by Betsy Ashton
Mad Max: Uncharted Territory
by
Betsy Ashton
Mad Max: Uncharted Territory
by Betsy Ashton
© Copyright 2015 Betsy Ashton
ISBN 978-1-63393-052-0
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. The characters are both actual and fictitious. With the exception of verified historical events and persons, all incidents, descriptions, dialogue and opinions expressed are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Published by
210 60th Street
Virginia Beach, VA 23451
212-574-7939
www.koehlerbooks.com
Front cover: Danielle Koehler, Dalitopia Media
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE
CHAPTER SEVENTY
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
CHAPTER ONE
Mississippi, September 21
In pre-dawn darkness, I eased the RV door open and tiptoed down four steps to bare earth. Coffee cup in hand, I turned three hundred and sixty degrees. A strong northern front had blown through overnight, sweeping the humidity out to sea and leaving a crystalline sky behind.
An underlying stench of death and decay, however, lingered.
Johnny, Emilie, and I settled into our new home the day before. While we waited for the rest of the family to arrive, I watched large birds ride thermals in lazy circles over a distant bayou west of our compound. I didn’t know what kind they were, but they were always in the same place. Black and large, they added to the ominous emptiness. I hadn’t had time to drive across the gray wasteland to find out what was going on.
A slamming trailer door and boot steps on packed earth announced Johnny’s arrival from the other side of my RV. He walked up, smiled and stared at the rising column of birds. Clad in jeans, boots, and a clean T-shirt, he was ready for work.
“Good morning, funny man.” I tilted my face for a kiss.
“Back atcha, pretty lady.” He kissed my cheek.
“Do you see those birds?” I pointed. “More of them today than yesterday.”
“Yes. Something’s dying over there.”
“Dying?”
“Yes.” Johnny tugged my left earlobe.
“Not dead?”
“Buzzards circle until an animal dies. Then they land.”
“Whatever it is sure has attracted a crowd.” I hugged Johnny but kept staring at the birds. Day one, and I was already spooked by the alien landscape.
More flocks formed near the unseen bayou. Birds landed and rose.
“That’s not all that’s attracting crowds.”
What did he mean by that cryptic remark?
Johnny clapped a ball cap on his head and walked to the cook tent for breakfast before leaving for the job site, kicking up tiny puffs of dust.
Before I came down to Mississippi, I hadn’t expected such unbroken flatness, such a lack of color. Nothing taller than a car or trailer or pile of rubble. No flowers. In fact, nothing green except a few battered live oak trees. Had Charles Dickens written about spoiled lands instead of broken people, this landscape would have made a perfect subject.
When I reflected back over the past few months, I could never have foreseen the changes I would make in my life. I never figured I’d be taking my grandchildren into a war zone.
At least it seemed like one to me.
CHAPTER TWO
New York City, week of August 15
Who’d have thought Queen Elizabeth and I would have anything in common. I mean, we both endured totally sucky years. Her annus horribilis in 1992 brought public humiliation to the Royal family when both of her sons divorced their wives. In the past twelve months, my only daughter, Merry, suffered a severe brain injury, which altered her personality. The grandchildren and I were learning to cope with her new behavior when she was murdered. Her husband, Whip, was arrested for the crime.
No Royal eloquence for me. No annus horribilis but, without a doubt, mine was a shit-eating year.
Was it any wonder I fled my son-in-law’s house in Richmond for my apartment in New York City? Time spent with my closest friends, the Great Dames, would help me heal enough to keep my promise to my grandchildren and return to full-time child rearing.
“To Maxine Davies, our dear friend and fellow life traveler.” Eleanor, the alpha Great Dame, began the now-familiar toast.
“We’ll miss you and think of you often.” Grace held her stemmed glass high.
“You understand, dear, we don’t associate with—” Rose added.
“— trailer trash!” Raney finished.
Five well-manicured hands raised crystal glasses and clinked rims.
I rolled the tartness of the pomegranate martini around on my tongue. “How many times do I have to tell you? We won’t be living in trailers. They’re RVs.”
My friends didn’t approve of my plans. They understood why I had to be involved in raising my grandkids, but they believed we’d all be better off if we weren’t road warriors. A huge chunk of me agreed.
“They have aluminum siding and wheels, don’t they?” Raney knew the answer.
“Yes.”
“They
move. They’re trailers.” Raney thrust her chin out in a comic imitation of me when I was being bullheaded.
