Bridge of Sighs

grin. “Well, I’ll be,” he said. “Louie! Look who’s here!” He didn’t take his eyes off Noonan, as if he feared he might be an apparition.
    “I see him,” Lucy said, coming in from the back room with the identical goofy grin. “Wow,” he said. “You’re different.”
    “Well, you’ve changed, too.” Noonan chuckled, and they shook hands. Actually, Lucy looked pretty much the same, except bigger. He was almost as big as his father now, still soft looking, though more comfortable in his skin, somehow.
    “I thought you said you couldn’t come by,” Lucy said, just a hint of the old whining and grievance coming through.
    “I got the job, so…”
    Big Lou leaned across the counter and gave his hand a vigorous shake. “How’s that wrist?” he said, as if the injury had occurred just last week and been on his mind ever since.
    “It healed,” Noonan said.
    “How’s your dad?”
    “The same,” Noonan told him, hoping that would be the end of the subject.
    “He done good down at the post office, didn’t he,” Mr. Lynch said. “People must like him there.”
    “You going out for football?” Dec Lynch interrupted.
    “I plan to,” Noonan admitted.
    “Can you block or tackle or hang on to the damn ball? Or will you be like the rest of the team?”
    “I guess we’ll see.”
    “Talk your buddy here into going out. He could use some toughing up.”
    “Come out from behind that meat case,” Lucy said, to Noonan’s surprise, “and we’ll see who’s tough.”
    “Watch yourself now,” his uncle advised. “Somebody’s about to come through that door who’s tougher than the both of us. Meaner, too.”
    The bell above the door tinkled then, and Tessa Lynch came in carrying a big stainless-steel tub of what looked like potato salad. She recognized Noonan immediately, and the thought crossed his mind that, unlike his own mother, it would have taken Lucy’s about two seconds flat to peg his old man for the bullying coward he was. On the other hand, she’d married Lucy’s father, so go figure.
    Only when Tessa Lynch stepped aside to hold the door did he realize there was a girl his age standing behind her, also holding a salad bowl. She too took him in with a single glance and broke into a wide smile. “Well,” Sarah Berg said, setting the salad down and giving him an unexpected hug. “It’s
about
time.”
    Noonan was more than a little embarrassed to be hugged by Lucy’s girlfriend, especially with him standing right there, looking on with that goofy grin as if this were precisely what he’d been hoping for.
    “About time?”
    Sarah Berg went around the counter, took a framed drawing off the wall and handed it to him. “I drew this
four years ago.
That’s you, about to come in. It took you four years to go two feet. That’s what I call taking your own sweet time.”
    Noonan smiled, enjoying her game. No doubt Lucy had told her all about his being shipped off to the academy. By portraying him as a stubborn ingrate, she’d spared him the necessity of explaining his years in exile.
    “We’ve all been covering for you,” she went on, putting the drawing back on its hook. “Doing our own work and yours, too, and not a single thank-you.”
    “I was wondering if I could have tomorrow off?” he said.
    She’d gone over to Lucy now and was giving him a hug, which he accepted with obvious if awkward pleasure. “He’s got other, cooler friends he wants to go see,” she told him. “It took him four years to come visit us, and now he’s leaving again.”
    “I’ll take one of them hugs,” Big Lou said, clearly impatient with this difficult-to-follow conversation.
    Sarah went around the counter and gave him what appeared to be a heartfelt one.
    “How about me?” Dec Lynch called.
    “No hugs for you,” Sarah told him, still clinging to Big Lou. “You lost the bet.” Turning to Noonan she explained, mock seriously, “He said you were gone for good.”
    “But you knew better.”
    “Yup,” she said. “I only draw true things.” And she fixed him with a smile and her dark eyes, amounting to a challenge. The Lynches were all grinning at him, too.
    And in that moment it occurred to Noonan that his options had just narrowed. He might leave Thomaston after graduation and head out west somewhere, just as he’d planned, but he wasn’t going to be able to remain aloof. That option had evaporated when he walked through the door at Ikey Lubin’s, making Sarah Berg’s