Nebraska

“She get killed by the person called her a bitch?”

Priscilla didn't say.

“Who kills her?”

Her husband whispered into Lorna's ear, “Your momma and sista makin’ their spook talk again.” The telephone was ringing, so Claude carried his little girl into the pantry room to get it.

Avis tilted up Priscilla's chin and squinted into the girl's angry brown eyes. “Who kills her?”

“The boy.”

“A boy you know?”

The girl jerked her chin away. “You're pestering me!”

Claude stood in the doorway with Lorna. “Telephone must be for you. Won't speak to me.”

Avis said, “How do you know the story, Priscilla?”

“I don't know how I know! I just do!”

Avis hugged the girl and angled her head low enough to smell her slightly dirty hair. She said, “I know, sweetheart. I know.” And then she went to the telephone.

“Can't sleep.”

“And you are?”

“I'll try, but I keep getting scared.”

His speech was poky, like he was sickly or a little simple, gloom or ignorance in his voice, a sulky white boy in some Omaha high school. His problem would wind up being about a pretty girl who liked him less than spit. “Could you give me your name?”

“Gary.”

Sixteen, probably skinny, poor, obnoxious. She could hear him playing with the phone cord, and then there was an over-long pause.

Avis said, “I like your name.”

&

nbsp; He didn't say anything.

“How old are you, Gary?”

He gave it some thought and said, “Twenty-eight.”

“You lying to Avis?”

The boy seemed irked and scared. His right hand was possibly squeezed between his thighs, tendering himself. “Sixteen and twelve is twenty-eight, isn't it?”

She couldn't follow that talk, so she only said, “You sound younger.”

Gary said, “Each night it's the same.”

“Well, upsetting dreams do repeat themselves.”

“I'll be standing outside this big house, and then I'll be standing inside it. And I walk into the rooms.”

“And why is that scary?”