The Longest Yard Sale

by Sherry Harris

  “You’re better than you think. But I’ll just have to give up sleeping.”

  “I have a couple of garage sales I’m organizing for next weekend.” Organizing a garage sale for Carol last spring had led to a series of other people asking me to set up garage sales for them. “If I can help here or run your kids around, let me know.” Carol had eight-year-old twin boys and a six-year-old daughter, all of whom participated in lots of activities.

  “Thanks for coming over. I thought it would magically appear if you were here.”

  I paused as I watched her face the blank canvas on the easel, worry lines etched on her forehead. My rumbling stomach set me back in motion. I couldn’t think of the last time I’d eaten. I headed down the block to DiNapoli’s Roast Beef and Pizza.

  Just as I arrived, Rosalie switched the sign on the glass door to CLOSED. I started to turn away, but Rosalie spotted me and opened the door.

  “Sarah, we were just going to eat. Join us.”

  “Is she paying?” Angelo shouted from the back of the restaurant.

  “Of course I will,” I said.

  “No. You want her to pay for leftovers, Angelo? Have you lost your mind?” She turned to me. “I think the crowds today wore him out,” she said, her voice lowered.

  But behind her Angelo winked and smiled at me. His bald head shone above a fringe of hair. Rosalie tried to whisk me over to a table where they would eat, one in a row of tables positioned on the right side of the restaurant. A low wall separated the eating area from the kitchen. That way Angelo could keep an eye on things while he cooked. No fancy tablecloths—or, for that matter, any tablecloths at all—covered the odd assortment of wooden tables. The tables and chairs were mismatched, not because it was trendy but because Angelo didn’t want to buy new ones. Of course, if asked, Angelo would claim he started the trend. These days, when something broke, I found its replacement.

  “I’ll set the table,” I said, shooing off Rosalie’s attempts to stop me.

  Soon dishes of pasta, pieces of pizza, an antipasto platter, and warm garlic bread with olive oil for dipping covered the table.

  “Want some cooking wine?” Angleo asked with another wink.

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  Rosalie served me Chianti in a kid’s cup with a lid and a straw because they didn’t have a liquor license. Anytime I looked around the restaurant and saw adults drinking out of kid’s cups, I knew they were sipping wine and were close friends of the DiNapolis. It amazed me that they weren’t able to get a liquor license while Carol had one for Paint and Wine. It burned Angelo as well, so two of my favorite people hadn’t warmed to each other.

  As we ate, we talked about all of the tourists and the success of the sale.

  “We were swamped all day,” Rosalie said, but her warm, brown eyes still sparkled with energy. Her brown hair was in place, as always.

  “What do you know about the fires?” Angelo asked me.

  It didn’t surprise me that Angelo already knew the news. His restaurant was a hub for gossip in Ellington. Policemen and firefighters frequented the place.

  “Not much. A series of small fires were started around town at about the same time. All were put out without too much damage, although those old creepy chicken coops out at the VA burned to the ground.” I pushed my plate away and sipped my Chianti. “Nancy told me that if the fire damaged the new football field she’d hold me responsible.”

  Angelo waved his hands in the air. “That woman—she thinks she knows more than the rest of us.” In Italian, Angelo meant messenger of God, and he took that role to heart, which meant he butted heads way too often with the town powers that be. “You let me know if she pulls something like that again. I’ll take care of it.”

  I worried about what Angelo’s method of “taking care of it” would be. I’d seen him nose-to-nose with a traffic officer when he didn’t like the way traffic was rerouted. I knew Angelo had a cousin who was a lawyer for the Mob. His letters to the editor in the local paper were scathing if he didn’t like something the town was considering. I hoped he was joking.

  Rosalie set a tray full of cannolis and Italian cookies on the table. Minutes ago I’d thought I couldn’t take another bite, but Rosalie’s baked goods were irresistible. I picked a cannoli filled with chocolate mousse. The ends were dipped in mini chocolate chips. I must have made some kind of happy noise when I bit in because Rosalie smiled at me.

