Detours
Page 1
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
About the Author
Coming soon from Blue Feather Books:
Praise for Jane’s Previous Novels
This book is dedicated to Joseph Anthony Grillo. Thank you, Joey, for teaching me to see the beauty in life’s detours.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, locales and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Detours
Copyright © 2009 by Jane Vollbrecht
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, save for brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.
Cover design by Ann Phillips
A Blue Feather Book
Published by Blue Feather Books, Ltd.
www.bluefeatherbooks.com
ISBN: 978-0-9822858-1-7
First edition: July, 2009
Printed in the United States of America and in the United Kingdom.
Acknowledgements
To my wonderful friends, Jane and Jerry, thank you for sharing your son with me and letting me be part of his life. Your candor in answering all my questions about caring for a child with special needs showed me time and again that, like our boy Joey, the two of you are truly special people.
To Lori L. Lake, a great big uff da, yah that was a heckuva deal, you betcha (that’s Minnesota speak) for coming out of editorial retirement to work on this manuscript with me. I’m fortunate to have in you a supportive friend, creative colleague, and literary giant all rolled up in one. Thank you for all you did to improve the book, despite my carping and occasionally obstreperous obsequiousness.
Nann Dunne—you continue to amaze me. You not only found every typographical error and grammatical misstep, you saw deep into the forest of the storyline and identified each tree that needed pruning as well as those that needed to be chopped out altogether. Your line-by-line edit of this book leaves me eternally in your debt.
Ann Phillips, you created the perfect cover. Thank you for your patience and for giving my book the benefit of your creative talents.
To Kathleen, the woman who shares my home and my life, thank you for all the help with the animals that own us so that I could have the precious extra minutes I needed to chase these words across the page. The fur kids might not understand and acknowledge your commitment to the cause, but I do.
My sister Kathy and my brothers Paul and Tony—you’ve had to contend with some serious detours of your own of late. Nonetheless, you make time to cheer your kid sister on. I’m grateful to you for all your support through the years.
And lastly, to the human dynamo and kayaker extraordinaire, Emily Reed, I offer my most sincere, heartfelt gratitude. You are my mentor, my business partner, my publisher, and my dear friend. A few words here cannot begin to capture all of the ways I am enriched by your presence in my life. Thank you for making me part of the Blue Feather family. It’s an honor to be in your company.
“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”
—John Lennon
Chapter 1
Ellis slapped the steering wheel. “I forgot how crowded the roads are the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I should have allowed myself more time to get there.”
Traffic had been stopped for several minutes. She left her Toyota Tundra and made her way up the roadway on foot. Twenty vehicles ahead, she looked knowingly at a rainbow-colored cat decal affixed to the rear window of a forest green Xterra and she stopped beside the driver’s door. A lanky woman with a cell phone against her ear leaned against the front bumper and hood. Looking past her, Ellis could see the long line of stopped vehicles snaked around the next curve in LaVista Road.
The woman snapped the phone shut and sashayed the few paces back to where Ellis stood. Ellis yanked off her Atlanta Braves baseball cap and pulled her hair back from her forehead. “What happened up there? Did Santa flip his sleigh?”
The woman shook her head. “Nothing quite that dramatic. I called a friend who lives about a half mile up the road. She said the driver of a beer truck misjudged the corner at Oak Grove. He rolled his gooseneck trailer and dumped half his load of Budweiser all over the roadway. The police called in a couple of tow trucks and a crane to get the rig back on its wheels. She said they’ve got everything blocked off in both directions down there.”
“Lovely.” Ellis twisted her wristwatch and checked the time. “I’m already an hour behind schedule.” She kicked the pavement beside the left front tire of the Xterra in frustration. “I’m supposed to be trimming holly bushes at a house on Ponderosa Lane.”
“If you’ve got Ben Cartwright’s number, you can use my phone to call and explain.” With a grin, she extended the phone toward Ellis.
“It’s not quite that simple to reach my modern-day Bonanza guy. If I could solve this with a phone call, I’d use my own cell and take care of it.” Ellis tugged her phone off the clip on her belt, then tucked it back in its holder. “The owner is at the spa this morning having an exfoliation and heaven only knows what else. He told me he would be—and this is his word—incommunicado—until at least two this afternoon.”
“But he’s in a hurry for you to get to his house?”
“He’s hosting a huge party tonight to—his words, again—inaugurate the most festive season of the year, and he wanted me to do a buff and polish on all the shrubs out front.” Ellis flung an imaginary boa around her shoulder. “Why is it that every gay man figures every other gay man takes notes about how the front yard looks on their way in from the curb?”
“Umm… because they do?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re probably right.” Ellis tugged at her cap again. “I’ve pretty much closed up shop for the season, but Fredrick is such a loyal customer, I agreed to do this as a favor for him.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”
Ellis glanced at her watch once more. “How long have you been sitting here?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes, maybe. Good thing Atlanta has mild weather in November. This would be a real pain in the butt if we were stuck someplace cold.” She looked up and down the road at the assortment of drivers who had exited their vehicles and were making conversation with one another. “At least drivers here know how to make a gabfest out of a traffic tie-up.”
