Just a Happy Camper

by Jinx Schwartz

  “You were listening, Hetta. I thought so,” Mother said. “Well, then you know you don’t have to worry that she’ll try and take Trouble back. You fixed that just fine.”

  “And, Daddy, it’s even better. So long as Trouble’s here, Auntie Lil refuses to darken your doorstep.”

  “In that case, honey, I’ll give you ten thousand bucks for him.”

  That bit of humor earned my father an exasperated chuff and headshake from my mother. “Peas in a pod.”

  We both said, “Thank you.”

  ❋

  Tuesday afternoon I drove into Austin for a meeting with my team. Just to set a precedent, I arrived a little late. I am usually early, but it doesn’t hurt to let them speculate about you before you get there.

  When I walked into the conference room at the Lower Colorado River Authority building there were six people seated around the table, none of whom I knew. They were in casual attire, which is good since I was in yoga pants and a tee shirt, with a jacket pulled on at the last minute to make me look less like someone who lives on a boat.

  “Hetta Coffey here. Sorry I’m late. I drove in from San Diego yesterday evening and forgot about the big time difference.”

  An older guy—the others were all at least ten years my junior—stood and shook my hand. “Charles Rhoda, but you can call me Chuck. No problem, Miss Coffey, we were just getting to know each other. This here,” he patted my shoulder as he addressed the others, “little lady is a civil engineer by degree, but on this study she’s our Chief Environmental Engineer. She’s here to keep all you rowdy hydrologists in line.”

  I tried to hide my surprise. Whoo boy, wait until Jan got a look at my new bidness cards. She thinks I was sent to this earth to single handedly screw up the earth’s environment, what with working on Petrochemical projects far and wide.

  I smiled and thanked Chuck for the welcome. If I hadn’t worked with Texans on so many projects, I might have taken offense with the ‘little lady” thing, but I knew it wasn’t a put down. And keeping the team in line? I barely know what a hydrologist is, but my guess is they’re hardly a rowdy lot.

  “Uh, okay, then. First off, everyone call me Hetta. You know who I am now, so I guess you should all introduce yourselves, and throw in some background on your specialty,” I said, hoping I’d have a clue as to what they did exactly when everyone got through talking. “Is that okay with you, Chuck?”

  “Hell, it’s your rodeo, Miss Hetta. I’m just here to let yer bulls outta the pen.”

  Well crap. It was two in the morning in Dubai. No calling the Trob or Jenks for help, so I’d just have to wing this Chief Environmental Engineer thing.

  “Open the flood gates, guys,” I said, with an attempt at a hydrology joke.

  I wasn’t raised by a dam builder for nothing.

  ❋

  It turned out all the hydrologists except for one were Dutch. That made sense, what with the Netherlands being mostly below sea level, and if it weren’t for their expertise in hydrology, Holland would be under water. I refrained from mentioning the finger in the dike bit, saving my only Dutch joke for later.

  While I don’t know much about hydrology, I do know plenty about body language. As each man introduced himself and spoke of their expertise and background, I figured the Dutch would be easy to work with. The one American? A whole ’nother story.

  Daan, Bram, Sem, and Lucas seemed anxious to work with me—okay, so they didn’t know me yet—while I picked up an immediate challenge from Donald, the American. He came off as a pompous know-it-all while managing to work his Ivy League education in five times during his long and self-serving spiel. I had to bite my tongue not to ask him if his H2O expertise included walking on it.

  This guy’s self-aggrandizing high horse was something I was an expert at dealing with. Unless he had a major attitude adjustment, the poor jerk was in for some saddle sores.

  When Donald at last finished patting himself on the back, I said, “Gosh, Donnie,” I saw him flinch slightly at my use of the diminutive for his name. “We are so lucky to have you on the team. It must have been wonderful attending such a prestigious school as Princeton. I had to settle for the University of Brussels and the Sorbonne.”

  Chuck smirked at my put down, the Dutch team beamed that I’d been educated next door to them, but my comeback went right over Donnie’s head.

