“I just felt a little dizzy, that’s all. I’ll be fine.” I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear with a shaky hand.

“Oh, no. No way. You might think you’ll be fine, but you just fainted. You sit there for a minute and then you’re goin’ home.” Betty’s voice was as large as her oversized body. Every person in the room heard her proclamation.

“Seriously?” Suzanne asked, sounding like a toddler on the verge of a fit. “I asked you four times already if I could leave early to get a head start on my weekend and you said no. All Freaky Rose has to do is beat her head on her desk and she gets to go? That hardly seems fair.”

Betty put her hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes. “Suzanne,” she drew her name out slowly as if she were talking to a small child. “Rose never calls in sick and hardly ever takes a day off. You, on the other hand, call in all the time and have used all your vacation days. But next time you wanna leave early, I’ll let you go. As long as you beat your head on your desk first.”

“Yeah, well, the only reason she never takes time off is because she doesn’t have a life.” Suzanne eyed me as if I were a cockroach about to scurry across the floor.

Betty scowled then surveyed the room, taking in the gawkers lined up against the counter. “All right, show’s over, folks. Y’all get back in your seat unless your number’s been called.”

The crowd broke up, people grumbling and whispering. No sane person balked at Betty’s orders, not even the fuming Suzanne. Her eyes shot flaming arrows of hate toward me as she fluffed her bleached blonde hair.

Suzanne leaned toward me and hissed. “Don’t think I’m not on to you, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes.”

I turned toward her in surprise. I had no idea what she meant. But then again, I suspected she didn’t either. My clammy palm rested on Mr. Crocker’s paperwork, reminding me I hadn’t finished processing it. But as my head swiveled around and searched the room, I saw he was gone.

I couldn’t understand that. Why would he just abandon his personal papers?

I sat at my desk trying to slow my galloping heart and glanced down at the paperwork. His first name was Daniel and he lived on Highway 82. I tried to memorize the address, knowing that if I wrote it down, Suzanne would catch me and make a big deal about it. I told myself I was crazy, or paranoid. Or both. My demon possession had branched out into new areas.

I grabbed my purse and headed out. I pushed open the heavy metal door, searching for Mr. Crocker before I entered the humid parking lot. Nothing. I shook my head at my over-active imagination. Seriously, Rose. My visions didn’t always come true and this one seemed too preposterous to consider. The logical explanation to his leaving was that I freaked him out. Just like I freaked out everyone else in Henryetta.

Nevertheless, when I reached my car, I looked around for signs of someone preparing to jump out and grab me. Where should I go? If I went home, Momma would ask questions. I’d rather give Suzanne’s hammer-toed feet a pedicure than face that. I turned left, toward the edge of town. A visit to my sister sounded like a good idea.

Violet lived in a new neighborhood on the outskirts of town, still in the city limits but hanging on the edge like it couldn’t make up its mind. She lived in a new house, my older sister’s dream come true. She hated the one we grew up in, the old and worn-out home I still shared with our Momma. It only needed a little tender loving care, but Momma insisted it was a waste of time and money to paint and add fresh curtains. Not to mention that in her eyes, it was greedy. Momma tried to avoid the seven deadly sins like they were Satan himself.

Violet lived in a cookie-cutter replica of every other home on her street. The houses were only a couple of years old, each one in various pastel shades. Most of the yards were bare of landscaping, with just an occasional tiny tree here and there. But Violet took great pride in her home, and flowerbeds full of red begonias lined the walk from the driveway to the front door and the backyard was bursting with more. Violet loved flowers.

I parked my old Chevy Nova in the driveway. It was Daddy’s old car. It became mine after he died during my freshman year in college, when Momma made me drop out of school to take care of her. The car was old, but well maintained. Not that it mattered. I didn't drive it much. I had nowhere to go. Or, more accurately, Momma said I had nowhere to go.

My knuckles rapped the metal door. I didn't want to ring the doorbell for fear I’d wake up my niece and nephew from their naps. The door swung open, and the shock of my unexpected visit was written on Violet’s face.

“Rose! What on earth are you doin’ here at this time of day?” She gripped the edge of the door with one hand and held a dishtowel in the other. She looked like one of those greeting cards of women from the fifties, only those were spoofs and Violet was the real thing.

Not that I was making fun of her. Violet was everything I longed to be. Pretty. Married. A mother. Free.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you, Violet,” I said with a sigh, “but I wasn’t sure where else to go.”

Violet’s eyes widened with concern and she moved out of the entrance. “Of course. Come on in.” She led the way to the small kitchen where the mouth-watering smell of chocolate chip cookies greeted me. A mixing bowl sat on her tiny kitchen island, along with a cooling rack covered in a fresh batch of cookies.

I perched on a bar stool in front of the island and snatched a cookie so fresh that it folded over as I lifted it from the rack.