  I left a few minutes later with one bag stuffed with what we didn’t eat, plus another full of Italian cookies. As I left, Rosalie tucked the unfinished bottle of “cooking wine” under my arm.

  My legs ached as I walked back across the common. I’d been on my feet almost all day. As I’d predicted this morning, boots with heels hadn’t been a smart choice. But at least the fall air was still warm. When I stopped for a moment in the middle of the common to stare at the stars popping out, weariness settled over me. A bath, with a glass of wine and some decent blues playing in the background, sounded like the perfect ending to the day.

  As I got closer to my building, I saw a figure sitting on the porch, arms on knees, head down. I hoped it was Bubbles waiting for Stella or one of the Callahans’ kids. But soon enough the figure shifted, and I could tell it was CJ. I thought about ducking into the shadows of the church and sneaking around the back way. But CJ spotted me and stood.

  I had a minute or so to decide, as I walked the rest of the way across the common, whether to invite CJ in or keep him out on the porch. Talking on the porch would shorten our visit and get me into the tub sooner. But I’d hurt CJ’s feelings so many times recently that inviting him up might be the more diplomatic thing to do. I hoped he wasn’t here for a relationship talk because I was too tired to fight.

  I held the food between us when I reached the porch. “Want to come up for some leftovers?”

  CJ took the food from my hands and swooped in for a kiss. I kept it to a brush on the lips, even though part of me longed to fall into his arms, lean into his chest, and surrender. But there was too much unfinished business between us to allow myself to do that. I stepped back, hoping the dark would hide the blush on my face. It wasn’t dark enough that it hid the disappointment on CJ’s.

  In my apartment, CJ moved carefully through the living room so he didn’t hit his head on the side of the ceiling that slanted down. CJ’s light brown hair was a bit longer than when he had been on active duty in the military. I set the wine on the counter and pulled out a plate so CJ could eat. We settled at my small kitchen table, another barrier I’d used to good purpose on more than one occasion. CJ unpacked the food and took a bite of a meatball before it even hit the plate I slid in front of him.

  “Their meatballs are the best,” he said, wiping a bit of tomato sauce from the corner of his mouth. He stabbed a fork into a piece of Italian sausage. “And their sausage is blissful. You don’t usually get sausage.”

  “This is food that was left over at the end of the day.”

  “I rarely get their food.”

  “I thought all was forgiven.”

  The DiNapolis had taken my side nine months ago, during the separation and divorce, when we all thought CJ had slept with a young woman. CJ, who befriended everyone, had been hurt by that.

  “So did I, until I went in a few months ago. I don’t think anyone actually spit in my food, but the glare and the chill made me realize I’m still persona not grata in there. Why is that?”

  I shrugged, but I knew. I grew up in Pacific Grove, California, right next to Monterey. My family still lived there and were mystified that I stayed out here in the snow and ice. Ellington felt like home to me, and the DiNapolis were like my family. They not only filled my tummy but also my soul by listening to my woes. “They think you’re pressuring me.”

  I stood and grabbed the bottle of wine off the counter. The cork slid out easily. I busied myself pouring two glasses of wine, hoping CJ would drop the subject, regretting we’d gotten to it in the first place. I sat back do
wn and passed him one of the glasses.

  “We have a closed-container law in Ellington,” CJ said. Trust him to notice I’d walked across the common with the open bottle under my arm.

  “Arrest me, then.”

  “I wouldn’t mind cuffing you.” CJ grinned.

  Another blush coursed up my face.

  “DiNapoli’s doesn’t have a liquor license,” CJ said.

  “Cooking wine.”

  “What are you planning on cooking?” CJ asked with a half smile that always melted me.

  “Beef Wellington?” I had no idea if it needed wine or not. A talent for cooking eluded me. But the last thing I wanted to do was get the DiNapolis in trouble, and I wanted to forestall whatever it was that CJ had showed up to talk about. I didn’t think it could be anything good after the day he and the police department must have had. “I ran in to Bubbles today. He was coming out of Stella’s apartment as I left for the yard sale.” Darn, I didn’t mean to venture into that topic, either. “Did you know?”

