Top Highlights

• “Sweet baby Jesus, what do you mean you need to pee again?” Frieda asked her younger sister as the old Plymouth barreled through the West Texas desert. Frieda stared into the dark distance, then refocused and ran her eyes over her own irritated reflection. “What do you mean, what do I mean? I need to pee again,” Jacinda snapped, her thumbs rising o...
• Standing on the highway’s gravel apron, Frieda watched the sky give way to gray along the Chihuahua desert’s horizon, the air still, the only sounds the muted chugging of the Plymouth behind the station and the indifferent chirring of insects in the sparse brush. This had always been her favorite time of day, wide open with possibility. Their fathe...
• As she stood amid the grass clumps and scattered litter on the apron of this isolated piece of two-lane road north of Lajitas, Frieda saw twin lights blink into being on the horizon. The eighteen-wheeler closed fast, its rumble growing until it roared by like a locomotive, the crescendo hurting her ears and the wind-wash whipping her pant legs and ...
• Putting her cigarette in the ashtray, Jacinda held her right hand out toward Frieda while she kept her eyes on the road. “Uh-uh. You’re driving,” Freida said as she took another drag. “Come on. Just to take the edge off.” “Give it a rest. And do me a favor and set the cruise control at the speed limit so your dumb ass doesn’t go getting us pulled o...
• Frieda was getting it together now and did the same. “Me neither.” From this distance, Frieda could just see the breeze ruffling the woman’s knee-length calico dress. One shoe was missing, her bare foot turned inward on the highway’s asphalt. “Should we turn around?” Jacinda asked. “When was the last time you saw a car pass going in the other direc...