  Oh, goody! This was gonna be soooo much fun!

  And, for the record, I did attend the Sorbonne.

  For several two-hour lectures on French History and culture.

  So there.

  ❋

  Nothing much beats coming home from work to find one of your mother’s meals in the making, and your clothes washed, ironed, and folded. My whites were magically white again, and my clothes didn’t look like I’d slept in them.

  We took our drinks outside while the smells of baking meatloaf and bubbling macaroni and cheese wafted from the kitchen. Po Thang and I were both drooling.

  “So,” I told my parents, “what it boils down to is Texas seems to always be either flooding or in a drought, and this is a study to use hydrological expertise to come up with a solution to store all the water that falls from the sky in a wet year for the dry ones.”

  “Hell, Hetta, that ain’t nothin’ new,” Daddy said. “We been workin’ on that since Jesus was an apprentice carpenter. We’d have plenty of water if it wasn’t for those damned rice farmers downstream.”

  “There is enough for both you and the farmers. We’re just not handling the runoff correctly. And the biggest obstacle to capturing and storing water in the United States, and especially in Texas, is our freedom to build where we want to, and our desire for waterfront homes.”

  We all looked out at the lake lapping at my parents’ boat dock not thirty feet from the house. Since Daddy built above what he called the thousand-year flood watermark, they never had a problem with flooding. Below the nearby dam, where my aunt lives, was a whole different story. And many times there was so little water out front of Dad’s house that you could barely see the lake.

  Austin gets flooded regularly, as do many waterfront communities. Unfortunately, my Aunt Lillian listened to my father for once, and while her house is below the dam, it sits on higher ground than her neighbors.

  Dad fixed me with a look. “You ain’t suggesting going Communistic here, are you? Tellin’ people what to do with their land?”

  My mom, seeing a confrontation on the horizon said, “So, Hetta honey, what’s your part in this study?”

  “I’m kinda the ringmaster. Being a Texan, I have an interest in what happens here, and what with both granddaddy and pawpaw in the dam bidness back in the day, I seemed a good fit to someone, I guess. With my local knowledge of the way Hill Country Texans feel about their right to live on the water, they thought I’d be a good person to pull together ideas, then someone will make a presentation that might fly with the locals. Not me. It isn’t gonna be easy, but we just want to show people who live along these flood zones an alternative to the norm. Some of the Dutch scenarios are pretty cool.”

  “Like what?” Dad asked, somewhat assuaged.

  “For one example, they build shopping centers and parking garages that are actually cleverly designed dams to keep the Sea at bay. And, as we all know, they create new land with those polders they build.”

  Dad nodded. “Those polders are pretty danged smart. They build a dam and then fill it in to make land instead of water. Interestin’.”

  “I remember driving through Holland and seeing boats passing by, way above us,” my mother said. “It was strange.”

  My father nodded. “And if you remember, I said we needed something like that here in the hill country because of all our flooding. Way back when our people came to Texas, they used the Colorado River to transport goods from here down to the Gulf of Mexico. So you think they’re looking into a lock and levee system? Didn’t work out too good for New Orleans, but that’s because, as usual, someone didn�
�t plan ahead.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to do. I’ll throw that idea into the pot and watch the Dutch dudes jump on it. This group is kind of a think tank, so any idea is considered. Well, by most of them. As you know, Daddy, there’s always that one.”

  Mama asked, “One what?”

  Dad and I both grinned. “You tell her, Daddy.”

  “On every jobsite, there’s what we call the project ass—”

  “Bud!” mom warned.

  “Uh, horse’s rear. Usually a young guy who thinks he knows it all. That’s why they have us old guys around, to keep ‘em corralled.”

  “Oh, no, Po,” I groaned, scratching his silky ears, “I’m the mean old wrangler on this project.”

  He whined and put his head on my lap, eyes raised. He was either comforting me or giving me a reminder there was meatloaf in the kitchen. I’m never sure which.

  “Ack! Old. Old, old, old. Oberto!”

  “Shut up, or I’ll give you back to Aunt Lil.”

