7
S
UNDAYS IN PARADISE consisted of going to church in the morning, visiting family and friends in the afternoon, and in the spring and summer browsing through the local flea market and garage sales.
The big Segers outdoor flea market was a seasonal event that ran from May through October on four acres of undeveloped land about a half mile out of town. Since anyone could set up a table for two dollars a shot, the flea market was an amiable mix of people cleaning out attics and garages; dealers of coins, cards, comics; collectors looking for a profit; and dealers looking to get rid of slow-selling items.
You could find clothes, used paperbacks, baby items, cookware, records and CDs, tools, furniture, dishes and sometimes even an ancient car.
It was one of Jeannie's favorite places to come on a Sunday after church, and she roused up Carrie with promises of treasure and sun and fun.
“I'd rather go to the lake,” Carrie grumbled.
“You can do that too. Come on. I bet you haven't even had breakfast yet.”
“Just barely.”
“And I suppose you wouldn't call yourself dressed.”
“Not hardly.”
“Shoot You know you have to get there early to get the best stuff.”
“I'm not looking for stuff,” Carrie said.
“You will be,” Jeannie said confidently.
Jeannie was at Carrie's within an hour. As Carrie dressed, Jeannie waited for her in the living room.
Carrie was having trouble coming to grips with Jeannie's new sexy-lady image. The whole time she was dressing, Carrie was debating whether she should say something to Jeannie about the fact that perhaps she was overplaying the sexy-lady thing. Jeannie wore one of the new bodysuits with a sweetheart neckline that displayed her cleavage, one of the long button-front skirts, unbuttoned almost to her thighs, new sandals, new jewelry, and her hair was swept up off her neck. On top of all that, she had on makeup that emphasized her eyes and mouth, a bolder look that so disconcerted Carrie, she finally decided to say something...at least just about the makeup.
“Oh this? I went to Portland the other afternoon, and fell for the line at the makeup counter at Lorstan's. I think it looks pretty good.”
“Pretty different.”
“You're not so bad yourself,” Jeannie said, eyeing Carrie's black jeans and tiger-print tank top. “And it's not as if you don't load up on eyeliner and lipstick yourself.”
“That's true,” Carrie acknowledged. “It just takes some getting used to on you.”
“That's what Eddie said.”
“OhâEddieâ” Carrie motioned her out the door. “How is Eddie taking all this?”
“He doesn't understand it, and he doesn't like it.”
“Becauseâ?”
“He doesn't understand it. And I sayâ
good.”
Carrie thought it best to leave the subject alone for now, and changed the topic.
“You know,” Carrie said as she opened the car door, “I keep thinking you dream up these little side trips to prevent me from zooming around town on my cycle.”
“You're right,” Jeannie said. “When you're right, you're right. Butâif you ever went to a flea market and found the perfect, oh, lamp, how would you get it home?”
“I'd call on my friends, of course,” Carrie said lightly as Jeannie backed the car up the track and turned onto the road.
“So how's Truck doing?” Jeannie asked casually after a few minutes.
Carrie's heart started pounding. She wondered if Jeannie knew anything, if Jeannie could have seen anything from her house. Oh damn. It was probably the most innocent question. Still, if such an innocent question could make her feel so guilty, it was yet another reason not to let herself get much more entangled with Truck.
Oh? Much
more?
She kept pushing down the rising desire she felt every time she thought about last nightâassuming she hadn't dreamed last night...
“Truck?” Her voice sounded normal, if a little high. “He's doing fine, I guess. He was away last week, did you know?”
“Yep, I did. Story about it in the paper. They pulled in a dozen companies from all over the state to salvage that pipeline.”
So what did you mean by that question, Jeannie?
They were rolling through the main street of Segers, past the bank and post office, the auto store, and the radio
station. Jeannie turned left, and immediately they came upon a line of cars that stretched up the road.
“Whoa. A lot of people today. We might just as well try to park where we can and walk over.”
The field was covered with vendors' tables and people wandering around. Jeannie, it turned out, was an avid collector of kitchen accessories from the fifties, and she was off and running the minute they got to the edge of the field.
Carrie drifted up and down the aisles, looking at books, crafts, a booth selling old jeans.
Old jeans! She who used to shop in designer stores for casual clothes.
...looking
at used jeans?
Well, it was time to learn to be frugal, she thought as she bought a pair of worn bleached-out jeans that were as soft as a baby blanket. She bought some paperback novels, and a large shallow bowl because she liked its shape.
“That's beginning to look a little permanent.”
Carrie wheeled around, her heart pounding.
Truck. Right over her shoulder. Looming. Luscious. No man had a right to look that good this early in the afternoon. He was dressed all in blue today, wearing a cotton shirt tucked into his jeans with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, cursing the tremble in her voice.
“Meeting and greeting the neighbors. And I collect old tools. I don't expect you knew that.”
“No.” Carrie noticed that other women, old and young, were also looking at him, and why not? He was so magnetic, he radiated such a sensual aura she almost couldn't stand it. Her mind suddenly went blank and she couldn't think of a thing to say to Truck. Nothing
that would keep him by her side or that would give her any clue as to whether she might see him later.
The vendor handed her the bag with her bowl. Carrie shoved the books and jeans on top of it, frantically searching for something to say.
