* * *
Mr. Lohnegan smiled back at Shelley, although she could not see it underneath his muffler. Mr. Lohnegan could have bought his prescriptions and sundry goods elsewhere, but he really liked Shelley because he did not have to repeat himself or undress to speak with her. Plus, she was always so cheerful without being unpleasantly so. He dealt with too many people in his time that smiled because their jobs required it, but behind the smile, there was only menace. He could see it in their eyes and their smiles became shark’s teeth that were waiting to rip out his throat and he was scared of them. Shelley didn’t scare him so he shopped in Stansbury even though it meant traveling halfway across the state to do so. Of course, halfway across Vermont was not that far in the grand scheme of things and was certainly worth the drive not to have to worry about counter people with vampire smiles who would suck his blood so much as look at him and when then made him remove his muffler to speak with them because they were evil and their smiles grew even wider and hungrier when they saw his face and realized he was frightened of them and recognized that they wanted to devour him. There were times when he thought about removing his muffler for Shelley because she didn’t want to eat him and he could smile back at her and not be afraid but he never did because she never asked him to and she smiled at him anyway and he didn’t have to be afraid of her.
He got back into his car and turned on the air conditioner. It was awfully hot today. He always made sure to drive just perfectly in Stansbury because the deputy would pull him over if he didn’t. There was the deputy up ahead. Normally he would wave at a town deputy but he was afraid to with this one because he didn’t know if he could be pulled over for removing his hand from the steering wheel so he just kept his eyes on the road and headed back to Montpelier.