American Ghost by Janis Owens

chatty letters about her new classes, Fine Arts (which she liked) and Algebra (which she did not). Even with Lena her afternoons with Sam were ignored; denied as a matter of emotional survival, her life falling neatly into two separate worlds: her public life and her private, two separate parts of an uneasy whole.
    The public part was breakfast with her father and Sam driving her to school, stopping to do research at the courthouse or to interview one of the far-flung Creek families. The private began as soon as humanly possible, when they’d hurry back to the camper and indulge in the insane suspension of time that was good, sweet, and loving sex. Sam called them her “afternoon classes”: four hours of humid-autumn languor, spent mostly in bed and mostly naked, the little camper too small to get dressed in before it was time to officially go, and too hot to dress anyway. Between lovemaking and explaining lovemaking (Sam was then, and ever, a great diffuser of information) he would prop himself up on pillows on the tiny bed and exclaim with academic enthusiasm over every aspect of her beauty. He left nothing out, but rejoiced to the heavens in her little feet, her long legs, her green eyes, the moistness of her lady parts, and the absolute Cadillac-quality of her breasts. He boldly proclaimed her the most beautiful woman in Florida.
    â€œThat would be Lena,” she said, though Sam would have none of it.
    â€œLena, my ass. I’ve hugged Lena. She’s a two-by-four with long hair. You should be cast in plaster of paris. You should be in a museum,” he declaimed with perfect sincerity, as he was, by then, cold stone in love, and, in the tradition of all great Jewish romantics, anxious to go legit: sign lifelong vows, alert the media.
    Jolie agreed to the engagement, but hesitated to go public so soon. “People will talk,” she warned, with a wariness that, to Sam, defied logic.
    â€œAbout what ? You mean the Jewish thing?”
    â€œNo,” she insisted. “The us thing. Daddy’s a preacher. He has to be careful about appearances. He almost lost his church because of Carl wild-assing around. I can’t do that to him.”
    â€œThis isn’t wild-assing,” Sam said testily. “This is love, ” though Jolie was hardly convinced.
    â€œClose enough. Just give me a little space here,” she begged. “I’ll talk to him, soon. ”
    In the meanwhile, the old Sisters shook their heads over Jolie’s lack of skill in cornering her man, and the calendar flipped to November, and the early tendrils of autumn finally began to arrive, the wild cherry and Virginia creeper turning gold, then crimson red, and the hickories, older and tougher, waiting on the first official freeze before they gave up their summer green.
    Sam had been on the river almost three months and had accumulated a wealth of research; had even forwarded the first draft of his official thirty-seven-page study to the museum, along with a voluminous box of miscellaneous notes, tapes, and pedigree charts, attached to the appropriate census. He’d also culled the record for the scant details of Morris’s time in the area and pinpointed the approximate location of the old store—lost to the woods, with not so much as a foundation to mark it.
    He’d not made any headway on finding Morris’s grave, but at least had a mental map of the area for when he returned to the search at UF. He had obviously gone as far as he could go this round and would have pulled up stakes and left immediately if not for Jolie, who told him she loved him twice a day, but continued to drag her feet about taking it to the next level.
    Sam was cut to the quick by her hesitance, forced to revert to sarcasm to convince her. “Well, it’s not me, Jol—it’s my penis. He’s calling the shots these days, refuses to leave without you. It’s so annoying .”
    Jolie didn’t laugh,