She didn't so much as glance up from her book. "Everybody dies. That's where the whole 'mortality' bit comes into play."

"But do you think," he persisted, dropping the straw back into his glass of iced tea, "some people are more inclined to die than others? That they're just asking for it?"

She turned a page. "I suppose you would say the same thing about rape victims."

"I knew you would say that. You're a woman."

"And I knew you would say that," she rejoined. "You're a man."

The left corner of his lips quirked up as he shifted in his beach chair. "All right, so maybe it was a bit high-handed of me. But what's the difference between those who expire early and those who, well, don't?"

"Exercise and a proper diet."

"But the things that are out of your control." He sat up, leaning forward and planting both feet in the sand, now energized with the topic at hand. His drink sat forgotten beside his chair. "Like a car accident. Or being a bystander in a convenience store hold-up gone wrong. What makes you the one most likely to be killed?"

"Nothing," she replied with exaggerated patience, still not taking her shaded eyes off the printed word. "Everybody is liable to get shot. We're all about equal opportunity here."

"So you're saying it's all sleight of hand. A matter of chance."

An elongated sigh ensued as she finally lifted her head from The Pages of John Nancy. Her sunglasses winked at the sun. "Nobody knows when they're going to die, Chuck. If they did, they wouldn't be at that convenience store in the first place."

He flicked up an index finger, an A-ha expression etched on his face. "But some people do know how much time they have left. Cancer patients. Doctors tell them how long they have to live. Six months, two weeks, eight days."

"That's different. They know which parts of their bodies are being ravaged and at what speed. A matter of estimation. And the estimations aren't always accurate."

"Yes, but what's stopping doctors, or other estimators, from coming up with a way to deduce how long the rest of us've got?"

He couldn't see her eyes from behind her shades, but from the arch of her eyebrow, he knew she was eyeing him with that look. Not just any look, the look-look.

"I thought you were talking about events out of our control," she said. "Car accidents. Shotguns."

"Do you think there are things out of our control?"

"What do you mean?"

"Probability."

"Oh, that." She was rolling her eyes, as apparent from the turn of her head. "I'm not getting into that discussion."

"The probability of dying from such-and-such causes at this-and-this point in time. Isn't that similar to doctor-estimates as well?"

"Chuck, I refuse to spare a neuron for anything to do with numbers. You know it makes my head ache."

"Okay, okay." He raised his finger again. "How about this. You said if they knew they would die in that hold-up, they wouldn't be in that store in the first place."

"Yeah. . .?" Her tone was wary, but at least she wasn't trying to get back to her book.

"So you don't believe in fate. You don't think some people are fated to die, regardless of whether or not they enter a store."

"Not just any store. The dead store."

"Right. The dead store."

"Didn't you hear me, Chuck? Everybody dies. There's no 'fate'," she inserted the appropriate quote-marks, "about it. Who isn't 'fated' to die? Leprechauns?"

"But dying before their time," he reminded.

She looked triumphant. "And who are we to say when this 'time' is? How do we know they weren't meant to go just yet?"

"So you're taking the religionist's viewpoint. 'It's all God's will, he wanted them to join him, we have no say in it,' yadda yadda yadda."

"Don't say that." She frowned and leaned back, picking up John Nancy once more. "You know I don't believe in God."

"I know." He retrieved his glass and stirred its contents, most of it now melted ice. He glanced at two teenagers strolling arm-in-arm near the waves, but diverted his gaze when the wind started getting in his eyes. "But talk of death is bound to include him."

Her sigh told him exactly what she thought of that.

He studied the leftover ice floating on the surface of his watered-down tea, hearing her turn a crisp cream-colored page. When he glanced toward the ocean again, he noted the heavy coat the boy teenager was wearing, and wondered if the boy was roasting in the heat.

He lifted his feet, shook off the excess sand, and slouched back in his chair. The seagulls' caws filled the ensuing silence.

She didn't look up from her book when she eventually said, her voice wry, "However did we get on this topic of death, anyway?"

It was a long time before he replied.

"My dad's got Alzheimer's."

Her head shot up, a sound of dismay rising from her throat. His eyes were fixed on the youths in the distance, their forms getting smaller and farther away by the second.

"They diagnosed it last week," he murmured, hearing the girl teenager's distant laughter, watching her hand touch the boy's face. The ocean waves crashed against the sand before dissipitating its force, salt water spreading and lapping at the youngsters' feet.

He didn't notice a book falling onto the sand beside him, or the hand that enfolded his. Or maybe he tried not to notice.

Some things, he told himself, were worse than death.