AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Stormy hesitated justinside the entrance to the flea market. There seemed to be only one decibel level—loud.
Having been shut away for so long, she had forgotten how chaotic people’s movements were en masse, forgotten the bustle and dissonance a crowd created. Which was why, she realized now, prison guards never allowed inmates to gather into groups. Inmates were always shunted into columns, counted, and controlled. She exhaled in an effort to release anxiety.
They walked the sawdust aisles, stopping to admire stacks of hand-woven baskets, racks of earrings, glass cases of watches and rings, clothes of every imaginable kind—from hand-painted T-shirts to lacy lingerie—pottery, china, scarves, plants, and shrubs.
Stormy felt overwhelmed. As each possibility of what to sell came to her, she happened upon a vendor selling it. She began to think this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
The children were happy, enthralled with everything.
In their glittery dresses, hems held up daintily, and shiny shoes, they shuffled over the sawdust and concrete walkways, chattering, admiring and being admired, accepting as their due the comments of passersby.
“Oh, aren’t they darlings.”
“Gee, I used to own a dress like that.”
“How sweet. Remember grandma’s fox fur muff?”
“I remember her hissy fit when the dog ate it.”
Others chuckled at the incongruity of the trio: Liane and Janelle costumed to the nines in feather boas and moth-eaten furs, while Stormy trailed behind dressed in jeans, a white T-shirt knotted at the waist, and her brown hair tucked beneath a baseball cap, looking ready to play shortstop in a sandlot game.
Finally, they came upon the vendor’s office. Stormy took a pamphlet from a box that laid out the rules of the market, the fees, and how to book a space.
“I’m starved,” announced Liane. “My stomach wants me to invest some of my money in curly fries and an orange drink.”
Thinking of the sandwiches in the car, Stormy hesitated. But wanting to reward Liane’s recent maturity and generosity, she gave in gracefully.
At the top of each aisle was a food concession. The smells of hot dogs and french fries seemed to permeate the entire market.
While the girls claimed a vacant picnic table, Stormy stood in line to order their food.
Knowing now the way Tyler operated, she continued to glance over her shoulder until the man behind her in line gave her a beefy smile.
“I ain’t had a good-lookin’ woman starin’ at me like you’re doing in better’n twenty years,” he said. “Is my cologne really working?”
Stormy blushed furiously and mumbled an apology.
Relief mingled with disappointment when Tyler did not appear, and for the rest of the day, Stormy tried to relegate him to a far corner of her mind.
To the utter delight of Liane and Janelle, she decided they should walk the market once more. She took notes, recording the variety of merchandise, which vendors seemed to be the busiest and which aisles bustled with shoppers, and those that did not. She made a leisurely pass at the foot of each long covered corridor into the open grassy lots, where all manner of things, from seedlings to sofas, were being hawked. And before they left, she went back to the market office and reserved a table for the following two weekends.
As she put the receipt into her purse, she felt good, pleased that the aisle she had chosen had an opening. It was awash with vendors of watches, leather goods, socks, perfume, earrings, sunglasses, specialty cosmetics and toiletries, beach towels, and T-shirts, and most of them had been doing a brisk business each time she passed.
Once back in St. Augustine, she stopped to buy soft drinks and drove to a playground near the county library where they could picnic on their now slightly limp sandwiches. For the first time in two days, the girls were willing to part with their costumes so they could play on swings and monkey bars.
As Stormy sat at the picnic table and pored over her notes until dusk, she fully realized the challenge she had set for herself. Specializing in one particular item seemed to be the key to success. If she could just hit on the right product.
Sunday morning unfoldedwith relative calm. Puffy white clouds hung in an azure sky; waves lapped lazily at the shore. The breeze was so gentle it barely rippled the newspaper Stormy was scanning.
She put down the pen with which she’d been circling advertisements for garage sales, closed her eyes, and raised her face to the heavens. It was early yet, and the sun had not yet warmed the deck beyond comfort. Mercy. The times she had dreamed of days like this while in prison.
Beneath the deck floor, which formed the roof over a small patio below, she could hear Liane and Janelle in earnest discussion about how best to catch a lizard.
Behind her, the house was quiet. Tully had gone out early to play golf with a contractor with whom he hoped to do business. Angry at Tully for abandoning her, Nina took herself and the boys to spend the day with another golf widow.
The sky created a kaleidoscope of bursting colors beneath Stormy’s eyelids. She felt deliciously lazy, her mind empty of everything. Everything except Tyler, she realized. It was busy sprouting questions about him.
What had caused him to rush from the Dairy Queen without so much as a parting shot? Why hadn’t he followed her yesterday? Had he broken his pattern in an attempt to keep her off balance?
