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two years ago as a way of saying that Grahm and Cora were getting the farm—all of it—so obviously her subconscious harbored some unresolved feelings about keeping it clean. Still, she was glad to have it, even in its unkempt and unrepaired state. Most of the people she worked with at the plastic factory rented, even couples who both worked.
    How nice it would be, she thought, to have someone steal into your house in the middle of the night and straighten everything up, the Snow White Silent Night Maid Service. Perhaps this was the origin of many fairy tales—storytellers wanting their houses cleaned up by unobtrusive, unpaid workers.
    From the refrigerator she took a diet soda and the last, slender wedge of caramel fudge cheesecake, so narrow it leaned and
     threatened to collapse. She transported breakfast into the living room. The telephone rang again and she returned to the kitchen.
    Buzz Scranton, her band’s drummer and booking agent, was irritated, his voice shooting over the wire in menacing chirps. Mike’s Supper Club had canceled Thursday night due to scheduling problems with a wedding party. The Straight Flush wouldn’t play until next Saturday, six days from now, at the county fair. They would have to leave early to set up the equipment. Jim had the van. She could meet him in the trailer park.
    This brief conversation had the effect of chasing away her mostly good mood. To be more accurate, she became aware that she must have been in a good mood earlier when she noticed a desperately sinking feeling inside her after hanging up the telephone. She returned to the living room and discovered her cat gulping her way through the cheesecake.
    “Oh, you shameless thing!”
    Gail reclaimed her soda and carried it onto the back porch along with her electric bass.
    Late-morning sun dove through leafy hickory and sumac branches and arrived bright and mottled inside the screened- in enclosure. Looking into her back yard, she felt welcomed by the quiet assurance of domestic privacy, the blessing of home ownership, insulated from the rest of Words by a thick tangle of fortifying vegetation.
    Tossing the towel over the vacuum cleaner handle, she eased onto the broken glider and stretched out her legs, playing soft, deep tones that boomed from the twin fifteen-inch woofers inside the house. Shafts of sunlight struck the painted front of the guitar in a clear, spangled display.
    Since early childhood, Gail had disliked wearing clothes. They never fit right, never looked right, never seemed right. A cloying, dolorous sensation always accompanied dressing. She suffered under clothing like violets under blankets. It was far, far worse, of course, in winter—living inside mattresses—but clothes were never good. In summer, and occasionally at other times, she let her skin recklessly inhale open air. And why not? It was her house, her porch, her back yard, her day away from the plastic factory, and her life.
    Some people might be most comfortable immersed in their jobs, others while navigating a narrow channel into open water; Gail was inordinately at home in her body. It felt right, natural in the naked sense of lacking pretension and the classical sense of having appropriate proportions. She liked herself, and her surrounding self liked her. When others in moments of uncertainty and fear might close their eyes to locate a safe center, Gail found courage in her own manifestation, the sight of her knees or feet, her hands, the pressure of her fingers gripping her arms—the way she was expressed.
    She plucked the coiled steel bass strings and resumed gazing into her back yard.
    Soon, however, the sense of sunny peace drained away as she struggled to play the bass line to a song by the Barbara Jean Band. Gail had both of Barbara Jean’s recordings and had been trying to learn the songs on them, but they were very difficult and something always remained out of reach.
    She returned to the living room and pushed the CD Play