by Jaime Maddox
Britain Dodge had grown up on another mountain, thousands of miles north of this one, and she was accustomed to the noises of the night—wind blowing through the leaves of trees, animal footsteps in the forest, insects calling out to each other across great expanses of crisp air. This mountain was different, though, and its stillness was almost frightening as she imagined all other life vanquished from the planet as she was left alone to fend for herself in the wild.
At the moment, she felt alone. She had no job, no money, no plan. She’d always been a planner, a highly organized and efficient creature who needed to know what to look forward to. Since she’d finished college, she’d been in limbo, and she hated the insecurities and fears that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. What if she was in a car accident? How could she afford a new car? What if she wasn’t smart enough to impress the powers who’d interviewed her? What if she failed?
She’d always been a winner, but here in this vast and simple place, where she’d come to offer help and perhaps find some inner peace, she felt defeated.
Saddened by the thought, Brit listened intently as she imagined a sound behind her. Her heart raced and she was suddenly fearful, for the privacy that had caused her to choose this isolated spot to brood also made her vulnerable. The sound came again, closer this time, and she turned around to see a flashlight in the hand of someone approaching from the direction of the village. She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or more frightened by the presence of another human.
“Who’s there?” she demanded of the darkness.
“I thought I might find you here,” a husky but feminine voice replied.
“Syl, you scared the crap out of me.” She’d scolded her, but she wasn’t really angry. Syl was a welcome companion, and just hearing her voice improved Brit’s mood. Syl was the single best thing about Brazil, and Brit looked forward to the time they spent together as much as she once enjoyed the electronics she’d forsaken to come.
Instead of acknowledging her comment, as was Sylvia’s habit, she pursued the topic she had on her own mind. “Luke is in love with you.”
Whispering into the darkness, Brit turned in the direction of the flashlight. “I don’t know why! I’ve never done anything to encourage him, but he’s like a puppy, following me around all the time.”
“I’ll tell you why,” Syl said, and she sat so close to Brit their shoulders touched. Brit knew this was a friendly gesture and nothing more, just like the soft kiss Syl planted on her cheek. Syl was married to Marianna, another aid worker, but that hadn’t stopped her from forming an instant and wonderful friendship with Brit when she arrived in South America.
“It’s because you’re beautiful, and kind, and smart…must I go on?” She was teasing her.
“Shit,” Brit said. “I was able to avoid him at school, but here—we’re together twenty-four seven. It’s a bit more difficult.”
“Why don’t you just tell him you’re a lesbian?”
Brit pulled back and turned her head sharply in the direction of Syl’s voice. “My sexuality isn’t a topic of conversation.”
“And why is that? Do you think it’s some great secret?”
Brit sighed. She’d never told Syl. In fact, she’d only told a handful of people, her closest friends and the women she’d dated. “How did you know I’m gay?”
“A million reasons, I guess. But mostly just being gay helps me to pick up on other people’s vibes. That and my connection to the spirits,” she said, and Brit wasn’t sure if she was joking.
She’d met Sylvia on her arrival in this small village, more than a month before. Brit came with a team of volunteers, all with varied backgrounds, from medical workers and teachers like her to engineers and carpenters. They’d come to help improve the lives of the people who called this place home and intended to complete construction of a town hall, which would serve multiple purposes—a medical clinic, a classroom, a meeting place. Sylvia was a Californian, but an ancestor long ago had roamed these same paths. She’d made it her life’s work to help the people of the village by bringing the resources of the world to this far corner of the planet. She worked tirelessly in the completion of paperwork and the hauling of wood, in the cradling of babies and the cooking of meals. A more dedicated woman didn’t exist, except perhaps Marianna, who’d led a medical team to a remote village earlier in the day. As if where they were wasn’t remote enough. Her smartphone couldn’t even get a signal out here.
“It’s not that I don’t want people to know. I just haven’t told them.” She was lying.
“You must find your voice, and your courage. Otherwise you and those you love will only get hurt.” Even though she was American, Sylvia spoke like a native goddess. And with her flowing black hair, big chocolate eyes, flawless skin, and radiant smile, she looked like one, too.
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Come, now. Let me walk you back. We all have a long day ahead of us. Besides, it’s not good to be here alone. What if Luke had found you?”
“Oh, he’s harmless,” Brit said as she stood and wiped the earth from her shorts.
“Everyone has a limit, and when he reaches it, he might not be so docile anymore.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
They walked in silence and Brit was happy for the lull. It allowed her to indulge in the exploration of her thoughts, a leisurely activity she’d been enjoying frequently in this land without electronics. She thought of Luke, wondering if she should begin avoidance tactics. In spite of her respect for Syl, Brit wasn’t ready to leave the comfort of the closet and come out to him. Once she told him, everyone in her world would know the truth she’d been so carefully guarding. And she wasn’t ready to be out. Not yet, anyway.
And then another thought occurred to her. If Syl could so easily determine that she was a lesbian, could others tell her secret as well? She was still dwelling on the question as she drifted off to sleep that night and found no inspiration in her dreams. In the morning, the unanswered question lingered, and as she hammered and hauled wood, then read to students and helped them form their letters, she wondered which of them sensed that she was different. She inwardly cringed as she looked from face to face, studying them.
