Every Little Thing

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Chapter two.

Barry had known, as he’d walked away from the carnival, that he would dream about the fortune-teller. He had. Strange, the things you hold onto when your life is falling apart. His hobby-turned-profession had saved his sanity in the past eight months; that and the knowledge that no matter what anyone else thought, he was innocent. The truth was cold comfort, but dreams of a pretty woman who smiled at him… ah they were anything but cold.

He stepped across the wide porch and into the bright morning to collect the newspaper from the drive, drawing fingers through his hair and squinting still-sleepy eyes to keep out the sunlight. It was too damn early to be up and out, but he hadn’t been sleeping well lately, not even when he dreamed of beautiful Gypsies.

Barry scooped the rolled up newspaper from the walk as he heard the surly “Good morning.”

He straightened as he turned to face his neighbor. Alf Stewart was dressed for work in his cheap suit and striped tie and polished shoes. What did he sell now? Insurance or something like that. Alf Stewart had always been a salesman.

“Morning,” Barry said, trying not to sound too hostile. Alf, like everyone else in Summer Bay, believed the worst. That in itself didn’t bother Barry overmuch; Alf had never liked either of the Hyde boys, and they’d known one another since high school. But lately Alf had been coming up with offers for Barry’s house.

No one wanted to live next door to an accused murderer.

If Alf went to the trouble to say “Good morning,” he mostly had another offer to present.

Sure enough, Alf crossed the grass, moving from his own neatly mowed lawn to the ankle high weeds that marked the dividing property line. He had his own newspaper in his hand; it had been open and sloppily refolded.

“Listen,” Alf said, “my sister’s looking to buy a house, and when she came by here the other day…”

“No.” Barry turned his back on Alf and the offer.

“The least you can do is listen to me!” Alf said indignantly.

Barry shook his head as he climbed the steps to his front porch.

“You made the paper again!” Alf shouted.

From the porch, Barry turned to see that Alf waved this newspaper like a black and white banner; Sir Alf, defending this suburban realm from encroachers and black knights and wife murderers and people who didn’t treat their lawns for weeds. Bad press was the worst sin of all.

“It’s a follow up story on the murders,” he said. “There’s a lovely picture of you and Kerry on the front page.”

That bastard actually smiled; he was enjoying this.

“I believe it’s a wedding photo,” Alf added.

Barry dropped his newspaper carelessly onto the front porch. He had no desire to open it up and see an ancient photograph of himself with an arm around Kerry. He had even less desire to read the article that accompanied the photo.

“Thanks for the warning.” He stepped into the house leaving the newspaper on the porch and Alf Stewart fuming on the path. He thought about the carny one more time, about her husky laugh and her fetching eyes. Then he went to the telephone to cancel his subscription to the newspaper.

[Skykat]

I'm not sure I like mean old Alf! A great story though, I love these alternate settings you keep coming up with though Penny.

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Thanks Sky, more up tomorrow, but I leave for the big match! Come on Liverpool!

[Skykat]

Tell me about it! I'm working in manchester the next few weeks and being a scouser in Manchester is bad enough but if Liverpool lose to United it just doesn't bear thinking about!

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

It sure doesn't the most exciting date on the calender this year, apart from the Merseyside Derby, but lets not talk about that! LOL!

Anyway, I'm quite enjoying writing a meaner side to Alf!

[Frankie]

A mean Alf in a shiny suit sounds interesting

Looking forward to more

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Chapter three.

A mother with two children, one captured in each hand, walked past the the tent, her steps shortened to match the strides of the little boys. With their hands clasped, their arms swinging as they hurried along, they made a strangely heartwarming sight. From out of nowhere, a man carrying two pink, cloud like servings of candy floss appeared to swing the smallest of the two boys into his arms. A burst of giggles reached Irene as she turned her head. Lately there were happy families everywhere she looked. Well seemingly happy families, anyway.

Some days she wondered what she was missing, if she would ever have laughing children of her own. At thirty one, her times wasn’t exactly running out, but it definitely marched on.

