The Road Least Traveled

by Jerry Cole

  “Well, you have to,” said Alex. “You have to leave otherwise I’ll want you all over again and we’ll spend the whole day fucking and we won’t get a single thing done.”

  Alex called him a cab and Greg went back to the hotel. He felt guilty. He hadn’t called Molly since his arrival. He checked his watch. It was three a.m. That meant five in the evening, California time. She’d be at home and her mom would probably be cooking dinner. Greg got into the shower and washed the sweet smell of sex from his body, before taking his tablet out onto the balcony, where below him the city was still wide awake, though a little quieter than it had been earlier.

  He set the tablet up in front of him on the table and swiped through to the video calling app. He pressed the icon and searched for Molly. She was online. He pressed to connect and the dial tone began to echo along the balcony. Molly answered within three rings; she was straightening her hair in the mirror.

  “Hey Daddy,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Hey baby girl,” said Greg, surprised by what felt like tears pricking his eyelids at the sight of his only child looking so much like a young woman. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve called. Things here have been crazy.”

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” Molly replied, concentrating on her hair while her eyes occasionally flicked over to the screen. “What time is it where you are? It looks really dark.”

  “It’s just after three,” replied her father. “The city doesn’t sleep. But if I waited until the morning to call you, then you’d be fast asleep. At least, I like to think you’d be fast asleep.”

  Molly grinned and rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I have finals,” she said. “When I’m not studying, I’m sleeping, I promise.”

  “Not hanging out with Jared?” asked Greg, innocently enough, but wanting to catch his daughter out so that she’d talk to him. She wasn’t fooled, though, and barely missed a stroke of the straightener through her hair.

  “No, not so much,” she replied. “He has exams too. He’s looking at being accepted for a scholarship to a great school.”

  “He must be really talented if they’re looking at giving him a scholarship.”

  “He is.” Greg couldn’t tell but it seemed that Molly had blushed a little. “But he only told me about that a couple of days ago. Before that, the plan was that he was going to go into his father’s construction business.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Greg. “I guess that’s made you rethink your college plans. Am I right?”

  “Daddy, I know Mom spoke to you about NYU,” said Molly. She stepped away from the mirror and for a second Greg saw that she was in Sarah’s bedroom and not her own.

  “We don’t mind where you go to college, Moll,” said Greg. “Wherever you go, your mom and I are going to miss you. Although I’m guessing your mom won’t be sorry to get her hair and makeup stuff back.”

  Molly grinned. “She’s so crazy about the idea of me leaving California she’s practically giving me access to her whole wardrobe. She’s talking about how she can come and design my apartment when I move, but that’s under the condition that I stay in California.”

  “And what do you want to do, Moll?” Greg asked.

  “You know something, Daddy? You’re the first person who’s actually asked me what I want.”

  “So, tell me the answer.”

  “I want to go to a whole new city and experience everything it has to offer,” said Molly, and she put down her straightener and stared directly into the tablet she’d balanced on the table. “I want to go to New York. Jared’s going to Florida if the scouts come back and offer him a place. Either that or somewhere in Colorado. If I stay, it wouldn’t be for anybody but you and Mom. Ashleigh’s going to Europe for a year and living in Paris so she can learn enough French to come back and study literature, and all of my other friends are going to different places. I can’t stay here just so you and Mom know where I am and can come see me on the weekends.”

  “If NYU is where your heart is, then that’s where you have to go,” said Greg, aware that if Sarah was in earshot at that moment, she would never forgive him. “Your mom and I only want you to be happy. And there’s nowhere too far away that we can’t come see you on a plane.”

  “Did she tell you she’s back seeing Alan?” Molly asked, suddenly changing the subject. Greg groaned.

  “Oh, God, you’re kidding me.”

  “I saw them coming home in his car last night. They were kissing in the front seat. Last week when I told her about my plans for college she told me I was being irresponsible and here I am at home, waiting for my mother to come home from a date with a total loser.”