Hopefully the one who didn’t divine the meaning of her instantaneous and powerful bond with an openly gay woman was the cardiologist on the team, the one whom the others called Dr. Dodge but whom she called Dad.
He returned to the village late in the day, just as the preparations for dinner were under way. The warmth of his smile told her she hadn’t needed to worry. “Hi, Daddy,” she said.
“Hello, my dear. Tell me about your day,” he commanded her as he settled his long frame into an uncomfortable wooden chair. He crossed his legs at the ankles, and Brit smiled as she watched him, knowing how much she resembled him. Her two older sisters favored her mother, with dark features, but Brit seemed to have inherited all of her father’s genes—blond hair, blue eyes, endlessly long limbs.
Brit described working with the village children, and he listened intently, happily.
“Perhaps you should have chosen elementary ed instead of high school, Brit. You seem to love the little ones.”
She’d debated it for a while, in the end choosing to teach biology to high-school students, and she was happy with her choice. “Don’t mess with my mind, Dad,” she warned him.
“Just teasing.”
“How about you? Did you get a chance to talk to Mom?”
Brit knew the trip to the village took the group through a larger town, where phone service was available. Her dad had planned to call home, and Brit was eager to hear the mundane details about her family that a month away transformed into interesting topics.
“There was a phone call for you.”
“From whom?” Brit asked, knowing that all of her friends and family knew she was out of the country.
“You’ve been hired!” he told her.
“Ahhhhhh!” she screamed, and
jumped into the arms of the only man she’d ever love. Brit had applied for jobs in every school district in the state, or so it seemed, and was hopeful for just a position as a substitute. Only six weeks out of college, she wasn’t optimistic. She’d briefly contemplated an overseas job, teaching English in China or as a missionary in Africa. It wasn’t in her to do that, though. The cause was noble, for sure, but Brit wasn’t. She wasn’t spoiled, but she did need a few creature comforts, and, more importantly, the security of her family and friends close by. She could live like this for a month, but that was about her limit, and if her father weren’t on the trip, she probably wouldn’t be either.
“Where? What school?” she demanded as she danced in circles.
Her father, ever calm in a crisis, responded evenly. “Oh, Brit, I have no idea. But who cares? You have a job!”
“I’m really a teacher, Dad,” she said as she fell into his lap and hugged him, her trouble forgotten, at least for the moment.
Chapter Three
Borrowing for Tomorrow
“P.J., I’m leaving in five minutes, with or without you.” A loud thump on his bedroom door punctuated his mother’s warning.
Her voice was like a bullet piercing his brain, and seeking the protective cushion of his pillow, P.J. Blackwell pulled it over his head. Why couldn’t she just leave him alone? He’d been up late listening to the baseball game and was fucking exhausted. The game started at eight p.m. on the West Coast. By the time it was over, it was two in the morning at his home in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. That was only four hours earlier. By the time he was able to relax enough to doze off, an hour had passed. How could he function on three hours’ sleep?
The pillow trick must have worked because the next thing he knew, the grumbling garage door startled him back to consciousness as it retracted into the floor beneath his bedroom. Leaping from the bed, P.J. suddenly forgot his fatigue as he raced from the room and down the hallway and stairs, then back across the length of the house. Bursting through the garage door in time to see it closing, he turned and pounded his fist into the wall. “Fuck!” he screamed.
“What’s goin’ on?” his brother asked as he walked into the kitchen.
“Wes, I need your help!” P.J. caught his brother’s eye and tried not to sound desperate, afraid he’d raise questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer. At the same time, he needed Wes to know how vital this matter was to him. “It’s important.”
His arms crossed against his chest, Wes studied him with well-founded skepticism. “What’s so important?”
“Mom left me without a car and I need a ride to work.”
“No way! Gas is four bucks a gallon, and I’m sick of wasting it by hauling your ass all over.”
P.J. was sick of worrying about money. Life had been a good, simple, and uncomplicated adventure for his first fourteen years, but the last three had been miserable. His dad had lost his job, gone on unemployment, and was forced to take a job in retail management to make ends meet. It paid far less than he’d made as an engineer, but jobs in his area were hard to find. With P.J. and Wes still teenagers, his parents didn’t want to move and force them to change schools. So P.J.’s mom had gone to work as well, and after a lifetime of having her at home, he and his brother were suddenly left with the responsibility for cooking dinner and washing laundry. And if that wasn’t enough, the Blackwells demanded that their two sons get jobs as well. Wes was interested in computers and was able to get a cool job with a repair service, even without experience. Because he was only fourteen, though, P.J. was forced to go to work for their neighbor in a mom-and-pop store where the owner paid him off the books and made his life a living hell.
“I’ll give you five bucks for gas when I get paid, Wes. But if I don’t show up for work, the boss will kill me. He’ll fucking tear me apart. The Man is crazy, Wes. I’m not kidding. You’ve gotta help me.”
Wes sighed. “Is he really that bad?”
