“Makes sense, if you’re doing all the planning,” Doug said.

Nicky elbowed Vin. “Hear that, honey? You can do all the planning!”

“Rejoining the work force suddenly seems a lot more alluring,” he said, fending off her elbow as Abby laughed.

After refilling drinks, Doug steered Vin out to the deck, where he laid pork tenderloins on a flaming grill and asked about Vin’s career in Boston. Vin listened to the chortle of water flowing in a fountain beyond the backyard pool, the perimeter of which was illuminated by landscaping lights. He sipped his beer and gave Doug the basics: he’d been employee number fourteen at a software startup that developed and sold network-traffic analysis tools. Their products helped maintain the computer networks that had become ubiquitous in large organizations during the previous decade. The company was approaching breakeven when Weiler Networks offered to buy them out and the Board decided to sell. So now Weiler was digesting the company and the shots were being called from Silicon Valley.

Had Vin been laid off?

“No, I could have stayed – I just didn’t want to work for those guys. We used to call them Rottweiler.” He explained that Rottweiler wanted to retain engineering and sales, and since his little group wrote QA software and test scripts, it was considered part of engineering. But he was ready to move on and he knew that one of his employees could handle his job.

“I thought you techy guys got hooked on that startup culture,” Doug said, wrestling the sizzling tenderloins. “You know, building gizmos, working weird hours, playing ping-pong while you strategize…”

“I don’t know,” Vin said. “It all sounds good… building a product that makes it easier for our users to get stuff done.” The crackle of the fire and the smell of grilled pork were creating a soothing ambience. He took another sip and felt his shoulders relax. “But then I would think about what my job actually was,” he said. “Manage the process of writing software that tries to find flaws in a product whose purpose is to find problems with computer networks. It all seems second or third-order, relative to other issues in the world.”

Doug asked if that meant he was changing careers and Vin said he didn’t know. He’d convinced his old boss to put his name on the downsizing list so he got the same severance package that Rottweiler was offering the employees they axed. And he’d been able to exchange some of his stock options for Rottweiler stock, which he immediately sold. Together that amounted to a few months worth of salary. If he couldn’t find something else, he had a standing offer from Rottweiler. They wanted to start using the Web for customer support, so they needed someone to build a database that would track customer questions and problems, and then they needed some code written to glue the database to their website.

“It doesn’t sound like you’re too thrilled about it.”

Vin leaned his elbows on the deck railing and gazed at the tree silhouettes beyond the pool and the fountain. The world extended tens of thousands of miles beyond the dark horizon of Doug’s backyard and his fingers had scarcely touched it. Maybe he could help people in Africa get connected to the Internet, he said. Or build a website for online journalists. There had to be something more meaningful, he thought, than what he’d seen and done so far.

“Maybe you could save the whales,” Doug said, draining his scotch. He started to laugh while swallowing, triggering a spasm of coughs, so he bent at the waist and pounded his chest. Vin turned to watch him cough and sputter.

“Or maybe I could look for Emmert Reed’s albino mule.”

“How’s that?” Doug said after regaining his breath.

“Just an expression.”

“I think the pork is ready to go.” Doug twisted the tenderloins off the grill and led Vin back inside.

Abby and Nicky were laying out grilled asparagus and roasted new potatoes with dill in a kitchen studded with granite counters, cherry cabinets, and brushed-metal appliances that went on forever. Vin was asked to open two bottles of wine and take them to the dining room, which crouched nearby with low-lit amber walls, pleated paper shades, and a cherry table and chairs. How the other half lives, he thought with a sigh.

“Cheers,” Doug said when they were all seated, raising his glass. “To new friends.” Their glasses clinked. During dinner Nicky asked the Tuckermans about their children. Marshall was nine and Whitney eleven. Vin feigned interest in their precocious talents in soccer, piano, and chess. When the conversation ebbed, Nicky excused herself and retreated to the kitchen. The lights dimmed and she reappeared, carrying Vin’s candle-lit birthday cake toward the table. They all sang happy birthday, and Vin obediently blew out the candles.

“Coconut,” he said. “My favorite. The last half of my thirties is off to a decadent start.” He cut slices and passed the plates around. As Abby poured coffee, he turned toward Doug. “I just remembered something I meant to ask when we were talking about the wedding.”

“Shoot,” Doug said through a mouthful of cake.

“Exactly,” Vin said, smiling. “We need someone to do some shooting for us at the wedding. I ran into a photographer on the towpath yesterday…”

“You mean your dog ran into her dog,” Nicky interjected.

“Right. That’s how I meet a lot of people. Anyway, she mentioned that she does weddings and other events, and that she has a studio in Potomac. I was wondering if you had an opinion or had heard anything about her work.”

“What’s the name of the studio?” Abby said, retaking her seat.

“The studio is called Thomas, Ainge, and her name is Kelsey Ainge,” he said.

“Sure,” Abby said. “Her studio has been around for years. They’re good but expensive. And most people find Kelsey a little strange.”

“Strange how?” Nicky said.

“Well, she’s kind of…” Abby said, and then paused. “What’s the right word? Unorthodox, maybe. Unpredictable.”

“She’s lived through some tough times,” Doug said. “Her husband was a big-time neurosurgeon at Georgetown Hospital. He died a few years ago in a one-car crash.”

“Was he driving drunk?” Nicky asked. “Icy roads?”

“Neither,” Doug said. “But they found high levels of valium in his blood – enough that he never should have been driving. His family said he’d been drugged.”

“Did they have kids?” Nicky said. Abby shook her head.

“Still, that must have been pretty hard on Kelsey,” Vin said.

“Well, maybe,” Doug said. “She didn’t seem to grieve very long. The rumor at the time was that her husband was having an affair with a surgical resident. Kelsey inherited a few million and a mansion off River Road. She was dating another guy within months.”

“So maybe things haven’t been so tough for her after all,” Vin said.

“Not recently, anyway,” Doug said. “Her close scrape was a long time ago. I remember it was in the papers when I was in college, just before the flood of ‘72.”

“Flood,” Nicky said. “On the Potomac?”

“Huge flood,” Doug said. “The kind that happens once a generation or so. Usually from a tropical storm or the remnants of a hurricane that dumps rain over the whole Potomac watershed. If you want an indication, go to the Great Falls overlook on the Virginia side. They have a wooden post on the lawn near the observation deck that shows the river level during different floods. The lawn is about seventy feet above the river, and the 1972 level is six feet up the post. That’s all because the river gets funneled into a narrow channel at the Falls.”

Vin shook his head in disbelief. “Seventy feet?”

“Or go twenty miles upstream to Whites Ferry on the Maryland side,” Doug said. “The river’s much wider there, but the 1972 flood level is painted halfway up the second-floor wall on the ferry operator’s house.”

“I’ve seen the mark on the wall,” Abby said. “It’s hard to imagine.”