Poverty invaded her dreams. One night she was stealing food from the back of a truck. On another night she dreamed she was shooting rabbits with her father’s .22 pump rifle and then cleaning the animals in her kitchen. She woke up expecting to see the gun gleaming in a corner, but she realized she had not seen it in years, since the days of shooting matches across the river with her cousins, boy cousins she outshot.

One day when she was walking uptown, a sudden thunderstorm generated out of the August heat and the downpour chased her under the hardware store’s awning just as Paul stepped through the door. He looked away, looked back. “Well, well,” he said.

“What’s that mean?”

He shook his head. “I saw you the other day, riding with John Wayne.” He waited for her to blush, timed his next statement. “The day after you buried your mamma.”

“Why would you want to say something like that to me?” She looked into the rain as though she wanted to bolt into it. “It was just a little ride,” she said after a while.

“Where to?”

“None of your business.” She folded her arms. “Just looking at all the closed-up shops.”

He bobbed his head and stepped back against the building, for the rain was blasting down, the wind out of the south, whipping it against their shoes. “You find a job yet?”

“You?”

He laughed. “Shit no. Mamma just sits around and bitches because she can’t afford to go to bingo anymore, and daddy reads and walks around town.” He looked at a shoe, shook off the rain. “The cable man disconnected us last week.”

“Now there’s a tragedy.”

“All I can get is fuzz on the set with rabbit ears.” He seemed genuinely sorry about the lack of television.

“I can’t believe a machinist can’t find work.”

He sighed. “I better find something. Daddy started drawing a little pissant Social Security check, but that won’t even pay the lights. Mamma’s going into savings already to buy high-blood-pressure medicine.”

“Don’t let her get behind in that. She’ll get sick and then you’ll really have problems.”

“I got problems now.”

“You always had problems,” she told him, going into the store, slipping behind a tall rack. She pretended to look at wood screws, worrying a dozen tiny boxes. She heard the customer bell jingle on the door and soon felt him standing behind her. “What?” she said without turning around.

“Uh, how’s your stomach?”

“My stomach,” she said stiffly, “is doing fine.”

“Well, if you, you know, need anything…”

“What can you do? You’re broke.”

“I have a little saved up from the job. You going to the doctor?”

“I’m not stupid.” She turned and faced him.

“Yes you are. That’s why I’m asking you if you went to the doctor.”