arm before the heavy doors slammed shut behind him.
“You made good time,” I said.
“The roads were clear once I passed the creamery,” Duane said. He shifted his weight onto his hickory cane, the rubber tip making a sharp squeak against the polished floor.
“How is the hip feeling?” I asked.
“It will hold up for sixty feet,” he said.
I reached into my maroon sweatshirt pocket and pulled out the small clear box from the florist. Inside lay the single long-stemmed red rose wrapped in green tissue paper.
“She needs to hand this to you when they call her name,” I said.
Duane took the box with his left hand. His thumb was broad and calloused, stained dark around the nail from fifty years of tractor oil and barn grease.
“Where is the girl?” he asked.
“She is coming out of the locker room now,” I said.
Across
