American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,55

enjoy getting into little competitions and skirmishes. Fighting over rose blooms and dead tree limbs and pets and such. And whenever someone hears of a new crime, they rush all over town telling everyone. Even if it is rather petty, once you look at it with some perspective. I suppose we have to find a way to distract ourselves.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Mona asks.

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “He’ll be fine, I’m sure. We’ll all be fine.” And she turns to stare out the window at the forest and the mesa beyond, but there is something in her eye that makes Mona think she’s trying to convince herself as much as Mona.

“Something the matter?” Mona asks.

“Why?” asks Mrs. Benjamin. “Do you think there’s something wrong?”

The answer to this is a resounding yes, of course. Mona feels that magic trick with the mirrors did something to her, like it broke something inside her (with the same little click as that of the two mirrors sliding apart), or perhaps it reached in and opened all the windows in her head. Perhaps that’s why she had that strange moment back in the tea closet.

Or maybe it’s something worse, she thinks. Her mother was mentally touched, to say the least. But Laura was fine originally, so she must have broken down all at once, at a later age… say around forty. And aren’t these things inherited, Mona thinks?

“I think I need to go home,” she says.

“Oh, you don’t look well, dear,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Are you sure you’re good to drive?”

“I’m fine,” Mona says quietly, and she thanks Mrs. Benjamin and walks outside and climbs into the Charger. But she does not start it just yet. Instead she just looks at herself in the mirror, examining her eyes, as if she might be able to see a change in them that would tell her if she’s gone as mad as she feels.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When the sun crests the peaks and the afternoon rays come spilling through the valley, Wink slowly fills with the overpowering aroma of pine. It comes from the forest, of course: the sun is literally roasting the sap while it’s still in the trees’ limbs. The outer neighborhoods get the most of it, naturally, and while they claim they love the scent some privately admit that they’d enjoy something else for a change, honestly, even a paper mill would do.

Helen Thurgreen is one of the few who is perfectly fine admitting such a thing in public. While most residents prefer to keep their dissatisfactions quiet, Helen spends most of her time out in her yard, where the smell is nothing short of overpowering, so she feels she has every right to complain. And she has to spend so much time out in the yard, because somehow her house has become quite the thoroughfare, with thoughtless passersby wracking havoc on nearly every single one of her rose beds.

She almost curses to herself as she lugs a spade, a rake, and a hoe from the garage. Someone really should have mentioned how popular this route was when they moved in, she thinks. They might have not even bought the place. But people don’t mention much here.

As she gives one final heave and tears the rake free from a tangle of garden hose, she staggers back and happens to spot what should be the thick, magnificent blooms of a Nacogdoches Rose (a rare transplant); however, three of the most promising buds have been broken off, and dangle dead and browning from the rose’s branches. No doubt it was done by some traveler who carelessly plowed through the poor thing.

“Son of a bitch!” she says. She will have to fix it, she supposes. There are so many things she needs to fix. But nothing compares to the state of the backyard, which is what’s sent her out on this hot afternoon, rummaging through her garage for spades and rakes.

“Is something wrong?” asks a voice.

She looks over her shoulder and sees something unusual in Wink: a total stranger. But then she thinks, and realizes she recognizes this short, striking young woman with the black hair and dark skin: it’s the new girl from down the street, the one who came roaring into town in that ridiculous car and ruined the funeral. Helen had imagined her being a fat, loud creature, but the girl on the sidewalk is fairly becoming, or at least she would be if she cared about her outfit (Helen