Part 19 (1/2)

”Thanks. I just finished them.” Meg slipped them from her ears and held them up. ”The beads are Tibetan Sherpa coral. Quite old. I love the way the colors have worn.”

”What about that necklace?” another woman asked. ”It's very unusual.”

”It's a Chinese needle case,” Meg said, ”from the Chin people of Southeast Asia. Over a hundred years old.”

”Imagine owning something like that. Are you selling your work?”

”Gosh, I hadn't really thought about it.”

”I want those earrings,” Diet Pepsi said.

”How much for the necklace?” another golfer asked.

Just like that, she was in business.

The women loved the idea of owning a beautiful piece of jewelry that doubled as a historical artifact, and by the following weekend, Meg had sold another three items. She was scrupulously honest about authenticity, and she attached a card to each design doc.u.menting its provenance. She noted which materials were genuine antiquities, which might be copies, and she adjusted her prices accordingly.

Kayla heard about what she was doing and ordered some pieces on consignment for her resale shop. Things were going almost too well.

After two long weeks away, Ted showed up at the church. He was barely inside the door before they were pulling at each other's clothes. Neither of them had the patience to negotiate the stairs to the hot choir loft. Instead, they fell on the couch she'd recently rescued from the Dumpster at the club. Ted cursed as he banged against the wicker arm, but it didn't take him long to forget his discomfort and focus all his brainpower on remedying the mysterious flaws in his lovemaking technique.

She gave in to him as she always did. They rolled from the couch to the hard floor. The fans stirred the air over their naked bodies as he went through all the steps in the s.e.x instruction video he must play in his head. Lights flashed, a sweeping arc across the tin ceiling. She clung to him. Begged. Commanded. Gave in.

When they were done, he sounded both wrung out and a little peevish. ”Was that good enough for you?”

”Dear G.o.d, yes!”

”d.a.m.n right. Five! And don't try to deny it.”

”Stop counting my o.r.g.a.s.ms.”

”I'm an engineer. I like statistics.”

She smiled and nudged him. ”Help me move my bed downstairs. It's too hot to sleep up there.”

She shouldn't have introduced the subject because he jumped off the couch. ”It's too hot everywhere in this place. And that's not a bed, it's a fricking futon, which would be fine if we were nineteen, but we're not.”

She tuned out his very un-Ted-like rant to enjoy the unrestricted views of his body. ”I finally have furniture, so quit complaining.”

The ladies' locker room had recently been refurbished, and she'd been able to snag the castoffs. The worn wicker pieces and old lamps looked right at home in her church, but he didn't seem impressed. A fragment of memory distracted her from her visual survey, and she came up off the floor. ”I saw lights.”

”Glad to hear it.”

”No. When we were going at each other ...” When you were going at me. When you were going at me. ”I saw headlights. I think somebody drove up to the church.” ”I saw headlights. I think somebody drove up to the church.”

”I didn't hear anything.” But he pulled on his shorts and went outside to look. She followed him and saw only her car and his truck.

”If anybody was here,” he said, ”they had the good sense to leave.”

The idea that someone might have seen them together made her uneasy. She was allowed to pretend to be in love with Ted. But she didn't want anybody to know it might be more than pretense.

s.e.x with a legendary lover wasn't as fulfilling as she'd like, but two days later, she sold her most expensive piece, a blue gla.s.s Roman cabochon she'd wrapped with fine silver, using a technique she'd learned from a silversmith in Nepal. Her life was going too well, and she was almost relieved when she left the club the next evening and discovered someone had keyed the Rustmobile.

The scratch was long and deep, running from front fender to trunk, but considering the car's overall dilapidated condition, hardly a catastrophe. Then other cars started honking at her for no reason. She couldn't figure it out until she spotted the crude b.u.mper stickers plastered on the back.

I'm Not Free but I'm Cheap Mean People Suck. I Swallow Ted found her crouched down in the employees' parking lot, trying to peel off the disgusting stickers. She didn't mean to yell, but she couldn't hold it back. ”Why would somebody do this?”

”Because they're creeps. Here. Let me.”

His gentleness as he moved her aside nearly undid her. She grabbed for a tissue in her purse and blew her nose. ”It's not my idea of a joke.”

”Mine either,” he replied.

She turned away as he began methodically peeling up the edges of the second sticker. ”People in this town are mean,” she said.

”Kids. That doesn't excuse it, though.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. The sprinklers went on in the flower beds. She blew her nose a second time.

”Hey, are you crying?” he asked.

She wasn't exactly, but she was close. ”I'm not a crier. Never have been. Never will be.” She'd had so little to cry about until the past few months.

He must not have believed her because he rose and set his hands on her shoulders. ”You've put up with Arlis Hoover, and you've put up with me. You can handle this.”

”It's just so ... nasty.”

He brushed her hair with his lips. ”It only says something about the kid who did it.”

”Maybe it wasn't a kid. There are so many people here who don't like me.”

”Fewer all the time,” he said quietly. ”You've stood up to everybody, and that's earned you some respect.”

”I don't know why I even care.”

His expression grew so tender she wanted to weep. ”Because you're trying to build something for yourself,” he said. ”With no help from anybody.”

”You help me.”

”How?” He dropped his hand, once again frustrated with her. ”You won't let me do anything. You won't even let me take you out to dinner.”

”Setting aside the issue of Sunny Skipjack l.u.s.ting after you, I don't need everybody in this town knowing a sinner like me is getting it on with their sainted mayor.”

”You're being paranoid. The only reason I've put up with it is because I've been out of town the past couple of weeks.”

”Nothing's going to change now that you're back. Our secret fling is staying that way.”