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had always been close, closer after the death of their parents twelve years earlier when a fire broke out in their East Detroit home.
    Jack said, “Can I stay with you for a few days?”
    “I don’t know that I’d be comfortable living in the same house with a criminal.” She smiled now to show him she was kidding and opened the door.
    Jack stepped over the threshold and she put her arms around him, hugged him and held on. She kissed his cheek and said, “Jackie, it’s so good to see you. You can stay as long as you like. You’re welcome anytime, you know that.”
    She was a thirty-two-year-old divorcée with short spiked hair, dyed red and long fingernails that were light blue with flecks of color on them.
    “When’d you change your hair?” Last time he saw Jodie, she was blond.
    “Couple weeks ago. It’s an Emo style.”
    “Emo, huh?”
    “Stands for emotional punk movement.”
    “I can see it,” Jack said.
    “Listen, I’m in the business—I have to look the look. Did you know coloring your hair dates back to the ancient Romans?”
    “I guess it’s okay then,” Jack said.
    They went in the kitchen and Jodie made them each a vodka and tonic.
    She said, “I’ll bet you’d like a home-cooked mealafter all that time being incarcerated. I could whip us up some tuna noodle hot dish.”
    It was a joke between them. Hot dish was a casserole their mother from Minnesota used to make. She’d start with a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup and put in tuna and noodles or ham and lima beans, whatever she had handy.
    They had another drink and Jodie made hamburgers on a gas grill and they ate on TV tables in the living room, watching Jeopardy .
    At one point Jack said, “You still selling cosmetics?” Jodie had worked for Revlon and made good money, selling to high-end stores in malls around Detroit.
    She smiled and said, “No, I’m a nail technologist.”
    Jack said, “Why are you doing that? You had a good job.” He regretted it as soon as he said it.
    “You ought to talk.” She gave him a dirty look. “What did you say your current occupation was?”
    He tried to smooth things over by asking a couple questions. “What do you like about your job?”
    Jodie perked up a little. “You really want to know?”
    Jack said, “You bet I do.” Trying to put a little enthusiasm behind it.
    “Well, for one thing, it gives me a chance to be creative. I design decorative, colorful little things forfingernails and toenails. My favorites are gorgeous flowers made out of pink and green rhinestones and beautiful butterflies and ladybugs made out of crystal-clear teardrop rhinestones and pink round rhinestones.”
    Jodie was grinning. She couldn’t help herself; she was so excited.
    “I also do patriotic designs like American flags. They were very popular after 9/11. One of my customers met her boyfriend ’cause he loved the sunshine design I did on her toes. How about that? And I do New York manicures and French manicures and warm paraffin manicures. Once I did a pink ribbon for a breast cancer survivor. I do guys too, give them manicures and paint their toenails. I think it’s great there are men who are masculine enough to express themselves in such a fun way.”
    Jack had stopped listening after “teardrop rhinestones.”
    Jodie’s goal was to open her own shop one day. She was going to call it Ultimate Nails. “I think that says it all,” Jodie said, “don’t you?”
    He thought, that’s what happens, you try to be nice to someone, they bore the hell out you.
    * * *
    The next day he drove Jodie to work and went out for a few hours, looking for a job. He was almost out of money and Jodie’d made it clear right up front, she wasn’t in a position to help him out financially.
    In his brief job search, he tried a couple used car lots on Gratiot, asking if they needed an experienced salesman. They didn’t. He tried a construction site, a landscaping company, and a painting contractor, saying