Jenner called Deb Putnam; she was in the field, on the way to Bel Arbre; someone had reported kids riding four-wheelers in park grounds.
He said, “Hey. I wanted to see you to say good-bye.”
She was quiet for a second, so he said, “Deb?”
“I heard you.”
“Oh. I thought I lost the connection.”
“Nah. I’m still here, at least until I really do lose the signal—service is terrible out here.”
“Well, anyway—”
“I shouldn’t be too long up here. When are you leaving?”
“A few minutes. Just have to pick up the dog, and then I’ll hit the road.”
“Which way you going?”
“I was thinking I’d head across to Miami on Pelican Alley, then straight up I-95.”
“Come up this way; you can go up via Tampa and across. Much better. Plus you can stop off here for a good-bye taco.”
Jenner smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
Deb paused a second, then said, “Hey—no way you can hang around a little? You could stay at my place, rest up, get some sun.”
He was silent. She said, “I guess you just want to shake our dust from your feet…”
“I want to go home.”
She was quiet again, so he said, “Maybe you should come up sometime—we have swordfish in New York, too, you know.”
“Sure. But it’s different when you’re eating swordfish on a dock, looking out over the Gulf of Mexico at sunset.”
He said, “Yeah, well, it’s also different eating swordfish in a restaurant in a beautiful modern skyscraper looking over Central Park in fall through floor-to-ceiling windows. So, there’s that.”
“Well, I also read that swordfish has been overfished, so I’m cutting down on eating it.” He could hear her smiling. “So there’s that.”