A Captive in Time

by Sarah Dreher

  “You’re welcome. You owe me.”

  She picked up the Martinson folder and her file on Baja California.

  “Last night,” Marylou said gloomily, “she went to the library and checked out the Campbell Soup cookbook. I may have to leave home.”

  Marylou went to lunch early, declaring that—now that it was the only decent meal left in the day—she had to make the most of it.

  Stoner waved her off and settled down to try to put together an Individualized Tour for the Middle East that combined scenery, history, economy, and safety.

  The agency rep from COTAL called to say the packet of information on Latin American tours they had requested was in the mail.

  Mike Szabo, one of their favorite clients, called. He and his wife had been on a driving trip to the West Coast, but his wife’s cousin had died suddenly and they had to fly home. Did either she or Marylou know anyone who’d be willing to go out to Denver and bring their new car back? He’d pay for their time and expenses. Stoner promised to wrack their collective brains as soon as Marylou got back from lunch.

  The Czechoslovak Travel Bureau called to report that things were a little unsettled, but they were doing everything they could to make sure tourists didn’t miss connecting flights. He added that, despite “administrative changes”, they would continue to welcome American business.

  Trump Shuttle called to invite them to be their guests on a Boston-Atlantic City inaugural. Stoner said she’d get back to them on it, and hung up wondering if she dared trust herself on the slot machines, or if she’d gamble away years of savings trying to strike it rich so she wouldn’t have to spend another winter in the city.

  She was about to call Aunt Hermione and ask her to try to pick up some psychic vibrations on the subject when the Carharts waltzed in.

  Glenn Carhart was high tech all the way. Charcoal gray suits and vests, with matching overcoat. Steel gray eyes with a metallic glint. Black hair slicked back “Wall Street” style—which always looked to Stoner as if the wearer were an aging greaser fresh from a pool hall (complete with a pack of Lucky Strikes tucked into rolled- up T-shirt sleeve), or had just fallen overboard in Boston Harbor.

  Ellen Carhart gave new meaning to the word “beige”. She was tall and blonde, wore amorphous dresses of varying shades of tan, and topped it all off with pale make-up. Her skin beneath thick powder was dry and stretched. Every bone in her body was visible. Stoner wanted to feel sorry for Ellen Carhart, who really didn’t look as if she was having a very good time with life, but the woman so obviously considered herself superior to the general populace that sympathy was hard to come by.

  The Carharts drove a black BMW convertible with CD player and stereo speakers. They ate only in restaurants with French names, hanging plants, and dress codes, and usually drank white wine or Perrier with a twist. They went to St. Croix every year and stayed for two weeks at the Pirate’s Cove. The Pirate’s Cove was classified “very expensive” in Birnbaum’s. In fact, the Pirate’s Cove was one of those “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it” playgrounds. Stoner figured she and Aunt Hermione could probably live very nicely for at least a year on what the Carharts spent on their two week vacation at the Pirate’s Cove. Surrounded by sparkling sands and rain forest, native villages and old sugar plantations dripping with the history of slave exploitation, they preferred to pass their days shuttling between the Pirate’s Cove’s three beaches and the golf course, with mad, impetuous side trips to the health spa. They had never gone anywhere else, as far as Stoner knew. Nor had they expressed any interest in going anywhere else.

  Stoner often wondered why they did business with Kesselbaum and McTavish. Maybe they liked the personal approach. Maybe it was their Yuppie idea of Safe Slumming. Maybe they sat around with their friends sipping white wine and Perrier with a twist and told delightful stories about “those two travel agency women—really, you must meet them—straight out of a Steinbeck novel, quaint and folksy”...

  She forced herself to smile in a borderline-charming manner and said, “Yes?”

  “Your partner,” Glenn Carhart said. “The other one...”

  “Marylou. Yes.”

  “...insisted we come in.”

  Ellen Carhart piped up. “We’re having a little difficulty about St. Croix.”

  Stoner nodded sympathetically. “Yes, St. Croix is difficult these days.”

  Glenn took over. “That other one, Marylou? ...seems to think we should change our plans.”

  “It would probably be a good idea.”

