“It’s for effect.”

“And why’d you buy a used truck? Surely you can afford a new one.”

“Effect,” he said again, and started laughing, and laughed and laughed. “If you plan to show reporters my big-ass truck for an article, let me know so I can spill some beer in it.”

Sarah looked in the glove compartment. “I notice you have an economy pack of condoms.”

“Came with the big-ass truck.”

“I’ve seen condoms in your bathroom. These are your brand.”

“They’re for effect!”

She laughed along with him. She had decided to cut him a break, and cut herself a break, and make this her best birthday ever. It wouldn’t be difficult. Her mother had a habit of giving her frilly dresses for her birthday, as if rubbing in what Sarah wasn’t. And Harold had always managed to turn the day around and make it about him.

Earlier that morning, before the parade of bouquets, she’d thought it was damned depressing to be divorced at age thirty. After the note from Nine Lives and the visit from Quentin, she’d changed her mind. How delightful to spend one last day on earth at a sunny lake with her fake boyfriend.

She asked gleefully, “Do you think Erin’s going to be jealous when she sees my birthday present?”

Quentin chuckled. “She’ll be nice in front of you, but I guarantee she’ll let me have it later.”

“Really? That’s great! What did you get her for her birthday last year?”

“Rosin. We were on tour up north, and she was out of this special German rosin that had changed her life. She couldn’t remember the name of it. She’d know it if she saw it, but the music store in St. Paul didn’t have it, and the store in Madison didn’t have it, and the store in Lansing didn’t have it. I finally got online and figured out what it was, and had it delivered to our gig in Indianapolis.”

“That was thoughtful. Costly?”

“About thirty dollars.”

“I see. What did you get your manager for her birthday?”

Quentin looked at Sarah blankly, then snapped his fingers. “No wonder she was so pissed at me in Austin! Oh well. Too late now. Watch this.”

He pulled into the passing lane and blew past Owen’s truck. Sarah waved, and Erin in the passenger seat waved back cheerfully enough. Maybe they could skip the catfight after all.

“Where’s Martin?” Sarah asked.

“In the back of the club cab, asleep. He’s depressed about Rachel and he used more than he should have this morning. I went down to his room and argued with him about it but . . . ” Quentin glanced over at Sarah. “I know. It’s bogus to argue with your best friend about using heroin in moderation. But you can’t send somebody to rehab until they want to go. It doesn’t take. And when I’ve suggested it to him, he’s disappeared for a couple days. He’s going to do it. Better for him to do it at my house than in some abandoned building on the north side. At home, at least I can catch him if he falls.”

She shook her head. “It seems really obvious to me. I don’t understand how Erin and Owen haven’t figured it out. I mean, he’s high in the back of their truck.”

“It’s only been this bad since we got back from Thailand. Thailand left us all a little crazy. And you’ve seen drug abuse before, so you know what it looks like. I understand him better than they do, because I’ve roomed with him off and on since I was eighteen. And Erin’s innocent, and Owen’s a dumbass. Martin still has more sense when he’s high than Owen and Erin have put together, sober.”

“For now.”

“Right. And that may be what it takes. When he can’t write music anymore, then he’ll let me help him.” Quentin’s tone brightened. “Speaking of which. Do you read music? Then look in the glove compartment and get the staff paper and a pen. No, under the condoms. Write this down so I can show it to Martin.” He sang easily, “Slap my face and slam the door / You never done that way before.”

“Door and before?” Sarah looked up from scribbling. “You’re not going to keep that, are you?”

“You said at the hotel that you liked it! You acted all amazed and shit!”

“It’s a great song. But that rhyme’s been used a million times, not the least of which is ‘Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.’ ”

Quentin cleared his throat. “Pardon me. How many hit singles have you written?”

“Point taken.”

“Trust me on this. Folks don’t want to think too hard when they’re drinking margaritas and line-dancing. They’re liable to get a lime stuck in their two-step.”

Small towns, green forests, and kudzu-covered hills spun by as Sarah jotted down five verses of “Slap My Face and Slam the Door” for Quentin. Despite his lack of sophistication, or perhaps because of it, he was a master at composing catchy tunes and rhymes about the mundane. The third album would be a success and Sarah’s job security assured if the music had anything to do with it. She kicked off her running shoes and stuck her feet out the window, crossing her ankles on the doorframe. What a relief, a whole day without high heels. The warm wind tickled between her toes.

An hour later, Quentin maneuvered his truck into an empty space in the nearly full parking lot next to a rambling brick restaurant, with Owen’s truck close behind.

“The Highway 280 Steak House,” Sarah read from the sign. “Did you eat here a lot growing up?”

“You could say that.” He took her hand and led her through a side door and between crowded tables, as if he knew the place well. Sarah wondered whether he’d worked here.

“I don’t see anyone eating steak,” she observed.

“They only serve steak on Wednesday night, after church. The rest of the time, they serve chicken. Except special occasions, when they serve Indian food.”

“Indian?” Small Alabama towns had no taste for the exotic. “Why Indian food?”

“Because my stepmother’s from Delhi,” he called over his shoulder as he pushed open a swinging door into the enormous, bustling kitchen.

Several women and men came away from their pots and knives to hug or shake hands with Quentin and shout greetings at him over the foreign pop music with strange percussion. A beautiful older Indian lady in a purple sari approached him, talking in heavily accented English or a foreign dialect—Sarah couldn’t tell which with the music blaring.

Quentin gave the lady a long hug. He said loudly over the music, “This is Sarah.”

The lady eyed Sarah’s hair. Then, smiling broadly, she leaned close. “You made Quentin drive.” She hugged Sarah hard, talking over Sarah’s head to Quentin in what Sarah assumed was Hindi.

Quentin responded, “No,” then, “Yes,” then, “Oh yeah? How many hit singles have you written? Everybody’s a critic today.”

