The Jealousy Game novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Whistle
A year later, on the last Friday of October, the line at Farraday's Bakery ran out the door and down the block.
I had been up since three.
The front window said NEW: MAPLE PECAN LOAF in Casper's square handwriting, and under it, in smaller letters, he had drawn a tiny sailboat.
He stood behind the counter in his stained apron, boxing rolls with flour up to both elbows.
He had stood there every morning for a year.
Some mornings he was terrible at it.
Lately he was only slow, which I told him was progress.
Dean sat at the window table with a coffee and a crossword he never finished.
He had a new whistle on a new lanyard around his neck, because the girls' team had made the playoffs.
He wore it to the bakery anyway.
The old one hung around my neck, under my apron.
Dean had borrowed it exactly once.
It was an August night at the end of the marina dock, the same boards as four years before, when Casper got down on one knee, and Dean blew it and cried.
Maddie's Christmas card was in the drawer under the till.
It had no return address and said only: I'm still sorry.
The bell on the door rang.
"Next," I said.
A man stepped up to the counter.
He was tall and tanned, in a good jacket, a tourist from the look of him, in town for the fall color.
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