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your hair’s great. But the white-haired man with the handlebar mustache, that’s Bob Swanson. He’s also the mayor.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Swear. And the other barber, Ed, he’s a science teacher at the Elementary School and he’s married to Mayor Swanson’s sister, who’s the tax collector.”
    “What is this place, All in the Family ?”
    “ More like Green Acres .”
    “ But you can’t beat the Benny Deluxes,” he says.
    “I’d give anything for a McDonald’s.”
    “Y eah, well, I guess we always want what we can’t have, don’t we?”
    He flashes that smile again and I am so lost. Here is one good thing in my life. I smile too, the first real one in sixty-four days.
    “So, is the whole town so … knowledgeable?”
    “You mean nosy?”
    “Y eah. Nosy.”
    “ If you live here long enough, information kind of attaches itself to you, like a tick on a dog. You don’t even realize you know something until people start talking about it and then answers just pop into your head.”
    Peter lifts a chunk of my hair, rubs it between his fingers and lets it fall. “Well, that can be useful. Especially, if you want to find out about someone, say for example I wanted to get the goods on this girl.” There is that smile again. “Maybe I want to know what’s she like, who she hang out with, stuff like that. I could find out everything”—he snaps his fingers—“just like that.”
    Not everything.
    “Hey. What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Since when is it so horrible to be pretty and smart?” His hand touches my hair, strokes it. “Do you really read ten books a month?”
    “ Who told you?”
    “ It’s true?” His eyes are on me like I’ve sprouted antennae.
    “Only in the summer. It’s not that many during school.”
    He leans in close. “How many is ‘not that many’?”
    Now he’ll really think I’m a geek. “Five. But only three are classics, the other two are fun reading.”
    “I haven’t read ten books in two years.” He shakes his head and grins. “Including comic books.”
    “It gets pretty boring around here .”
    “According to Mrs. McGill, your library card has more books charged to it than anyone else in Norwood.”
    “She told you that?”
    “Actually, she was trying to encourage me to check out a book. I had my kid brother in the library last week and when she saw me leaving empty handed, she started on the merits of reading, blah, blah, blah, and then your name came up.”
    “I’ll bet you were thrilled.”
    “Curious, actually. I wondered what kind of girl would spend her whole day reading, and why?”
    “I …” I almost give him the same story about the town being so boring, which it is, but that’s not what pushes me to read so much. I open my mouth and the truth spills out, “It’s the only way I can get out of here. I’ve been writing to colleges since I was thirteen. I’ve got over one hundred and twenty-two packets of information from different schools. And I’m already reviewing for the SAT’s.”
    “You hate this place that much?”
    “The truth? Yes.”
    “I’m sorry about your mother.”
    “Thanks.” But this has nothing to do with her.
    We sit there like that a while, Peter stroking my hair, me staring out the window, Chicago’s muted horns filling in the gaps with Saturday in the Park . “If you ever want to talk, I’m a good listener.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Sara—”
    “Hey, Peter! How’s it goin’?” A big, hairy face fills Peter’s window. There’s no mistaking that hawk-like nose, those beady eyes. Rudy Minnoni. His mother, Evangeline, runs Minnoni’s Diner on Main Street. Rumor has it that while her sister, Clementine, flips pancakes and fries up steaks, Evangeline services out-of-towners in the back room, hunters from Ohio and New York mostly. And the only Mr. Minnoni anyone has ever heard of is Evangeline’s father.
    “Hey, Rudy. You know Sara Polokovich, right?”
    I press myself into the corner of