She found a box of Keebler figbars and a couple of Slim Jims (Donna thought they were hideous things, but they were Tad's all-time favorite snack). She wrapped some green olives and
cucumber slices in foil. She filled Tad's Thermos with milk and half-filled Vic's big Thermos, the one he took on camping trips.
For some reason, looking at the food made her uneasy.
She looked at the phone and thought about trying Joe Camber's number again. Then she decided there was no sense in it, since they would be going out there either way. Then she thought of asking Tad again if he wouldn't rather she called Debbie Gehringer, and then wondered what was wrong with her - Tad had made himself perfectly clear on that point.
It was just that suddenly she didn't feel good. Not good at all. It was nothing she could put her finger on. She looked around the kitchen as if expecting the source of her unease to announce itself.
It didn't.
'We going, Mom?'
'Yes,' she said absently. There was a noteminder on the wall by the fridge, and on this she scrawled: Tad & I have gone out to J.
Camber's garage w/Pinto. Back soon.
'Ready, Tad?'
'Sure.' He grinned. 'Who's the note for, Mom?'
'Oh, Joanie might drop by with those raspberries,' she said vaguely.
'Or maybe Alison MacKenzie. She was going to show me some Amway and Avon stuff.'
‘oh’
Donna ruffled his hair and they went out together. The heat hit them like a hammer wrapped in pillows. Buggardly car probably won't even start, she thought.
But it did.
It was 3:45 P.m.
They drove southeast along Route 117 toward the Maple Sugar Road, which was about five miles out of town. The Pinto behaved in exemplary fashion, and if it hadn't been for the bout of snaps and jerks coming home from the shopping trip, Donna would have wondered what she had bothered making such a fuss about. But there had been that bout of the shakes, and so she drove sitting bolt upright again, going no faster than forty, pulling as far to the right as she could when a car came up behind her. And there was a lot of traffic on the road. The summer influx of tourists and vacationers had begun. The Pinto had no air conditioning, so they rode with both windows open.
A Continental with New York plates towing a gigantic trailer with two mopeds on the back swung around them on blind curve, the driver bleating his horn. The driver's wife, a fat woman wearing mirror sunglasses, looked at Donna and Tad with imperious contempt.
'Get stuffed!' Donna yelled, and popped her middle finger up at the fat lady. The fat lady turned away quickly. Tad was looking at his mother just a little nervously, and Donna smiled at him. 'No hassle, big guy. We're going good. Just out-of-state fools.'
'Oh,' Tad said cautiously.
Listen to me, she thought. The big Yankee. Vic would be proud.
She had to grin to herself, because everyone in Maine understood that if you moved here from another place, you would be an out-of-stater until you were sent to your grave. And on your tombstone they would write something like HARRY JONES, CASTLE
CORNERS, MAINE (Originally from Omaha, Nebraska).
Most of the tourists were headed toward 302, where they would turn east to Naples or west toward Bridgton, Fryeburg, and North Conway, New Hampshire, with its alpine slides, cut-rate
amusement parks, and tax-free restaurants. Donna and Tad were not going up to the 302 junction.
Although their home overlooked downtown Castle Rock and its picturebook Town Common, woods had closed in on both sides of the road before they were five miles from their own front door.
These woods drew back occasionally - a little - to show a lot with with a house or a trailer on it, and as they went farther out, the houses were more often of the type that her father had called
'shanty Irish'. The sun still shone brightly down and there was a good four hours of daylight left, but the emptiness made her feel uneasy again. It was not so bad here, on 117, but once they left the main road
Their turnoff was marked with a sign saying MAPLE SUGAR
ROAD in faded, almost unreadable letters. It had been splintered considerably by kids banging away with.22s and birdshot. This road was two-lane blacktop, bumpy and frost-heaved. It wound past two or three nice houses, two or three not-so-nice houses, and one old and shabby RoadKing trailer sitting on a crumbling concrete foundation. There was a yardful of weeds in front of the trailer. Donna could see cheap-looking plastic toys in the weeds. A sign nailed askew to a tree at the head of the driveway read FREE
KITTEN'S. A potbellied kid of maybe two stood in the driveway, his sopping Pamper hanging below his tiny penis. His mouth hung open and he was picking his nose with one finger and his navel with another. Looking at him, Donna felt a helpless chill of gooseflesh.
Stop it! For Christ's sake, what's wrong with you?
The woods closed in around them again. An old '68 Ford Fairlane with a lot of rusty-red primer paint on the hood and around the headlights passed them going the other way. A young kid with a lot of hair was slouched nonchalantly behind the wheel. He wasn't wearing a shirt. The Fairlane was doing maybe eighty. Donna winced. It was the only traffic they saw.
The Maple Sugar Road climbed steadily, and when they passed the occasional field or large garden they were afforded a stunning view of western Maine toward Bridgton and Freyburg. Long Lake glittered in the farthest distance like the sapphire pendant of a fabulously rich woman.
They were climbing another long slope up one of these eroded bills (as advertised, the sides of the road were now lined with dusty, heat-drooping maples) when the Pinto began to buck and jolt again. Donna's breath dogged in her throat and she thought, Oh come on, oh come on, come on, you cruddy little car, come on!
Tad shifted uneasily in the passenger bucket and held onto his Snoopy lunchbox a little tighter.
She began to tap the accelerator lightly, her mind repeating the same words over and over like an inarticulate prayer: come on, come on, come on.
'Mommy? Is it
'Hush, Tad.'
