Uncharted Territory

by Betsy Ashton

  “You can replay it later.”

  I had the decency to blush. “Busted. I should have told you up front I wanted to record the session. That was rude.”

  “At first I thought you didn’t trust me. I almost turned the record function off. Then I changed my mind.” Was Ducks angry or amused to have beaten me at my own game? “I have nothing to hide.”

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to listen to the questions you asked. Please understand I’m fiercely protective of Em.”

  “I can see why.” Ducks followed me into the kitchen.

  We carried serving bowls into the dining room where I’d already set the table.

  “I can help protect her.”

  “Does Em agree?”

  “She does.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  Over coffee and sherry, we returned to my oh-so-rare granddaughter.

  “Does she have any idea how powerful her gift is?”

  Had Emilie told Ducks she was psychic? No, she’d never tell a stranger. Something in Ducks made her feel safe. “She most certainly does. She struggles to control it.”

  “Who’s guiding her?” Ducks took a sip of sherry. “She can’t control her gift without help.”

  “Dr. Schwartz at the University of Richmond.”

  “Angela Schwartz? I’ve read her books. She’s good, but she’s a seer. Emilie’s a sensitive, probably an empath. Still, Dr. Schwartz has done terrific work on ESP and second sight.”

  How much did he know about this stuff? There was much more to Mr. Ducks than red hair, bushy eyebrows and a British accent. “It’s difficult. She feels so strongly at times, I’m afraid she’ll be overcome.”

  “She could. Dr. Schwartz is terrific at working with special kids, though. I had a boy at Newman who was different. I wish I could have sent him to her.” Ducks’s fingers toyed with a fork.

  “Was he paranormal too?” I was used to Emilie’s ability to sense things I couldn’t.

  “Beg yours. Emilie’s not paranormal. She’s normal for her. Different from you and me. I’ve studied people whose sensitivities aren’t the same as the rest of us.” The fork came to a rest.

  Had Ducks studied Dr. Schwartz’s works because of the boy? Or, could he have similar capabilities? Before I could ask, I caught a guarded look. Ducks blinked slowly one time.

  “I could see how hard she’s trying to develop coping skills. I’ve been there before.” Again the guarded look and the single blink.

  I made up my mind. “Do you want to take on the challenge of Alex and Em?”

  “I passed the job interview?”

  “Indeed you did.” I leaned back and relaxed. At last. I had my teacher.

  “You haven’t listened to the recording, you know.”

  “Does Em want you?” I raised my small glass and inhaled the sherry’s bouquet. Dry and a little smoky. Perfect.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “I’d love to work with them. It’ll be rollicking good fun.”

  Ducks and I raised glasses and clinked rims to seal our deal.

  “Can we meet tomorrow? Get all the paperwork done?”

  “I’ll take you to lunch.” Ducks leaned back in his chair. “Do you know Le Bistro, a little hole in the wall in SoHo? Makes the best French food.”

  I knew it well. Eleanor, Raney, and I had lunch there the day of Merry’s accident. Ducks helped clear the table before leaving. I retired to the den with a splash more sherry to listen to the entire interview.

  After going through the recording once, I called Johnny. I was as excited as Alex when he talked with Ducks.

  “Should I be jealous?”

  “Not at all, funny man. Ducks is so not my type.”

  “And I am?”

  “Most assuredly.”

  Sometime after one in the morning, I had listened to the conversation two more times end to end. Emilie’s last comment puzzled me.

  “Don’t worry. It won’t matter to us.”

  Now what the hell did that mean?

  CHAPTER TEN

  New York, week of September 5

  I arrived at Le Bistro on schedule with a file of photos and a contract. My old friend, the owner of the restaurant, brought me a cup of coffee before I was settled.

  “Tell me what I need to know.” Ducks leaned forward, eager to begin his new adventure.

  First, I handed over a series of names and phone numbers.

  “Ah, the homeschooling coordinator and head of the advanced placement curriculum. Right.” Ducks pushed the paper to one side. He wanted to reach them for textbooks and lesson plans.

  I produced three pictures of the two monstrous RVs and a converted bus.

  “Brilliant! I won’t be roughing it in a tent on rocky soil.” He stared at the bus photo, all but drooling.

  “Oh, we’ll be roughing it, just not sleeping on the ground. We’re going to Mississippi near the Gulf Coast. Cell coverage’s iffy on its best day. Most amenities either blew or washed away.”