I shook my short, highlighted hair and gave up. Time to quit when I couldn’t win.
“I am sorry you could not convince Whip to be sensible and change his mind about where he works.” Eleanor raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Life would be so much easier if he would work in Richmond.”
“What does Whip have against putting down roots and living at home?” Grace peered at me over her reading glasses. She glanced back at her cards and twisted a lock of newly hennaed hair. A classic tell, as poker players would say. She held a good hand.
After my son-in-law was exonerated of Merry’s murder, we argued long and hard about his pigheadedness about living in Richmond. I wanted him to work close to home where the kids could continue in their schools. He could be home every night to help with homework and be the dominant influence in their lives. Nothing Emilie or I said changed his mind.
We quit the battle after Emilie asked me to stay with her and her brother, Alex, to help them grow up. I accepted the fact Whip was happiest living in some remote area building roads or tunnels or bridges. I dragged two concessions from him.
One, he had to accept jobs in the States, because I wasn’t about to haul two kids to a series of foreign countries. I had to be able to return to New York City monthly to fulfill a myriad of obligations.
Two, I chose how we lived. Not wanting to set up house in a series of tents, cheap motel rooms or crummy rental houses led to my current solution: RVs. Trailer trash or not, this was the most sensible solution.
“If you brought the kids here to New York, we’d see you all the time.” Rose gnawed at her lower lip, removing her lipstick, something she did when she wasn’t getting her way.
“I have to stay with the kids, no matter where they are. Besides, I need to be needed.”
“We need you too.” Rose had the last word for a while.
Eleanor topped off our glasses. The Great Dames, five friends who met once a week at one of our apartments for bridge and ’tinis, ranged in age from Eleanor at around seventy to me in my mid-fifties. Well, late fifties. We were half plastered. No wonder. We’d been playing cards in Rose’s apartment in the Dakota and sipping all afternoon. I’d had enough to drink but held out my glass anyway.
I found it nearly impossible to think I wouldn’t be seeing these close friends all the time. All widows, we enjoyed disposable time and income, not the least of which we poured into our apartments.
Rose’s made my mind itch. I’d been sitting in this embodiment of formal decorating for a dozen years without acknowledging its elegance. French, mostly Louis XIV, and not a reproduction. Though Rose’s apartment was spotless, a whiff of decay wafted on the air-conditioning. Far too many objects in too small a space. Lemon furniture oil, Chanel and martinis couldn’t mask centuries-old musk.
Grace dealt a new hand. I missed the next bid.
“Earth to Max.”
I made a stupid bid, and Raney and I ended up losing the hand.
“Pollygees, Raney, pollygees.”
“Seriously, Max, are you going ahead with this crazy scheme? After last year, I thought you’d stay home.” Grace handed the deck to Rose, who shuffled with gusto.
“I hoped to, but I promised Em and Alex. After all those years of being a road warrior and leaving the family management to Merry, Whip wants to be a more hands-on father. Since he can’t do it without my help, we’ll all be living in RVs.”
“I don’t understand why you choose them over us.” Rose was ever the center of her own universe. “We’re your best friends, after all. Besides, if you don’t stay here, how will you find an acceptable husband?”
CHAPTER THREE
New York, week of August 15
Around six, Eleanor, Raney, and I wobbled off to our favorite Thai restaurant a few blocks away. Rose and Grace, who had apartments in the Dakota, were in for the night. Eleanor lived over on Sutton Place, and Raney and I were in the lower eighties on Park.
“You are changing, Maxine. I was surprised when you did not rise to Rose’s comment about finding an acceptable husband.” Eleanor’s elegant diction set her apart from the rest of us Dames. She never lost her aristocratic British accent, even though she’d lived almost sixty years in the States. “In the past, you would have torn her apart.”
“I wanted to. She’s been riding me for a year, ever since I told her my friend, Johnny Medina, wasn’t Spanish royalty but a Mexican-American from Albuquerque.”
We dodged a group of mothers with strollers the size of condos rolling four abreast in front of the Plaza Hotel. Raney glared at them when they forced her to step into the gutter. She glanced up at the mounted policeman who shrugged.
“When she made her latest snarky remark, I bit my lip. She can be so opinionated, but I didn’t want to get into it today.”
“I doubt she would agree.”
“About being opinionated?”
