“It’s not healthy,” Davy said. “Maybe this should be group therapy. Family rates.”

“You’re overreacting.” Tilda sat down beside him. “Look, did you ever go to Mardi Gras?”

“Yeah,” Davy said cautiously.

“Well, Eve has her own Mardi Gras Thursday through Sunday. She just does a better mask than most.”

“Doesn’t she ever get confused?”

“No. People think that wearing masks makes them different, but what happens is they become the people they were meant to be. Without the mask, they’re Eves, doing the right thing, sacrificing for others. With the masks they’re Louises, completely themselves, without guilt. They can do anything. It’s that transformation thing.” She smiled slightly, her lips curving like a wistful secret, and Davy sucked in his breath and wanted her more than he thought possible.

“Tell me you have a Louise,” he said, “because I would really like to buy her a drink.”

“Very funny,” Tilda said, looking away. “I don’t do that.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Davy said. “Does Nadine know?”

“Of course Nadine knows,” Tilda said. “Everybody knows. Except you and Simon.”

“And Nadine is all right with it?”

“Why not?” Tilda said. “Louise isn’t a drug addict or a drunk or a child abuser. She’s just another set of clothes.”

“That sleeps with Simon.”

Tilda shrugged. “Well, as Gwennie always says, if you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.”

“Ah,” Davy said. “The Michael Dempsey School of Parenting. I’m going to tell Simon.”

“You think he’s going to thank you?” Tilda said, sounding exasperated.

“I don’t-”

“You think he’s going to say, ‘Thanks, buddy, for screwing me out of the best sex of my life’?”

“That’s not-”

“Face it,” Tilda said. “You want to tell him because it’s the right thing for you to do, not the right thing for him to hear.”

Davy frowned at her. “So I’m a selfish bastard for wanting to do the right thing?”

“Yes,” Tilda said.

“I know that’s wrong.” Davy stood up. “Let me get back to you on why.”

“Well, until then, keep your mouth shut,” Tilda said. “You honest people can make life hell for everybody else.”

ON MONDAY morning, having finally accepted that the gallery was going to be restored whether she helped or not, Gwen moved the stepladder to the side wall and climbed up, determined to hammer that damn piece of ceiling tin back into place once and for all. Of course the ceilings had to be a mile high. Tony had explained to her that it was because the artwork had to breathe. Well, the damn artwork should have put the ceiling back then. She climbed up as high as she could go, held the hammer by the very end, and took a whack at it, but she overbalanced and dropped the hammer, grabbing the ladder at the last minute and swinging her weight to the left to stop it from toppling. When she had her breath back, she realized she hadn’t heard the hammer hit the floor and looked down.

Ford was standing there, holding it with one of those this-woman-is-a-moron looks on his face.

“I wanted to do it myself, okay?” Gwen said, not in the mood to be condescended to.

“Why?” Ford said.

“Because I’ve been staring at it for years, and it’s been sneering back at me, and I wanted to put it in its place.”

“So order me to do it,” Ford said.

“Not the same thing,” Gwen said.

“It’s all you’ve got,” Ford said. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’m leaving it,” Gwen said. “Give me that damn hammer.”

“No.”

“It’s my hammer.”

“Not anymore,” Ford said.

“It’s so unlike you to be playful,” Gwen snarled. “Give me that hammer.”

“I’m not playful,” Ford said. “I’m preventing injury and possible death. You almost killed me with this thing. Get your ass off the ladder.”

“You weren’t supposed to be standing there,” Gwen said, and then she frowned at him. “Why were you standing there?”

“You’re making a lot of noise,” Ford said. “I thought you might need help.”

“I need no help.”

He sighed. “Get off the ladder, Gwen. Let me look at the ceiling and see what it needs.”

“It needs to get whacked,” Gwen said viciously, and then remembered what he did for a living.

“Get down,” Ford said, and unable to think of any way to take back the “whacked,” Gwen climbed down.

He climbed back up, tall enough that he could touch the ceiling. “It needs a nail,” he said as he climbed back down. “The old one fell out. Whacking it will not help.”

“Good to know,” Gwen said brightly.

“Where are your nails?”

“Nails?” Gwen said.

“Where’s Davy?”

“Out front.”

“Good,” he said. “Go do something that does not require tools.”

“Hey,” she said, but he was already heading out the door to Davy. “And what makes you think that Davy has nails?” she said to him through the plate glass, only to see Davy reach in his shirt pocket and hand over something that looked like nails.

Sometimes, she purely hated men.

Ford came back in, climbed the ladder, tacked the ceiling back up with two precision taps, climbed back down, folded the ladder, and carried it to the back.

“For all you know, I still need that ladder,” Gwen called after him.

“Not after your last performance,” Ford said, coming back out of the office. “What else has to be done?”

“Nothing,” Gwen said, moving in front of the cracked side window.

“Got a tape measure?” Ford said.

“Why?”

“So I can measure that window.”

“We have somebody coming in to do that,” Gwen lied.

“Give me the damn tape measure, Gwen,” Ford said, and Gwen gave up and went in the office for the measure.

“I don’t see why you’re doing this,” she said when she’d handed it to him.

“It’s a nice building,” Ford said, stringing out the measure. “I like seeing things put right.”

“You do?” Gwen said, trying to square that with the hit man thing.

“That’s my game. Write down twenty-seven and a half inches.”

Gwen went for paper and wrote it down. When she went back to him she said, “Your game is remodeling old buildings?”

“By thirty-two and a quarter,” Ford said, retracting the tape. “No, my game is restoring justice to the world.” He handed her the tape.

“Oh,” Gwen said. “Justice.”

“And order,” Ford said. “Where’s the nearest glass place?”

“Glass place?” Gwen said.

“Where’s your telephone book?” Ford said, with infinite patience.

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” Gwen said.

“I know.”

“This isn’t my idea, all of this.”

“I know.”

“I’m not even sure I want this,” Gwen said.

Ford sat down on the edge of the table. “So why are you letting them do it?”

“We need the money,” Gwen said, looking around. “And the place really is shabby. And Tilda wants it. Tilda’s the one who gets things done around here.”

“Why don’t you leave?” Ford said, and Gwen jerked her head back to look at him.

“Leave?”

“Take a vacation,” Ford said.

“A vacation.” Gwen looked at him, stumped. “Where would I go?”

“The Caribbean,” Ford said. “ Aruba. Scuba diving.”

“I don’t know how to scuba dive.”

“I’ll teach you,” he said, and Gwen lost her breath. “This is my last job,” he went on. “I’m retiring and heading south for good. Taking the boat to Aruba. You could come along.”

“Scuba diving,” Gwen said, grabbing onto something concrete. “Isn’t that dangerous? Don’t people die?”

“People die in their beds, Gwen,” Ford said. “Doesn’t mean they don’t hit the sheets.” He stood up. “It’s a big boat. Plenty of room. I’ll get your window glass.”

“Thank you,” Gwen said, still a little breathless, and when he was out the door, she sat down at the counter, looked at the nine brightly colored umbrellas in her pencil cup, and thought, I want to go.

Well, that was ridiculous. She couldn’t leave the family, and she’d never had the slightest desire to scuba dive, and the only thing she knew about Ford was that he was a hired killer who brought her piña coladas and fixed her ceiling. Of course, he was retiring, and she was all for forgiveness and forgetting the past, especially if it was her past, but if his last job was going to be killing Davy, that would pretty much be her sticking point.