if she smacked that handsome, teasing face, if she blew up her sister's trailer home and herself with it, she could plead temporary insanity.
The thought cheered her slightly.
In the back seat Jack was smiling and commenting on topics of likely interest to the adults in the car-billboards, cows and license plates, mostly. Apparently he'd recently mastered the alphabet and was taken with the letter Q, because, he explained, you didn't see it a lot. Also J, because it was in his name, and R, for no particular reason that Kate could discern. She began to feel better. Maybe this visit wasn't such a bad idea after all.
She turned off the highway, following a sign that mentioned no major cities and a road that went nowhere, and her brief optimism faded. Dark pines gave way to red fields of new tobacco and foot-high com. She slowed through the town of Clayton , stopping at its one traffic light, and took the right fork to the Blue Moon Trailer Park.
Nothing ever changed. A truck on cinder blocks, a dog tied in the front yard, a rusting swing set by a desiccated garden plot could have been left from her childhood. Clothes still dried on sagging lines, and incurious eyes watched from slatted windows. Kate stopped the car in front of a gray single-wide with a bicycle out front, her old surroundings resurrecting old insecurities in the pit of her stomach.
Years and accomplishments meant nothing here. Her mother's trailer—her sister's, now—boasted a shiny new television antenna and a nice view of the pine woods and creek. The only other man she'd ever brought here had taken one look around and drawled, "Kathryn, darling, you didn't tell me you knew the Clampetts ."
Things had pretty much gone downhill from there, Kate remembered with a shiver. After Patrick's crack about her car and his recoil at her choice of radio station, she didn't even glance at him to see his reaction to her girlhood home.
She hesitated before turning off the engine, as if planning a quick getaway. She had never belonged here. But her years here had shaped her, marked her, made her unfit for anywhere else. Right before Wade Preston left for Baltimore, her lover had taken pains to point out that Katie Sue from Blue Moon Trailer Park could have no place in the rarefied world the Prestons inhabited by right.
The trailer's screen door opened. Like a princess in a fairy tale emerging from an enchanted cottage, Amy appeared, and Kate's transformation into a brainy toad was complete.
"Katie!"
Her sister's face was alight with pleasure. She posed a moment at the top of the rickety steps, the sunlight striking through her flowered skirt to reveal slender legs. And then she drifted down, her blond hair in perfect disarray, her hands with their sprinkling of silver rings outstretched.
"I'm so glad you finally came. Billy's been up since six waiting for you."
Inside Kate, a small kernel of warmth unfolded at her sister's welcome. The screen door screeched, and five-year-old Billy whirled down the stairs, yelling, " I saw you first! I saw your car!"
Squaring her shoulders to banish her ghosts, Kate got out of the car and smiled at her nephew. "Hey, squirt."
Billy tackled her legs.
Amy floated over to envelope her in slim, tanned arms and a cloud of True Love cologne. Her head turned as she smiled over her shoulder. "And you must be Patrick."
Heart sinking, Kate waited for the inevitable male reaction to her sister: dilated pupils, macho stance, drool. Amy never stayed in any one relationship for long. Since her divorce from Billy's father three years ago, she'd been madly in love with four men that Kate could remember. She saw in each man, each new beginning, the relationship she'd been waiting for. And every man saw in her blond prettiness the embodiment of his own fantasies.
"Nice to meet you," Patrick said blandly.
His large hand briefly engulfed her sister's dainty one before he stepped back beside Kate. His thigh, warm and solid, nudged her hip.
The thought cheered her slightly.
In the back seat Jack was smiling and commenting on topics of likely interest to the adults in the car-billboards, cows and license plates, mostly. Apparently he'd recently mastered the alphabet and was taken with the letter Q, because, he explained, you didn't see it a lot. Also J, because it was in his name, and R, for no particular reason that Kate could discern. She began to feel better. Maybe this visit wasn't such a bad idea after all.
She turned off the highway, following a sign that mentioned no major cities and a road that went nowhere, and her brief optimism faded. Dark pines gave way to red fields of new tobacco and foot-high com. She slowed through the town of Clayton , stopping at its one traffic light, and took the right fork to the Blue Moon Trailer Park.
Nothing ever changed. A truck on cinder blocks, a dog tied in the front yard, a rusting swing set by a desiccated garden plot could have been left from her childhood. Clothes still dried on sagging lines, and incurious eyes watched from slatted windows. Kate stopped the car in front of a gray single-wide with a bicycle out front, her old surroundings resurrecting old insecurities in the pit of her stomach.
Years and accomplishments meant nothing here. Her mother's trailer—her sister's, now—boasted a shiny new television antenna and a nice view of the pine woods and creek. The only other man she'd ever brought here had taken one look around and drawled, "Kathryn, darling, you didn't tell me you knew the Clampetts ."
Things had pretty much gone downhill from there, Kate remembered with a shiver. After Patrick's crack about her car and his recoil at her choice of radio station, she didn't even glance at him to see his reaction to her girlhood home.
She hesitated before turning off the engine, as if planning a quick getaway. She had never belonged here. But her years here had shaped her, marked her, made her unfit for anywhere else. Right before Wade Preston left for Baltimore, her lover had taken pains to point out that Katie Sue from Blue Moon Trailer Park could have no place in the rarefied world the Prestons inhabited by right.
The trailer's screen door opened. Like a princess in a fairy tale emerging from an enchanted cottage, Amy appeared, and Kate's transformation into a brainy toad was complete.
"Katie!"
Her sister's face was alight with pleasure. She posed a moment at the top of the rickety steps, the sunlight striking through her flowered skirt to reveal slender legs. And then she drifted down, her blond hair in perfect disarray, her hands with their sprinkling of silver rings outstretched.
"I'm so glad you finally came. Billy's been up since six waiting for you."
Inside Kate, a small kernel of warmth unfolded at her sister's welcome. The screen door screeched, and five-year-old Billy whirled down the stairs, yelling, " I saw you first! I saw your car!"
Squaring her shoulders to banish her ghosts, Kate got out of the car and smiled at her nephew. "Hey, squirt."
Billy tackled her legs.
Amy floated over to envelope her in slim, tanned arms and a cloud of True Love cologne. Her head turned as she smiled over her shoulder. "And you must be Patrick."
Heart sinking, Kate waited for the inevitable male reaction to her sister: dilated pupils, macho stance, drool. Amy never stayed in any one relationship for long. Since her divorce from Billy's father three years ago, she'd been madly in love with four men that Kate could remember. She saw in each man, each new beginning, the relationship she'd been waiting for. And every man saw in her blond prettiness the embodiment of his own fantasies.
"Nice to meet you," Patrick said blandly.
His large hand briefly engulfed her sister's dainty one before he stepped back beside Kate. His thigh, warm and solid, nudged her hip.
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