  “Then run to NYU, honey,” joked Greg. “Run as fast as your legs can carry you.”

  The choice of his ex-wife’s partners had long been a source of frustration for Molly but humor for Greg. Sarah seemed to have a real knack of dating the strangest men on earth. Alan, short and skinny, was a lawyer by day and an aspiring hypnotist by night. Many a time Molly and Greg had giggled together that Alan had convinced Sarah he was six-foot five and a linebacker for the LA Rams. Instead he was five-five, and Molly’s skinniest of skinny jeans would have drowned him. He was quiet and mouse-like, and Greg wondered how he ever managed to give a compelling, rousing case in court.

  “Last time they broke up she said that she’d never go there again,” said Molly. “And now I’m going to have to put up with her telling me to become a lawyer so that Alan can give me a job in his firm. I’ve told her that I’ll end up instead being his assistant on stage in a creepy nightclub downtown somewhere.”

  Greg laughed. “It’s not as funny as you think,” said his daughter, dryly. “I worry that my prediction might come true. When are you coming home, Daddy?”

  “Soon,” he said, and at that moment, he was hit by a pang of yearning for home, for his daughter, and for life back in California. “I won’t be here too long. We’ve had some problems getting the tunnel dug but we’re making great progress and I just want to see the job completed now.”

  “What’s it like over there?” asked Molly. Greg wasn’t sure where to start. He swallowed.

  “I can’t really describe it,” he said. “It’s like being in a city older than anywhere you’ve ever visited in your life. It’s a city where people were building houses and roads before Jesus Christ walked the earth. It’s where philosophy began. I can’t even comprehend it. There’s a smell of mystery. Dusty mystery. And I walk around knowing that I’m taking steps where some of the most influential people in the world walked. I’m breathing in the air that they breathed.”

  “Whoa, Daddy, where’s this coming from?” asked Molly, surprised. “I don’t think you’ve ever read poetry in your life and you spend a couple of weeks in Europe and it’s like you’re coming out with words I’ve never heard you use before.”

  Greg laughed. “I guess it’s the kind of city where it makes you feel like that,” said Greg. “If you like, we can come here over the summer. What do you say?”

  “I’d love to,” said Molly, “only I don’t know what my plans are. Jared’s last summer home with the family, my last summer here on the West Coast, you know?”

  “I know, honey,” said Greg. “Maybe another time.”

  There was silence between them and Molly looked sad.

  “Hey, baby,” said her father, pressing the knuckles of two fingers against the screen as if to tweak her nose from thousands of miles away. “Don’t be sad. This is exciting. I’ve been away for two weeks and I’ve seen another world. There comes a time when you have to go out and explore, and it’s really worth it.”

  “But what if Mom goes crazy on me?” Molly asked, and her pale eyes seemed to plead with him for support, for the answers that a young girl, fast becoming a woman, asks of her father.

  “You let me deal with your mom,” said Greg, firmly. “She’ll come around. I’ll ask Alan to dangle his keys in front of her face and tell her it’s all going to be all right.”
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  They laughed together, and after a couple more minutes of small talk, they ended the call. Greg was tired and he yawned and stretched in his chair. It hadn’t crossed his mind to tell Molly about Alex. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell anyone at all. He thought about Alex’s beautiful eyes, his soft, floppy hair, and the incredible body that Greg was becoming to know so well. It wasn’t going to be easy to leave him, but Greg knew there was no other alternative.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Betty continued her slow chomping through the earth and by the end of Friday had made even greater progress than she had the week before. Greg kept in mind his promise to Alex, and with one eye on the map at all times, made sure that for the first time since his arrival, Betty wasn’t going too fast. He could have had her moving even faster from the very beginning, and she was currently operating at barely fifty percent of her capacity, but the agreement with the authorities from the outset was that she was not to plow her way through too fast, or any areas of special interest she did uncover would have been destroyed.

