Brad asked, breaking over an hour of silence. “We’re about to drive by the Carpet Capital of North America.” Jamie looked aimlessly toward the side of the highway, her still-swollen eyes eventually focusing on the sign announcing the exit for Dalton, population 21,800. THE CARPET CAPITAL OF NORTH AMERICA, the sign read. Well, why not? she thought absently. America seemed to have a capital for everything else. Why not carpets? “An amazing sixty-five percent of the world’s carpets are made in Dalton,” Brad said, his voice full of fake enthusiasm, as if he were auditioning for a job as a TV pitchman. Jamie wondered if he was stating a fact or making up one to impress her. Yesterday she would have found either alternative endearing. “I read it in a pamphlet back at the motel,” he said, as if monitoring her thoughts. “Apparently, some farm girl supported her family during the Depression by making bedspreads and rugs at home, and other women soon joined her, and before you could say ‘magic carpet ride,’ Dalton had this booming cottage industry that eventually grew into a multi-billion-dollar business.
