Her mum was just another single mother, as they call them now, but my own mum says they had another name for it once. She said they had goings-on at night around there, naturally, since every man in town thought it was being handed out for free. Used to throw pebbles at the door, shout names and howl a bit when they got drunk. The two boys, Helen’s brothers—they were pretty wild, they took off early.

When she was ten, Helen went through a circus phase—liked to dress up, thought she’d be a trapeze artist—then she got close with the woman who ran the beauty salon, used to do her hair for her and give her product samples, and then she started drawing black rims around her eyes and hanging around the bus station. Fishing for a ticket out of town, is my guess. She was good-looking—I’ll grant her that—so it wasn’t surprising she got married early, to the police chief, a prime catch for both of them as he was pushing forty.

Then just a few months ago she ran off with some man from the city who was passing through. Didn’t need the bus ticket after all, he had his own car, quite the boat. Hubby’s pissed as hell; he’s talking about a posse, go into the city, smoke them out, beat the guy up, get her back, smack her around a bit. A lot of men wouldn’t bother, with a tramp like that; but it seems he doesn’t believe in divorce, says somebody has to stand for the right values.

Personally I think he’s still nuts about her and anyway his pride is hurt. Trouble is she’s flaunting it—the new man’s quite well off, set her up in some sort of mansion, her picture gets in magazines and people asking about her opinions, it’s enough to make you sick. So there she is, all diddied up in her new pearl necklace and smiling away as sweet as pie and saying how happy she is in her new life, and how every woman should follow her heart. Says it wasn’t easy when she was growing up, being half-divine and all, but now she’s come to terms with it and she’s looking at a career in the movies. Says she was too young to get married that first time but now she knows how fulfilling love can be, and the chief wasn’t, well, he just wasn’t. Of course everyone thinks she’s saying he was a nothing in the sack department, so there’s been some snickering up the sleeves, though not openly because he’s still got a lot of clout in this town.