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  When she reached Dan’s farm, she noticed the silver car parked down by the crossroads. She stopped in her tracks, then cautiously continued her walk. Along the way she pretended to photograph the cows in the field, the dog running ahead of her, the flowers blooming in the ditch. She got within a few hundred feet of the car before it drove off along the crossroad. Through her camera lens, she saw that it was as she’d thought, a Toyota Celica GT, but because the roadside grass had grown so high, she couldn’t read the license plate.

  She would have sworn that a woman was driving and wondered why the car was there when Beth wasn’t around—although Beth had been at the farm that morning with Matt, when Nicky was helping Margo.

  Nicky turned toward home. Meg and Natalie and Dan would probably be late. They usually stopped to eat after the show. On show days Dan asked his widowed father, who lived close by, to milk the cows. She decided to eat a sandwich and go to bed.

  Startled awake by Scrappy’s sharp bark, his toenails scrabbling for purchase as he dashed from the room, Nicky heard Natalie and Meg enter the house. She turned over and drifted back into a dream. Then, sensing someone in the bedroom, she snapped awake. Rolling onto her back, she recognized Meg standing next to the bed and muttered, “Why are you so late? Did you have truck trouble?”

  “I’m glad you’re awake.” The edge of the bed sagged under Meg’s weight.

  “I’m only awake because you woke me up.” Nicky switched on the bedside lamp.

  “You should have been there to take pictures.” Meg grinned, her teeth white against her tan face. “I was high point amateur. This was a Quarter Horse show. Do you know how tough it is to show Quarter Horse and do any good?”

  “No,” Nicky admitted, propping herself up on

  pillows. She felt too vulnerable lying down. “I couldn’t go.” She had, for economy’s sake, temporarily abandoned her planned series of horse show photographs.

  “Here.” Meg reached into her jeans pocket and dumped a pile of money on the bed. “Sorry it’s late.”

  Nicky picked up the bills and straightened them, unable to quell the urge to count them. “There’s a hundred and five dollars here.” Nicky held out the extra five.

  “You keep it. Consider it a late fee. They paid five dollars a point. Not bad, huh?” She laughed happily. “I filled Dan’s truck and bought us all dinner. I want to celebrate.” She stretched out on the bed next to Nicky as if that was where she belonged.

  “Congratulations,” Nicky said, then added, “You smell like Brittle.”

  “I’ll take a shower and be back. Okay?”

  “No, it’s not okay. Sleep on the couch if you want.”

  When she next opened her eyes, it was because Meg was kissing her. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What I wanted to do ever since I first saw you at that gas station.” Meg brushed her soft lips over Nicky’s face, creating tantalizing chills of pleasure.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” Nicky said, twisting in Meg’s arms.

  Starting in one corner, Meg slowly kissed the length of Nicky’s mouth. “I know.”

  Reluctantly, hesitantly, Nicky parted her lips. Then she remembered. “The door…”

  “It’s shut,” Meg said, breathing the words into her mouth.

  As Meg cupped her breast, Nicky thought that was where Beth’s hand belonged. She asked, “Have you noticed that car parked down by the crossroads west of here?”

  “What? No.”

  “It’s a Toyota Celica. It was there today with a woman in it.” Nicky was puzzled by that woman. She had expected the dangerous client to be a man.

  Meg’s hand stopped in mid-caress. She released Nicky and backed out of bed. “You’ve seen this car before?”

  As she watched Meg pick up her clothes and start pulling them on, she wasn’t sure whether she felt relief or disappointment or maybe a mixture of both with some guilt thrown in. Meg’s body was shaped like an hourglass, with high, firm breasts, a flat belly, long muscular thighs. “Yes. It’s often there when Beth’s here and follows her when she leaves.”

  “Why do you think this person’s after Beth?”

  “I don’t know. I thought it might be one of her clients, like in that awful movie Cape Fear.” She put her hands behind her head. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow if I’m still alive.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Make sure Dan and Nattie take care of Brittle. Sorry about this.”

  A bit melodramatic, Nicky thought. She fell asleep with her hand between her legs. Once she had thought masturbation a wonderful release. Now it bored her.