She made a sweeping motion toward the edge of the road. “Pull up a curb and sit awhile. It doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.”
Ellis was about to decline the invitation. If she went back to her truck, maybe she could convince the cars that had her boxed in to jockey enough that she could maneuver out of the traffic jam and find some other way to get to the landscaping job on Ponderosa Lane. Before she could speak, the woman continued.
“By the way, my name’s Mary… well, people call me Mary, but my full name is MaryChris.” She pocketed her phone and offered her hand. “MaryChris. My last name’s Moss.”
Ellis accepted the handshake. “Nice to meet you, MaryChris Moss.”
“It’s a little early, but Merry Christmas to you, too.”
Ellis groaned. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”
“I wish I were joking. Swear to the goddesses, that’s my real name.”
“Right, and I’m Rhonda Korner.”<
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“No, really. My dad was king of the punsters. I was born on December twenty-fifth, and he couldn’t resist.” Mary reached into her hip pocket and unfolded a small stack of bills. She extracted her driver’s license and handed it to Ellis. “See?”
Ellis gave the license a cursory examination. “I’ll be darned.” She passed it back to Mary.
“So now you know my name, my address, and my birthday. All I know about you is you trim bushes and like the Braves.” Mary pointed at the baseball cap on Ellis’s head and flashed a captivating smile.
“Even though you didn’t bite when I told you I’m Rhonda Korner, I’m tempted to tell you my name is Terry Dactul or maybe Sarah Bellum, but if you ask for proof, you’d know I was lying,” Ellis said.
“I’d have thought Lon Moore or Wendy Boughbreaks would be better choices, given your line of work.” Mary eased herself into a casual pose, leaning on the fender.
“Sorry to say that my parents weren’t very creative with my name, not that it would have been an easy thing for them to do.”
“So what’s your name?”
“Most of my friends call me Ellis.”
“Alice?”
“No, Ellis.”
“Okay. Got it. Ellis. Is that your first name or your last name?”
Ellis laughed lightly. “Neither, but you’d think it might be, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“So what’s your name?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“Of course I do. I asked, didn’t I? It can’t be that bad.”
“Okay, but remember, you asked for it.” Ellis made a show of taking in a really deep breath. “Gretchen Alina VanStantvoordt.”
“What?” Mary cocked her head.
Ellis repeated her name and then spelled it. “It’s Dutch. Or Flemish. At a minimum, it’s a mouthful. That’s why everyone calls me Ellis.”
“I’m sure there must be a story behind that.”
“Yep. The professor in one of my environmental science classes at UGA said my ancestors should have had the immigration people at Ellis Island give them an easier name when they got off the boat.”
“Kind of a cruel thing for him to say.”
“I thought so, too, but then I found out his given name was Wolfgang Schlenvogt, even though he changed it to Rolf Glenn. He was trying to be cute and establish some common ground with me.”
“So he started calling you Ellis?”
“No, my friend Judith was in that class with me, and she thought it was ever so funny to call me Ellis. She and I hung out, and the next thing I knew, everywhere I went, I was Ellis. It stuck with me all through college, and I kinda got used to it, so I kept using it. A lot of my clients only know me by the one name—sort of like Cher or Kobe or Houdini.”
“Does that mean I’m in the company of a celebrity?” Mary feigned a curtsy.
“About the only thing I have in common with celebrities is figuring out using a fake name can make life easier.”
“Got it,” Mary said. “Like Marilyn Monroe had more appeal than Norma Jean Baker.”
“Right. Samuel Clemens wouldn’t have sold nearly as many books as Mark Twain did.”
Mary shifted so that her weight was on her other foot. “And it’s true even in the corporate world. Google wasn’t always Google.”
“No?”
“Nope. It started out as BackRub.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Uh-uh. I saw it on one of the trivia sites I browse.” Mary opened the driver’s side door. “Might as well be comfortable while we compare little-known facts.” She gestured to the passenger door. “Climb in.” She eased into the leather bucket, Ellis complied, and soon they were lost in conversation.
Half an hour later, Ellis glanced out the windshield and noticed a car coming up the road. “Looks like the gridlock at Oak Grove is breaking free. I’d better get back to my truck. Thanks for making this the only Atlanta traffic jam I’ve ever enjoyed.” Ellis offered her hand to Mary.
“It’s been fun talking to you. I hope you get your bush trimming done so that the earth isn’t thrown off its axis when a group of gay men simultaneously recoil in horror at misshapen holly shrubs.” Mary took Ellis’s hand as she spoke.
Ellis grasped Mary’s extended hand briefly and then got out of the vehicle. She walked around to the driver’s side and leaned down so that she was eye to eye with Mary. “Right. I’d hate to be responsible for a catastrophe of that magnitude. Well, see you at the next overturned beer truck.”
