Stella's Carpet by Lucy E.M. Black

Author:Lucy E.M. Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Now or Never Publishing
Published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CALIFORNIA

Pam was alone in the house again. It was hard to be so much alone. Stella lived with her but was never there. She was either at school or with Tara or visiting her grandparents. What good was it to have a daughter if she never wanted to spend any time with you? Thank God she had the television to keep her company. She used to have friends who would call her up and talk, but for some reason they had all stopped. She had their phone numbers somewhere in an address book, but if they didn’t want to call her, why should she call them? Busybodies anyway. Full of gossip and news. Always asking questions. Who cares about their boring lives? She and these women had had their children together, walked them to school together, and met for coffee sometimes during the day, but those times were gone. The children were grown. Most of them at university or married or working. Like Stella. Now they didn’t have so much in common.

When she hadn’t been so sick, Pam had dreamed of going to California. Not to live, just to visit. To shop on Rodeo Drive. To be transformed into a stunning beauty. And to tour the studios! Those glorious studios where her favourite movies were made. MGM, Twentieth-Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures. She’d heard there were bus tours to the homes where the stars lived.

Why William had never wanted to take her, Pam didn’t know. He was so boring. So predictable. Except for those damn rugs of his. She’d always known he was crazy for those rugs. He liked them more than he liked people. She’d pretended to be interested in them, but she couldn’t have cared less. Especially when she found out how much they cost. The amount of money for one of those rugs would’ve paid for a trip to California. But he never wanted to go. It’s not that he was cheap with money; he’d said she could go, but who wants to go to California by themselves? He just didn’t understand. She tried to tell him what he was missing, how other people lived, but he was happy with his rugs and his predictable little life.

Stella wasn’t interested either. Pam had tried to engage her, but she always preferred to read a book or listen to stories from her grandparents. The same stories over and over again. How bad it was. How much death they saw. Such suffering. Such fear. Who wants to hear that crap all the time? What does it matter so many years later? Everybody is safe. Why should it matter anymore?

What would it be like to actually live in a place like California, Pam wondered. A place so bright and sunny, so rich and beautiful, that no one was touched by the dark shadow lurking behind all that was done. No bars on the windows, no tins in the basement, no money saved in jam jars. And no fear that it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.