by Wiley Brooks
The Next Best Thing
By Wiley Brooks
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Copyright © 2019 Wiley Brooks
All rights reserved
ISBN: 9781773177122
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019907191
Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, known now or hereafter invented is forbidden without the written consent of the author.
The Next Best Thing is a work of fiction. There are a few real people named but their parts in the story are completely made up. The reader should assume that names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Contents
The Next Best Thing
THE NEXT BEST THING
DEDICATION
KEY LOCALES in BOOK
Prologue
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24
Day 25
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
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About the Author
DEDICATION
To my sweet wife, Marianne Bichsel. You’ve always believed in and encouraged me. Every day that passes I’m thankful that you agreed to marry me those many years ago.
To my dear friend, Monty Dennison. This book had languished for 32 years until one Tuesday last August when, after a Bombay Gin martini and a glass of red wine, you said to me “Just write the damn book.” So I did.
KEY LOCALES in BOOK
Prologue
Some things never leave you. I lost my daughter thirty-two years ago. You know that cliché about time healing wounds. Don’t believe it. If time had healing power, three decades should be more than enough. But I long for my sweet baby girl every day. Every day, there is a moment when my heart cracks. I can feel it. Physically. It’s like something gives way in my chest.
Anything can trigger it. Yesterday there was this little girl – I’d say she was three, maybe four – literally ran right into me on the sidewalk outside the Winn-Dixie. She was wearing a bright yellow dress and laughing up a storm. Then she looked up at me with her beautiful blue eyes with that half-guilty, half-frightened look that only a child can give. I gave her a big smile; her expression changed back into glee once again. She turned, darted off as her mother came running down the sidewalk, bags in both arms, yelling for her to stop that instant. As the little girl scurried away, my smile melted from my face. Those blue eyes could have been Amanda’s. The terrible emptiness gripped me yet again.
It’s awful to lose a child. It doesn’t matter if she is two or twenty-two. I suspect that almost all dads have a clear picture in their minds of their kid’s future. From the time Amanda was a baby, I could see her in cap and gown, or walking down the aisle, me at her side. In my mind, Amanda was going to take over the business I had founded. I pictured her sitting behind my desk looking every bit the successful woman that I knew she would become. And, of course, I saw her as a mother. She’d be a great one. I think all fathers have these visions of their children. Amanda, though, was my only child, so maybe mine were more vivid.
I’m getting old. I was forty-eight when Amanda died. Last week I turned eighty, but I stopped celebrating my birthday thirty-two years ago. On my birthday this year, I ran into my friend, Amal, at the gym. Amal is about twenty years younger than me and one of the most outgoing fellows I know. He retired a year ago and started showing up to work out at about the same time as me every day. We became gym pals. Well, last week when I told Amal that it was my birthday, he insisted on taking me to lunch.
“My friend, eighty years is a long life,” Amal said to me as we waited for our food. “A chance for many blessings. Tell me, what are you most grateful for?”
Amal and I were not deep friends. I had never told him about Amanda or much of anything that was truly personal. “That’s easy,” I said. “Amanda.” He looked puzzled at the name he had not heard before. “Was that your wife?” he asked.
I’m sure he didn’t expect to spend the next four hours hearing about my sweet girl, all the things we did together, her years away at college and finally her post-college adventure. “You know, Amal, I wasn’t thrilled that she was going to travel the world – by herself, no less! But the world was a far safer place back in the Eighties. Or so I thought. And Amanda was a smart kid. Lots of common sense. She’d be fine. I was wrong.”
And with that, I told Amal about Amanda’s murder. Savage. Brutal. I told him how it gutted me and emptied my soul.
“I couldn’t imagine how I could go on, yet here I am thirty-two years later. Nothing had meaning then. You know the stages of grief? I moved to the anger stage quickly. I wanted to find the sonofabitch who did it and kill him. I hatched a plan and hired a guy to find him.”
“Did you?” Amal asked. “Find him, I mean.”
“Oh yeah,” I answered.
“And what did you do?”
I stared at Amal. His question hung in the air. What happened that hot afternoon on a jungle trail in Southeast Asia had stayed there. Only three other people knew the story. I’ve since shared it with no one. But as I sat there with this casual friend sipping on a Diet Coke and waiting for my burger to arrive, I knew the time had come. I told Amal the whole story.
He wept.
So did I.
Day 1
Amanda boarded the bus this morning in Melaka. Truth is, she was glad to be moving on. Visiting Melaka was like visiting Oakland before its renaissance. Best, perhaps, to not linger.
Melaka’s “charms” were pointed out in her travel guide and the yellow book had rarely misled her. And make no mistake; there was history here. And maybe, someday, Malaysia would get it together enough to do it justice. After all, Melaka had once been the center of an empire. One would never guess it now.
