Nowhere for Christmas

by Heather Gray

  “Albuquerque,” Avery answered. “We’re heading to Nowhere, Oklahoma.”

  The officer’s eyebrows went up. “Not much in Nowhere. Is that your final destination?”

  Avery nodded. “I’m a journalist, and Gavin here is a photographer. We’re on assignment for the Albuquerque Times. We’ve been ordered to do a Christmas story about Nowhere, and the folks at Corporate want it to be authentic, so we have to actually be there on Christmas.” She rolled her eyes. “If you can believe it, we left Albuquerque yesterday around three o’clock. This car has given us nothing but trouble.”

  Hands clenched in her lap, Avery made herself stop talking. Keep this up, and he’ll ask if you’re related to Mavis Mueller.

  A voice came back over Officer Delaney’s two-way radio, but Avery couldn’t make out the words.

  The officer stepped closer to her open window and handed her license and the car’s registration back.

  “This has got to be the most miserable excuse for a rental car I’ve ever seen. No rear bumper, you only have one working taillight, and it looks like the three of you can barely fit in there.”

  He pointed over his shoulder to the sign Eli had pointed out. “I gather by now you’ve figured out you’re going the wrong way down a one-way street.” Avery nodded. Then he pointed to the building across the street from them. “Of all the roads in town to get turned around on, you chose the one in front of the police station. You never had a chance.”

  For the first time, Avery scanned the street around her and realized it was littered with police cars. She’d been so caught up in her own panic at being pulled over she hadn’t realized where they were. Avery slapped her palm against her forehead.

  “I’m an idiot,” she said to the officer.

  He laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it. As it happens, the one-way sign where you made the left onto this road is obscured by snow.”

  “Thank you, Officer Delaney. You have no idea what a horrible trip this has been. Your kindness is appreciated more than you know.”

  Gavin spoke up from the passenger seat, “Any chance you can give us directions back to the freeway?”

  He nodded and said, “You’ll need to take a U-turn here. It’s illegal on this street, but I’ll stop the flow of traffic and wave you through.”

  What traffic?

  “Once you get to the end of the block, take a left on Third and then a right on Pierce. It won’t be too long till you see signs for the freeway. They’re real obvious. You might want to know, though,” he said, pausing, “the freeway is closed down east of here. You’ll be on it for a short spell, then they’ll detour you off to US-287 South.”

  “Why is it closed?”

  “Whiteout conditions, and they haven’t been able to get anyone out there yet to clear it. The snowplows are busy, and this snow keeps coming down. I’m thinkin’ it’ll be afternoon before they get it cleared again. Your detour will take you down through Washburn and Claude. At Claude, you’ll either be directed back to the freeway or you’ll be kept on the detour. It depends on the road conditions by then.”

  “Thank you for your help,” Avery said, offering the man a smile.

  He nodded and stepped away from the car and out into the road. No traffic was coming for him to stop, so he swept his arm out in the traditional traffic cop motion for turn, but he put a little extra twist into it, which she assumed was his signal for U-turn. Avery started the engine and did as directed. She, Gavin, and Eli all waved to Officer Delaney as they left him in their rearview mirror and once again headed toward their destination.

  Chapter Ten

  Goodnight, TX

  December 24, 9:30 a.m.

  They made it out of Amarillo and followed the freeway until they were directed onto the detour as Officer Delaney had said. The engine was cooling, and the heater was warming. Everything was going well, and Avery was beginning to believe the worst of the trip was behind them. She dared not say it out loud, but she did let herself think it for the barest hint of a minute: What else could conceivably go wrong?

  Gavin nodded off again, clearly exhausted. Eli was listening to his MP3 player, which he now had plugged into the car’s only cigarette lighter for power. Avery, not wanting to wake Gavin, was left with her own thoughts for company.

  Spending time with her own thoughts didn’t always go well for Avery. She had an admitted tendency to over think situations. As she drove, she had to ask herself why they hadn’t turned back the first time things started to go wrong. Because I’m a glutton for punishment.

  When exactly should she have conceded defeat? An ugly car that looked old and was too small wasn’t the end of the world. Flat tires happened to people all the time. Yeah, but the bumper falling off… because the duct tape had given out… Admittedly, the bumper should have been a red flag. The snow wouldn’t have sent her scurrying back to the safety of Albuquerque. People drive in bad weather all the time. We’re just spoiled in the Southwest. A failing thermostat and overheating car might have been a clue to some people. By then we were already halfway to Nowhere. It didn’t make sense to turn back. I mean, what else could have gone wrong at that point?

  The snowfall, which had been increasing as Avery had allowed her mind to contemplate their road trip, began to come down so heavily she had to turn her windshield wipers on high to keep up with the thick flakes. Following the instructions her grandmother had given her years ago, she gripped the steering wheel firmly and leaned toward the windshield to better see. It’s nothing more than weather. Stay alert, and everything will be fine.

  “Is everything okay?” Eli asked.

  Gavin stirred but didn’t wake.

  “The snow’s getting pretty heavy,” she answered.

  “You could always pull over and wait it out,” her son offered.