  Beth’s arrival the next morning brought Nicky back to reality. Knowing that Meg was interested in her and that she had nearly succumbed to that interest made her less demanding, less angry. She was glad that Meg had not shown up yet. She needed time alone with Beth. Meg’s parting words, she thought, were probably as unreliable as Meg herself.

  Discovering that lovemaking kept her anxieties at bay, Nicky prolonged it for as long as she could. That afternoon, gratified by a surfeit of sex, she and Beth sunbathed on a blanket in the front yard. But Nicky could not chase worry away for long. “I have to go to the unemployment office tomorrow and file.”

  Beth lay belly down next to her, her face resting on her arms. “Have you sent out any resumes?”

  “About fifty.” It was more than a slight exaggeration. She could smell the coconut in the suntan lotion Beth was using. Her heart began its panicky beat. “Haven’t heard a word from any of them.”

  “Well, give it a little time.”

  “I got a book from the library about interviews. If they ask me any of those stupid questions, I’ll laugh.”

  “That’ll get you hired,” Beth remarked sarcastically.

  She told Beth about Natalie and Dan and the restaurant idea. “Mom’s in a frenzy. She claims Dan’s too old for Nattie, but I think if he was a doctor, she wouldn’t care about the nine years between them. She has preconceived notions of farmers. She doesn’t want Nattie to spend her life raising hordes of children, milking cows and collecting eggs.”

  “Come on, Nicky. Doesn’t your mother belong to the League of Women Voters and work for pro-choice groups? I thought she was a flaming liberal.”

  “She’s still a snob, though, about her family. She’ll fight for the underdog, but she doesn’t necessarily want her daughter to marry one.”

  The phone rang and Nicky raced inside, catching it before the answering machine clicked on. It was her mother.

  “Is Natalie around, dear?”

  “No, Mom.” She had gone off with Dan earlier in the day.

  “Did she tell you that we suggested she get a degree in restaurant management?”

  “She told me she wanted to stay here.”

  “And take courses at the Tech.” Her mother sounded resigned. “Well, tell her we’ll talk to her soon.”

  “I will. You okay, Mom?”

  “Busy. How’s work?”

  “All right.” Nicky flushed at the lie. Sooner or later her parents would find out the Art Barn was closing its doors.

  As Nicky hung up, Beth came inside to change. When Beth dropped her swimsuit, Nicky pounced on her and pushed her backwards onto the bed. She buried her face in Beth’s neck, inhaling the suntan lotion. “You smell like summer.”

  Beth wrapped her arms and legs around Nicky. Tasting Beth’s nipples, salty with sweat, Nicky emitted a low, lustful growl.

  “Where’s Meg?” Beth buried her fingers in Nicky’s dark hair.

  The question gave Nicky pause to remember her guilt. She lifted her head from between Beth’s breasts. “It’s not my day to watch her.” Then, starting to work her way down Beth’s body, she said, “I love sweaty women.”

  “I’ve got one more question before I surrender. Have you told your parents about the Art Barn being sold?” She tugged at Nicky’s hair, forcing her head up.

  “No,”
she replied after a brief pause. “I don’t want to disappoint them. I don’t want them to offer me money. I don’t want their disapproval. I don’t want them to know. Pick one or all of the above.” She lowered her head again, determined not to lose her focus.

  Beth pulled her closer and peeled off her suit. “You’d think we’d had enough sex for one day.”

  “I’ll never get enough,” she murmured, as she settled on top of Beth. They were a perfect fit, she thought. When their breasts met, so did their bellies and their mouths. She nibbled Beth’s lips, then kissed her. “You taste like an orange.” Beginning a slow pelvic thrust, she felt Beth move with her.

  “Spread yourself,” she whispered and shifted her weight. Her fingers slid gently over the taut, sensitive skin. She heard Beth’s sharp intake of breath, felt her quiver under her touch. Her excitement fed her own.

  After a few moments, Beth turned onto her side. “You spread yourself,” she said thickly and reversed herself so that they were heads to tails.