Once a busy port on the Strait of Malacca, Melaka was showing its age. Tired, rundown and dirty. It was hard to escape the stench of raw sewage that flowed into the river that meandered through town.
During the Vietnam War, ports throughout Southeast Asia bustled with business. It was in a prime and safe location. Near Singapore, Melaka held a strategic location on the Strait that hugs the west coast of Malaysia all the way to Thailand. But when the war ended, things slowed. Fewer and fewer ships called on Melaka. The city looked weary. As did its people.
Amanda was traveling alone. Her dad had worried about that before she left Tampa. But the fact was that she was rarely actually alone. The road is sprinkled with travelers like her from all over the world.
Backpackers, it turns out, are a friendly bunch. They engage easily with each other, form bonds, share stor
ies, sometimes more and then move on. The membership of their little bands ebb and flow, constantly changing. It had become the aspect of travel Amanda most enjoyed.
Bus routes crisscross Malaysia. While some backpackers stuck out their thumb for rides, most relied on going from point A to point B by bus. Buses were cheap and fairly reliable. Some were even air-conditioned coaches with TVs showing movies. Others were less well appointed; basic school bus seating with windows that move up and down to allow in cooling air, at least when the bus was moving. That’s the kind of bus Amanda found herself getting on for the upcoming four-and-a-half-hour ride.
When she boarded, a petite redhead with her hair tied back in a ponytail was already sitting midway back next to an open window. Amanda grabbed the seat directly across the aisle. The two young women smiled at each other.
“Tioman?” Suzanne asked as Amanda took her seat.
“Yep. I’ve really been looking forward to it, especially after this place.” She used her head to indicate Melaka, the place they were leaving.
“I’m Amanda, by the way.”
She reached out for a brief handshake.
“Suzanne. Just call me Suzy.”
As the two young women chatted, a petite blonde girl took the seat one row up. Behind her was a slim guy who sat next to her. The only other passenger to board was another backpacker who offered a big smile and took the seat across the aisle from the young couple. Everyone else on the intercity bus was either Malay or Chinese Malay.
Suzy looked over to Amanda and raised her eyebrows and mouthed the word, “hunk.” She was referring to the last backpacker to board the bus. Amanda smiled back.
Truth is she had seen him earlier at a restaurant in town and felt a twinge of excitement when he boarded her bus. He was a good-looking guy, though he ignored her at the restaurant.
The driver closed the door and the bus pulled away. The destination sign on the front said Mersing, which explained the backpacking travelers. Mersing is a small fishing port on the lower east coast of Malaysia and the jumping off point for Tioman Island.
“How long you been traveling?” Suzy asked.
“I left home about six months ago,” Amanda said. “Started in India and worked my way east. I’m giving myself a year. At least that was the plan when I left home. Not so sure now. Might be longer.”
“It will be,” Suzy said. “When I left home, I told my folks six months. I couldn’t imagine then that I’d want to be away more than that.”
“How long ago did you leave?”
“Nine months now. And no plan to stop anytime soon. You meet all these people who have been on the road for way longer. I traveled with an Irish guy in Laos who had been traveling for four years. Blows my mind. Four fucking years. Can you believe it?” Amanda shook her head no.
“When I asked him about his plans,” Suzy continued, “he would just say something like, ‘Suze, you have to let go of your American fixation on ‘building’ a life. Life happens, babe. It’s the journey. Just love the journey.’” She said it like a stoner with an Irish accent.
Amanda put her thumb and index finger together as if holding something, raised it to her lips and made a sucking sound.
“You got that right. Colin took getting high to a new level. I was with him for about a week. Had to leave.”
“Four years. No way I could do that. My dad and I are too close. I miss him. We’re all we have. My mom passed a few years ago and I don’t have any brothers or sisters. He flew all the way from Tampa to meet me for my birthday in Bangkok. Hung out a few days then flew back.”
“Ah, that’s sweet. It’s great you’re so close to your dad. My folks are divorced. I’m pretty tight with my mom.”
“Yeah. My dad’s great. But he thinks I’m too trusting. ‘Do you really know these people you’re hanging out with?’” Amanda said, giving her dad’s words a false parental tone.
“Of course, I don’t tell him when I’m traveling with a guy. I’ll say I’m with a group. He would freak out if he knew how much sex I’m having.”
“I just don’t go there with my parents,” Suzy said. “They would have a meltdown if they knew I was an equal opportunity fornicator.”
“A what?” Amanda laughed.
“A woman of the world. Damn, girl, why would I want to screw an American? I have the rest of my life to do that!”
They laughed.
“How about you?”