  After the weekend, some of which was spent in Alex’s apartment, Greg stood in the control room with Eddie and they watched the huge blades churn up soil and dirt as normal. Betty had been working all morning and Greg knew that they must by now be almost directly underneath the patch of land that Alex so desperately wanted to excavate. He chose his moment and raised his hand. Eddie knew what that meant and he shut off the engine.

  “What’s up, boss?” he shouted, as the whirring sounds slowed down to a low hum. They removed their ear defenders.

  “I’m not too happy about the left-hand side of that shield,” Greg said, pointing out of the window. “I’d like to take a look at it.”

  “Sure,” said Eddie, “but we’ve done all the checks and she’s performing great on both sides.”

  “All the same, I’d like to know she can handle it,” said Greg. “I don’t want us to get too complacent.”

  Greg could tell that Eddie was convinced there was no problem, but he agreed to shut off all the engines and examine the shield. After much preparation and communication with the whole team, they backed Betty up twenty yards, the first time since her arrival that she had moved in a direction other than dead ahead.

  They took ladder and inspected the bolts. They seemed secure, but Greg continued to look doubtful. He felt bad for deceiving his best engineer, but there was a method in his madness.

  “Let’s call it a night,” he said to Eddie. “We’ll shut her off for the weekend and come Monday morning, we’ll see how she goes, okay?”

  “Boss, we’re making great ground and the guys had last weekend off,” said Eddie. “They want the job finished. We all do. I suggest we keep her going over the weekend and if she gets into any trouble I’ll switch her off. You’ll be the first to know.”

  Greg found it difficult to argue with such reasoning. It made too much sense, and Eddie would only get suspicious if he demanded that no work was done over the weekend. He had no choice but to nod and agree that his foreman’s opinion made sense. But at that moment, as if by some miracle, Eddie’s walkie-talkie bleeped and there was a muffled shouting of his name through the receiver.

  “Boss, you gotta come look at this,” said the voice. “We got a leak in the hydraulics or something back here.”

  “God dammit,” Eddie muttered. Into the receiver, he shouted “I’ll be there now.” They descended the ladders and leaving Betty switched off, the two men went back into the control room and out the other side, along Betty’s long body towards the huge rollers. There was a group of engineers in orange jackets trying to stem the tide of greyish liquid that was spilling onto the deck.

  “She’s got some kind of puncture,” one of the men shouted. “She’s leaking hydraulic fluid like nobody’s business. We need to close the valves and get someone here to look at it right away.”

  Eddie lifted his helmet. His hair was stuck down in limp strands on his head. “If the gasket’s gone you’re looking at a big job,” he said. “God dammit, she’s had no problems until now. Can’t we shut the whole thing off and keep her going on the one gasket? She’s barely working half of her capability anyway.”

  “Who’s to know?” replied another engineer. “But we don’t want to take that chance. I say we take a look and go from there.”

  The rest of the team stopped while the relevant guys took a look at Betty’s workings, once they had finally managed to shut off the leak temporarily, so the fluid was no longer gushing onto the floor. Greg, no stranger to rolling up his sleeves with the rest of them, took up a mop and sopped up as much of the liquid as he could. Within an hour, he’d heard back from the team who’d been sent to investigate the minute workings of Betty’s complex machinery.

  “It’s not a big job,” said Howard Blake, one of the engineers, a man Greg knew from most of the jobs he’d worked on, “but it’s going to need a part we’ll have to order in. I don’t know anywhere around here that will have that part, so we’ll order in from Germany. We might even have to order a slightly different part but I can get one of my guys to fit it. With a decent welding job, it’ll hold as sweet as anything.”

  “Do it,” said Greg. “Howard, I’m going to leave that with you. Keep Eddie informed at all times, and the rest of us can take a couple of days off.”

