Chances Are

by Richard Russo

  By the time Lincoln’s ferry was out of sight, Teddy had the pier pretty much to himself. It was almost lunchtime, and he realized he was hungry. There was no need to rush back to Chilmark, so he strolled up the street to the tavern where he and Lincoln drank beer when he’d arrived on the island only four days ago. It felt like an eternity. Out on the deck, he ordered a bowl of chowder. It was too early to drink beer, but being in no hurry he ordered one anyway. When he finished, he would drive up island to where several months’ worth of tasks awaited him. He was looking forward, he realized, to every single one of them. Maybe, before getting started, he’d call Theresa. Let her know what had happened and that he’d not only survived but was feeling better about things than he had in a very long while. He might even tell her he was thinking about starting that book Tom Ford advised him not to write until he had to. It probably wouldn’t be any good, but if it wasn’t, perhaps he’d be able to fix it. He’d spent the last decade fixing other people’s botched jobs, so why not one of his own? For years now he’d believed he had no further urgent business with this world, or it with him. But it could be he was wrong.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Howard and the “Choir Practice” crew at Offshore Ale, as well as to Susan Catling and Hilary Wall at the Vineyard Gazette. And, as always, thanks to Nat and Judith, to Emily and Kate, to Gary and everyone at Knopf. And, need I say it, none of these books gets written without Barbara.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Richard Russo lives with his wife, Barbara, in Portland, Maine.

  A NOTE ON THE TYPE

  This book was set in Janson, a typeface long thought to have been made by the Dutchman Anton Janson, who was a practicing typefounder in Leipzig during the years 1668–1687. However, it has been conclusively demonstrated that these types are actually the work of Nicholas Kis (1650–1702), a Hungarian, who most probably learned his trade from the master Dutch typefounder Dirk Voskens. The type is an excellent example of the influential and sturdy Dutch types that prevailed in England up to the time William Caslon (1692–1766) developed his own incomparable designs from them.

  Typeset by Scribe,

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  Printed and bound by Berryville Graphics,

  Berryville, Virginia

  Designed by Cassandra J. Pappas