The days had faded by plenty fast, but he was still trying to fight that one image of Linda in his head, smiling at him, winking.
He had gone home and sat there for hours staring at nothing with the image stamped on his mind, and try as he might it didn’t go away.
He knew that it wasn’t right, not in the least—and he tried as hard as he could to be rid of it, but it ate away at him like a rat gnawing on the wires, those little teeth chomping away until one day they hit the wrong spot—or the right spot, depending on how you look at it—and then it was all over. It would be the same with him if he didn’t get it under control; he knew that, it wasn’t going to end well.
He glanced at the Bible that sat on his desk, the one that he read every morning, and couldn’t believe that he was struggling so hard with something so obvious. He had never been tempted like that before in his entire life. All of the women he had been around, all of them that he had seen, not a one had grabbed his attention like Linda Cain. Maybe it was her perfection, maybe that was it, something about the way her face was set as she looked at his face longingly…
He just wanted to forget it, the sooner that he was able to get victory over it the better. He had gone to church and prayed about it plenty, but it was still a nagging fact at the back of his mind that every now and then whispered to make sure he remembered that it was there.
Jim had thought about going back to the sale for weeks. The day after he had thought about going back, but he knew that would be a bad idea—it was better to avoid the whole situation until he had himself under control.
He set the book down on the table next to him, his big easy chair propped right by his bookcase in his office, the shelves lined with dozens of shining titles, most of which he had read, but a few here and there that were on his “to read” list. He looked down at the book, and wondered why he had the urge to go and buy more books. He had more than enough as it was--the last thing he needed to do was go and get more, but he felt that itch in the back of his mind for a new book.
He really had to focus more on his writing; his agent would be breathing down his neck if he didn’t get a rough draft to him in the next couple of months.
Jim gave a casual glance at the computer and smiled. How long would he sit at the keyboard with the cursor blinking on and off like a demented, electronic metronome and nothing would come out…not even a short story?
All he did was read and think—and try not to think about Linda Cain—for hours. It was about all that he could do. He looked down at his rug and figured that it needed a vacuuming, but he didn’t really feel like doing it. He felt like buying a book.
He knew where he was going to buy it.
His shoes were right by the door, he was already dressed in some jeans and a T-shirt; ready to go on down the road to get another book. He just wasn’t sure that he should. He wanted to, but was it in his best interest?
Jim looked down at the paperback on the table again. Looked at the computer that hadn’t been turned on the whole day, and leaned back into his chair one last time.
Why not, just a book. Nothing else.
He climbed out of the chair, the wooden frame of it creaked in protest as he removed his weight from it and moved across the room, snatching his keys, wallet and knife off of the desk and started to slip them into the different pockets.
Just a book.
He walked slowly out into the very undecorated hallway and began to work his way toward the front door, glancing into each room as he went. He had developed habit of checking rooms as he left, making sure that he hadn’t left any unnecessary lights on since he had seen the obscene power bill that they had sent him the month before.
He crouched for just a moment over his Nikes before they were fastened to his feet and he was standing, unlocking the door, hesitation for just a moment, part of him pulling back, the other part pulling onward. He had to go back and face it down, he just wanted a book, and a temptation was not going to get the best of him.
He slipped out the door, pulling it closed with a scraping whisper. The sun outside was bright, just like before, but the line of clouds could be seen sneaking across the horizon, tiptoeing over rooftops toward the bright light that was bearing down on the street Jim was aiming for. The sun was reflecting brightly on the smooth lines surrounded by sloping, deep road.
He glanced at the shoulder on the other side of the road and saw a couple of kids goofing around in the ditch. One of them, drenched thoroughly with mud, held a stick, as if it were a sword of some kind. The other one held a trashcan lid, obviously a shield, and the little girl was behind both of them, watching. She couldn’t have been more than four, and looked somewhat bored with what was going on.
Those kids had to live pretty close, how close he didn’t know, but he imagined it couldn’t be but only a few houses down. He had to have seen them before. The little girl looked familiar, and her brother—sans mud—looked like one Jim had seen before. He couldn’t quite place their faces, though.
As soon as the kid’s voices faded into the background, the rest of the walk was extremely silent, as if someone had shushed the entire world around him.
It was strange. Eerie.
He looked around the houses on the sides and saw nobody there. It was like everyone had suddenly decided to take an extended vacation to some undisclosed location. The only activity on the street was directly ahead of him, a group of cars parked on the side of the street, right where a towering white fence stood, and a sign out front that called them forward to wade through all of the junk that had been collected for your buying pleasure.