  Eddie wasn’t happy and Greg could sense his frustration. Were it not for that fact that Greg was secretly thrilled about this turn of events, he too would have been annoyed with the break. For Eddie, it meant more days from home, as it did for the other guys. The money they made was excellent, but even that barely made up for the weeks and months they spent away from their families. Eddie’s wife and kids missed him and he missed them. Lonely nights in a hotel didn’t seem quite as bad as long as Betty was soon going to break through the other side, but while she was hit by yet another blow, the idea of spending time by the pool until it was fixed was not an option for Eddie.

  Greg took him to one side. “I’ll get you a flight home,” he said, and when Eddie began to protest, he placed his hands on his foreman’s shoulders.

  “Look, we’ve got everything going great, apart from this one little blip. We know it’s going to take a few days to get the part and for Howard’s guy to fit it. Even then we’re going to have to test the weight and Betty won’t be up to full working order for maybe a week. Go home, and see your kids. Take it as a vacation.”

  “I can’t,” said Eddie. “I can’t go for a week and come back. The jet lag will kill me.”

  “Then why don’t we fly the family out here?” Greg offered. “Bring out your wife and kids, and they can have a week on the beach.”

  “We have a beach house,” said Eddie, gloomily. “Sounds like I’m ungrateful, boss, and I’m not. I appreciate it. But I want to get the part and get her going again. If you need me to, I can drive to wherever they have the part and bring it back. I just can’t sit around and wait for something to happen.”

  “Fine,” Greg agreed, and once again the guilt pricked at his conscience, though he had had nothing whatsoever to do with Betty’s sudden fault. He saw a man who wanted to work hard, and couldn’t. “Sort out what Howard needs, and if you don’t have to go too far, then by all means take a truck and go get what you need. If you need flights, call Patty back at the office and she’ll put everything through on the company account.”

  Eddie nodded. His face was stern, but after many years in the game he knew such things would happen on occasion. He left Greg and went to find Howard. Until the part was sourced, Betty would go no further. It meant no soil would need to be transported out of the shaft. No machinery would need to be left running. The site could be left unattended by everyone but the security team over the weekend. Which is exactly what Greg wanted. He left the site via the creaky elevator cage and at the top, walked to the end of the site and took out his cell phone. He dialed Alex’s number.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At just after midnight, Greg took a c
ab to Alex’s apartment and once there, pressed the buzzer. Alex responded by wordlessly opening the door for him and he got into the elevator, which had finally been fixed after Greg paid one of the engineers in cash to quietly go to the block and attend to the repair without asking any questions. Within a couple of hours it was the general consensus in the building that a benevolent stranger had taken it upon themselves to help out a block of poor inhabitants who would no longer have to climb a ridiculous number of flights of stairs, often while carrying both children and groceries. They didn’t care who fixed it, all they cared about was that it had been fixed.

  Once upstairs, Greg was surprised to see that Alex was not alone. Rather, his tiny apartment was crammed with people. There were at least twelve sitting on the sofa, the floor, the old non-matching chairs and on the balcony. Some were smoking, most had a beer in their hands, but all looked at Greg with excited smiles when he entered the room.

  “Grigoris, meet my team,” said Alex, beaming with delight over the crowd of strange faces. Some waved at Greg, and one or two even applauded him. The confusion on Greg’s face showed, and Alex wasted no time in explaining.

  “Once I got your phone call, I spent the next two hours getting everyone together,” he said. “I have a team of fifteen, all of us here. We will start tonight.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute,” said Greg, holding up his hands to calm an excited Alex. “We haven’t even begun to talk about a plan yet. You guys can’t just come onto the site and have me vouch for you all. For a start, you don’t have safety equipment. You don’t have insurance. I can’t get all of you passes.”

  Alex’s face fell a little, but he was not to be deterred.

  “We have our own equipment,” he said. “Helmets, jackets, first aid kits, everything. This is what we do. You don’t have to do anything for us. I know where it is, I know how to get down there. Trust us. We can do this.”