“Do they ship all the logs by barge

“Do they ship all the logs by barge, or do you know if they use the railroad, too?”

“I’ve never noticed, to tell you the truth. I’m sure it would be easy to find out, though.”

“Do you know how many trains use the trestle?”

“Again, I’m not sure. Sometimes I hear the whistle at night, and I’ve had to stop more than once in town at the crossing to let the train pass, but it’s not as if I could tell you for certain. I do know they make a lot of shipments from the mill, though. That’s where the train actually stops.”

Jeremy nodded as he stared at the trestle.

Lexie smiled and went on. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that maybe the light from the train shines as it goes over the trestle and that’s what’s causing the lights, right?”

“It did cross my mind.”

“That’s not it,” she said, shaking her head.

“You’re sure?”

“At night, the trains pull into the yard at the paper mill so they can be loaded the following day. So the light on the locomotive is shining in the opposite direction, away from Riker’s Hill.”

He considered that as he joined her at the railing. The wind whipped her hair, making it look wild. She tucked her hands into her jacket pockets.

“I can see why you liked growing up here,” he commented.

She turned so that she could lean back against the railing, and stared toward the downtown area—the neat little shops festooned with American flags, a barbershop pole, a small park nestled at the edge of the boardwalk. On the sidewalk, passersby moved in and out of the establishments, carrying bags. Despite the chill, no one seemed to be rushing at all.

“Well, it is a lot like New York, I have to admit.”

He laughed. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that my parents probably would have loved to raise their kids in a place like this. With big green lawns and forests to play in. Even a river where you could go swimming when it gets hot. It must have been . . .

idyllic.”

“It still is. And that’s what people say about living here.”

“You seem to have thrived here.”

For an instant, she seemed almost sad. “Yeah, but I went off to college. A lot of people around here never do. It’s a poor county, and the town has been struggling ever since the textile mill and phosphorous mine closed, and a lot of parents don’t put much stock into getting a good education. That’s what’s hard sometimes—trying to convince some kids that there’s more to life than working in the paper mill across the river. I live here because I want to live here. I made the choice. But for a lot of these people, they simply stay because it’s impossible for them to leave.”

“That happens everywhere. None of my brothers went to college, either, so I was sort of the oddball, in that learning came easy for me. My parents are working-class folks and lived in Queens their whole life. My dad was a bus driver for the city. Spent forty years of his life sitting behind the wheel until he finally retired.”

She seemed amused. “That’s funny. Yesterday I had you pegged as an Upper East Sider. You know, doorman greeting you by name, prep schools, five-course meals for dinner, a butler who announces guests.”