When he got there, he saw a woman with a box under her arm, she was decked out denim, her hair was pulled back, and her eyes were glued to the ground. She moved around him carefully, as if she were afraid he was contagious, looking somewhat ashamed—like she had just walked out of a drug deal.
He continued up to the fence, and saw a lot more customers than he expected. There had to be at least twenty people digging through the stuff, going from bin to bin, glancing, sometimes picking up and object, scanning over it, and either setting it down carefully or throwing it back in like it bit them.
There were a fair amount of diverse people there, he didn’t know where they had all come from. It looked like a bit of everyone had come out to find something. Come one, come all, they sell anything—yes, anything—that you might desire, come on down.
Jim found himself nearly lost as he stared at the customers surveying the junk. They seemed so caught, so hypnotized, by the stuff that he was nearly drawn into it himself—that bitter desire to start searching the stuff for something—anything—that he could take home.
Just a book, I’m only here for a book.
Still that pull was there, he wasn’t sure where it came from, but he knew that it was holding onto him like wet shirt. He looked over at the books, and felt a pull, like a strong vacuum, sucking—a pulsing throb.
Jim pulled his gaze away from the box, and the corners of his vision started to feel fuzzy, like he was about to pass out, and he closed them for just a second, trying to pull himself back together.
What in the world is the matter with me? He wondered. I’ve haven’t ever felt this way.
When he opened his eyes he saw Linda Cain standing with a customer, the sleeves around her waist tied a long sleeved shirt to her like a belt and she was wearing a white T-shirt that looked to be a size too small for her.
Was that on purpose? He suspected it was, and a sick feeling washed over him again. Was this a trap of some kind?
Her fresh stained-wood hair was waterfalling over her shoulders, the sides tucked back by small hairpins. On her wrist was a peculiar pink neon bracelet. She was smiling at the customer, a man in his mid-twenties or so. Her blinks were a little slower, and she bumped him with her shoulder flirtatiously. She was flat-out flirting with the man.
For a moment heat rose in Jim’s ears, and he scanned her face.
That longing was there. It was very present. The kind of longing that didn’t belong on a married woman’s face, the kind that got attention, the kind that was addicting—the kind he had been fighting against. She looked at the customer longingly, lustfully.
I’ve been played. He thought, watching. Just like all the others, I’ve been played. She used herself as a sales technique.
She moved her shoulders carefully, strategically, the way that made sure that she could show off all she wanted. The man was falling for it, like a dog fell for the same fake throw of the squeaky ball every time. Jim wanted to feel disgusted, but he couldn’t, not when realizing that he had been tempted as well—he had fallen for the same trick, chased the same squeaky ball.
He had walked all the way out there, and he wasn’t going to leave empty handed. Ripping his eyes from the man and Linda to the book bin he headed quickly for it. He was going to grab one book, just one.
The paperback titles glared up at him, some with the telltale crease in the spine of being well read and enjoyed. On others, there was maybe a small mark where it had been cracked open, but not really read, not really deeply read. Some books were like that, their spines going from that wonderful straight line to a kind of crooked U. That was one thing about a hardcover that he had to admit, they didn’t deteriorate the same way paperbacks did, but they cost more, took up more space, and were a good amount heavier.
He was beginning to feel the pull play at the back of his mind again, a faint rattle at the back of his skull. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it was something that he knew wasn’t right to let rule him, but at the same time it felt good—real good. Like forbidden fruit.
He pulled another classic out of the stack, passing over all the pulp that lined the bin, and started to flip through, looking for ruined or missing pages.
Linda laughed behind him. It was a loud laugh, one that was unnecessarily drawing attention to her, a bubbly, fake laugh. It was one that didn’t belong on her, just like the T-shirt, and he was sure that it served the same purpose.
You do indeed sell “anything” Linda, even yourself. You even sell your own morality and decency.
He looked up for a moment and saw a young woman with shocking copper hair staring at him. Her eyes were almost unblinking, he waited, and then saw her lids rise and fall. She was under average height, and something else about her looked small, the way she was standing, she looked vulnerable—afraid.
Why is she staring at me?
Jim almost dropped the book as he looked away hastily, trying to ignore her. He moved to another box conveniently marked: MUSIC.
A CD poked out of it, and he grabbed it, just trying to find a diversion. It was a beat-up classical CD; a man with a comb-over was on the front, hunched over a guitar. He tried to keep his attention on the turtleneck-clad man and away from the woman, but he knew she was still watching him.