What a senseless and melancholy thought! The carnival was no kind of life for a child.

A familiar figure stepping out of the parking lot caught her attention. Barry Hyde was back. Irene watched his approach from the entrance to her tent, a smile blooming on her face as she dismissed her strangely morose thoughts.

Did he own anything but jeans and T-shirts? She wondered. It didn’t matter, they suited him, dark and snug, casual and comfortable.

What was it about Barry Hyde that got to her, that made her smile? She didn’t know, exactly; she only knew that he was different from the others. She stored that fact away carefully. Irene was nothing if not careful.

If she was smart she’d get rid of him tonight. But of course, if she was really smart she would’ve sent him on his way last night as soon as she’d realized her mistake. He met most of her qualifications. He had money; the watch on his wrist was an expensive one. He looked lost, like a man who could use a friend: someone to gaze into his eyes and promise him a good future. The way the others at the carnival looked at him, out of the corner of a wary eye or suspiciously or not at all, told her he had secrets. A man with a secrets made easy picking’s for a phony clairvoyant.

But she saw more. Barry Hyde was too smart to fall for her fortune teller bit, too cautious to be taken in. The eyes he turned to her as she’d taken his hand hadn’t been desperate and calculating, but honest. Honest and sad and just a little curious. Anger burned there, too, deeply buried anger that should’ve made her run from him with every ounce of strength she possessed.

She should’ve sent him on his way last night without an invitation to return. He wasn’t the type to fall for her simple scam, and it wasn’t in her nature to approach strangers at the carnival, or anywhere else for any other reason.

It had been years since the sight of a man made her heart flutter like this. She’d learned to be cautious where the opposite sex was concerned. While Chloe and Selina, the carnival workers who a trailer with her, ogled the more attractive men who either worked at or frequented the carnival, Irene turned away, mentally and physically.

Barry Hyde was definitely attractive, if a little rough around the edges. He looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping or eating well – a look Irene was well acquainted with. But he had thick dark brown hair that hung just a little bit too long, and a way of moving that made her certain there were hard, interesting muscles beneath those casual clothes. He moved like a runner, all grace and power.

The world’s full of muscled bodies and slightly tousled heads of dark hair, and Irene had learned to ignore them all. But she couldn’t ignore Barry Hyde’s eyes. A magnificent shade of silver-grey, the compelled her to tell him the truth about using Kenny to get him into her tent; they forced her to ask him to come back to see her. More than sad, they were haunted and deep and ancient. When she looked into those eyes, she knew without a doubt that he needed her.

None of this made any sense – not the attraction, not the certainty that Barry Hyde needed her. For a while she’d been so sure that he wouldn’t come back. She’d pondered the possibilities until dawn, when she’d convinced herself, with a resulting mixture of relief and distress, that she’d never see him again.

But here he was, making his way toward her tent with a determined purpose in his slow step, as if her were walking down death row. It wasn’t very flattering, but she couldn’t say she was surprised by his trepidation. She felt too much of it herself.

She straightened the blue costume she’d chosen for the evening, smoothing the silk fabric over her stomach and lifting her arms to shake the voluminous sleeves. This caftan was a solid colour, not wildly bright as many of her working outfits were. Maybe she hadn’t been so convinced that Barry would be back, after all. She had a feeling – no she knew – that he would like her current attire better than the bright costume she’d worn the night before. He was a bit conservative.

She threw back a strand of black hair that was rather stiff in her fingers. She hated the wig. There was no getting past it, though. It was part of her guise.

By the end of the night her head would itch; the damn wig was defiantly too hot to be wearing on a summer night in Australia. North Australia, she reminded herself, as if that made any difference. It as Sydney, and humid to boot. If one more person said, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” she was likely to do murder.

Irene sat at the table and pretended to give her full attention to the tarot cards she spread before her. It wouldn’t do for her to be waiting for Barry in the entrance. Not again. She held her breath and waited, and even managed to glance up in mild surprise when he appeared before her. Evidently she wasn’t as prepared as she’d thought she was. Her heart skipped a beat.

