All Fall Down by Carlene Thompson

old South. Then you could have gone around humiliating the slaves every day…”
    Mrs. Avery had burst into tears. “Don’t talk to me that way! I’m getting pains in my chest. I’ve always had a bad heart. I’m not supposed to get upset, and here you are yelling at me because you think I was tactless to some little nothing of a girl you’re defending because you think she’s pretty . They don’t come too young for you , do they?”
    Blaine’s father had bowed his head while Blaine fought hot tears of embarrassment as they moved past the window. A few months later, when Gloria Avery died of a heart attack, Blaine felt tremendous guilt because of that summer day when she’d wished the woman dead.
    And now, all these years later, Martin Avery was serving her ice cream on the dock and holding her sister’s baby. Blaine suddenly couldn’t think of anything to say to the man, but luckily he kept talking, as if he understood her discomfort. “The fort’s quite a project, but it ought to bring in a lot of tourists. This town needs something to stimulate the economy.”
    “Yes.” Blaine glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He looked slightly older than he had when her father had done his yard work, but he was still slim, goldenhaired, and blue-eyed, with intense magnetism and energy. She suddenly thought of him leaping over a tennis net in triumph at Monaco or coming in first in the Grand Prix. The privilege he’d been reared with seemed to circle him like an aura, even as he sat on a splintery dock holding a baby whose diaper was undoubtedly wet by now. “The only thing thriving in town at the moment is Avery Manufacturing,” she remarked.
    “That’s right. But we can’t support a whole town.”
    The ice cream was much richer than what she bought in the store and so cold it made her teeth hurt in a pleasant way. She hadn’t eaten homemade ice cream since she was a child.
    Martin Avery looked out over the water. “I was sorry about your father.”
    Blaine swallowed quickly. “Thank you. And thank you for the flowers. There weren’t a lot at the funeral.” She immediately regretted the last remark, thinking it sounded self-pitying, but the man didn’t look uncomfortable.
    “I was out of town, or I would have come,” he said easily. “I always liked your dad.”
    She stared at him. “You did?”
    “Sure. Sometimes, when you weren’t along, he’d share a drink with me after he finished the yard work. He was a smart man, Blaine.”
    “Yes, he was. Very smart,” she said stiffly, then added, on a warmer, more intimate note that surprised her, “He just couldn’t channel his intelligence.”
    “We all have our weaknesses.”
    And what weaknesses could you possibly have? Blaine wondered, turning her eyes back to her ice cream. He seemed perfect, bigger than life, a character out of a movie. How could he possibly understand that Jim O’Connor had been a man driven by dreams that his lack of education and his alcoholism had never allowed him to accomplish? And yet she felt Martin did know.
    “I hear you’re doing an excellent job at the school.”
    “I try. But who keeps you apprised of my performance?”
    Crinkles appeared around his eyes when he smiled. “I’m on the school board.”
    “Oh, I forgot.”
    “I’m glad you’ve decided to stay. My daughter, Robin, will be starting Sinclair High next year. I’d like to think of her having you for English, although her strong point is music.”
    “You won’t be sending her away to private school?”
    He shook his head. “No. I was shipped off to private school when I was young, and I resented it terribly. All my friends were here. Besides, Robin is all I have.”
    “Why didn’t you ever remarry?” Blaine asked, immediately horrified at the bluntness of her question.
    Martin, though, threw back his head and laughed. “Just as direct as your father was.” The baby kicked, opened her mouth, and let out a piercing cry. Blaine finished