No Story to Tell Read Online Free PDF Page A

enhanced by strong, prominent cheekbones and lively blue eyes that sparkled with an unruly freedom that seemed swept into being by the sun, surf and waves. He was a transplant in Hinckly, there was no mistaking that, as conspicuous as a seashell on the forest floor.
    She made a split-second survey around the interior of the truck. You could tell a lot about people by the way they kept the inside of their vehicles. Bobby’s truck was a catastrophe of overdue bills, lost invoices, empty cigarette packages, greasy paper towels and a myriad of used automotive parts. In a perpetual state of disarray, he forbade her from cleaning it up—said he liked it that way. It irritated her that he wouldn’t at least try to keep some order, but it was useless to nag him. The contents of her car on the other hand, decrepit as it was, were in perfect order. Tight little piles of bills and receipts lay on the seat in an orderly line, like school children waiting for the bus. Each month was laid out separately; it gave her a sense of comfort to be able to scan the events that had combined to form her year to date. The trailer was far too crowded to find any more space in which to file the completed years: she’d taken to snugly binding everything together each January and placing it in the trunk.
    Elliot’s truck was empty of any papers whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the emptiness is what struck Victoria the most about it. The dash was empty, as was the seat, the floor, even the little plastic garbage bag swinging lazily from the ashtray was empty. It was not the sort of display she would have expected from an artist, and her curiosity was piqued. For the first time she felt glad for the fifteen miles they still had to travel together before they reached town.
    “It’s a beautiful valley, hey?” he said in an energetic, upbeat way that suggested he expected her to agree.
    “Hmm. Yeah, I guess so. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere else though.”
    “Oh yeah? Like where?”
    “I don’t know. Anywhere.”
    “Why don’t you move then? If you’re not happy here?”
    He’d caught her short and she looked up quickly, wondering if this too was something he could read from her body.
    “I am happy,” she said defensively. “I never said I wasn’t happy. I just wonder about what it would be like somewhere else. Sometimes you wonder—”
    “Not me. I don’t waste too much time wondering. If I want to know about something, I just do it. Life’s too short to spend it wondering. That’s how I ended up here. Thought it would be interesting to live in the country, stuck a pin in the map and here I am.”
    “You stuck a pin in the map?”
    “Yeah. Didn’t matter to me where I went so long as it was in the country somewhere. That’s how I’ve always decided where to go.”
    “By sticking a pin in a map?”
    “Yeah. Simplifies the whole process.”
    Victoria laughed. She’d never heard of anything so bizarre. “Well, so much for planning.”
    “Aw, planning. Planning kills half the adventure.”
    “And so, when you get bored with it here you just what? Stick another pin in the map and off you go? That easy?”
    “Yep, that easy. Gone.”
    Victoria rested her head against the seat, a slow smile creeping across her face as she shook her head. “Can’t even imagine.”
    “Why not? Why spend your whole life somewhere you’re not happy . . . ? Oh yeah, forgot. You are happy. But in a hypothetical situation it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?”
    “No. I suppose not. But things just aren’t that simple for most people. Sometimes people’s lives just get too complicated.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe people just think it’s too complicated . . . or want to think it’s too complicated.” He looked at her fully. “So, you’ve always lived here, then?”
    She looked out at the blurred fields as they blew past. “Pretty much.”
    “Never had any thoughts as a young girl to run off to the