Jim swiped a quick sweep in her direction and saw that she was still looking at him, her blue, saucer eyes deep with concern and thought. He noted that she looked afraid—very afraid.
He took the CD along with the book and began for Linda, who had just finished talking with the man that had been there before he was. He set the items down on the table carefully.
Linda smiled, bright and easy. She struck a pose that seemed both ridiculous and sexy at the same time. She was trying to toy with him and he knew it. “Hey, there, Jim. Come back so soon?”
“Ran out of stuff to read.” He said. He dared glance behind him to see the copper-haired girl not looking at him anymore. She was walking around the merchandise, glancing at it and counting, as if she were taking inventory.
Did they hire on workers?
“Oh, I’m sure glad you enjoyed them.” The flicker of her lashes shooting up and down, remaining only slightly lowered was barely registered and only later would he think that she was still trying to toy with him. The way she stood was intended to give him a view that would be enticing, he would realize that only later on as well, and he would come to realize for sure that she was trying to hook him—hook him good.
“It’s like I couldn’t put them down, you know?” He said, half distracted by the woman behind him.
“I know, read a few good books in my time.”
“It wasn’t even that, it was more like just the book itself, I just couldn’t get away from it.”
Linda chuckled understandingly. Jim thought there might be more behind it, but he didn’t pursue it further.
“That’ll be five dollars.”
“The CD that much?”
She shook her head, the dark hair flourishing around her. “The book is a dollar and the CD is four.”
Jim reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “Books went up quite a bit.”
“We’re getting more people coming through, and go through more merchandise quicker, and we’re trying to up our quality. Quality costs.”
“I guess.” He handed her the bill. “The other customers find that out?”
“Well, yes, and for more expensive items we designed an easy-payment system. They can pay it off over time, or all at once.”
“How many use that option?”
“Quite a few. Some people go for one-fifty at a time, or five hundred.”
“People buy that much stuff here?”
“You’d be surprised.” She grinned, those perfect teeth shining. “We do eventually work off a limit, if they don’t pay up after a certain amount of time, or rack up more than enough, then they aren’t allowed to buy any more till them pay up.”
“Sounds fair. What if they never pay?”
“We devised an option for that, if they can’t afford it, then we work out a trade.”
Jim set five dollars down. “What do you trade? Do they honestly have something that would be worth that much?”
“Most do.” Her smile faded. “We don’t give away secrets though. All of our trades are private. Most of the time it takes a little more prompting for them to trade, but we try to work it out peacefully.”
“What do you mean?”
Linda took the money and set it in her little box and passed the book and CD back to him. Her face was changing rapidly as she watched something behind him.
He took the book and CD.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” She screeched and rushed from behind the table, losing her pose, and baring her teeth in a stare of absolute rage.
Jim looked where she was heading.
“PUT THAT DOWN! WHAT ARE YOU STUPID?”
He saw the target of her rage was the copper-headed young woman, hastily putting down a large pot—it looked like very nice china.
He watched Linda go for the young woman. Her hands were clenched together in fists, and her eyes were bulging.
“Linda?” He said.
Linda flashed a look of rage back at him, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if he was looking at a human, her face had changed so dramatically that he hardly recognized her. Veins stood out, and two tiny protuberances were noticeable on her forehead, or at least he thought they were.
She turned away and back at the woman, shouting and swearing at her. “BEVERLY, YOU RETARD, I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THINGS!” Her hand flashed out and made contact with the girl’s face, causing her head to jerk backwards. “Get back where you belong.” Linda pointed to a tent.
The girl bowed her head to the ground and started for the tent. Jim watched her a moment. She looked in his direction, her eyes a steamy blue, foggy with tears.
Help me. A desperate voice pleaded.
He did not see her mouth move, but he knew that it had come from her, there was no way that he could confirm it, but he knew that the voice had to have come from the young woman. She ducked back in the tent.
Jim looked back at Linda who was back to her normal self, and turned slowly, composed, and headed back for the table. Her face was completely normal. He looked right where he thought the two little lumps had been, but there was nothing, not on either side. He had to have been imagining it, for a moment he thought he had seen horns. But that was impossible.
Jim looked down and saw that he still had the book and CD in his hand; he began for the gate, anxious to get away from the place as soon as possible. He didn’t know why, but he felt like someone was watching him.
End of Part 3
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