Hope you don't mind me butting in. I can't participate when you are discussing it (night time in sweden and i'm sleeping hopefully) so thought i should give you my little modest bit now instead. I really like this story. First the describtion of the couple and his stubbornness in admiting they are getting lost and then when the stars start to come forward. Janis as a waitress and Elvis as the major of the whole community where my faves. My only little wonderment.. That other waitress, (she was a waitress right, suddenly i'm not sure, i mean the one who warned them to get out) was she a part of the original community or some star King didn't name? Anyway i enjoyed it very much.
I think she was (like them) someone who was passing through and just got caught there by the members of the town.
Kurben, I agree with Neesy on this point. I think she was traveling and needed a place to stop. What could be more safe than a Norman Rockwell type town?
Yes-and at the end Mary asked her how long she'd been there.
I was just remembering too, Sissy's cold sore and blood-shot eyes made her seem "alive/real" to me.