  “If this doesn’t ease up, I might have to.”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than a loud thwack against the windshield echoed through the car, and she lost all visibility. Avery instinctively yelled for Gavin to roll down his window.

  The poor guy, who’d been asleep at most thirty minutes jumped, again hitting his head on the too-short ceiling of the car. He rubbed his head and glowered.

  “Put your window down,” she ordered. “I need to know where the side of the road is. We’ve got to pull over.” Avery had her window down by then, too, and was leaning out far enough to keep an eye on the orange line of the road to at least make sure she didn’t veer into the other lane. She didn’t want to slow down too much in case a car came up behind them and, in the heavy snow, didn’t see them. The last thing they needed was to get rear-ended.

  “Okay,” Gavin said. “The shoulder’s plenty wide. Start to pull off toward the right. I’ll let you know if you get too close to the edge, but you should cross over the white line enough to see it on your side before that ever happens.”

  Gavin directed her off the road and into the emergency lane. Once she had the emergency brake in place and the four-way blinkers flashing, the two of them got out to inspect the damage to the windshield.

  Gavin lifted the empty metal arm that would have normally held the passenger-side windshield wiper. The wiper on the driver side of the car had come loose, too, but was still hanging on, caught on a lip of the metal mechanism. Avery rescued it and attached it firmly back into place.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Well, the way I see it, we have two choices.” Gavin put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “We can leave it as-is and run the windshield wipers. The passenger window will get scratched up by the metal arm on this side, but then we can stop at the next town or truck stop and get a replacement wiper for it.”

  “Or?” she asked loudly, trying to be heard over the now howling wind.

  “Or we break the arm off. This saves the windshield but costs us a later repair and means we don’t have a passenger windshield wiper at all for the rest of this trip.”

  “I don’t care fo
r either of those options,” she said in reply. “Do you have anything better to offer?”

  “Not at the moment.” He shook his head as he continued to study the hatchback. Then, a smile lighting his face, Gavin raised a finger into the air. “What about this? We put a sock or two on the arm, secure it tightly into place, and leave it be to run. The sock should protect the windshield. We can buy a new blade at our next stop, and the windshield will be none the worse for the wear.”

  “Brilliant!” she said, happy it was going to be an easier repair than she’d thought. “You’re pretty quick for someone who keeps hitting his head.” She winked and reached in through the open driver window. “Eli, open the side pocket on my suitcase and pull out a pair of socks.”

  Her son raised an eyebrow in question but did as he was told. When he pulled out a brightly colored pair of thick wool socks, she shook her head and said, “No, not those. I like that pair. Get me some socks I don’t care about.” Plain white cotton came out next, and she nodded. “That’ll do it.”

  Avery tossed the socks to Gavin, who put one of them around the metal arm of the wiper and used some electrical tape from the glove compartment to secure it into place.

  “You sure one will be enough?”

  “We might need the other if this one blows off or comes loose.”

  “Alright, let’s go,” she said as she opened the driver-side door. Looking at the snow on her seat, she added, “I can’t believe I left the window down.” Avery brushed as much of the snow off the seat as she could but knew she would likely end up with a cold backside as soon as she sat down. Muttering, “I should have known better,” she climbed in, rolled up the window, and started the engine.

  “We have a problem,” Gavin said.

  “Put your window up so we can keep the cold out then tell me what the problem is.”

  “The window is the problem,” he said.

  Avery, her stomach lurching in sudden upset, searched Gavin’s pale drawn face then eyed the button he kept pushing to get his window to go up. Only, the window wasn’t moving. What else could go wrong indeed!

  “Maybe you’re pushing it wrong?” she asked.

  Gavin threw the car door open, jumped out, slammed it closed behind him, and went marching off into the snow.

  Avery let him go. This was turning into the worst road trip in the history of every road trip ever taken by mankind since the Model-T first came off the assembly line. She couldn’t blame him for needing to walk off his frustration, which she assumed was the cause of his sudden exodus. In his absence, she couldn’t stop herself from leaning over and trying the push-button switch to see if it would by some miracle work for her. If I could be so lucky.

  “Any ideas, kid?” she asked Eli, turning the ignition back off.

  “I packed an extra pillow. We can use the pillowcase and tape it into place over the opening.”

  “That won’t keep the cold out.”

  “It might keep the snow out, though. If we had plastic…” His voice trailed off as he began digging around on the floor at his feet.

  “Here!” Eli tossed the plastic covering from the case of bottled water she’d insisted they bring. With the plastic and my pillowcase, we should be able to block the worst of the snow and wind. It won’t keep the cold out, but it’ll be better than the pillowcase by itself. With the heat working, we should be fine till we can get it fixed. If the heat still wasn’t working, we’d be in a lot worse shape.”

  Avery and Eli worked at getting the plastic and pillowcase stretched over the half-opened window and used the electrical tape from the glove compartment to seal all the edges the best they could. By the time they were done, Gavin was heading back to the car. His pants were crusted with snow all the way up to his knees, his cheeks and nose were ruddy from the cold wind, and he was chafing his hands together for warmth. Despite all that, he was calmer.

  “Sorry for losing it.”

