Sherri tried to imagine how she’d answer the interview questions they’d ask her. Could she really be a Bunny? Sherri Taylor? No way. But maybe they’d hire her to work in the laundry room folding towels and ironing sheets, or cutting vegetables in the kitchen. She remembered in seventh grade when Greg Thielan told their teacher with a perfectly straight face that he wanted to be a photographer for Playboy magazine. Greg’s aspirations seemed about as realistic back then as Sherri’s did now, only she was actually going to try.

Just before Sherri got into Roberta’s car, she heard a little girl’s voice. “Hey, Sher!” Sherri looked up and there, in the apartment above the flower store, she saw Raylee’s face hanging out the window. She was the pesky neighbor kid, with thick glasses, a smattering of freckles, and massive gerbil cheeks. She was just as lonely as Sherri was. Her dad was a long-haul truck driver and her mom, Donna, worked the second shift in a nursing home, where there were lots of emergencies. Donna was always asking Sherri if she could do her a “little favor” and watch Raylee. The kid was always desperate to talk to someone—she’d even talk to Muriel as though she were able to hold up her end of the conversation. “Did you know glass is made from melted sand? Mozart could play the piano upside down and backwards. Could you do that before you got sick? Could you? Could you do a backflip? I heard about a man who could eat forty hot dogs in a minute. Do you think the sky is blue on other planets?” Sherri heard her voice and felt the girl’s eyeballs on her everywhere she went. “Where are you going?” Raylee asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Shut the window, it’s freezing! Your dad doesn’t drive for two days straight to pay to heat the outside.” That was exactly the kind of thing Muriel would have said, and this made Sherri impossibly sad. But Raylee did everything Sherri told her to do, so she slammed the window shut with a startling bam.

Roberta’s car smelled like exhaust, cigarette butts, and the Little Tree air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror. She turned onto Highway G. The ride from East Troy to Lake Geneva was pretty, even in the heart of winter. Off in the distance, Sherri could see the lifts on the ski hill at Alpine Valley, worn tracks from ski runs, and the domes of giant floodlights. Bare old oak trees lined the roads. Dilapidated barns, silos, and weather vanes were tucked into the rolling hills. The black cows looked like semicolons against the snow.