“So, you decided to come back, after all,” she said with a forced indifference as she gestured to the seat across the table. She took a slow, deep breath she shouldn’t need.

He shrugged his shoulders and took the offered seat, waving his hands over the cards. “You believe this crap?” he asked, disbelief in his gruff voice.

Once again, she had to be honest with him. “Sometimes. Sometimes not.” She put the cards aside; they made Barry nervous. If he walked out now, she’d never see him again; she knew it. Impossibly, that knowledge gave her a chill.

She reached out to take his hand. His skin was cool, and she tried to warm the hand by rubbing her palm against his. More than anything she wanted to ask him why he’d come back, but she didn’t. She bent over his palm and ran the tip of a red fingernail over his heart line.

“You’re much more sensitive than you would have others believe,” she whispered. “You feel… deeply, but you do to great trouble to hide your good heart.”

He scoffed, actually snorted beneath his breath.

“You expect a lot from those you love,” she continued, “but not more than you’re willing to give.”

“What are you looking at?” he snapped, and she half expected him to jerk his hand from hers. He didn’t.

“Your heart line.”

He sighed deeply. “Can we move on?”

Irene relented and studied his life line. “You are blessed with good health, but you’ve a tendency to overdo, to take your well-being for granted.” She glanced up, briefly, and then returned her attention to his palm. “The anger you keep inside with eat you away at you, if you don’t acknowledge and control it.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m going to live a long and happy life?” he asked sarcastically.

Irene lifted her head and gazed into Barry’s eyes. He didn’t believe any of this, not the cards nor the palm reading nor the possibility that she might see into his heart. He was the type man she rarely saw in this business: a skeptic, a realist. His type usually passed by the palmist’s booth without so much as a second glance. Her usual clients believed, or at least wanted to believe.

“Why are you here?” She held her breath as she waited for an answer to the question, she’d been afraid to ask.

The air in the tent stilled, becoming so quiet and motionless that she felt almost certain Barry held his breath as she did. When he finally answered, his reply was far from satisfactory.

“I don’t know.”

His hands were no longer cold, but almost hot. They were hands that suited him, as perfectly shaped and masculine as his body; beautiful hands that were long fingered and well formed. She would’ve though guitar, but her had no calluses. He had hands of a piano player.

She took a chance. “Do you still play?” she asked softly, and immediately she felt the telling jerk of his hand in hers,

“No, not for years,” he said in a low voice.

Irene has no real powers that every other human didn’t possess, and she knew it well. All she had to call on was her intuition and powers of observation. That, along with the occasional tidbit Kenny fed her – a snippet of a conversation – was usually enough to make an impression.

It didn’t take any magical power to read troubled eyes, or to feel a tremble so deep it almost wasn’t there, or to see helplessness in a face too young to have given up life. Of course, some people were harder to read than others, and instances, in one case in particular, she had suspected the soul was dead, or else so dark that it might as well be.

Barry loomed before her more open than he knew, exposed and honest. His face was rather harsh, with its sharp features and interesting angles. His build was masculine, his bearing unbending and raw. If he were sketched, the result would be a work of powerful, austere, straight lines.

And yet, she saw a hint of softness deep in his eyes, almost as if he offered himself up to her; his hopes, his fears, his very soul. She released his hand and leaned back slowly. This was too much, too fast. Dammit, when she’d seen him coming she should’ve run the other way.

Now it was too late.

“Are you all right?” He leaned forward and watched her closely.

She searched for all the signs she knew had to be there: the touch of fear, the morbid curiosity. But that wasn’t what she saw. Concern and confusion – that’s what she saw as she searched Barry’s eyes. And she looked deeper, a hint of longing.

She shook her head. “No, dammit, I’m not all right. I need some time to think this through.”

