help.'
'I know who you are,' she said evenly. 'But I can't help you.'
'Tony thought you might.'
'Oh.' She smiled a little. 'I like Tony. I wish he and Jimmy had gotten along better.' She stood abruptly, went behind the counter, made a business of making herself a cup of sweet-smelling herbal tea. 'Do you want more coffee?' she asked.
'Please. It's terrific coffee.'
She brought the pot over, poured, returned the pot to the heat, sat again. She sipped her tea. I waited to see what it was all about.
'Jimmy talked about you a lot,' she said, cupping her tea in both hands. 'He said you were the only other person who ever took him seriously. He said you didn't make him feel like a punk.'
'What did he mean, the only other person?'
'Besides me. I was the other one.'
I didn't say anything. She went on, 'I suppose Tony told you Jimmy was living here with me for a while.'
'This is your house?'
She nodded. 'I grew up here. I live alone here now; my father died a year ago.' Her face said she still wasn't used to it.
'I’m sorry.'
She smiled softly. 'Thank you.'
I drank my coffee. 'The bakery is yours, then?'
'Laura's and Joanie's and mine. That was Joanie you met when you came in.'
'And Jimmy?'
She was quiet for a moment, looking out the window. Then she went on. 'I got to know Jimmy in the fall. We needed a delivery van and none of us knows about cars. I take my Plymouth to the garage where Jimmy works. I could tell he knew what he was doing, so I asked him to help us find a used van and put it in shape. That's how we got to know each other, driving around looking at vans. At first he did his tough-guy act, but I wasn't interested. Finally we started to just talk. We talked a lot. He wasn't used to that, he said. He said nobody had ever cared what he had to say, except you.'
'He never gave anybody much of a chance.'
'That's what I told him.'
Outside the window the wind ruffled the grasses. I said, 'And he moved in with you?'
'Just before Christmas. I knew his reputation, but I didn't care. I knew Jimmy, I thought. And you know what?' 'What?'
'I was right. It wasn't a mistake and I'm not sorry.'
'But something must have gone wrong.'
She nodded. 'He wasn't ready. He just wasn't ready. He started seeing someone else. It didn't last long, a couple of weeks. It was over by the time I found out. He felt terrible about it, he said. It was just something that happened, it didn't mean anything. But I told him I didn't even want to start playing that game. I told him to leave.'
'When was that?'
She swirled the floating leaves around in the bottom of her teacup, watched their patterns as they settled. 'That he moved out? Maybe a week ago.'
'Who was the someone else?'
She pushed her teacup away. 'Maybe I'm talking too much.'
'You haven't said anything that could hurt Jimmy,' I said. She didn't answer. 'Please,' I said. 'It's important.'
'Her name is Ginny Sanderson.'
'Mark Sanderson's daughter?'
'Do you know her?' she asked, eyebrows raised.
'No. But her father is looking for her. She hasn't been home for a couple of days.'
Her answer surprised me: 'Would you go home, if he were your father?'
I asked, 'Do you think she's with Jimmy?' 'No.'
'Why not?'
'He . . .' she hesitated. 'He said she'd dropped him for somebody else.'
'Do you know who?'
She shook her head.
'And you don't think she and Jimmy could have gotten back together?'
'No,' again.
