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moderately straight, but ever since he came into the exam room, he had practically dislocated his shoulders throwing them back.
    To Paul’s combined amusement and consternation, Alyson seemed to actually consider it, but then she looked out through the still-open door to the waiting room. Jack followed her gaze and nodded—and his shoulders returned to the slump of before.
    “Some other time?” Alyson said.
    The shoulders went back again. “Okay.”
    Alyson turned to Brandon. “And you be more careful with what you pick up on the beach, all right?”
    Brandon nodded.
    “Thanks, Doctor,” Jack said, extending his hand.
    “Please, it’s Alyson,” she said, returning the handshake. Father and son then went out to the waiting room. Paul noticed a moderate spring to Jack’s step. Better not tell him that Alyson tells everyone to call her by first name, whether she likes them or not. It’ll just burst his bubble.
    “ ’Bye, Alyson,” he said with a jaunty wave to the doctor. Alyson simply nodded at him. Shaking his head, Paul followed the marine biologist and his assistant/intern/kid.
    As they exited the air-conditioned clinic into a blast of hot arid humid tropical air, Paul said, “I realize that I’m no Alyson Hart, but since she turned you down for lunch, mind breaking bread with me instead?”
    “We probably should get back to work.”
    “Dad,” Brandon said, managing to make it a three-syllable word. “The last meal we had was on the plane.”
    Paul grinned. Inviting Alyson to lunch obviously had more to do with wanting to spend time with Alyson than actually eating anything. Just as obviously, that fact had gone completely over Brandon’s prepubescent head, and he had gotten his hopes up for a real meal.
    “As it happens,” Paul said, “I can take you to the best restaurant on the island.”
    Jack glanced down at Brandon, who gave his father a pleading look, then grinned. “All right, then, let’s eat.”
    “Great. Follow me.”
    They started down the main street toward Manny’s. Paul had introduced many a new person to Malau in his time here, and he always made sure to at least direct them to Manny’s Fine Food and Spirits, if not take them there himself. It was always worth it to see the looks on their faces when they found out who ran it. Besides, it really was the best food on the island.
    “So,” Jack said, “what’s your story?”
    Paul shrugged. “It’s not much of a story. I graudated from Berkeley—degree in journalism—came here to do a little surfing before hitting the job market, and never left.”
    “ ‘Just came down for the weekend / But that was twenty-five years ago.’ ” Jack sang the words in a quiet voice.
    Paul blinked. “Excuse me?”
    Jack shook his head. “Sorry—just a lyric I heard in Key West a while back. How’d you end up running their newspaper?”
    “They didn’t have a paper when I got here. They thought, ‘What’s the point? Everybody already knows everybody’s business.’ But now they’re real into it—everyone subscribes.”
    “They don’t mind that you’re American?”
    Paul couldn’t help but laugh at that. “See that over there?” He pointed at a flagpole in an intersection half a block away, on which flew not just the Malauan flag, but the stars and stripes of the American flag right under it. “They love Americans. We liberated them from the Japanese.”
    “Really?”
    Jack seemed genuinely surprised, both by the flag and the information, which amazed Paul. Geez, this stuff is all over the brochures. Then he remembered that Jack was here to work, so he might’ve missed that.
    “We still protect them,” Paul said, using we to refer to the United States despite his not having lived there for years, “but from far enough away that they don’t feel Uncle Sam is breathing down their necks. There’s not even a military presence here—just one small unit stationed over on Kalor.”
    “That why Kalor rates a