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board. Louise always welcomed the opportunity to cook there.
    She stuck her head in the stainless steel fridge and checked out the selection of produce. Ten minutes later, she had a pot of pasta on the stove and the beginnings of a salad.
    â€œThat doesn’t smell like pizza.” Sylvia had moved to one of the couches and turned on the afternoon cartoons. All three children stopped playing to stare up at the TV.
    â€œNope.” Louise cut up some salami and mozzarella to mix in with the pasta. Cooking never failed to make her feel better. She felt almost optimistic about Alligator Bayou. Maybe they could give the library a makeover. It sure needed one.
    Jake arrived just as Louise was mixing together the pasta ingredients. He turned off the TV, convinced the boys to come to the table, and strapped Zoe into a booster seat. As they all sat down together, Louise wished for the hundredth time that she could switch places with her best friend. She would like to be tall and beautiful with a nice husband. Even with their current problems, Sylvia led a charmed life. Jake would find another job and it would all work out. Louise wasn’t so sure about herself. Her life seemed like a complete disaster.

C HAPTER 7
    T wo days after New Year’s, Louise drove Sylvia into Alligator Bayou for their first day of work. As the strip malls and big-box stores of Saint Jude gradually disappeared, nothing was left except trees, grass, cloudless blue sky, and occasional roadkill.
    The closer they got to the library, the more Louise worried. They were going to work in an institution that had ground to a halt sometime around 1987. No one used it; no one cared about it. She and Sylvia would either have to resurrect the library or go crazy with boredom. She also dreaded Brendan’s inevitable caustic remark: “Geez, Louise. You can’t do any better than that? ”
    â€œYou know, I’ve lived here all my life and I never came to Alligator Bayou Parish until we had our job interviews,” Sylvia said.
    â€œReally? I thought you majored in Louisiana studies.” Louise was surprised. Sylvia acted as Louise’s guide to everything Southern. She’d explained to her Yankee friend that ordering a sandwich “dressed” meant with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise; stressed the importance of a termite contract on her house; and talked her through her first experience with a hurricane threat.
    â€œHa-ha. Little-known fact: my undergraduate major was biology. But seriously, I never had any reason to come to Alligator Bayou. I mean, look at this. We’re only ten miles outside of Saint Jude and there’s nothing here.”
    â€œSo far, I’ve counted two dead opossums, one raccoon, and a shredded tire.”
    Sylvia pulled down the sunshade mirror and refreshed her lipstick. “To be honest, I really don’t know much about rural Louisiana at all. I’m a New Orleans girl. I wouldn’t even be in Saint Jude except for Jake’s job.” She flipped the shade back up and sighed. “Former job.”
    â€œI guess we’ll have to learn fast,” Louise said. She got off at the Alligator Bayou exit, passing a junkyard and a service station with two gas pumps. After that, they drove by a succession of dilapidated houses and mobile homes set back from the road. Yards were decorated with broken-down cars and lawn ornaments varying from fake wells to nonfunctioning toilets. Instead of trash cans out front, the houses had metal cages designed to keep wildlife from pawing through the garbage.
    Louise turned onto the main drag of downtown Alligator Bayou—the Icy Cone, the Stop ’N’ Gas, the Cut and Dye. For nine hours on weekdays, this would be their street, their town.
    Sylvia shook her head as they came to the Piggly Wiggly. “There really is nothing out here.”
    â€œThere are a courthouse and city hall somewhere. I think maybe on Main Street. Do you want to