  “We can’t possibly do that,” Ellen Carhart said with finality, checking out Stoner’s jump suit. She was momentarily thrown off balance, but quickly recognized it as last year’s model and resumed her position of superiority.

  “You can’t?”

  “We always go to the Pirate’s Cove.”

  “I understand,” Stoner said. “But...well, things are kind of a mess in St. Croix right now.”

  “We called the Pirate’s Cove,” Glenn announced. “They will be open for business in November.”

  Stoner nodded. “Open for business’ is one thing. I mean, some of the rooms may be intact, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily back to normal. And from what we can tell the vegetation was pretty torn up all over the island...”

  Ellen Carhart flashed her a smile. It made her uncomfortable. It was one of those “I’m running things here and I’ll get my way no matter what you think” smiles. The kind of smile that oily insurance agent had flashed her when he sold Aunt Hermione a useless homeowner’s policy over Stoner’s apparent objections—the kind of smile he didn’t flash when he found out Aunt Hermione and Stoner were working as decoys for the Consumer Protection Agency.

  Stoner reached for the phone. “I can try to reach them …”

  “It’s a gimmick, right?” Carhart asked.

  “A gimmick?”

  “So they can up the rates. They have ‘expenses’, serious losses...” He shrugged affably. “Hey, business is business. I can understand that.”

  “They had a hurricane,” Stoner said.

  “We know that,” Ellen Carhart said impatiently. “We saw it on the television.”

  “Then you know what things are like there.”

  “We know,” Ellen said. “Those people ran completely amok. Looting. Stealing. No self-discipline.” She flipped her jeweled wrist. “Well, it’s only what I’d expect.”

  “Expect?” Stoner repeated, not quite willing to believe she was hearing what she was obviously hearing.

  “Those native people.” Ellen Carhart shuddered.

  Stoner tried to get a grip on her temper. “Native people.”

  “At least at the Pirate’s Cove we’re not at the mercy of their upturned palms.”

  Stoner glanced up at Glenn, hoping for a glimmer of embarrassment. He was nodding in a self-satisfied way.

  “It is their island,” Stoner said with the last of her self-control.

  “They do all right,” Glenn Carhart announced, “with the good old Yankee dollar.”

  “They certainly did all right with the hurricane,” Ellen put in. “Those that weren’t too lazy to walk into a store and steal what they wanted.”

  “Excuse me,” Stoner exploded. “But has it occurred to you that maybe—just maybe—people living in poverty, whose livelihoods depend on the good graces of tourists with white faces and fat wallets, might harbor a little resentment? And has it occurred to you that maybe, when the roofs blew off their houses, the roofs blew off their resentment, too?” She leaned forward. “In fact, Mr. and Mrs. White Yankee Carhart, if I were you I’d be a little uneasy about going to St. Croix just now. Or St. Thomas. Or Puerto Rico. Or anywhere in the Caribbean. Because, Mr. and Mrs. White Yankee Carhart, everyone has their breaking point. And, frankly, I don’t think ‘those people’ need rich bigots like you cluttering up their beaches.”

  They left in a huff. Climbed into their illegally parked black BMW with CD player and stereo sp
eakers and shot out of there, spraying the car parked behind them with gravel.

  Stoner closed her eyes. “Oh, shit.”

  “What’s up, love?” Marylou breezed through the door and picked up the phone messages. “Was that the Carharts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you settle the St. Croix thing?”

  “Yeah, I settled it.”

  Marylou glanced at her. “I don’t like the way that sounds.”

  Stoner told her what had happened.

  Marylou shook her head. “You have got to stop watching ‘Designing Women’. What Julia Sugarbaker can get away with in Atlanta is not necessarily appropriate for Stoner McTavish in Boston.”

  Stoner offered to call them. To try to fix it.

  Marylou held out the Szabos’ message instead. “I’ll take care of the Carharts. The Szabos need their new car. Go to Denver.”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  The Rockies lay behind, far to the west. To the east, the last of Colorado hugged the ground beneath a pewter November sky. Miles of wheat and prairie grass, cut to silver-gray stubble for the coming of winter, stretched on either side of the highway. A sharp breeze caught dusty shreds of chaff and set them whirling.

