Nancy and Nick Read Online Free Page A

which have begun rotting in several places and need repair badly.”
    “Who does the repair work? You?” said my mother.
    “Yes, ma’am. I also mow the lawns and weed the gardens and pick up the trash.”
    If I’d ever heard a line, that was one, but Mother and the bridge ladies were consoled by the thought of his doing all that hard work for such a good cause. They left him alone and went into the barn for vending machine sodas, bathrooms, and donations. The boy and I were left alone. I tried to think of something to say to him. For instance: What is your name? Do you love me too? How are we going to get together when you live one hundred and seventy miles away?
    But I couldn’t think of anything I could really say out loud. I wanted to say that I liked his hair, and also his costume and his grin, and the way he parried their remarks. But by the time I’d decided to frame a question about his clothes he had turned and walked away.
    So that was that. Fall in love with your tour guide and off he goes to lead another tour. You’re nothing but a face in the crowd.
    I sighed.
    Mother waylaid him. “Young man,” she said.
    In a very nice way he raised his eyebrows to answer her. I thought every inch of him was cute. Especially his eyebrows. What would I say to Holly? He has the cutest eyebrows, Holly. When will I ever meet anybody again with eyebrows that cute?
    And yet I couldn’t bring myself to ask about the Nearings. Much as I wanted his attention I really didn’t want it. I wasn’t close enough to stop Mother’s questions. I braced myself for a long and embarrassing flow of family history. “Where is a good antique shop?” said Mother, and for once I blessed her one-track mind.
    “There’s one in downtown Nearing River,” he began.
    “You mean there’s an uptown?” said Mother incredulously.
    He laughed. “No. There’s downtown and there’s country.”
    “We went to the one downtown. Is there another?”
    “Yes, ma’am. About two miles up the road. Nearing’s Antiques and Junk.”
    Mother practically salivated. Not only antiques, but also junk. And some Nearings who might be alive to tell her about other Nearings, such as my father and the Nelle Catherines before me.
    “Thank you,” she said, but he had already gone up on the porch to lead the next tour. I looked at him for a bit but he was not thinking of me. He was trying to keep a woman from breaking off stems from the English box to plant in her own garden.
    The best adjective to apply to my crush on him was “short.” The only forty-five-minute love affair on record. No, it hadn’t been an affair. Affairs take two. I had been thrilled by his eyebrows but he hadn’t even seen mine.
    I slid behind the wheel and told Mother I didn’t care whose antique shop it was, I had to have lunch first.

Three
    I T IS MUCH EASIER to face another antique shop when you are full of french fries, a triple burger, and a chocolate shake.
    I was positively enthusiastic when I pulled our poor old car up in front of Nearing’s Antiques and Junk. (Our car practically qualifies as both.) “Thank heaven,” said Mother, “they didn’t spell it junque. I like them better already.”
    We hopped out. I didn’t roll up the windows or lock the doors; it was already hot, although it was just May, and I didn’t want to get back into a cooker. I stick to the seat, and then I’m afraid to get out of the car in case I look damp around the edges.
    We went in to begin poking around.
    It was Mother’s kind of shop. Rickety little chairs with piles of mismatched crockery on them. Sagging old photographs and odd Victorian portraits all over the walls. Torn rag rugs and pieces of quilt draped on the tops of bureaus that lacked one drawer or all knobs. A cash register as ornate as a bride’s embroidery. A headboard desperately in need of refinishing and a rocker minus the cane seat. A proprietor who is middle-aged, smiling, smoking a pipe, and eager to talk antiques with