  Rolling, first one on top, then the other, they used their tongues and fingers to elicit an ecstasy that only came with practice and familiarity. As they surged toward climax, she thought there was nothing quite like this. It took her to another level where thought merged into sensation and pleasure overrode reason. She couldn’t have stopped their headlong rush toward orgasm had her mother walked into the room.

  ***

  Beth left around ten that night. Nicky was sitting in the dark on the front porch, one hand resting on Scrappy, when Natalie came in a half-hour later and found her there. “Mom called this afternoon, wanting to talk to you,” Nicky said, looking at the shadow of her younger sister.

  “She’s afraid I’ll marry Dan.”

  “Is that a possibility?”

  “Maybe sometime. I’d live with him first. Do you mind my staying here and going to the Tech this fall?” Natalie sat down.

  Smiling, Nicky teased, “Not as long as you cook for me.”

  “You’re my guinea pig. Why are you sitting out here in the dark?”

  “Thinking.”

  “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  Nicky felt Natalie’s eyes on her. “Nope. Everything’s hunky-dory,” she lied, wondering why she always tried to hide her own failures from her family—even the small ones, even the ones that were not her fault—never giving them the chance to be a source of strength for her.

  Chapter Seven

  Nicky delayed going to the employment opportunities office until midmorning on Monday. Natalie was making bread and watching the clock, while Nicky sat at the kitchen table in a splash of sunlight with a magazine spread in front of her and a cup of coffee cooling next to it. An August breeze through open windows mingled the scent of yeast with that of the roses growing along the edge of the garden. She wondered if the importance of life could be boiled down to a few moments of sensuous pleasure—minds meeting during a moment of passion, a photograph so piercingly clear as to be brilliant, a breathtaking view, a meaningful exchange of confidences, an odor that defined the season and embodied good memories.

  “Are you expecting someone?” she finally asked, as Natalie shot another glance at the clock on the stove. Did Dan usually come over after milking? The look of annoyance on Natalie’s face prompted her to say, “All right, I’m going.”

  After a quick shower, she gathered her purse and went out the door to the truck. Thinking that she had touched bottom, Nicky parked outside the unemployment compensation office on Monroe Street. For a few moments, she eyed the activity in the parking lot. Then, drawing a deep breath, she stepped out of the truck. Inside, block walls supported shelves on which people filled out pink forms and fingered worn telephone books. She felt as bleak as the building looked. A line of rather grim-faced men and women shuffled toward a single opening behind a counter.

  In an adjoining room a TV offered video instructions to empty chairs. Nicky sat in one and listened to parts A and B of the video. She filled out a pink form and stood in line between two people who apparently knew each other. They talked around her until she changed places with the one in front of her. Fishing her social security card out of her purse, she studied faces to see how she fit in. The variety of age, shape, dress and hair dismayed her.

  Forty minutes later, she reached the window and met the nut-brown gaze of the tall, thin woman on the other side of the counter. Nicky handed over the pink form and read the name plate: D. Carpenter.

  The woman looked like she had sharp edges. Her brown frizzy hair gave her a startled appearance.

  “How long does it usually take to get benefits?” Nicky added, “This is my first time here.”

  The woman’s eyes darted down the form. “Well, first you’ll get a claim card in the mail to fill out and send in. Maybe two weeks, if all goes well and you qualify. Sign here.” She handed Nicky a booklet on filing for unemployment compensation. “Read this. It’ll tell you all about it.” Smiling, showing long white teeth, she said, “Good luck.”

  Nicky crossed the hall to the door marked Job Service Division, the state employment agency, where she read the notices on the bulletin board, filled out an employment application form and waited in line nearly an hour to talk to an agent.

  A plump, pleasant-faced lady took the application form from her and offered her a chair, then studied Nicky’s qualifications. “You’re a photographer?” She appraised Nicky from behind wire-rimmed glasses. Her glossy red lips and rouge-brightened cheeks gave her a cheerful, clown-like appearance. “And you’ve worked in retail?” She took in Nicky’s nod and glanced down again. “You frame pictures?”