  “That he was seeing Stella? No.”

  I gave CJ a look, letting him know that wasn’t what I meant.

  “I did know he was here. He’s been here for about six months.”

  “What’s he doing here? I thought he was wing commander for one of the missile bases out west.”

  “He got caught up in the whole scandal with the missileers cheating on their tests, sleeping on the job, and not securing the vault.”

  Missile launch officers were tested constantly to make sure that, if the time came, they could turn the key without thinking about it. I didn’t know how the tests were administered or what kinds of questions were asked, because all of that was classified. I did know the pressure to score 100 percent on every test was intense. If they missed one question on either of two monthly exams they weren’t eligible to advance for a year. Not good for a career.

  It wasn’t a glam job like flying fighter jets. Since the end of the Cold War, the career field led nowhere. The best way to get a promotion was to get into another field, which wasn’t great for morale. Missileers worked varying shifts, going out to the missile sites, then deep underground, where huge, steel blast doors locked them within a dingy space full of noisy equipment and speakers that continuously blasted codes. They spent the night with a crew partner, taking turns sleeping. Since the early ’90s, crew partners didn’t have to be the same sex. I had a friend who joked about her husband spending the night with another woman a month after they’d married. It was his crew partner, but more than one crew team had ended up in a relationship.

  “Did he know his officers were cheating?”

  “He says he didn’t. I believe him. But since he was at the top of the food chain and the troops were his responsibility, he got the blowback.”

  “Was he fired?” Being fired in the military wasn’t the same as being fired in the civilian world. It usually meant being removed from your current position and sent to another base with less responsibility. It almost always ended any possibility of future promotions. CJ had always said Bubbles was a fast burner—meaning he was getting promoted “below the zone,” or early. He’d made colonel early and was on the fast track to becoming a general.

  “Yes. Now he’ll never make general.”

  “He must be really disappointed.”

  “He’s had a great attitude. He started a financial planning company with a civilian he knows from Hanscom. They both have a couple of months left until they retire.”

  CJ, of all people, knew how disappointing it was to have your career end under a cloud. He’d retired quickly and quietly after one of his troops accused him of fraternization and said she was having his baby. By the time the truth came out, CJ was already out of the air force and the chief of police in Ellington. A lawyer had approached CJ about suing to get back in, but CJ was content with his new job.

  “How’d he end up here?”

  “He wanted to come. His kids are with his ex-wife, Jill, in Nashua. His parents are in Maine. Bubbles had planned to come back to this area eventually, anyway.”

  “At least something worked out for him.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about Bubbles,” CJ said.

  I grabbed the bottle of wine and poured the rest of it into my glass. “I’m sorry about the traffic.” I took a drink. “No. Actually I’m not. It was a great event, and Nancy was really pleased. There are other events that cause traffic problems in Ellington. It just goes with the territory, right?”

  “It was a great event. I’m happy for you. But that’s not why I’m here. I want to talk about us.”

  Damn, I was afraid of that. “We’ve talked about us. You agreed we’d date. That we’d date other people. That we’d take this slow.”

  “For how long? That was six months ago. We were happy.”

  “It’s me, CJ. I have to figure out why it was so easy for me to turn my back on nineteen years of marriage. Why I wouldn’t even listen when you said you didn’t sleep with Tiffany.” I stood, slamming the kitchen chair into the cabinet behind it. CJ followed me into the living room. I plopped into my grandmother’s rocking chair so I didn’t have to sit next to him on the couch. It sat by the window that overlooked the town common. “Until I figure that out, I can’t come back.”

  “Are you really pulling the ‘it’s me, not you’ crap on me?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you again.”

  “You are hurting me.”

  I looked out the window over the common toward Great Road. The lights blinked out in Carol’s store. “I’m sorry. It’s the best I can do right now.”