“You have no idea what my day is like,” he said, and the irony of his words threatened to turn the corners of his mouth up into a grin, but he was truly too worried to smile.
“I’m leaving in ten minutes. If you’re not down here then, you’re out of luck.”
Wearing his hair short and his razor stubble long came in handy on mornings like this, and P.J. paused only to pull on a respectable shirt and jeans and then brush his teeth before he was back downstairs with three minutes to spare.
“I need one more favor, bro,” he informed Wes as they were pulling out of the circular drive and onto the quiet, tree-lined street.
Wes groaned. “What now?”
“Can you lend me five bucks for lunch?”
“No. No way!” Wes took his eyes off the road and turned them onto him. “Are you doing drugs, P.? You must spend your money on something. It’s not food and it’s not gas and it’s not clothes, so what is it?”
“I only make five bucks an hour. It doesn’t go far.”
“Well, too bad. I’m not lending you any more money.”
P.J. tried not to smile at Wes’s response, but it was difficult, for not only was this the answer he’d expected but also the one he hoped for. Finally, something had gone right on this awful morning. He didn’t want Wes to lend him the money, because then he’d have to think up another plausible explanation for his next request.
“Well, then drive me to Papa’s house. He’ll give me five bucks.”
Wes snapped. “P.J., Papa isn’t your personal bank. Stop taking advantage of him.”
“Please, Wes, spare me. Papa has more money than the U.S. Treasury.” His grandfather had been born in the wake of the Great Depression and was brought up by parents who remembered a life with not enough to eat. He was raised to save his money and live within his means, and he certainly did. His house, a hundred-year-old Victorian, hadn’t been renovated in years. Wes and P.J. and their dad did the yard work and upkeep, but the old man wouldn’t spend an unnecessary dime. His car was made by a company that had gone out of business years ago, and even though he could no longer see well enough to drive, he refused to give it to his grandsons, who would have made good use of it. He pinched every penny, and as a result, he had quite a few pennies to spare. Getting them out of him was the trick, but P.J. had mastered it.
“Fine, okay. But don’t be long.”
Their papa’s house was on the way to P.J.’s job, with only a few turns necessary to point them in the right direction. Five minutes later, Wes pulled his old Toyota into his grandfather’s driveway. Even though it was close to his neighborhood, this one was worlds away, with older homes situated on tidy little lots, and smaller cars parked in driveways instead of hidden away in four-car garages.
“I’ll be right back,” P. J. said, hoping his brother’s concern for the time would keep him in the car. It did.
Sliding his key into the lock, P.J. opened the kitchen door and prayed it wouldn’t squeak and announce his arrival. It didn’t. Water was running in the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen, and the light was on there. In the kitchen, shades still drawn from the night before provided the cover of darkness he needed. He tiptoed across the worn wooden floor and quietly opened the cupboard door. A box of Cheerios, so yellowed it practically screamed to get a thief’s attention, was his primary focus. Opening it, he reached inside and closed his hand around the cool, crisp pile of cash inside. There was so much money stuffed into the box his grandfather would never miss it. Besides, P.J. planned to pay it back. Someday.
He pulled out a few bills just as the water turned off and his grandfather appeared in the kitchen.
P.J. held his breath and stood absolutely still, watching as the old man turned away from him and toddled off to the living room. Seconds later, the house was filled with the sounds of a cowboy movie.
“Whoa!” P.J. whispered to himself as he replaced the box’s lid and returned it to its proper place. “That was close!” He exited by the same route and with the same care he’d used when he entered the
house just a few minutes before.
“Well? What did he say?” Wes asked as he pulled out of the driveway.
“What?” P.J. had been thinking about other things and forgot what he’d told Wes.
“Did Pop give you any money?”
“Oh. No. He said he couldn’t afford it.”
Wes chuckled. “That doesn’t surprise me. But I wish he’d given you enough to pay for my gas.”
P.J. tried to hide his smile. The bills in the cereal box were all hundreds, and although he hadn’t taken the time to count them before stuffing them in his pocket, he guessed, based on past experience, that he was sitting on about a thousand dollars.
P.J. frowned. “Yeah, it’s too bad. If he’d given me anything, I’d have split it with you.”
Chapter Four
Birthday Bash
“Hi, Dad!” Alex said as she popped her head through the door of his office. This had once been his father’s office, in the rear of the building that housed the flagship dry cleaner’s that had opened long before her birth. In fact, Alex suspected that some of the paperwork scattered about the clutter might be from the same era. Not that the condition of his work space reflected on her dad—his mind was uncluttered, clear and calculating, capable of running multiple businesses and recalling minute details that were never written on paper.
“Hello, sunshine! What a nice surprise! Come in, have a seat,” he said. There was no room for debate in his tone, or in most discussions with him. Before she could do as she was told, though, he was out from behind his desk, pulling her into a bear hug that could have broken ribs. Like her, he was tall and blond, and he looked down at her and grinned. “How are you?”
He broke the hug and pushed Alex in the direction of a worn leather chair opposite his desk, and as she sat he returned to his throne behind it. From there he ran a dozen dry-cleaning stores and twice as many car washes and Laundromats.