Muttering something, Quentin’s stepmother released Sarah, then ladled stew out of a nearby pot and handed Sarah a plate and fork. Sarah politely prepared to try it.

“Don’t eat that,” Quentin warned her.

Sarah didn’t want to be rude. She opened her mouth.

Quentin took the plate and fork away from her and dumped the stew into the garbage. He handed the plate and fork to a passing worker, who took them without comment and headed for a dishwasher the size of a car. “When I tell you not to eat something that my stepmother gives you,” Quentin said, “don’t eat it. People from Schenectady don’t eat that part of the animal.”

“What is it?” Sarah asked, horrified. “An Indian delicacy?”

“Soul food. She makes it for Owen.”

Quentin’s stepmother unceremoniously plopped an enormous pile of wet herbs on the counter in front of him. Sarah didn’t know what they were, because she didn’t know one herb from another. He took a knife from a nearby block and began separating leaves from stems and chopping expertly.

“So this is how you learned to cook,” Sarah said, watching from his non-chopping side.

He laughed shortly. “There were seven of us, and I was the only one old enough to be of any use. And the restaurant didn’t do so well at first. Let’s just say I earned my keep.” He glanced at her. “Well, it wasn’t that bad. I was sixteen by then. I would call Owen to come get me and we’d go drink beer. When I dragged myself home again, she’d slap me in the back of the head, but it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

Sarah leaned closer, inhaling the spice of the herbs and watching his poker face. “You’re trying to tell me something, but you’re layering the jokes so thick that I don’t know what you mean. Was it bad or not?”

He stopped chopping and turned to her with a strange look. Finally he said, “It was good. I just didn’t know it at the time.”

The open moment passed. He scooped up the herbs and threw them into two bowls at the back of the counter. “This is baingan bartha in progress,” he told her. “One for me and one for the lightweights. Do you like yours hot?”

Sarah nodded, because Natsuko probably loved spicy food, the hotter the better. She watched uneasily as he chopped very small peppers and scooped them off the cutting board with the blade of the knife. He raked them, seeds and all, into the small bowl, and stirred. Tearing off pieces from a nearby pile of nan, he dipped out some for Sarah and some for himself.

It was delicious. Five seconds later, it was the hottest thing Sarah had ever put in her mouth. It was all she could do to keep from wincing.

“Not hot enough,” Quentin said. Sarah watched in horror as he chopped more peppers and dipped out a taste for them again. This time it was all she could do to keep from spitting it out in self-preservation. She realized now that Quentin was getting her back for the tequila shots that first night.

“I just can’t get it hot enough,” he complained innocently, chopping up more peppers and stirring them into the bowl.

Quentin’s stepmother reappeared, put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, and scolded Quentin. Sarah feared the burn in her mouth might have charred part of the circuitry of her brain. But she thought Quentin was giving his stepmother lip in slow, deliberate Hindi with an Alabama accent. His stepmother reached up and slapped him hard on the back of the head.

“All right!” Quentin said. He put down the knife and motioned for Sarah to follow him to a huge refrigerator. He handed her a small carton of milk. She opened the carton and started drinking, watching him over the top. How could he stand the heat? Finally, with a wry smile, he reached in for his own carton of milk.

Sarah didn’t stop drinking until the milk was gone and some feeling had returned to her mouth. She gasped, “What did your stepmother say?”

He crumpled his empty carton in his fist. “Uh . . . ‘What are you doing to the pink-haired woman . . . Don’t you want her to have your babies . . . Get the hell out of my kitchen.’ Basically.”

Sarah laughed heartily. “That’s a hot game of gotcha you’ve got going.”

“Tit for tat.” He threw away the milk cartons and pulled her out of the kitchen, through the large, open restaurant, to a front entry with a counter and cash register.

Sarah would have recognized Quentin’s father right away, even if he hadn’t been passing into the dining room to seat customers. He was a few inches shorter than Quentin and had dark hair, but their muscular builds were similar and their green eyes were the same. When he saw Quentin, he beamed at him and nodded to a group of customers coming out of the dining room. Someone needed to ring up their check. Quentin slipped behind the counter and worked the cash register as if it was second nature.

While she waited, Sarah moved around the small room, examining the Cheatin’ Hearts memorabilia decorating the walls. In the most prominent spot was a huge poster of the back cover of Ass Backwards, signed by all four band members. Sarah agreed that this was a good choice for the restaurant, despite Erin’s red push-up bra, because it showed the band members’ faces and no na**d butt.

She made her way around to the counter. Quentin watched her while she examined a framed family photo. A teenage Quentin, tall and thin, light brown curls even wilder than now, wearing spectacles. Holding his fingers in rabbit ears above his father’s head. His father with his arm around Quentin’s sari-clad stepmother. Two blond preteen girls and four small, black-haired children.

“You are the oldest,” Sarah murmured, fascinated. “I had you pegged for the youngest.”

“Why?”

“Because youngest children are the ones who join sex-crazed country bands. Oldest children and only children are the responsible ones with steady jobs. They tend to—”

“Dye their hair pink and move to Rio,” he said, pulling her ponytail. “Hey,” he called over her head to his father. Sarah stood back as the two of them embraced and Quentin’s father slapped him on the back.

“This is Sarah,” Quentin said.

His father took both Sarah’s hands and looked down into her eyes.

“Did that package show up?” Quentin asked.

“They just delivered it,” his father said without taking his eyes off Sarah. He motioned with his head toward a door behind the counter. “It’s in the office.”

“I’m going to check right quick,” Quentin told Sarah, “and make sure I got you what I think I got you for your birthday.” He disappeared through the doorway.

His father held Sarah still with his green eyes. He asked, fascinated, “How’d you get him to drive?”