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By Root 507 0

day, the temperature hovering in the mid-seventies. Rhonda drove with her windows open, inhaling the scent of newly mown grass and just-opened lilacs in peoples yards. The campgrounds around Nickel Lake had opened on Memorial Day and Rhonda could smell the smoke from the campfires. Brightly colored blow-up toys hung from hooks on the rafters in front of Pats: sea monsters, inner tubes, a small yellow raft, and a grinning crocodile with handles and cup holders. Overpriced bundles of camp wood were stacked below. Two ice machines stood to the left of the front door and a sign in the window promised cold beer, camping supplies, and night crawlers inside. Summer was here. And there was Rhonda, overdressed in a pressed white shirt and khaki suit. She eyed the crocodile longingly.

The interview she was probably going to be late to wasnt even for a job she particularly wanted. It was in her field (shed graduated two weeks before with a BS in biology) and would look good on her résumé: research assistant for a University of Vermont study of zebra musselsinvasive mollusks that were hell bent on taking over Lake Champlain, encrusting water pipes and shipwrecks on its floors, crowding out the natives.

Pats Mini Mart was the only place in Pikes Crossing to buy gas. It was also close to Nickel Lake, so they got a lot of business from campers and folks with summer cottages. Pats was also rumored to be the best place in the area to buy lottery tickets. Theyd had a jackpot winner two weeks beforetwo hundred fifty thousand dollarsand a five thousand dollar winner before that.

Rhonda would later learn that it was the lottery tickets Trudy Florucci stopped for that day. She carried her lucky numbers in the pocket of her acid-wash denim jacket along with enough money for four tickets and a pack of menthol cigarettes, the no-name brand that was cheaper than regular brands like Kool, which was what Trudy smoked when her husband was alive and she could afford such luxuries. Trudy would tell all of this to one of the state troopers, spilling out painful little details of her life to an utter stranger at the most awkward of momentsand it would make Rhonda cringe. As if Trudy had opened her mouth, pulled back her cheek, and shown the cop a raw and seeping canker sore.

PATS HUSBAND, JIM,was the one who pumped the gas at the full-service station. Full service was a funny way of putting it, Rhonda thought, because Jim never washed the windshield and when asked to check the oil, he grumbled and banged around under the hood so ferociously you were sure never to ask him to do it again. That day, Jim, who was skeletally thin and alarmingly tall, sauntered out in his blue coveralls, looking especially bored. His dark hair was slicked back and he wore several days of stubble.

Fill her up today? he asked, just staring out over the roof of Rhondas car. He swatted at a bug by his left ear.

Rhonda nodded up at him from the open window of her blue Honda. She smiled, but he did not seem to see. Jim unscrewed the gas cap, selected the graderegular (he didnt bother asking)and began to fill her tank.

Peter around? Rhonda asked, trying not to sound too hopeful as she peered into the garage.

Took the day off, Jim said, and Rhonda felt her heart sink.Stupid, stupid, stupid, she told herself.

All by myself here, Jim said, sounding a little bitter. He rubbed at his earlobe. The bug had gotten him after allprobably a blackfly, it had been a terrible year for blackflies.

Pat was out getting her hair done, Rhonda would learn later, which was why, when Trudy Florucci pulled up in the rusted-out Corsica, parking in front of the ice machines, Jim left the pump running to go back into the store to take care of her. Pat usually ran the cash register; she ran the whole place, actuallydealing with the books, the deliveries, carding high school kids for beer (a task she took pleasure in). What she did not take pleasure in was when a new delivery driver or salesman went right for Jim with questions, requests, sales pitches, assuming he must be in