Carnal Innocence

it. “Why can’t you at least show some enthusiasm? Do you know how hardyour father and I have worked to get you where you are? How much we’ve sacrificed? And here you are, ten minutes before curtain, brooding into the mirror.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    She had always been sorry.
    Lying in a hospital bed in Toronto, sick, exhausted, ashamed.
    “What do you mean you’ve canceled the rest of the tour?” Her mother’s tense, furious face looming over hers.
    “I can’t finish it. I’m sorry.”
    “Sorry! What good is sorry? You’re making a shambles of your career, you’ve inconvenienced Luis unpardonably. I wouldn’t be surprised if he broke your engagement as well as cutting you off professionally.”
    “He was with someone else,” Caroline said weakly. “Just before curtain I saw him—in the dressing room. He was with someone else.”
    “That’s nonsense. And if it isn’t, you have no one but yourself to blame. The way you’ve been acting lately—walking around like a ghost, canceling interviews, refusing to attend parties. After all I’ve done for you, this is how you repay the debt. How do you expect me to deal with the press, with the speculation, with the mess you’ve left me in?”
    “I don’t know.” It helped to close her eyes, to close them and shut it all away. “I’m sorry. I just can’t do it anymore.”
    No, Caroline thought, opening her eyes again. She just couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t be what everyone else wanted her to be. Not now. Not ever again. Was she selfish, ungrateful, spoiled—all those hateful words her mother had hurled at her? It didn’t seem to matter now. All that mattered was that she was here.
    Ten miles away, Tucker Longstreet streaked into the heart of Innocence, kicking up dust and scaring the spit out of Jed Larsson’s fat beagle Nuisance, who’d beenresting his bones on the pad of concrete beneath the striped awning of the dry goods store.
    Caroline Waverly would have understood the dog’s distress when he opened one eye to see the shiny red car barreling straight for him and skidding to a stop a bare eighteen inches from his resting place.
    With a yipe, the dog gained his feet and took himself off to safer ground.
    Tucker chuckled and called to Nuisance with a click and a whistle, but the dog kept moving. Nuisance hated that red car with a passion so great he never even ventured near enough to pee on its tires.
    Tucker dumped his keys in his pocket. He fully intended to get Della’s rice and Cokes and toilet water, then head back to stretch out on the hammock again— where he figured a smart man belonged on a hot, airless afternoon. But he spotted his sister’s car, tilted across two parking spaces in front of the Chat ’N Chew.
    It occurred to him that the drive had made him thirsty, and he could do with a tall glass of lemonade. And possibly a hunk of chilled huckleberry pie.
    Later, he’d spend a lot of time regretting that small detour.
    The Longstreets owned the Chat ’N Chew, just as they owed the Wash & Dry Laundromat, the Innocence Boarding House, the Feed and Grain, the Hunters’ Friend Gun Shop, and a dozen or so rental properties. The Longstreets were wise enough—or lazy enough—to have managers for their businesses. Dwayne took a mild interest in the rental houses, cruising along to each on the first of the month to collect checks or listen to excuses, and note down a list of needed repairs.
    But Tucker kept the books, whether he wanted to or not. Once when he’d bitched about it long enough, Josie had taken them over. She’d screwed them up so royally, it had taken Tucker days to set them to rights again.
    He didn’t mind so much, really. Bookkeeping was something you could do in the cool of the evening, with a cold drink at your elbow. His head for figures made it an annoying chore rather than a difficult one.
    The Chat ’N Chew was one of Tucker’s favorite places. The diner had one of those big, wide-pane windows that was forever dotted with posters announcing bake sales, school plays, and auctions.
    Inside, the floor was made of linoleum tiles, yellowed with age and dusted with brown flecks that looked like fly spots. The booths were rugged red vinyl, an improvement over the ripped and tattered brown that Tucker had replaced just six months before. The red was already fading to orange.
    Over the years, people had carved messages into the laminated tabletops. Sort of a Chat ’N Chew tradition. Initials