“Just the three of us,” she said. “Were you expecting more?”
“One of the kids in town told me you had relatives visiting.”
“You make friends quickly,” said Ms. Glassman. “But don’t worry—Luke left yesterday. And he’s a total bore, so you’re lucky.” She started dishing out beet greens, and Brooke did the same with a bean salad in the center of the table. There was ham as well, though I didn’t take any, and warm rolls and a green salad that seemed like it was mostly just lettuce and cucumbers. I wondered how the rolls could be warm—she hadn’t had time to bake them since church, and it seemed strange that she would have baked a whole batch just for herself, before she’d even invited us.
“Marci,” said Ms. Glassman kindly. “Would you say grace?”
“Of course,” said Brooke, and bowed her head and asked for God’s permission or forgiveness or whatever you’re supposed to ask for in a prayer. Ms. Glassman put a slab of ham on a plate for Boy Dog, and then we started eating, but I couldn’t concentrate on my food—all I saw was their forks jabbing into the ham, their knives slicing it open, the flesh separating under the blades, and I thought about Derek and everything I wanted to do to him.
I needed to burn something. It was my only release valve when the pressure built up like this.
“Dillon is lovely,” said Brooke.
“Thank you,” said Ms. Glassman. “Most visitors complain about how tiny it is, but we love it. What else do we need, anyway?”
“We come from a small town as well,” said Brooke. “Not this small, but still. I couldn’t wait to get out when we were in school, but now I miss it.”
I looked at her while I chewed, trying to guess if she was talking about Clayton or some medieval village lost to time.
“Small towns are the best,” said Ms. Glassman. “Big cities are noisy, they’re dirty, they’re full of crime.” She punctuated each word with a short stab of her fork. “I drove through Tulsa once and thought I was going to get mugged at every stoplight. I can’t even imagine going to a bigger place like New York.”
“It’s not as bad as people say,” said Brooke. “Yes it is.”
I looked at her again, wondering if she had just switched personalities in midsentence.
“Ha!” laughed Ms. Glassman. “I know how you feel, I argue with myself all the time. David, honey, how are those beet greens working out for you?”
“They’re delicious,” I said and I meant it. Either she was an excellent cook, or I was starving. Probably both. I took another bite, feeling even hungrier now that my body remembered what it had been missing, but as I chewed I started preparing some questions. This is why we’d gone to church in the first place, and now it was time to cash in that goodwill we’d earned and get some information.
I swallowed. “Every town is dangerous, though,” I said. “Even Stillson had a crime problem.”
“Not Dillon,” said Ms. Glassman. “Last year I lost the key to the library so I couldn’t lock up, and after freaking out all afternoon I decided to just close the door and pretend I was locking it and hope. Nothing happened. I didn’t find that key again until the carpet cleaner moved my desk three months later—the front door was just unlocked for three whole months—and we didn’t have a single break-in.”
“Do people ever break into libraries?” asked Brooke. “You get the books for free anyway.”
“And most of this town isn’t even interested in that,” said Ms. Glassman, slicing off another bite of ham.
Derek’s heart, parting in two under the blade of my knife.…
“… but I mentioned this story to Bill Taylor, who runs the Terryl’s, and he told me the same thing happened to him the year before.”
“Terryl’s is a … hairdresser?” Brooke asked.
“Grocery store,” said Ms. Glassman. “Same story: not a single thing stolen. Not one grape.”
“Then what about that gunshot we heard?” I asked, using the incident to press her further. There was a Withered in town, or at least there used to be, and though it probably wasn’t Derek I had to get her talking about danger. Something here was dangerous. “Right before we got here? It sounded like a hunting rifle.”
“Oh that happens all the time,” she said. “But folks around here are gun people from way back, and we know what we’re doing. Except for that one time five years ago when Clete Neilson shot himself in the foot there hasn’t been a single gun-related injury since … well since the Old West, I suppose. And Clete was drunk, so it’s his own dumb fault.”
“What about non-gun-related injuries?” asked Brooke.