“Well, I’m not as well traveled as you,” Amanda said, putting air quotes around well-traveled. “There was an Aussie I traveled with named Bryan. We were together for, like, three weeks.”
Amanda paused. A devilish grin spread across her face. She lowered her voice slightly.
“What a lay!” They both did a soft giggle.
“Hey,” Suzy said, “I’m thinking about writing an article about how people from different parts of the world say different things during sex. I think Playboy or Penthouse would buy it. You know they pay like a thousand dollars?”
“Oh, they definitely would,” Amanda said, “God, Bryan, you know, the Aussie, did this thing when he was getting close. He’d start softly repeating ‘yeow, yeow, yeow.’ The first time I wondered what in the hell that was about. It was actually distracting. But then, you know, it would happen and he’d shout, ‘Whooaa.’ The first time it was all I could to not laugh out loud.”
They broke into giggles, much louder this time, drawing the attention of several passengers.
“You ever do it with a local?” Amanda asked.
“Once. In India. It was okay. He was good looking enough. Nice body. Spoke English with a lilting English accent. I thought, why not? You?”
“No. At least not yet. Sounds like your guy had some sex appeal. I haven’t found a local guy yet who gets my motor running. Know what I mean?”
Suzy nodded yes.
“I’m open to it, though,” Amanda continued. “I think it would be part of the experience of traveling the world.”
“Yeah. You could write a book, ‘Screw the World’ or, wait, ‘Dicking Around.’” Both girls squealed.
Martin, in the seat in front of them, turned around with a big smile on his face. His girlfriend, though, was the first to talk. “I’d buy that book, sugar,” she said in a thick unmistakably southern accent.
“Hi ladies. My name is Martin,” the fellow said and it was obvious that he was from Germany. “I’m from Bonn. This is Crystal.”
“Hi y’all,” Crystal said. “From Little Rock.”
One row up from Amanda, Joey was debating with when to join the conversation. Now was as good a time as any.
“Hey guys, I’m Joey,” he said. “I grew up in a little town no one has ever heard of in North Carolina.” He shook hands with everyone.
“You’re an American?” Martin asked, the skepticism clear in his tone. “You look like you might be from here.”
“Yeah, I have some Malay blood in me, but I’m all USA, the whole kit and caboodle.” Then changing the topic, he quickly added, “Hey, everyone headed to Tioman? It’s awesome.”
Nods all around.
“You’ve been there?” Suzy asked.
“A few months ago,” Joey answered. “I was there for five days. Would have stayed longer but I had to leave to meet someone.”
“Is it as primitive as they say?” Suzy asked.
“I don’t know if I’d call it primitive,” Joey said. “Maybe pristine. Basic, for sure. There’s not much development there. Just a little village. The jungle comes right up to the beach. All the places to stay line the beach at the edge of the jungle.”
“Well, sweetie, that sounds danger-ass to me,” Crystal drawled.
“What!” Suzy chortled.
“Yeah, dangerous to my ass.”
“No, Crystal,” Joey answered, interrupting the chuckles. “It’s not dangerous at all. The only time I saw any jungle creatures was when a group of us took the trail over the mountain to the other side of the island. We were walk
ing down the other slope and facing us in the middle of the trail were two of the biggest monitor lizards I’d ever seen. I swear those guys were at least four feet long!”
“Christ!” Suzy said.
“It was okay,” Joey said. “They didn’t want to be around us either. They scurried off down the path away from us. Didn’t see them again.”
Joey said the best part of the jungle were the sounds. Birds, insects, monkeys. They all make their noises at the same time.
“It’s really loud, but really beautiful, too,” he said.
Joey told them that there are quite a few decent places to stay on Tioman. He stayed at a place called ABC Village. It was basically small A-frames with thatched roofs. Each hut had a wooden floor that raised it slightly off the ground to keep people inside and their stuff above the water when it’s raining like crazy. A hut, he said, was only about two and a half dollars a night.
“The guy who runs it is a Malay named Baharom. Westerners throw in a T and call him Batharoom. He’s good natured about it. Great guy. Most nights after dinner he plays guitar around a fire on the beach. It’s really cool.”
Amanda decided that she kind of liked this guy. He was good looking and had a nice quality to his voice.
“So, you’re kind of a Malay and an American at the same time,” she said. In her mind, she was wondering if he had been sitting just far enough away to not overhear her chat with Suzy earlier about screwing local guys. He hadn’t said anything to hint that he had. And the bus was noisy, after all. Then again, Martin and Crystal had heard.
“You could say I’m the best of both worlds,” he said with an infectious smile. She found herself smiling right back at him.
The five chatted a bit more, but eventually turned back in their seats. Martin plugged in his Walkman to listen to songs. Crystal stared out the window. Joey pulled out his yellow Lonely Planet guidebook.
