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something was wrong because she
     squinted and said, “Honey, you OK?”
    “Oh. Uh-huh.”
    “You sure?”
    “I’m great. I’m just, maybe a little… I don’t know.”
    Nell refilled Tara’s glass, then her own. And asked, “You’re not scared, are you?”
    “Scared of what?”
    “All that money.”
    “Oh. Maybe I should be?”
    “Well everybody says how it ruins your life, getting rich all of a sudden.”
    “Are
you
scared, Nell?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “Well, then I guess I’m not either.”
    “Uh-huh. We must be in
denial
.”
    “I guess so,” said Tara, laughing.
    Said Nell, “I think it’s
great
to be Queen Marie of Romania! Let’s drink to denial. Let’s drink to Romania. Let’s
buy
Romania. Holy crap!”
    Romeo awoke in the motel room. Shaw was still at the little desk, his back bathed in sweat, leaning in toward the screen. Romeo
     could see he was looking at pictures of some girl. It wasn’t porn though. The girl wasn’t even naked — but he was looking
     at her like she was.
    Romeo got up and stumbled into the bathroom.
    Said Shaw, without turning, “You up?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    Romeo was still stuffed with his dreams. He elected to sit while peeing.
    Shaw said, “It scares me how much you sleep.”
    On the frosted shower glass was the biggest cockroach Romeo had ever seen. It didn’t even try to run. It just crouched there,
     twirling its mustaches.
    Romeo came back into the room and said, “It’s a furnace in here. You mind if I turn on the air-conditioning?”
    “Too much racket. Wait till I’m done.”
    “Done with what?”
    “Changing our lives.”
    Romeo put on his jeans and sneakers. He went out to the Tercel and opened the trunk and dug in his duffel for a T-shirt. He
     put it on there in the parking lot, in the stunning heat. There was some kind of death smell hanging in the air. He hoped
     they would soon get the hell out of there.
    He went looking for the soda machine, which he found under a concrete stairwell. He was shoving in quarters when a girl showed
     up, looking for ice. She had a big bony brow, and a T-shirt with Jesus on the cross. She gave him a quick smile and filled
     her bucket. He was surprised to find he wasn’t afraid of her.
    He said, “Hey, you smell that?”
    She sniffed. “Uh-huh. It’s what they call Confederate jasmine.”
    “No, I mean the other smell. It’s like, I don’t know, like something rotting?”
    “Oh.” She sniffed again. “Maybe the pulp mill?”
    “I thought there was like a mass grave or something.”
    She said, “I don’t really smell it. I guess I’ve been here too long.”
    “How long you been here?”
    “Four months.”
    “What’s that say under your cross?”
    “The Church of Jesus Triumphant.”
    “That’s your church? You go there?”
    “It’s not like a church you go to. It’s a missionary church. From Missouri. I’m a missionary.”
    “You should mission to me.”
    “You mean,
witness
to you?”
    “Yeah, but good luck.”
    She didn’t try, though. They talked, but not about Jesus. They talked about the heat. Romeo said how could it be so hot when
     it was still May? The girl said it got hot early down here. Romeo asked her if it got this hot in Missouri. She said sometimes,
     and then she told him how boring Missouri was. He told her how boring Piqua, Ohio, was. She told him Brunswick was boring
     too, but not
so
boring because there were beaches nearby, although she didn’t go to them much.
    She was leaning up against the ice machine and chewing a piece of ice, which he thought sexy. Her name was Tess. She invited
     him up to her room to meet her roommate.
    He took her up on it. He met her roommate Megan and the three of them hung out and watched a
Gilmore Girls
rerun.
    The girls had a boxful of leaflets telling how the world was on its last legs. He took one and tried to read it, but it was
     instantly, stingingly depressing, and he was afraid it might get them started. So he put it in his