  “Yes.” Nicky explained, “I’m a photographer, I do framing, I develop black-and-white film. I worked in an art gallery.” She supposed that could be construed as retail.

  “When something comes up, we’ll call or send you a card,” the woman told her. “I don’t have anything now, but jobs in retail open up all the time.”

  Nicky had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t be allowed to refuse a job and still collect unemployment benefits, which meant she could end up selling lingerie at Dayton’s. She shivered at the thought.

  Out the door with the rest of the day in front of her, gulping in the fresh air, she drove around for a while before realizing that she was needlessly burning gasoline. Was that how she was going to spend her life now, she wondered, worrying about the cost of every move she made, everything she did?

  Driving toward the farm, it occurred to her that now she had time to make some improvements. The barn needed scraping and painting. But the problem was she didn’t feel like doing anything, and when she got home around four, she entered the barn instead of the house. Climbing the stacked bales in the hayloft, she worked her way to the rectangular opening at the far end and pushed the wooden shutters open.

  Shafts of sunlight poured in, streaking the hay with dusty brightness. The countryside spread out below—rectangular fields of crops and cattle, the lines of roads, houses and barns laid out in patterns. A John Deere tractor worked its way up and down a field of alfalfa, cutting hay with a mower which then fed the clippings into a gravity feed wagon. She assumed Dan was in the enclosed cab of the large John Deere, probably with Natalie at his side, since the tractor was on his property. It made her lonesome.

  She fell asleep in the blanket of sunshine and didn’t awaken until the sun had slipped far to the west. She found Natalie and Dan in the kitchen.

  Lifting the lid on a large pot of steaming corn on the cob, she said approvingly, “Looks good. I’m ravenous.”

  “You’re not working, are you?” Natalie asked, regarding her with a level gaze, her arms folded.

  Nicky paused with the lid in hand, steam burning her arm. “I told you, I went in late today.”

  “You came home early, too,” Natalie pointed out.

  Irritated by the burn and the confrontation, she slammed the lid on the pot and turned cold water on her arm. “Okay, you’re right. Margo had to close the Art
Barn. If you tell Mom and Dad, I’ll be real hard to live with, Nattie.”

  “Why would I tell them? I don’t tell them anything else. Where’ve you been all day?”

  Nicky sat at the table with Dan. “At the unemployment office, Job Services, the barn. Nice view from the loft.”

  “I could use help,” Dan said quietly.

  Scoffing softly, she turned toward him. “Thanks, Dan, but it’s tough enough for a farmer to make a living these days.” She knew that farming was immensely productive and just as unrewarded. “I’ll help you, but not for money. You always help me when I need you,” she added with a shrug.

  “I’ve got a contract with the county for mowing roadsides, and I haven’t had time to get in a second cutting. They pay me. I’ll pay you some of it.”

  “What about Natalie here? She’d look good on a tractor.”

  “Yeah, what about me?” Natalie asked indignantly, fishing the corn out of the pot and setting the bowl down hard. Two cobs jumped out onto the table. “Why didn’t you suggest that to me?”

  “I didn’t think of it,” Dan said. “Look. I don’t care who does it, just so it gets done.”

  “Sorry,” Nicky whispered when Natalie turned back to the stove.

  Nicky awakened to rain on Friday. She was disturbed because Beth, who normally called every day, hadn’t talked to her yesterday. Granted, she had been cutting roadsides for Dan since Wednesday, and she hadn’t been home during the daylight hours, nor had she herself made any attempt to contact Beth. She also realized that she hadn’t seen Meg since Saturday and wondered if she was avoiding her.

  It would be a good day to drive to the Fox Cities Gazette office, she thought, to inquire about her cover letter and resume and ask for an interview. She had tried to do that on Tuesday and had been unable to force herself to get out of the truck.

  Scrappy whined from next to the bed, and Nicky rolled onto her side. She listened for other sounds in the house and heard rain hitting the distant roof, spattering the windows. “Gotta go outside, little buddy?” But when she opened the door for him, he wouldn’t leave the house. The ringing phone pulled her away from the back door.