Barry leaned back in his folding chair, assuming a pose much like her own. They were as far apart as they could get without one of them leaving their seat. In a moment the concern on his face died, and he watched her with a cynical smile forming on his lips. The eyes narrowed.

“You want me to come back tomorrow night? And the next? And every night until the carnival pulls up stakes and leaves town? How much is this going to cost me, Irene?”

She took a deep breath. He was too close to the truth, and she couldn’t formulate the calm, cool answer she needed to deliver. For once her silver tongue betrayed her, and she found herself speechless.

Barry shot to his feet, and his soft, misty eyes turned to cold gray stone. “I’ve had enough, Lady Roberta.”

Irene rose slowly to her feet. She couldn’t let him leave this way – angry and resentful. If he walked away now and never looked back, she’d always wonder what had drawn her to this particular man, after all this time. His eyes? The deep loneliness that remaindered her so much of her own? Maybe something as simple as the annoying tick of her biological clock? If she didn’t find out for herself, unanswered questions would haunt her dreams and her daydreams, and she’d see Barry’s face in every crowd. She had to know.

A loud, clay faced teenager burst through the entrance to her tent and saved her, as she searched for the right words.

“I want my fortune told!” he demanded, shoving half a hot dog into his mouth. Mustard was smeared at the corner of a wide, soft mouth, and dribbled down the front of a faded T-shirt that sported the image of beer and a well endowed woman in a red bikini.

Irene gave the offensive teenager an imperious look she’d perfected, as she slowly raised her and hand and pointed to him with a wicked red fingernail. “You will wait outside, young man,” she said, deepening her already throaty voice. She interrupted his stumbling compliances with another command. “You will not leave. I will have my time with you.”

The boy paled. His intent to run had been so clear on his face that any fool could have seen it, but now he believe she had the power to read his mind. He would wait, and she would make up for scaring him by bestowing a good fortune he didn’t deserve.

She didn’t look at Barry until the young man had left the tent. He smiled, and for a moment there was no pain in his eyes.

“You’re very good,” he conceded.

He was going to leave, this time for good. His curiosity had been satisfied; he knew her for what she was. There was no reason for him to return.

“Barry,” she said tentatively, she was about to leave her tiny tent. “There’s a Diner about half a mile down the road.”

He turned to face her, and he stood so near he had to look down to meet her stare. She could see the dark stubble on his stubborn jaw; she could feel his body heat. It would be so easy to lift her hand and lay it on his arm, to very lightly touch his chest. She wanted to hear his heartbeat, to feel his heat. She couldn’t touch him, didn’t dare, but she didn’t back away.

Neither did he. “I know,” he finally answered.

“Meet me there at two a.m.,” she said softly. “Or don’t.”

The choice was his, and for once Irene couldn’t read the answer on hi face. She watched him leave; tonight he didn’t look back. She took a calming breath, squared her shoulders, and told herself, not very convincingly, that it didn’t matter.

Outside the tent, Irene wrapped slender fingerts that endeed in long, bright red fingernails around the rude boy’s wrist. He wanted to cry out; she could see that so clearly on his pimply face. But he didn’t even try to pull away from her, much less protest aloud.

The yellow lights strung around her tent made his face look sallow and sickly, and she tried to comfort him with a smile. It didn’t work. His eyes widened and he dropped the bite size piece of hot dog bun that had been grasped in fat fingers.

With a sigh, Irene released the boy and gave him a tender shove into the tent. For all his size, he was just a child, defiant and full of energy – indestructible one moment and scared to the death the next. He was a child as far from a being a man as Irene was from the innocent girl she’d been at sixteen.

A palm reading that promised pretty girls, found money and good luck would make him forget that for a while he’d been terrified of Lady Roberta.

[Skykat]

Wow great chapter! So nice to see Irene's reaction too. Love it Penny.

[Gypsy & Will Fan]

Thanks Sky!

[buffygirl]

Lady Roberta what can i say but love the name hehe

Penny its very intense love it ..as for mean Alf im ok with that it comes as no surprise to me.as i see him being that way towards Barry