“You’re wrong,” Betsy said. “I don’t hate you.”
Thadine started to speak, then didn’t. She took the cash.
“You hate this town,” Betsy said. “Get out before you hate yourself.”
She got in her car and drove past a fancy house with a large expanse of grass, automatically watered at night. The grass didn’t actually grow, but had been unfurled from trucks and pressed into place. Few people trod upon the slim shards of yard.
A mile farther she entered her own neighborhood of cement and asphalt, a used-car lot and front yards of weed and dirt. Betsy parked and climbed an exterior staircase composed of premade concrete to her one-room apartment. She removed her greasy waitress smock and cursed herself for the day’s work with nothing to show. What kind of life was she leading? What kind of name was Thadine?
The last time she lived in a house had been in Alabama. She’d gotten mixed up with a man who’d spent three years hand-building a stone enclosure of water for koi fish. He was proud of his project, which Betsy considered a lot of work simply to maintain overgrown carp. In the afternoons they drank beside the pool. He liked to talk and she didn’t like to be alone. He fired a BB pistol at neighborhood cats that skulked about, attempting to prey on his fish. Betsy asked him to stop and he set wire traps instead. One trap caught a gopher, which drew a coyote that ate all his precious koi. He blamed Betsy. She left him and quit living in houses, returning to single rooms.
In her apartment, she poured vodka and drank it, facing a fan in her underwear. The AC was a window unit that didn’t actually cool the air, just barely cut the heat and blew dust that made her sneeze. After two drinks she laughed at herself — she’d gone from saving cats in Alabama to giving her money away in Mississippi. She closed her eyes. Awhile later she awoke disoriented from a dream she’d had consistently since childhood — lost in a vast house, wandering long halls, opening doors and encountering people she’d met in different places. They were quite friendly with each other, but ignored her as if she was a ghost. She ran down a long hall, trying to ward away the awareness that something serious was amiss.
Betsy sat in the chair, blinking herself fully awake until the imagery faded. Each time she had the dream, the house was bigger, as if her continued existence furthered its renovation. After a shower she ate leftover food from the refrigerator. She packed her clothes, loaded the car, and left for New Orleans.
Each time she began a new life she momentarily wished she had a pistol, a small one. She didn’t know why. She supposed it was about confidence and fear. If she’d bought one, she’d have pawned it by now. Someone else would own it, and no telling what they’d do with it, who they’d shoot, maybe Thadine. Betsy hoped the girl would get out before someone did. It could happen easily. Anything could.
About the contributors
Megan Abbott is the Edgar Award — winning author of seven novels, including Dare Me, The End of Everything, and The Fever, winner of the ITW and Strand Critics Award for best novel and chosen one of the best books of 2014 by Amazon, NPR, the Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times. Her stories have also appeared in Queens Noir, Phoenix Noir, Wall Street Noir, and Detroit Noir. Her latest novel is You Will Know Me. Abbott served as a John Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi in 2013–14.
Ace Atkins is the New York Times best-selling author of nineteen novels, including The Redeemers and Robert B. Parker’s Kickback. He has been nominated for every major prize in crime fiction, including the Edgar Award three times, twice for novels about former U.S. Army ranger Quinn Colson. A former newspaper reporter and SEC football player, Atkins also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national magazines including Outside and Garden & Gun. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his family.
William Boyle is the author of the novel Gravesend and the story collection Death Don’t Have No Mercy. He is from Brooklyn, New York, and currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
Robert Busby was born and raised in north Mississippi. He has worked as a band saw operator, a produce clerk, a bookseller, a driving school instructor, and a satellite television technician. His stories have appeared in Arkansas Review, Cold Mountain Review, PANK, Real South, and Surreal South ’11. Currently he lives, writes, teaches, and eats much barbecue in Memphis, Tennessee, with his wife and their two sons.
Jimmy Cajoleas grew up in Jackson, Mississippi. He earned his MFA from the University of Mississippi, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Dominiqua Dickey, a former stage manager, paralegal, and deputy court clerk, was born in Chicago, raised in Grenada, Mississippi, and became an adult in Los Angeles. Her Southern upbringing and West Coast affinity are reflected in her work, as well as her love of history and its effect on common folk. She is pursuing a MFA at the University of Mississippi while applying the finishing touches to a short story collection and mystery novel.
Lee Durkee drives a cab in Oxford, Mississippi. He is the author of the novel Rides of the Midway (WW Norton), and has published short stories in such places as Harper’s Magazine, Tin House, Zoetrope: All-Story, and the New England Review.
John M. Floyd’s work has appeared in more than two hundred different publications, including the Strand Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and the Best American Mystery Stories 2015. A former air force captain and IBM systems engineer, he won a Derringer Award in 2007 and was nominated for an Edgar Award in 2015. Floyd is the author of five books: Rainbow’s End, Midnight, Clockwork, Deception, and Fifty Mysteries.
Tom Franklin is the author of Poachers: Stories and three novels, Hell at the Breech, Smonk, and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for mystery/thriller, the Willie Morris Prize in Southern Fiction, and the UK’s Gold Dagger Award for Best Novel. His latest novel, The Tilted World, was cowritten with his wife, Beth Ann Fennelly. They live in Oxford, where they teach in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
Michael Kardos is the Pushcart Prize — winning author of the novels Before He Finds Her and The Three-Day Affair, an Esquire best book of the year, as well as the story collection One Last Good Time, which won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for fiction. He grew up on the Jersey Shore and currently lives in Starkville, Mississippi, where he codirects the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.
Mary Miller is the author of two books, Big World, a short story collection, and The Last Days of California, a novel. Her second story collection, Always Happy Hour, is forthcoming from Liveright/Norton. A former James A. Michener Fellow in fiction at the University of Texas, she most recently served as the John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss.