The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Read Online Free PDF

Caroline was the only one left and she would have to take care of this tourist who started shaking the moment you spoke to her.
    Amy had a lot to answer for there. May she rest in peace, of course.
    Which would be easy for her, since Caroline was the one stuck down here with all the hard work to do. She certainly wouldn’t get any help from the rest of the town council.
    There were three of them left. Caroline presumed that Jen Hobson took part because she dreamed of turning Broken Wheel into the same kind of middle-class commuter paradise as Hope, perfect for folks working in Cedar Rapids. Jen was born in what she called ‘nice, pleasant’ Spencer, in the north-west of Iowa, and Caroline couldn’t help but think that it would have been no great loss to the town if she had just stayed there. But Jen’s husband was from Broken Wheel and was, by all accounts, as nice as you could expect a Hobson to be. They had never exactly been known for their intelligence, but Caroline didn’t care for judging people on things they had no control over. There were enough conscious sins to focus on. However, she couldn’t escape the suspicion that Jen saw the move to Broken Wheel as some kind of personal failing and that annoyed her. She couldn’t imagine Spencer having anything that Broken Wheel didn’t. Plus, Jen had only been living here for ten years.
    The town had its problems and its shortcomings, of course, things which Caroline herself didn’t hesitate to point out, but the idea that someone from
outside
could look down on the town and want to change things … she shook her head.
    She wasn’t afraid to contribute, though. Caroline had to admit that much. But if only Jen had as much sense as she did energy, she would have been able to accomplish so much more. She was in charge of Broken Wheel’s newsletter, as well as its only journalist and its main source of news. She ran a
blog
about the town, too. Caroline had never cared to find out what, exactly, a blog was. No good could come from such a thing, of that much she was sure. As far as she knew, the only people who even read the newsletter were Jen’s relatives, all of them living in Spencer. None of them had shown any interest in moving to Broken Wheel despite, or perhaps because of, the newsletter.
    She didn’t have much more time for the other member of the town council. Andy, the last member of the Walsh family still living in town. Caroline had truly disliked his father, Andrew Walsh Senior, and was prepared to forgive Andy a lot just because he wasn’t him. But there were limits.
    Andy ran the Square, the town’s most popular bar, along with his much-too-close friend Carl; he had once lived as far away as Denver. Caroline didn’t like gossip, but on the other hand there was no need to invite it either, coming home from Denver and taking over a bar with your …
good friend
.
    Today, Andy was wearing vivid blue jeans, a checked shirt and a belt with a buckle that looked as though it weighed as much as his cowboy boots. He pulled it all off quite well, but his clothes were much too new-looking. In Caroline’s eyes, he looked like a tourist, fresh from the east coast, despite his family having lived in Broken Wheel for generations.
    â€˜A tourist in Broken Wheel,’ he said, standing up and joining Jen on the stage.
    â€˜It’s strange,’ she added, ‘that we don’t have more.’
    â€˜Not
that
strange,’ Caroline said. She often spoke in italics. ‘And a tourist without a driver’s licence.’
    She remained where she was, sitting in one of the comfortable cinema seats. It had been twelve years since the last movie had played, but the scent of popcorn and melted butter still lingered faintly. It didn’t awaken any memories of dates Caroline had gone on long ago, but she was impressed that the chairs’ fabric was still in such good