“That’s a date, Gretchen Alina VanStantvoordt.”
Ellis smiled, pleased at how easily Mary used her full name. “In case I don’t get the chance to say it closer to the real date, Merry Christmas, MaryChris Moss.”
“Thanks. Same to you. Take care of yourself.”
“I will. You, too.”
Vehicles several car lengths ahead of the SUV moved slowly forward. Ellis picked her way along the edge of the street. She was about to sprint down the now-creeping line of cars toward her truck, but reversed direction and ran to catch up with Mary’s Xterra.
She half-shouted into the open window. “Hey, any chance you might want to go to a movie or something sometime?”
“I’m in the book. Call me.”
Ellis flashed an “okay” sign. She thumped her fist lightly on the edge of the rear door of Mary’s SUV. “Deal. I will. Soon.” She turned and jogged down the uneven berm of the roadway.
The impatient drivers who’d been trapped in the queue were eager to make up for lost time. Horns honked farther down the string, and she was sure it was because her unoccupied truck was blocking the way. She picked up her pace and, in her haste, failed to notice a gap in the pavement. Her right foot hit the hole at the wrong angle, and the next thing she knew, she was a crumpled heap of humanity.
“Crap!” she yelled as she felt the pain tear through her ankle. “I don’t need this.” She grabbed her right calf. “Shit. How freakin’ clumsy can I be?” She shrunk herself into a ball and rolled onto the narrow strip of dead weeds. She was grateful that she’d at least had the good fortune to fall in a stretch of road where she had a small oasis to huddle on rather than in one of the places where ancient pines crowded the heavily-traveled two-lane route in the northeast Atlanta neighborhood.
“Would it kill one of you to stop and see if I’m okay?” she shouted. “Your compassionate pre-Christmas spirit is astounding.” She shook her fist at a couple of the cars zipping by. Ellis might have uttered more commentary, but the sound of screeching tires and the unmistakable crunch of bumper on taillights filled the air. “At least I don’t have to worry about being run over,” she said sarcastically as the procession of cars once again came to a total halt. “Serves you right, assholes.”
Ellis pulled herself to her knees and tried to stand. A white-hot jolt shot through her lower leg and forced her back to a kneeling position. She gingerly eased onto her butt. Waves of nausea washed over her, and she wondered if she was going to pass out. She took half dozen slow, steady breaths and talked herself into a calmer state.
“Marvelous. How the hell am I going to get those bushes trimmed? Broken ankles and landscaping careers don’t mix well.” She reached down and gently probed her swelling foot.
“Do you really think it’s broken, Ellis?”
Ellis did a double-take. “Mary? What are you doing here? You should be all the way to Clairmont Road by now.”
“Yeah, but I took one last look in my rearview as you were trotting along the road, and I saw you fall.”
“Now you know why I’m a landscaper and not a ballerina.” Ellis tried to laugh, but the pain was growing by the moment, and the sound died in her throat.
“Can you walk?”
“I don’t think so. When I tried to stand on it, I almost fainted.”
“We’d better get you to an emergency room.” Mary knelt beside her.
Ellis m
ade a face. “That’ll only cost a month’s wages, and since I won’t be working much again until the spring, make that a month’s wages I don’t have.”
“Maybe so, but replacement body parts are hard to come by.” Mary rubbed Ellis’s forearm reassuringly.
“I guess you’re right. Besides, I’d hate to be a one-legged gardener in an ass-kicking contest.” Ellis tried again to put a laugh with her words, but once more, the throbbing discomfort stymied her.
“How much farther to your truck?”
“Just around the next bend.”
Mary got to her feet. “Give me your keys, and I’ll go get it.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to take yours?”
Mary took a look in the opposite direction up the road. “Ordinarily, but it recently had the grillwork of a Crown Victoria planted firmly in its backside.”
“It was your SUV I heard get creamed?”
“I told you, I saw you in my rearview. When I knew you’d taken a tumble, I guess I forgot what I was doing and slammed on my brakes.”
“And you got rear-ended?”
Ellis caught the sheepish look on Mary’s face. Mary flipped her hand dismissively. “You know how unforgiving the laws of physics are. Two solid objects can’t occupy the same place at the same time.”
“You need to get back to your car and exchange insurance information with the guy who hit you.”
“I’ve already parked it on the driveway pull-off in front of where it happened. I got the other driver’s business card and gave him my name and number. I can deal with the car later.”
“No, really, Mary, you should call the police and file an accident report.” Ellis pushed against Mary’s legs with both hands.
Mary looked intently at Ellis. “Nope. In the game of life, people trump possessions every time.”
Ellis wondered at the sensation that ripped through her and hoped it wasn’t an indication that she was going to fall into unconsciousness. Mary’s smile reassured her. “Okay, you win.”