The diner has gone quiet. Every head is turned. Ruthie is still standing by my booth with her arms folded.
"Okay," she says, moving between us. She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Sit down, Fred." Then she turns to me. "I think it's best if you take your food to go."
10
MAGGIE
There are people at the fence. Seven of them and two with actual cameras, the kind with long lenses. Five are younger, maybe late teens, holding up phones. One of them has climbed over my gate and is standing on my driveway.
"Fuck," Sloane mutters behind me. She's stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, her hand covering her mouth. "I didn't think they'd come all the way out here. I thought Duster was too far from anything for the press to bother."
"Apparently not."
The photographers lift their cameras and the shutters fire. The teenagers start jostling for position, holding their phones higher, angling for the shot. One of them waves.
"Sloane! Over here! Can we get a photo?"
"Princess Pigpen!"
I look at Sloane. She's frozen with her jaw tight and her arms crossed and she looks like she wants the ground to swallow her.
"Go back inside," I say, amazed that even I'm capable of feeling a tiny bit of sympathy for her. "I'll deal with them."
I walk across the yard toward the fence. The photographers track me with their cameras, which irritates me because I'm not the story. I've never been the story, and I don't intend to start being the story.
"Can I help you?" I say when I reach the gate. But I don't wait for an answer. I look at the boy on my driveway — a kid in a backwards cap with his phone out. "You. You're on my property. Get off. Now."
He opens his mouth to say something and I point at the gate. He climbs back over without a word.
The taller photographer, a man in his thirties with a press badge clipped to his shirt, lowers his camera. "Hi there. I'm from theBakersfield Californian. We're doing a piece on —"
"I know what you're doing a piece on. This is private property."
"We're on the road, ma'am. This is a public road."
"Your feet are on the road. Your lens is over the fence and technically on my property, so back off or I'll call the police."
"We just want a few photos," the photographer says. "Five minutes. It's a human interest story."
"There's no human interest here. There's a woman doing court-ordered community service, which is a legal matter, not entertainment. And there are animals on this property who are easily stressed by noise, strangers, and cameras. So back off."
"But —"
"No interviews. No photos. This is not a zoo and it's certainly not a reality show."
They shuffle back a bit but don't leave.
I turn and walk back to the house. Sloane is sitting at my kitchen table with her head in her hands, crying.
"I can't go back out there," she says without looking up.
"You'll have to. I don't have any other volunteers today and I can't do everything on my own."
She wipes her face with the back of her hand and looks at me and she looks exhausted and sunburnt.
"You can do Hank first," I say. "He's currently roaming behind the house. They can't see you from the road back there."
She nods and pushes back the chair and follows me out the back door without a word. Hank is standing under the oak tree, watching us approach with his one good eye.