  Stoner steadied the car against the sudden gust of wind and glanced at the sky. A flock of geese, no more than dots, plunged southward in a ragged V. She picked up the road map that lay open on the seat and propped it against the steering wheel, telling herself this was foolish and life-threatening behavior but doing it anyway because she could see for ten miles in any direction and she was alone on the road. Boy, was she alone on the road. Had been alone on the road for the past three hours, since lunch. Come to think of it, lunch hadn’t been exactly a mob scene, either. A nearly empty restaurant that smelled of chlorine and rest room air freshener—a combination guaranteed to make her gag. A limp Double Cheeseburger, small Coke and soggy fries served up by a fourteen- year-old working for Republican below-minimum wages, who should have been in school but was probably a single parent from an anti-choice family living in a town where social services had gone under with Gramm-Rudman budget cuts.

  She brushed dust from the map and tracked down her current position. She seemed to be somewhere in the vicinity of one of four towns where the combined population totaled fewer than one-thousand souls. Not that she planned on dropping in for a visit, thank you very much. But she was beginning to suffer from Interstate-itis, that sneaking feeling that she had died and gone to Hell, where she was doomed to drive I-70 through eternity as punishment for sins too numerous and awful to mention.

  Try to look on the bright side, she told herself as the highway passed over what professed to be a farm road but resembled a dried creek-bed just waiting to flash-flood as soon as it found a likely victim. Ahead lies Kansas, home of John Brown (whose body lies a’molderin’ in the grave), and the Menninger Foundation (in case sanity takes wing), and Topeka. Especially Topeka. Topeka has, in addition to the aforementioned Menninger Foundation, motels. Motels and restaurants. Motels, restaurants, and telephones. And telephones mean I can call Gwen.

  She pressed harder on the accelerator. Or, as the boys-of-all- ages said, “put the pedal to the metal”—which was a pretty frivolous way to describe behavior that was not only illegal but dangerous, thoughtless, reckless, and irresponsible.

  She eased up on the gas.

  The scenery went on with deadly sameness.

  Stoner turned on the radio and punched the “seek” button. Combine the wonders of modern technology, the awesome power of the micro chip, and all she could come up with were a country-western station, a hate-talk show, and a radio minister whose stock in trade seemed to be telling people in pain they deserved to suffer because they were trash.

  The radio had a tape deck. She wished she’d brought the latest Melissa Etheridge. Or at least some early Dory Previn.

  So here we are, me and nobody, in the middle of November in the middle of Nowhere. On my way to Where.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Something moved across the road ahead, unidentifiable in silhouette, interrupting her thoughts. She eased her foot from the accelerator and let the car lose speed. She squinted. A piece of paper scurrying in the wind, probably. Or maybe a field mouse, or prairie dog, or even a chipmunk—if they have chipmunks out here in the flats. Do chipmunks live where there are no trees? If so, do they like it? Is their consciousness different from that of forest chipmunks and woodpile chipmunks and corn-crib chipmunks? If they met, would they run out of conversation after five minutes?

  The black figure stopped, dead-on in the middle of her lane, and seemed to look directly at her.

  She hit the brakes.

  The motor, predictably, died.

  The little creature, which revealed itself to be a snake, lowered its head and slithered nonchalantly off the road. It disappeared into a mass of whiskered grain.

  Well, that act of mercy ought to take a few lifetimes off my Karmic sentence.

  She turned the key in the ignition and was greeted with silence.

  She turned it all the way off, and on again.

  Nothing.

  Darn.

  She flipped on the hazard lights—at least the electrical system was still working—and stepped out to have a look under the hood.

  The motor, like the car, was new and smelled of oil and burned paint. It didn’t smell of leaking gasoline.

  Stoner checked the oil—A-okay, as they say—and was reaching for the radiator cap when her guardian angel tapped her on the shoulder and reminded her that unscrewing the radiator cap on a hot car was not a good idea. Not a good idea at all.

  She let the hood drop and climbed back into the driver’s seat. The fuel gauge read half-full. The temperature was no higher than it should be. Everything else seemed normal.

