get involved.”

“None of your business?” Val said. “He slept with your wife, and it’s none of your business?”

At that moment, Jacob dashed for his Bronco. He drove into the brush to get around the BMW. In a matter of seconds, before Raoul could process the words he’d just heard, Jacob was gone.

“Coward,” Val said. “So I guess he didn’t tell you.”

Raoul opened his mouth, but the sounds he made weren’t words.

“They slept together, Raoul,” Val said. “Last night, at Great Point. When Jacob came home, I smelled her on him. And he admitted it. He flat out said he’d had sex with Kayla.”

“He was lying to you,” Raoul said. “He was lying to get out of the relationship. Because you scared him, Val. You fucking scared him.”

“I smelled her on him, Raoul,” Val said. “She’s my best friend. She wears Coco Chanel, and that was what Jacob reeked of when he got home last night.”

“Get out of here,” Raoul said. “Get your car out of my way.”

Val started to cry again. “We were just trying to protect her. I can’t believe she’d do this when we were only trying to protect her from the truth.”

“Val!” Raoul shouted. “Aw, fuck it.” Raoul started the truck and he, too, drove into the brush to get around the BMW. Once he was on the road, he felt better. But God, what to do with this news, where to go? Jacob having sex with Kayla, his wife? The mother of his children? Of course it was a lie, a hysterical, dramatic accusation dreamed up by that lunatic woman. As Raoul drove toward home, he tried to remember what Kayla had been like the night before. Crying, insisting that her life was over, the strap of her dress torn, the distinctive scent of marijuana. And Jacob, quitting, leaving the island today without even his last paycheck, running like a fugitive from the law.

Raoul screeched into the driveway. When he stormed into the kitchen he found Kayla, showered and dressed and smelling of perfume, cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

“Where are the kids?” he said.

“Theo’s still in his room. Jennifer’s getting ready to go to the beach. Cass and Luke are outside. The phone has been ringing like crazy.”

Raoul watched Kayla rinse the last sticky plate and put it in the dishwasher. She pulled off her rubber gloves. Raoul was trembling.

“We’re going for a ride,” he said.

She turned and looked at him. Saw his face and knew. Knew that he knew, after nineteen years of marriage, and without a word. It was true.

Raoul took the keys to the Trooper and the Jeep- he didn’t want Theo going anywhere-and he led Kayla out to the truck, tears blurring his eyes. Jacob inside his wife. It disgusted him. Kayla had let Jacob touch her. Raoul couldn’t believe it. Not Kayla. They had been married nineteen years, some years better than others, but never once had Raoul questioned Kayla’s fidelity. It had always been the other way around. Kayla was sensitive about Raoul and other women; she had some loony idea that Raoul was one of these contractors who seduced his female clients. But Raoul had played it straight his entire marriage. There was one woman in “Sconset, Pamela Ely, who pursued him, maybe. She used to lie on her deck in a bikini, straps untied, while Raoul and his crew worked around her. When Raoul was nearby, she would lift her head and her shoulders so that he would see her bare breasts; she did this all the time, and Raoul’s crew couldn’t stop talking about it. She wants you, man, that woman wants you. One night, Pamela kept Raoul hanging around after his crew went home, saying she needed an estimate on one more project-in her bedroom. She gave Raoul a cold Beck’s and preceded him up the stairs with her bikini bottoms riding up her cheeks. He’d had every opportunity to screw her. It was just the two of them in the bedroom looking at a hole in the plaster (her ex-husband had punched the wall, she said). But what did Raoul do? He gave her a fair estimate for the plasterwork; then he guzzled the rest of his beer and left the house immediately. Because as appealing as Pam Ely might have been, what was more appealing was what waited for him at home: a strong marriage, good kids. The real thing.

Kayla was silent as they drove. Raoul took dirt roads until they popped out onto a deserted section of beach between Nobadeer and Madequecham. Raoul didn’t know if Kayla would remember, but this was where they used to make love the summer they started dating. Raoul had met Kayla at the Chicken Box. She was very thin back then, and she wore pedal pushers without any underwear. She had Farrah Fawcett hair, she listened to Earth, Wind & Fire. Their first date was a picnic of American cheese sandwiches and Fritos that she brought to him on the job site. She liked it when Raoul tossed tiny pieces of bread to the seagulls. During those first few weeks Raoul didn’t call her often and occasionally, when he told her he would meet her out at a bar, he stayed home instead. But then the unexplainable happened. She cut the legs out from under him, and he fell. In love with Kayla. He brought her to this very beach and peeled off her pedal pushers and made love to her on a skimpy towel that was no match for the two of them. They jumped into the waves afterward and washed sand out of the uncomfortable places.

It sounded idyllic, too good to be true, and that was how Raoul remembered it. The summer ended, Kayla decided to stay, and they moved in together for the winter. They lived in an old, rickety cottage out in “Sconset where the only source of heat was the fire place. Kayla chopped wood every afternoon, and they ate, slept, made love, and watched TV in front of the fireplace. Occasionally they ventured into town, once to the Gaslight Theatre to seeStripes, and it was so cold in the theater that they could see their breath every time they laughed. Kayla bought three rounds of hot toddies, and by the time the film was over they were silly drunk. To this day, it was the funniest movie Raoul had ever seen. Living with Kayla that winter had been living with love day in and day out; it was that simple, that clear cut. When the first daffodils bloomed in the “Sconset Rotary on the second of April, Raoul asked her to marry him.