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thought. Let it go. Don’t be a hero for me. Just let me sit down, creep away.
    “A transformation? Short, dark Mary Jane turns into tall, blonde Bethanie? Jeez, it’s politically incorrect, but, even worse, I don’t think it’s very funny. I mean, it’s been done. Wait a minute, Sam. I got a better idea. Let’s change the scene just slightly, so it’s not such a cliché. I think we can get a better laugh. A role switch. A woman magician, Sam. And you go in the box. She says ‘Ta-da,’ you disappear, and, in your place, Rick here pops out.”
    Mary Jane, like all the others, looked over at one of the newer troupe members. Rick, the kid with a full head of golden curls and a body sculpted to perfection. Mary Jane saw Rick dip his head down a bit, then shrug. Some of the group laughed, and Molly Closter and another woman clapped.
    Sam looked coldly at Neil, then smiled. Despite her shame, Mary Jane could see Sam was raging behind his pasted-on smile. Everyone watched Neil as he walked casually across the room and took his coat from the back of a chair. “Come on, Mary Jane,” he said, as he began to put it on.
    Mutely, she shook her head. That would make this all worse. She’d been waiting for Sam to come back from L.A. for two long weeks. She had so much to discuss with him tonight. And she wanted him to hold her, to be with her. Where would she go if she left Sam and her family? If she took this too hard, if she let them see her shame, she could never come back. Now Neil was pushing her into a corner. She backed away and shook her head again.
    “Well, all right, then,” Neil sighed. “But I’m out of here for good.” As he reached the door to the stairs, he turned and spoke only to her.
    “I meant it, Mary Jane. You are by far the most talented actress I’ve ever met. You are next,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

4
    In the search for an obscurity capital of the world, Lamson, Texas, would be a major contender. Grim and seemingly endless, Interstate 10 stretches from El Paso to San Antonio and has got to be one of the most depressing, dismal drives in the whole United States. Each dot on the map is an excuse for a town more dusty, faded, and dead than the one before. I, Laura Richie, know that, because I had to stop at so many of them, doing this research. But Lamson doesn’t even rate a dot on the map. And in Lamson, the most obscure homes were in the trailer park beside the highway .
    Sharleen Smith jumped off the dented yellow school bus and began to walk quickly along the dusty highway. She kicked small stones ahead of her with the toes of her Keds, puffing the dry dirt in low clouds around her feet. She turned off the main road and away from the other students, down the littered side street, toward the haphazard collection of decrepit trailers at the end, pulling at the red ribbon holding her pony tail as she went. She shook out her long, white-blond hair, running her fingers through the loosened mass.
    The groan she usually felt in the back of her throat, the groan she usually let out as she neared the tin box of a trailer she shared with her brother and father, was replaced today by a low hum of pleasure. Today nothing could bother her. Not even Sueanne Skaggs, who’d come to school on Monday in a new T-shirt. It had Sharleen’s picture on it and a line below it that said, “Just say no.” Sueanne had given one to all the boys on the football team. But Boyd, the captain and Sueanne’s ex-steady, he didn’t wear his . And none of the team would dare to if he didn’t.
    Sharleen couldn’t quite figure out why Sueanne and all the girls hated her. Of course, she was poor, and she knew she was ignorant. Maybe even stupid. But she was really pretty. At least she thought that she must be. Momma had always told her she was. But then Momma had left a long time ago.
    If she was still pretty, the girls didn’t seem to like her for it. Maybe it was her clothes. She tried to dress like the