Read The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend for Free Online Page A

disappeared into the safe haven of the book and would have stayed there if she hadn’t been distracted by a car turning off towards Amy’s house.
    George was wearing the same checked shirt as on Saturday and it was just as crumpled. His hands were shaking more than before. She remembered how he had followed her into the wake after the funeral and smiled at him over the top of her book.
    â€˜I came to tell you I’m your chauffeur.’
    She lowered the book slowly.
    â€˜I’ll drive you,’ he explained. ‘Wherever you want. Just give me a call.’ He reeled off his telephone number. ‘If I’m not at home I’ll be at Grace’s.’ He gave her that number too, without waiting for her to write either of them down.
    â€˜But I can walk,’ she said.
    â€˜They told me I should drive you.’
    â€˜They?’
    â€˜Jen and Andy. Caroline too.’
    That was presumably that.
    â€˜So?’ he said. ‘Can I give you a ride anywhere?’
    â€˜There’s not so much to see any more,’ he said as they drove into town.
    The only thing there seemed to be an abundance of was corn. At that time of year, the end of August, it towered up around them in enormous fields. The bright sunlight transformed these fields into a swirling sea of gold and green which dazzled Sara, blazing in her eyes until Broken Wheel appeared almost as a relief. As they reached the town, the corn gave way to a row of grey concrete houses and a trailer park.
    â€˜That’s where I live,’ said George. She hoped he meant the row of houses, because the trailer park looked completely abandoned. They drove past a broken fence and a parking lot and a few solitary trees on a strip of useless land. The only thing between where George lived and the heart of Broken Wheel was a disused gas station consisting of a white corrugated-iron shed, beside which someone had dumped a couple of tractor tyres and a broken pram.
    The road grew wider and more buildings appeared. ‘There used to be more shops,’ George said apologetically, as though the town was his fault, ‘but most of them closed sometime after the crisis. Not enough people for them to break even.’
    At least she would get to see Jimmie Coogan Street, she reminded herself. That was something. Still, she was struggling to work up any enthusiasm. Now that she was rested and showered and seeing the town properly, it looked, if possible, even more depressing than when she had arrived.
    The flat, expansive landscape of the Great Plains had inspired its own architecture, with low, sweeping houses that blended into the surrounding prairie and town centres lined with pretty wooden covered walkways, a kind of hybrid of porch and promenade for wandering up and down while looking in the shop windows. In many towns it had worked, and created a calm, cosy mood.
    Broken Wheel, however, was a complete waste of brick, asphalt and concrete. The buildings were certainly low, but that was because there had never been any need for more than two storeys. Nowadays, there wasn’t even the need for one. Instead of windswept prairie, the crude brick buildings blended into an unnecessarily wide road. It was hardly used any more, since it had long ago been made redundant by the nearby interstate.
    Once George had dropped her off and disappeared into Grace’s, Sara walked at random. Before long, she stopped, as though she had been overpowered by the atmosphere. There was something sad about the town, as though generations of problems and disappointments had rubbed off onto its bricks and its roads. A group of men were standing on a street corner. They must have been over fifty, maybe even sixty, it was hard to tell from their worn-out T-shirts and tired-looking faces, but they were radiating the same kind of restless idleness as the teenagers had in the shopping centre where she had worked. Like the days no longer had anything to offer them and