From SECRET LOVE:  Every day, Carmen La Pierre drove her ancient, dinged-up Ford pickup to work around the time everyone else was getting ready for dinner, hoping every day the truck would make it. She hurried down the dirt road leading from her house to the highway, raising clouds of loose rock and dust until she hit the highway into town. She worked the 5 pm to 2 am shift at Jiffy's Seven-Eleven. She preferred the closing shift. It gave her plenty of alone time after about eleven. She could play her boom box and choose any CD she wanted to. Of course, Jiffy's wasn't her choice of a lifetime career, but she didn't have much of a choice. Alone, she had to support herself. Still, she dreamed of a better life. One where she could be unknown. Here, there was no chance of that. Too small-town America. 

          New York City. Perhaps her savings would take her there one day. She thought ruefully of the savings jar on her bedroom closet shelf. It was not encouraging. She would never give up, never stop trying. Imagining herself free of those who thought they knew her, she switched the local Country music station on and drove like she was flying inside the music. With each rising note, her soul flew higher and higher. Yes, she was a dreamer. One day she would be free.          

          Little did she know that she would meet the love of her life in the midst of more turmoil than even a lesbian in high school could expect. There would be trials far beyond the economic problems she could envision. Of course, life in the forests of North Carolina had its beauty and resplendent bad weather. Little did she know she would meet an opponent to her lifestyle that was as vicious as a North Carolina summer wind.

          She had survived two alcoholic parents, raised her younger brother with care...and now? Now, she would meet a young, twenty something girl who still lived at home with her mother. This would prove to be the challenge of a lifetime. The question was never did she love enough. The question was more than all that emotion. It was a question of survival. Her survival and that of her new love. Would their love prove strong enough? 

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