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a pretty ribbon fluttered from a lacuna in the skull. And she would wonder as she walked, “What is the Bible trying to tell us?”
    That Satan is a hairdresser?
    That Elizabeth Arden ought to be fed to the poodles?
     
     
     
    “Spooky around here, don’t you think, Boomer?”
    “Well, it’s kinda like the moon.”
    “We should have taken the direct route.”
    “What’s the hurry? This is our honeymoon. Honeymoon on the moon.”
    “Are you nervous about New York?”
    “Why, hell no. No reason for me to be nervous. New York’s just a big pile of iron and steel. Perfect for a welder.” He focused on the countryside. They were either in Wyoming or Utah now, he wasn’t sure which, and the rock formations looked like furniture in the lobby of the Eternity Hotel. “Out here,” he said, “a welding torch could atrophy. Just wither away and die from lack of use.” He stared at his bride. There was no danger in staring. The road was as straight as a shot of grain alcohol, and the jackrabbits, well, each individual rabbit had the right to make his or her own choice when it came to crossing the path of an onrushing Airstream turkey. “There’s a part of me gonna atrophy and drop off, too, if you and me don’t make a rest stop pretty soon.”
    “Oh, Boomer! You just had some this morning.”
    “That was this morning.” He squeezed her thigh.
    “Oh, Boomer!”
    He turned back to the highway but continued to grip her leg as though it were a misshapen shot put that he might at any second hurl into the record books of western Wyoming. Or was it Utah? “Maybe New York is making you a little nervous, huh, babe?”
    She shook her tumbleweed, her butterscotch maelstrom, but she answered, “Yeah, I guess. Famous artists, dealers, collectors, curators, critics. I’ll be involved with some high-powered people, rich, sophisticated hard-ball players; me, Ellen Cherry Charles, the painting waitress, the little Jezebel of Colonial Pines.”
    Boomer snatched his eyes off the road again, allowing a jackrabbit to fulfill its pact with destiny. “Mrs. Randolph Petway the Third—of the Virginia Petways—and don’t ever let ’em forget it.”
    He wished that she wouldn’t link herself to Jezebel like that. No matter how lightly she phrased it, it struck him as self-deprecating. A person can’t make a career out of somebody else’s invective. Only recently, an observer had called him a hydrocephalic lummox, and he hadn’t even bothered to look it up. Was Ellen Cherry just picking scabs or what?
    Confused by the Bible’s portrayal of Jezebel—it appeared to contend that cosmetics were witchcraft, and coquetry a capital offense—Ellen Cherry had asked Patsy (lines of communication with her parents had been reopened approximately six months after she settled in Seattle) what she knew about the queen’s sordid reputation.
    “Just a real tacky woman, I reckon.”
    “Mama! Is it possible you could be more specific?”
    “Your daddy didn’t mean it, honey. Calling you ugly names. Bud just had him all festered up. Bud makes him feel guilty about stuff they did when they were boys, mischief they got into, and then he manipulates him. But—”
    “Mama, please, do me a favor and just ask Uncle Buddy what Jezebel did that was so bad. I’d like particulars.”
    The next time the Reverend Buddy Winkler stopped by for dinner, Patsy had, indeed, raised the subject. There was silence, except for the musical sizzle of pork chops in the skillet. Slowly, the preacher got up from the kitchen chair, a chair whose green enamel contrasted vividly with his berry-domed boils, and he laid his hungry expression upon Patsy like the tongue of a steer. She could almost feel strings of cold saliva dripping to make paste of the flour on her apron.
    “You tryin’ to spoil my appetite, Patsy? Ain’t there enough pork chops to go ’round? Utterin’ the name of that shameless fornicator, that painted hussy before we’ve sat down to our