“I came with Jeannie,” she blurted out after a long silence.
Truck's eyes darkened, but he couldn't think of a comeback that wouldn't cause the three old ladies beside them to have a heart attack. Carrie looked good enough to eat, and that formfitting top and jeans she wore only fired up his imagination all over again, but all he said was, “Yeah, what is with Jeannie? She's wearing skirts these days. And makeup. I don't know how radical that is, but she looks a damn sight prettier and sexier.”
“She does, doesn't she? Think Eddie cares?”
Truck hesitated a minute. Everyone knew Eddie didn't care. “No,” he said finally.
“Think Tom does?” Carrie asked, motioning toward where Jeannie stood talking to him. Tom looked as if he was positively hanging on Jeannie's every word. And she was doing that intense eye contact, and listening. All the things that came under the banner of the tricks of the sexy ladyâtricks that might lose her husband.
“Yeah, I do. But that's Jeannie's problem.”
Maybe not. Maybe it's mine, because I let it go too far...
Truck touched her arm, startling her. “I have to go get Old Man.”
“Okay.” It wasn't. She wanted him to stay. No, to take her home and do all the things with her he had done last night. She watched him stride away, a man with purpose who loved his father and was content with his life.
Everyone knew him and called out greetings, and he
stopped to talk to one or the other of them as he made his way from the field to his car. He could have seen them all yesterday, Carrie thought, and he was just as happy to see them today.
“Oh, I didn't get a chance to talk to Trucker,” Jeannie said, coming up beside her. “Everything okay? Old Man?”
“He was just going to pick him up from somewhere. What about you?” Carrie asked quickly, not wanting to talk about Truck with Jeannie.
“Oh, I have a load of stuffâTom's watching it for me. C'mon, he'll help us load up. What'd you come up with?”
“Books, a bowl, some jeans.”
“Hey,” Jeannie said with a grin, “some haul for someone who wasn't in a buying mood.”
“It's fun,” Carrie said. “I wouldn't mind coming again.”
They got everything back to the car in due course, stopping along the way so Jeannie could chat with friends. She looked so happy, so confident that Carrie was just a little scared.
Uplift didn't work in quite that way, quite that fast, she didn't think. But certainly Tom was aware of it, of Jeannie's body and her smile, her thick hair shining in the sun, and her focus on him.
“You really got those sexy-lady lessons down,” Carrie commented as they drove home.
“They work,” Jeannie said. “Maybe not on everyone. But they work.”
Carrie hesitated. She wanted to say something, she wasn't sure she should. Finally, she murmured, “Be careful. You might be playing with fire.”
“Well, guess what, Carrie,” Jeannie said, and there
was no acrimony in her tone. “Maybe it's nice to feel hot for a change.”
Carrie's heart sank. If something happened between Jeannie and Eddie, if they separated, or Jeannie left him, she would know the reason why...and Carrie would be the one responsible.
Â
THE HOUSE WAS STARTING to look habitable. Now that things had aired out, and she'd replaced some of the sheets and towels and bought new blankets, pillows and a wonderful old bowl, the house seemed warmer, more inviting, but so very quiet...and lonely.
People visited family on Sunday and went out to dinner with friends. She remembered that from before; she and her mother had no family, and all her mother's friends had other obligations, so they'd usually spent Sundays together, making dinner, listening to music.
Sundays had been particularly hard on her mother. Her mother had been too lonely too long, Sundays had always brought it home.
Carrie placed the bowl on the coffee table, and the stack of paperbacks beside it. She could read tonight or listen to the radio. She didn't miss having a TV, and that shocked her a little. Instead she was spending the time on-line, searching job banks and networking across the country. Not that it had yielded anything yet Still, she'd only been out of circulation a little more than two weeks.
Two weeks! Only two weeks, and already her life had been turned inside out all over again.
She could not let her desire for Truck get in the way of anything else.
Easier said, she thought, curling up on the couch. It wasn't as if there were some on-off switch. It was more like she was stuck on permanent burn.
And then last nightâ
oh, last night...
...Is this what you want? And this...?
She felt herself heating up.
This...
She jumped up from the couch. She had to stop thinking about him. She needed a cold shower
...and a hot man
â
She drew in a sharp breath. Lord, Truck had her coming and going.
Enough of that...
...Did you think I got enough of you...?
Did she ever think that her feelings for him were just lying dormant and that they would blaze up into this allconsuming conflagration?
No. No. That was the trap. That was the bait. You got so sexually entangled with a man that you got tied up in marriage and motherhood, and so constricted and constrained that there was no room for anything else.
And then fifteen years later, you woke up, like Jeannie, and discovered you weren't living the life you thought you were.
Dear God, how must Jeannie have felt when Carrie had come back to town, fresh off of a glamorous life in New York?
Suddenly Carrie felt a burst of frustration like she'd done nothing right since she came back to town. And for someone who didn't want to stay, she was getting awfully involved with Jeannie and Truck. Well, that would end soon. Something would turn up. And what was happening with Truck was just a side issue. There was no question. Career came first. But still...after yesterday, didn't she feel sometimes, truly, she would give it all up...for Truck?
She groaned. Maybe, in her deepest heart, she was trying to find a way to have everything she wanted, even though she knew it wasn't possible.