“Yes. She craves excitement. If you married Spanish royalty, she would have a year’s worth of gossip to share.” Eleanor waved her hand and scattered Rose’s words on the sidewalk where we walked over them.
“Well, I’m not marrying anyone.”
“Does she believe everything that comes from her mouth?” Raney asked.
“Her prejudices are deeply ingrained. I doubt she knows how she sounds to others.” Eleanor linked her arm through mine. She steered me around two elderly men arguing in Yiddish at the corner.
“I doubt she cares.” Raney, who loved Rose as much as I did, had no illusions about our friend’s opinions.
“I don’t get it. She keeps harping on me to remarry, yet we’re all widows. She isn’t on your backs all the time.” I’d given up trying to understand Rose’s motivation. Except when she was hounding me, I enjoyed her company. She played a wicked good bridge game.
“She used to be. You’re her latest target,” Raney said.
“I wish she’d stop. I’m weary of her nagging.”
“She does not want to see your point of view.” Eleanor squeezed my arm. Slender and elegant, she was inches taller than me.
“I’m happy as I am.” I shrugged off Rose’s barbs as I’d done often. “I may be bad luck for husbands. After all, I’ve buried three. I don’t want to go through that again.”
“You care a lot for John.” Eleanor refused to use a nickname for anyone.
“I do, indeed.”
My granddaughter, Emilie, called Johnny a friend with privileges. I wasn’t sure she understood what the phrase meant, but I did. It fit. Johnny and I surprised ourselves at how comfortable we were with each other. Opposites in many ways, we nonetheless had a great deal in common. We came together to solve my daughter’s murder and stayed together because we had fun.
“Why is he special?” Eleanor had listened to me talk about Johnny for a year.
“He makes me laugh.”
I pulled open the door to Thai Palace. Steamy warmth carried the aroma of curry, hot pepper sauce, and fresh basil onto the sidewalk. We sat at the only open table.
“I haven’t seen you this excited in a long time.” Raney glanced at the menu.
“I can’t wait for Em and Alex to come home. Peru is too far away.” I didn’t look at the menu. I knew it by heart.
“I am pleased Whip wants to be more involved in their lives, although his stubbornness compels you to make the life choices he is unwilling to make.” Eleanor unwrapped her napkin and separated fork and knife into soldier-straight lines beside her small appetizer plate.
“He’s missed too much of their childhood already. His work and travel are out of sync with raising children. Being in jail for months. He’s never stayed home with the kids, has he?” Raney scattered her silverware on one side of her plate.
“It’s not part of his DNA.” I stared out the window for a moment. “Yet, when you see him with the kids, he’s an amazing father.”
Eleanor twitched he
r fork into better alignment. “He is not a good-time parent, is he?”
“Good-time parent?” Raney asked.
“Someone who is only there to take kids to the park or movies.”
An interesting question. Whip, rough around the edges and more comfortable with men than women, was a tough but fair disciplinarian.
“No, he isn’t, but no matter what he says or how he feels, he can’t raise the kids without help. We’ll go where his job takes us.”
I brought a small porcelain cup to my lips, inhaled the tea’s delicate bouquet, and glanced out the window again. A fire engine roared past, lights flashing and siren screaming. I couldn’t watch Raney stir sugar into jasmine tea.
“Will Johnny be working near you guys?”
“I hope so. We’re not sure where we’re going, because Johnny and Whip haven’t talked about which project to take. Johnny will go with us if Whip needs another supervisor.”
“It would be nice if he were nearby.” Eleanor poured a bit more tea into her cup.
“Won’t that be awkward, what with the kids around?” Raney winked.
“You’ve got that right.”
“But recreational vehicles.” Eleanor returned to her concerns about my temporary housing. “Are you certain they are safe?”
“As safe as anything. Besides, RVs were the simplest solution. The kids and I can personalize our space to give it a feel of home.”
I leaned a little to one side when the waiter served lemongrass soup and placed spring rolls in the middle of the table.
“Think of it as camping out, not living in RVs. We won’t be doing anything silly like sleeping on the ground or in tents. Anyway, I’ve camped before.”
Raney choked on her soup. “The last time you camped was on a five-star safari in Kenya.”
“Tanzania.”
“Whatever. You had an army of helpers doing everything for you.”
“What’s your point? I was camping.”
Reggie, my last husband, had surprised me with the trip for one of my zero birthdays. We hardly roughed it. Living in RVs wouldn’t be roughing it, but we wouldn’t be living in luxury either.