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Even in dangerous times, most people dared to hope, but Jillian Jackson insisted upon hope, took as o, when she'd been a waitress, sharing an apart only the two ratis from the restaurant where she worked, before she landed her first job as a performer, her blood had been as rich with hope as with red cells, white cells, and platelets So dreams, but Jilly believed that hope and hard work could win everything she wanted

Everything except the right man

Now, through the waning afternoon, fro wait at the US Customs Station east of Akela, where inspections of late were conducted with greater seriousness than they had been in ht about the men in her life She'd had romantic relationships with only three, but those three were three too , north of the Pyramid Mountains, then to the town of Road Forks, New Mexico, and eventually across the state line, she brooded about the past, trying to understand where she'd gone wrong in each failed relationship

Although prepared to accept the bla herself with the intense critical analysis of a boht to be cut to save the day, she finally concluded, not for the first time, that the fault resided less in herself than in those feckless men she'd trusted They were betrayers Deceivers Given every benefit of the doubt, viewed through the rosiest of rose-colored lenses, they were nonetheless swine, three little pigs who exhibited all the worst porcine traits and none of the good ones If the big bad wolf showed up at the door of their straw house, the neighbors would cheer him when he blew it down and would offer him the proper wine to accompany a pork-chop dinner

'I aeful bitch,' Jilly declared

In his quiet way, sweet little Fred disagreed with her

'Will I ever meet a decent man?' she wondered

Though he possessed numerous fine qualities – patience, serenity, a habit of never co and for quietly co, a healthy root structure – Fred made no claim to clairvoyance He couldn't know if Jilly would one day meet a decent man In most matters, Fred trusted in destiny Like other passive species lacking any means of locomotion, he had little choice but to rely on fate and hope for the best

'Of course I'll ence of the hopefulness that usually characterized her 'I'll meet dozens of decent h escaped her as she braked in response to a traffic backup in the westbound lanes of Interstate 10, immediately ahead of her 'The question isn't whether I'll nize hiels and a flashing halo that says GOOD GUY, GOOD GUY, GOOD GUY'

Jillian couldn't see Fred's sh

'Oh, face facts,' she groaned, 'when it couys, I'm naive and easily misled'

When he heard the truth, Fred knew it Wise Fred The quiet hich he greeted Jilly's adreement that he had expressed when she'd called herself a bitter, vengeful bitch

Traffic came to a full stop

Through a royal-purple twilight and past nightfall, they endured another long wait, this tiricultural Inspection Station east of San Simon, which currently served state and federal law-enforcericulture officers, a few flinty-eyed plainclothes agents, on assignanization, evidently were searching for pests es In fact they grilled Jilly as if they believed a chador and a subun were concealed under the car seat, and they studied Fred ariness and skepticisin, held fanatical political views, and harbored evil intentions

Even these tough-looking ard every traveler with suspicion, could not long mistake Fred for a villain They stepped back and waved the Coupe DeVille through the checkpoint

As Jilly put up the po and accelerated, she said, 'It's a good thing they didn't throw you in the slaht for bail money'

They drove a mile in silence

A ghost moon, like a faint ectoplasht, its Cyclops stare brightened

'Maybe talking to a plant isn't just an eccentricity,' Jilly brooded 'Maybe I'm a little off my nut'

North and south of the highway lay dark desolation The cool lunar light could not burn away the stubborn gloom that befell the desert after sundown

'I' to say'

The little jade was proud but also forgiving Of the three men hom Jilly had explored the dysfunctional side of romance, none would have hesitated to turn even her ainst her; each would have used it to -suffering victim of her unreasonable expectations Fred, bless hiames

For a while they rode in co in the high-suction slipstrea by the advertisery snackers west of New Mexico

When they cans of motels and service stations, Jilly exited the interstate She tanked up from a self-serve pump at Union 76