The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert

chopped off.”
    â€œThis isn’t Iraq,” Elli said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNothing. I was making a joke.”
    â€œIt’s not funny. That’s not funny at all.” Theresa glanced at her daughter, hunched against the door, arm crooked, elbow hanging out the window. “Billy Melvern died over there. The Baylors’ daughter is leaving in a week.”
    â€œIt was Afghanistan.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œBilly Melvern didn’t die in Iraq. It was Afghanistan.”
    â€œStill,” Theresa said.
    Elli sighed.
    Theresa snapped off the radio. Elli snickered, loudly. They drove the rest of the way to Voorhisville in silence.
    *   *   *
    What was it about him? Later, Theresa would spend many hours trying to name the thing that made Jeffrey so attractive. He arrived late, and, with a nod towards the moderator, sat down. That was it. He sat there, nodding, occasionally recrossing his legs as they talked about Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Woolf.
    Theresa felt like she was in way over her head. She thought this would be like Oprah’s Book Club. Well, before Oprah started doing classics. To Theresa’s amazement, Elli was talking about one of Shakespeare’s plays. That’s the first time the stranger spoke. He said, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” and Elli smiled.
    It was just a smile. There was nothing extraordinary about it. Well, other than that Elli had smiled. Theresa didn’t give it another thought after that. Certainly she hadn’t thought it meant anything .
    Afterwards, when they were trying to decide if they would all go out for coffee, Mickey Freedman showed up and invited Elli to spend the night. “Are you sure it’s okay with your mother?” (Theresa was perpetually suspicious of Mickey Freedman who, though only Elli’s age, always acted so confident .)
    â€œYeah, it’s no problem,” Mickey said. “You wanna call her?”
    Theresa considered the small purple phone the girl dug out of her backpack. The truth was, Theresa had no idea how to use these portable devices. She turned to Elli, who was chewing gum as though it was a competitive event. “Well, have a good time,” Theresa said, trying to sound breezy, fun.
    The girls didn’t wait a second. They were gone, leaving the scent of gum, as well as something Theresa only noticed after the fact: a worrisomely smoky scent, wafting in the air behind them.
    At that point, Theresa discovered everyone had left without her. There were only two places in Voorhisville where a book group could meet for coffee and conversation: The Fry Shack, out on the highway, or Lucy’s, which was a coffee shop in the pre-Starbucks sense of the word—a diner, really; though Lucy was fairly accommodating of the new fashion for only ordering coffee, as long as it was during off hours. Theresa walked out of the library and took a deep breath.
    â€œSmells nice, doesn’t it?” the stranger said.
    He was standing by the side of the building. Almost as though he’d been waiting.
    Theresa nodded.
    â€œMind if I join you?”
    What could she do? She couldn’t be rude, could she? He seemed perfectly nice, it was still light out, and it was Voorhisville , for God’s sake. What bad thing could possibly happen here?
    â€œI’m not going to Lucy’s,” Theresa said, turning away from him.
    â€œNeither am I,” he said, and fell in step beside her.
    What had it been; what had it meant? Over and over again as the leaves fell to the dry flameless burn of that season, Theresa Ratcher asked herself these questions, as though if she asked enough, or in the right mental tone, the answer would appear. What had it been; what had it meant? As leaves fell in golden spiral swirls, on autumn days that smelled like apples. What had it been; what had it meant? As ghosts and vampires and dead cheerleaders carried treat bags