  Shrugging, Avery said, “Until I got pulled over in Amarillo, I was wondering if you were even human. You’ve been handling everything so well. I’d hardly call that little scene ‘losing it,’ but it’s good to know you’re not as perfect as you’d first seemed.”

  A grin broke across his face, and his eyes twinkled, “Perfect, huh? That sounds good coming from you.”

  She shook her head and wrinkled her nose in mock disgust. “Just get in. We should be able to find help at our next stop.”

  “What’s our next town?” Gavin asked.

  “Clarendon, I think.”

  “They should be big enough to have a hotel, wouldn’t you say?”

  Avery nodded as she pulled back onto the road. “Should be, and I can’t imagine they’d all be booked up. Think we should stop?”

  Gavin nodded. “We could all use some shut-eye. Even if we get no more than four or five hours before we get back on the road, I’d feel better if we were both rested so we could be awake in the car.”

  Avery, who’d managed about three hours of sleep during the night, was faring better than Gavin, but she had to admit, even she was starting to lose her ability to focus. Her responses were slowing, too. She finally nodded and said, “Sounds like a plan. Think there’ll be an obvious one, or should we see if GPS can help?”

  Gavin activated the screen on his phone and laughed, “I don’t know if we still have it or not, but I must have gotten a signal at some point. All my texts to Mitchell went out.” He pushed a few more buttons and said, “Clarendon’s not huge, but they’ve got two hotels on the main road. We shouldn’t be able to miss them.”

  The thought of sleeping rejuvenated Avery. “So much for being able to drive straight through to Nowhere. But, oh, blessed sleep, here we come!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Clarendon, TX

  December 24, 4:00 p.m.

  A light knock came at Gavin’s door. He smiled to himself before swinging it wide to admit Avery. She looked as if she’d barely woken up, and it was a look she wore well.

  “Eli asleep?” he asked.

  She laughed. “He got more sleep last night than anybody. You’d think he would be the one itching to get back on the road.”

  “I’m not sure any of us are in a hurry for that,” he said.

  “Yeah, but…” her voice trailed off.

  Gavin waved her over to the desk chair resting in front of a table in the corner of his room. “Have a seat.”

  He settled in on the bed cross-legged, and said, “I called an auto-parts store before I fell asleep. The guy told me how to fix the window. Said there’s no way to get it replaced around here what with the holiday and all, but fixing it should be fairly easy.”

  “Okay. What do we need?”

  “A flat-head screwdriver and some strong adhesive duct tape. Hopefully that’s all.”

  Avery wrinkled her brow. “I’ve lived my whole life without realizing how valuable duct tape is to automotive repair. How did I ever survive?”

  Gavin shook his head at her, a smile lighting his eyes. “I’ll need to remove the interior panel of the door – that’s where the screwdriver comes in – and then I’ll have to pull the window up and prop it into the closed position. I need to wedge something under it so it doesn’t slide back down. Then, to get a good seal at the top, the man I spoke with said to use a good quality duct tape. That should hold it all the way to Nowhere and back to Albuquerque.”

  Avery nodded and bit her lower lip.

  Gavin wasn’t in a hurry to go stand outside, trying to make a repair he’d never attempted before, so when he thought there might be something else Avery wanted to discuss, he didn’t rush her.

  After a couple blinks, Avery said, “I wondered if I could ask you something about Eli.”

  Surprised, Gavin said, “Sure, but I think you’d have better answers than I would. You know him a lot better.”

  She nibbled on her lower lip again for a minute before saying, “Are you a man of faith?”

  Taken aback by her question, Gavin slowly nodded
and said, “Yes, I’d like to think so, but that could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.”

  Avery chewed on her lip a bit more before saying, “I’m not very good at these sorts of conversations. Give me a corrupt businessman to interview any day over a conversation about personal beliefs.” Gavin waited for her to continue. She eventually made eye contact and said, “Do you believe in God?”

  “I do,” he replied, adding, “I believe in God the Father and salvation through His Son Jesus. Is that what you’re trying to dig at?”

  Avery’s lips stretched into a smile, and her eyes brightened. Gavin couldn’t help but grin in return when she said, “Yeah, that was pretty much what I was getting at. Like I said, I’m not very good at that sort of thing.”

  Gavin leaned back in his seat and relaxed, settling in for a longer conversation. “Was that all you wanted to ask, or was there something more?”

  A light blush tinged Avery’s cheeks. “You haven’t known us long, but you’ve spent more time with us than most.”

  “Ask away,” he said, wanting to ease her obvious discomfort.

  “I don’t understand boys all that well. I mean, I know Eli, but as he’s gotten older, he’s not as easy for me to read. There are some things that worry me, but I don’t want to ask him. If he thinks I’m worried about it, he might try to hide it from me, you know?”

  Gavin could remember going through similar struggles with his mom. “With only the two of you, it’s natural to want to protect each other. The two of you against the world and all that.” He nodded in understanding before adding, “Of course, that mentality may not always be best. I tend to think open honesty is the best course of action, even when you’re tempted to do something else. Maybe especially then.”

  She shrugged and said, “When Eli was little, he would tell me everything. He doesn’t so much anymore. He used to be an open book, too. I—I’ve been worried about his relationship with God.”