  CJ studied my face. “Okay, then.”

  CJ wheeled around, knocked his leg on the corner of the trunk I used for a coffee table, cursed, and left. He didn’t slam the door, but he pounded down the steps out to the porch. On the sidewalk, he looked up at me for a moment before striding down the sidewalk toward Great Road. Something about the way he said “Okay, then” had sounded so final. I tried to convince myself that my stomach hurt because of all I’d eaten at DiNapoli’s and not because of what had just happened with CJ.

  Last April, after a wacko almost killed me, CJ and I had spent the night together. I’d felt so safe after the scariest day of my life. But in the morning, CJ launched into logistics. Should he give up his apartment and move in with me? Or should I move in with him? Better yet, let’s find a new place for a fresh start. I’d said no. The look on his face as he’d said good-bye that morning would never leave me.

  I curled my legs up in the chair and tilted my head back against the solid oak. My phone rang. It was Seth, a temptation I had no energy to deal with now. I ignored it, skipped my planned bath, and flopped on my bed fully dressed.

  CHAPTER 4

  Someone pounded on my door. My bedroom door. I leaped up, still dressed in my clothes from last night. Only two people had the key to my apartment, Stella and Carol. I flung my bedroom door open. Carol stood there with her hand raised to knock again. Her face was about the same color as the blank canvas at her store, only stained with tears and mascara—a Jackson Pollock painting come to life.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. I glanced at my alarm clock, which read seven AM. I’d slept through the night.

  “Come with me. Please.” Carol turned and ran through my apartment, stopping only briefly at the top of the steps to make sure I was following her. I don’t think she’d have noticed if I was buck naked. She, on the other hand, had changed from what she wore yesterday into black leggings and a red sweater.

  I hurried to catch up with her on the town common. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s awful,” she said.

  “What?” I asked. Carol shook her head. A shiver went through me. I hoped she and Brad were okay. We stopped at the front door of her shop. She pulled out her keys. Her hands shook worse than mine had the night Stella tricked me into singing karaoke with her at Gillganins. I took them from her and unlocked the door. I flipped on the lights as we
went in, scanning the place.

  “Is this about your painting?” I asked. Nothing looked any different than it had last night.

  Carol shook her head “no” as I trotted after her through the shop to her studio. She stopped so abruptly I almost plowed through her.

  It took me a minute to process what I saw. A man on his back sprawled across the floor wearing jeans and a blue dress shirt with French cuffs and gold cuff links. Around his face was a frame, a dark, heavy frame.

  “Oh, my god,” I said, looking away. The man was dead. Really, really dead. “Who is that?”

  “I was hoping you’d know,” Carol said.

  I steeled myself and took another look at the guy. His sandy-colored hair appeared recently trimmed. He wore a gold wedding band. His long, denim-covered legs were askew. He didn’t seem to have any wounds other than some bruising on his neck. His square-jawed face was mottled.

  “I have no idea who he is,” I said. I had no idea why Carol would think I did. “He looks like he’s been framed. Picasso’s blue period.”

  Carol’s eyes widened in shock at my wisecrack. I chided myself for how heartless I sounded. But I’d spent a lot of time around military cops during my marriage to CJ. They had the same dark sense of humor civilian cops did.

  “Have you called the police?” Obviously she hadn’t, since I didn’t hear any sirens and no officials were here, but my brain wasn’t functioning on all cylinders. “Call 9-1-1. I’ll call CJ.” I’d rather CJ hear this from me. I knew he’d come, and I wanted him to know I was here before he arrived, especially after last night.

  “They said we should wait outside,” Carol said after we made the calls.

  “CJ said the same thing.” But neither of us moved. I continued to study the room and stole quick glances at the body, as if one activity or the other could answer the multitude of questions I had.

  I focused in on the frame around the guy’s neck. It was black and about two inches thick, with carved curlicues. “Isn’t that one of the frames you bought at the yard sale?” I asked. It looked like one I’d seen in the box of frames when we’d searched the place yesterday.