  Great. There’s nothing wrong with the car except that it won’t start.

  But there might get to be a great deal wrong with it if I go on sitting in the middle of I-70 at the edge of Colorado with cold dusk coming on.

  She put the car in neutral, opened the door, got out, and pushed it to the side of the road.

  Now what?

  Well, we can wait for it to heal itself. Cars are famous for spontaneous remissions.

  Except that spontaneous remissions usually happen with three young mechanics standing by while you try to demonstrate “that funny noise” that’s been driving you nuts.

  We can flag down a Good Samaritan. Who will probably turn out to be an axe murderer in search of his next victim.

  Or we can wait a polite twenty minutes and start hoofing it.

  She picked up the road map and scowled at it. She wished she knew how far she was from civilization. Even backward civilization. At least she was in farm country, where—if she could just find a town, however small—she was certain to find a mechanic.

  The last landmark she remembered had been the South Fork of the Republican River (not a good omen). But that had been nearly an hour ago.

  Which meant that the light would be going before long.

  It was already cold. Too cold for her down vest. A down vest was fine for fall protest marches, taking the T to the Cambridge Women’s Center, or trotting over to Indigo for a drink and a quick game of pool or a little dance-and-cuddle with Gwen, but clearly inadequate for the Great Colorado November Out-of-Doors.

  She decided to go into the trunk of the car, into her suitcase, and find her parka. That would pass some time.

  It passed about five minutes.

  She thought about turning on the radio, despite its dismal offerings, then decided against it. It could be a long night. She might need the electricity.

  She hummed to herself and tapped the steering wheel. It used up about ninety seconds.

  She dug a pad of paper from her knapsack, but couldn’t find a pencil. That used up two minutes, max.

  Stoner sighed and got back out of the car. She walked up and down the gravel shoulder for a while, counting crushed beer bottles a
nd cans and mashed cigarette packs.

  The sky began to darken.

  Anxiety time.

  Night would come down fast and hard out here. No long, lingering twilights that gave you time to cut one last patch of grass, or find the tools you had left in the back yard, or toss another hot dog on the barbecue.

  Just night, sudden and awful.

  The temperature dropped for no good reason.

  Damn.

  She went back to the car and tried again. Nothing. She checked all the gauges, dials, buttons, LED readouts, perused the owner’s manual and trouble-shooter’s guide.

  Nothing.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  The sky to the east was rapidly going achromatic. To the west the setting sun sucked pink-edged clouds toward the horizon. Inky purple seeped through a slate-y wash. In another hour she wouldn’t be able to see.

  The sensible thing would be to sit and wait for a car or truck or even the Highway Patrol. But it could be hours, days before anyone showed up. From what she had seen of traffic so far today, it could be spring before help showed up. From what she had seen of traffic so far today, Armageddon had arrived, and she was the last person left on earth. Besides, she had to do something. She couldn’t just sit here passively and hope to be rescued. Some people, she knew, considered sitting sensibly in one place hoping to be rescued a perfectly legitimate - Something to be Doing. If - What to Do in This Situation - were a topic on Family Feud, sitting and waiting would be answer number one.

  She also knew that if she sat and did nothing—even though most people considered it Doing Something—she was going to go stark, raving mad. Because it had never been her experience in life that help just arrived. Help arrived for other people. Some people were deluged with Arriving Help. Some people had nervous break-downs just trying to find things for all that Arriving Help to do.

  It wasn’t a problem she had ever had.

  She tried the car again.

  Nope.

  Time to start walking.

  She checked the contents of her knapsack. Decided her wallet, comb, a change of clothing (including two T-shirts, underwear, and socks), tooth brush, quartz crystal, backpacker’s first aid kit with snake bite accessory and needle and thread would be adequate. Added the down vest. Checked her jeans pockets—Milky Way wrapper (leave that behind), lucky Susan B. Anthony dollar (keep it, you never know when you’ll need luck), pack of Clove gum (intact—present for Marylou, who was addicted), old shopping list she couldn’t find last time she went to the store. Checked her parka pockets—lint and crumbs, just back from the cleaner.