When you throw out your net that wide, you come up with a lot of trash. I found out over the course of the evening that Tanya thought she might be settling down permanently with Calvin, that Jane Bodehouse thought she had chlamydia and wondered who was responsible, and that Kevin and Kenya, police officers who always requested the same shift, were actually living together now. Since Kenya was black and Kevin couldn’t be whiter, this was causing Kevin’s folks some problems, but he was standing firm. Kenya’s brother wasn’t too happy about her living situation, either, but he wasn’t going to beat up Kevin or anything like that. I gave them a big smile when I brought them bourbon and Cokes, and they smiled back. It was so rare to see Kenya crack a grin that I almost laughed. She looked about five years younger when she smiled.

Andy Bellefleur came in with his new wife, Halleigh. I liked Halleigh, and we hugged each other. Halleigh was thinking she might be pregnant, and it would be mighty early in the marriage for them to start a family, but Andy was quite a bit older than her. This maybe-pregnancy hadn’t been planned, so she was pretty worried about how Andy would take the news. Since I was laying myself out there tonight, I tried something new. I sent my extra sense down into Halleigh’s belly. If she really was pregnant, it was too soon for the little brain to be registering.

Andy was thinking Halleigh had been quiet the past couple of days, and he was worried something was wrong with her. He was also worried about the investigation of Crystal’s death, and when he felt Bud Dearborn’s eyes on him, he wished he’d picked any other place in Bon Temps for his evening out. The gunfight at Arlene’s trailer was haunting his dreams.

Other people in the bar were thinking about typical stuff.

What are the all-time most popular thoughts? Well, they’re really, really boring.

Most people think about their money problems, what they need from the store, what housework they have to do, how their jobs are going. They worry about their kids . . . a lot. They brood over issues with their bosses and their spouses and their coworkers and other members of their churches.

On the whole, 95 percent of what I hear is nothing anybody’d want to write down in her diary.

Every now and then the guys (less often, the women) think about sex with someone they see in the bar—but honestly, that’s so common I can brush it aside, unless they’re thinking about me. That’s pretty disgusting. The sex ideas multiply with the drinks consumed; no surprise there.