black T-shirt that showed off his biceps.
I looked down at my sneakers and workout clothes, then
up at him with a grin. 'You'd think so, wouldn't you?'
'I guessed wrong?' He put a hand over his heart and
staggered a step. 'Don't tel me you're going to the
Embassy Bal.'
'Nope. But I don't jog. I can manage a fast walk, though,
if you're up for it.'
'Fast walk it is,' he said agreeably.
'I don't want to hold you back.' I faked adjusting the tie at my waist to give my hands something to do while I
watched his reaction.
He didn't give me much of one, just a shrug and an easy
smile that lit his dark eyes. 'Nah. I used to run a lot, but it's hard on the knees. A fast walk can give you a good
workout too without being so tough on the joints. I see a
lot of injuries from people pushing too hard. I don't want
that to be me.'
We crossed Front Street to the sidewalk just beyond. The
Susquehanna River was running high with the last of the
winter's melt and a few days of rain. It sweled, greenish
brown, high up the concrete steps that had been set into
the bank. Halfway across on City Island, I saw the bright
red-and-white stripes of the bathhouse awnings at the
public swimming beach. I'd dip a foot in that water.
Maybe. But there was no way I'd ever swim in it.
'Left or right?' Eric said as he stretched one long leg, then the other.
Left would take us toward downtown and eventualy, the
highway, but we could walk down along the river if we
wanted instead of up here. Right would take us past
residential neighborhoods and the line of mansions that had
once been private homes but now mostly housed offices.
Oh, and the Governor's Mansion, which for some reason
never failed to fascinate me. I guess it was because such
an important building seemed out of place right out there in
the open, where anyone could stand in front of the fence
and look in. I felt the same way about the White House the
one time I'd been to D.C.
'Right.' I nodded that way and watched him stretch. I
made an effort at doing the same, but since I never
stretched before any workout, it was half-assed.
Eric eyed me with a grin but made no comment. 'Ready?'
'Sure.'
There had been a heyday of walking when I was around
eight or nine. We'd been living in a cluster of trailers, too
few to realy be caled a park, with my mother's then
boyfriend, Bob. My mom had been laid off from her job in
the packing department at the Hershey factory, and for the
first time I could ever remember she'd formed a group of
girlfriends who did the sorts of things moms did on