  “Pinche puta!”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Hetta!” Mama shook her head.

  “Yes, ma’am. Sorry.” I guided the conversation back to safer ground, so to speak. “Anyhow, here in Texas, people would be forced to build back, out of any potential flood zone in the future, which is doable. But then there are those houses, like Aunt Lil’s,” I shook my finger at Trouble and he refrained from saying anything, “neighbors, who are already enjoying their water views and would be hard to convince to give them up.”

  Dad laughed. “We’d secede.”

  “There weren’t so many homes left on the actual waterfront in Holland. There were some holdouts, but finally they were bought out, and moved, especially along rivers. Now the areas are allowed to flood. They call it ‘making way for the rivers.’ ”

  Mother looked alarmed. “Hetta honey, surely you aren’t gonna run around telling Texans they’re gonna have to sell out and move are you?”

  I snorted. “Not if I want to live to see forty-two. Our job isn’t to initiate a land grab. We’re just putting together what each of the hydrology teams suggest to prevent flooding in a specific area. There are teams in New Orleans and Houston as well. Katrina and Harvey damage is still fresh in the minds of many residents.”

  “Who’s payin’ for this so-called study?” Daddy wanted to know. Along with the rising price of ammo, he was concerned with where his tax money was going these days.

  I hesitated, considered fibbing, then decided to tell the truth, even though I was going to set my dad off. “I’m being paid by Baxter Brothers.”

  “Those SOBs! Into everything these days. Why they—”

  Mother cut him off. “Bud, we’ve heard it all plenty of times before. If Hetta can work with them after they fired her, then good for her.”

  “Dad, if it will make you any happier, I’m sticking it to them. They provide the RV, all expenses, and two hundred bucks an hour. And, Baxters is being paid by the Lower Colorado River Authority.”

  He was slightly mollified by me fleecing Baxter Brothers, but the LCRA pretty much runs on tax money. He grumbled a little more about what crooks the Baxters were and then he went out to check on his pickup.

  For you non-Texans—either born there or got there as soon as you could—“checking on your pickup” is a euphemism for anything from escaping relatives at a family gathering to taking a nip from your bourbon stash. Usually both. His pickup is parked near his shed, which is the male Texan’s version of a man cave.

  In Dad’s case, Aunt Lil was cause to check the pickup often, but at the moment, it was a peaceful haven to soothe his negative thoughts about my employer, and my Communistic project.

  Chapter Nine

  First thing the next morning I loaded up the RV with essentials, like wine and rum. I’d planned to stop at a Walmart to pick up food and snacks, but my mother, evidently fearing there was no food available in the entire state of Texas, provisioned me.

  Since I wasn’t really sure what I was up against the first day or so, I stuck the folks with Trouble and Po Thang.

  Actually, Daddy insisted on keeping my parrot, what with Aunt Lil’s threat—my father considered it a promise—not to darken his door again while the little fellow was there. This would cut down on his need to check on his pickup so often.

  ❋

  After a few tense miles to get used to it, I found the Axis a dream to drive.

  Twenty-five-and-a-half feet long, a little less than eight-feet wide, it hugged the highway well enough not to scare me, and the little Fiat didn’t pose a problem to tow.

  The interior worked well for one person, two for short trips. Although it touts sleeping six, I couldn’t imagine that many folks bunking in it. My favorite feature, other than the light and roomy bathroom area, was the passenger seat that converted into an office.

  I drove at a breathtaking thirty-five miles an hour out to Colorado Bend State Park, where I was to rendezvous with my team. The other three RVs—thirty-five foot toy haulers towed behind equally huge diesel dually pickups, would house the rest of the team members and all of our equipment, which included a large center drive inflatable boat and motor. I’d been to the park a couple of times for day-trips years before, so I wasn’t unfamiliar with the area, but was pleased to find we had hookups.

  It was kind of nice to be dog-and-parrot-less for the night, which it turns out was a good idea, because the next day we were in the field several hours, and I would have had to leave the animals cooped up in the RV. Until such time as I convinced our group that my dog would be a great asset in the field, Po Thang would stay with the parents during the week. They said they didn’t mind, but it didn’t feel right saddling them with him.

