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bathroom, and when he got back, the dancers had moved on to another song and the busboy was mopping up the mess.
    Because the waitress had been such a bitch to the new girl, he ordered another beer directly from the bartender and wandered into the poolroom. There was a silver cage in the corner where Bud liked to have a girl dancing on weekend nights, but it was empty now. The guy sitting in the upholstered chair in the corner was getting a lap dance from one of the two dancers named Crystal, though this one spelled her name with a “K.” She had told Tripp that more than once.
     When Dwight found him again, Tripp said, “How’s the girl?”
    “Jolene? These girls never eat right. It was all nacho chips and beef jerky. Nasty shit,” Dwight said, shaking his head.
    “Maybe Bud should start a cafeteria or something,” Tripp said, putting the eight ball into a side pocket. He hung the triangle on a wall peg and put the cue on the rack. He couldn’t help but be neat. It was in his nature.
      So, she’s called Jolene. The only other time he’d heard that name was in the Dolly Parton song.
    Dwight pushed his glasses up on his nose.
    “Screw me,” he said. “Like I need some other shit to do.”

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    On his way out of the club, Tripp checked his cell phone for the tenth or eleventh time, hoping to see a text from Lila. On the phone’s screen was a picture he had taken on Devil’s Oven a few weeks earlier, after she had fallen on her butt trying to walk up the long, ice-covered driveway leading to his cabin. He had stomped and slid his way down the frozen gravel to help her, but soon they were both falling and laughing. In the picture, she was leaning on one arm, trying to stay in one place. Her nose was a brighter red than her hair, which the frigid wet had coiled into tight curls. She was smiling like a kid, looking more than ever like how he remembered her in school.
    The parking lot was more crowded than when he had come in. The threat of serious snow was pretty much over for the year and folks were ready for some relief, though they would still be getting snow showers at the highest elevations of Garrett’s Mountain and Devil’s Oven through mid-April.
    Flicking on the headlights in his truck, he saw Jolene near the club’s front door. Her hair was twisted into one of those looped ponytails that aren’t pulled all the way through, and she wore sweatpants and a white jacket that looked like it wasn’t much protection from the cold. She had a cell phone to her ear and looked frustrated.
    As he watched, she threw the phone so that it slammed into the asphalt and broke into several pieces.
    There were times in Tripp’s life when he chose to do things that he knew would get him into trouble, and even before he got out of the truck he knew this was one of them.
    He stopped to pick up the pieces of the phone on his way across the parking lot. The only piece he didn’t see was the phone’s back cover. He fitted the battery into its empty slot.
    Jolene leaned against the concrete wall as though she were too tired to stand.
    “You might want to turn it on and see if it works,” he said, holding the phone out to her.
    She looked from his face to his outstretched hand. “Sure, thanks,” she said. She took the phone and stuffed it into the jacket pocket. “I know that was stupid.”
    “Feeling any better?” His voice cracked like a teenager’s. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat to cover it.
    Now that he was close to her, he saw she was much younger than she looked onstage. Without makeup, her skin was as clear as a child’s. If it weren’t for the half-moon shadows beneath her eyes, she wouldn’t even look old enough to drive.
     “I need to go back in and find a ride,” she said. “The cab people said they can’t get me for another hour.”
    Tripp laughed. “You know they only have two cars,” he said.
    “Figures,” she said, without any hint of suspicion or annoyance. For a local