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more the brother I never had, better than the boys, more suitable to my near-adult self, and he'll get me to whatever it is I want—I know it the moment I meet him. He's the connection.
    It happens like this.
    I'm staring at our living-room rug one evening. It's a dark green leaf design. I'm thinking it's as close as I'll ever get to the rainforest, which at that point was probably true. That makes me crazy. Everything does. The hellish humidity, my boring life, everything. I'm groggy and sticky. I'm sixteen. I'm pondering two more years of this deathtrap. I feel so bad, I can't read the book beside me. Thank God I've perfected not showing my crankiness.
    "How's everything?" Father says. (He noticed?) He lets the top half of his paper droop. He peers at me. "Are you doing okay, sport?"
    (Sport is my kid moniker. What's going on?)
    "I'm okay," I say.
    "Just okay?"
    "Well ... I'm kind of unhappy. I don't know."
    This is his time to read the paper, wait for supper, like in Dayton. But he seems to want to know what's going on with me and I'm baffled. It's new.
    "I guess I miss the boys," I say.
    "Why, sure you do. I do too. New place like this, you're going to miss your friends." (We've been here a year.) "Nobody you like at school?"
    The first query about my life and adjusting. What a corseted family we are.
    "No, not really," I say. "Not interesting ones that I like. But that's probably just me being picky." There's a smoky smell—some clearing is going on down the hill, the usual brush burning.
    "Well, I wouldn't say that. You're not picky." He puts down the paper, gives me his full attention. All the way to Panama to break the Victorian ice in our family.
    I don't really think I'm picky either, but we both know I can't voice a complaint because Mother won't allow it. He knows how difficult that is and he knows how it feels living in such a strained atmosphere.
    "Well now, we can't have that. Everybody needs friends."
    I smile and move over to the ottoman in front of his chair.
    "I complain to my diary."
    "You do?"
    "Write in it every day. How the men are in the Cut working all day and the women just gossip and the girls at school are too old to play dolls so they talk about romance. That's all they do. They've never heard of the Wrights' machine and they wouldn't care about it if they did..."
    "Oh, for heaven's sake."
    "It's true. The girls whisper about the boys and who they like or don't like and it's stupid. I miss Orville and Wil."
    "Well, it's not easy to find people like them, but there are interesting people here."
    "I haven't met one."
    "Then we'd better take care of that. Come with me to the Canal Club on Saturday for lunch. I'll introduce you to an interesting fella."
    This is so out of character, I don't know what to say. I grin. "Thanks, Pop. Who's the interesting person?"
    "Harry."
    "American?"
    He nods. "You'll like him. Works for the Zone police. Closest thing you'll find to the boys. Smart, too. A high-quality fella, has horse sense." This is the single-most prized quality in our family.
    I'm smiling, loving this. He's smiling, too. He raises his paper and I go back to my spot on the couch.
    Did that really happen?
    I speculate about this fellow—who he is, what he's all about. I know nothing, of course, except that he's passed Father's muster, which is considerable. In all of this there is a glimmer of hope.
    "What's his name again?"
    "Harry."
    I sit back and grin.
    The smoky smell reminds me of fall in Dayton when people burn their leaves.
    WHO ARE YOU, HARRY?
Twelve
    The Canal Club, Saturday, layers of white tablecloths, gauzy white curtains in the breeze, American faces except for servers.
    This better be good. My nerves have been clutched for three days in anticipation—my imagination running riot, a measure of how desperate I am.
    Father nods to several Commission bigwigs when we enter and we're led to a prominent table in the front of the room near a window. I realize for the first time