  After three days at the first river park, we were set to move a few miles downriver the next day. As always, I was worn out after another long day of trooping around in the field, so I was happy to get back to my RV and open a bottle of wine. I’d just poured a glass and was checking my email when the phone chirped.

  I saw it was my mother. She’d invited the entire team to stop by for lunch while we were on the move the next day. “Hey, Mama. I am sooo looking forward to seeing you and my animals tomorrow. Been living on tuna fish, pimento cheese, and ham sandwiches, thanks to you, but I’m ready for some real food.”

  “Hetta,” her voice sounded a little warbly, “do ya think you could come home tonight?”

  Crap. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, really. It’s just, well, this man stopped by just now, asking about you. He was sorta nice, but a little strange. I didn’t tell him where you were, but he said he’d be back.”

  “Did he give you his name?”

  “No. And he was…jumpy.”

  “Momma, what did Po Thing think about him?”

  “He and your dad went into town, so I was here alone.”

  Crap. Could this possibly be the same person who was looking for me in La Paz?

  “Mama, did this person scare you?”

  “Goodness no. I just felt bad that he seemed so…uncomfortable. He wouldn’t even come in for a glass of sweet tea.”

  “Mom! You invited him into the house?” I rolled my eyes; my mother’s famous for ushering complete strangers in for tea or coffee, despite my warnings of stranger danger. And my dad is almost as bad. When did that role reversal happen?

  “What was I supposed to do? Leave him standin’ there, fidgetin’?”

  “Yes, Mama, that is exactly what you should have done. How old do you think this guy is?”

  “Let me think. Not as old as you, not as young as your second cousin Misty, but maybe the same age as your third cousin once removed, Foster.”

  In the background I heard happy barks and a door slam. “Your father’s home. Bud, how old would you say cousin Foster is?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” I heard Dad say. “They all look like kids to me, and they dress funny. If I had to guess, I’d say Foster’s older than a teenager.”<
br />
  “Did you hear that, Hetta?”

  “Yes, Mama.

  “Oh, and I think he might be a foreigner.”

  “Who?” I heard my father ask her.

  “I’ll tell you in a minute, honey,” she told him, and to me she asked, “Now, where were we Hetta?”

  At the mention of my name, Po Thang started howling. “Bud, take him out, will you? I’m talking to…you know who.”

  I sighed. “What kind of foreigner, Mama?”

  “One not from around here.”

  I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. To my parents, in spite of the fact that they are incredibly well-traveled, a foreigner is anyone not from Texas. “Uh, could you narrow that down a little?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure he’s not a Yankee. He had an accent, but it wasn’t like Jose’s, the man who does our tree trimming.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Do you really think I need to drive home tonight? I will if you want, but I’m tired and I just had some wine.” I fibbed about the drink and looked longingly at my still-full glass.

  “Oh, then you better not.”

  “I’ll be there early for breakfast, okay? And I don’t have to leave until Sunday afternoon to meet up with my research group again.”

  “That’s wonderful. We love having you so near. See you in the morning? Biscuits and venison okay?”

  “Is there a cow in Texas? Yes!”

  I hung up, my mouth watering. Eyeing the contents of my fridge with dismay, I pulled out an apple and cheddar cheese for dinner. Oh, well, maybe I’d lose some weight? Yeah, right. When pigs fly.

  Settling into the passenger side office, I finally had a sip of wine, and phoned Jenks.

  “Hello there, I was just about to call you. How’s Texas, the parents, the animals, and your project?”

  “All good. One guy on the team, that American? He’s still an arrogant A-hole, but in spite of him, I’m learning a lot about the genius of Dutch hydrology. I was always fascinated that they had actually been building out to sea since the thirteen hundreds, but this new stuff? Amazing. Of course Mr. A-hole won’t give them credit where credit is due, and they are way too polite to argue with him. That’s my job.”