  I’d read every press clipping I could find that described the aftermath of the hurricane. Not much was left.

  “My friend Johnny calls it a food desert. We’ll have to plan meals in advance and make do with what we can buy inland or what I bring from New York.”

  “I’ve lived in worse conditions. I spent six months on sabbatical working with refugees in West Africa. No running water, no electricity, and rotten food.” Ducks spread the pictures across the small table. “We were much better off than the local population. I felt guilty complaining when I needed a wash. We carried buckets of water from the river for bathing.”

  “Why not bathe in the river?”

  “No crocodiles in a bucket.”

  Our food came. Ducks tapped the picture of the bus. “Please, please, tell me they didn’t repaint this.”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but the company’s contract with John Madden called for the bus to be repainted. Alas, the Madden Cruiser is no more. Here’s what it looks like today—boring burgundy and gray.” Nothing on the outside identified its former user. Everything inside, however, was pretty much the way he had it, except for two or three fewer big screen televisions.

  Ducks made a face before shrugging his shoulders. “Probably for the best. Still, it would have been a grand giggle.”

  “It’ll double as the classroom.” I should have had the company paint the outside yellow. That would have been more appropriate. I handed over photos of the RVs. “Whip and Alex will be in one, Em and I in the other. That leaves you with the bus.”

  “Are you sure? From what I can see, it’s the largest beast.” Ducks peered at the interior. “It has the biggest kitchen too. Am I to cook as well?”

  I looked up in time to see one caterpillar eyebrow raised in question. Was he teasing me or had I somehow insulted him?

  “No. Your contract is for teaching and keeping the bus clean. I’ll be doing most of the cooking with help from the kids. We’ll have grills for Whip to use outside as much as possible. We’ll eat as a family most nights, if that’s all right with you.” I hadn’t thought this through. “We’ll have to make up the rules as we go.”

  “Indeed. I like the idea of eating as a family.” A wistful tone entered Ducks’s voice, only to disappear as quickly as it came. “I’m glad to take my turn. I know my way around a stove.”

  “Good. My friend Johnny doesn’t cook. Anything.” Johnny puzzled me when it came to food, because he loved eating. Could he be as allergic to kitchens as he was to Manhattan?

  “Really?” Ducks dabbed his mouth with his napkin. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “He reminds me most fires start in kitchens. I accused him of being afraid to learn to cook. His response was he was being prudent. And so the discussion went.” I threw my hands in the air.

  Ducks laughed. “Brilliant. I can’t wait to meet your Johnny. We’re going to be fast friends.”

  “Oh, you will be. He’s
very funny.”

  “That’s good. Without a sense of humor, how can we make sense out of life?”

  The café owner brought our meals. We ate in silence for several bites. I tucked into my salad Niçoise.

  “Feel free to put me in the rotation. Don’t ask me to fix anything English, though. I loathe boiled vegetables.” Ducks sliced a bit of beef paillard, dipped it into sauce Béarnaise and ate it.

  “Even mushy peas?” My favorite pub meal was a pint of lime and lager, fish and chips with malt vinegar and mushy peas. To the uninitiated, mushy peas had the consistency of baby food.

  “Especially mushy peas.” Ducks pulled a face. Had he been in the States so long he’d lost the taste for this oh-so-British dish?

  “We’ll get along fine. I boil water and pasta and stir fry everything else. You can forget locally grown food. What truck farms there were drowned in the tidal surge. Southern Mississippi has few markets left standing. We’ll have to be creative with spices, sauces, and condiments.”

  Ducks held up another photo. “I like the way you outfitted the RVs.”

  They were equipped with bedrooms at the back. The kids’ spaces each had a bed over a desk. IKEA to the rescue. Each vehicle had laptops, a PlayStation, iPods and flat-panel TVs with DVD players, plus a satellite dish for live television and Internet access.

  “We won’t want for entertainment, will we?” Ducks pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket. He made a few notes. “Do we have athletic gear, old-fashioned board games, books?”

  “Yes and yes and hmm. Better bring your own books. I doubt we’ll find any libraries with dry shelves.” I drew on everything Johnny had told me about living in nothingness and destruction. I found it impossible to imagine. “Do you need a laptop?”

  “I’m set.” More scribbles filled a second page.

  “Just checking. Finding a Best Buy in the hurricane zone might be impossible.”

  “At least I don’t have to sleep in a bunk. I’m a bit too tall. My feet would be propped up on the wall.”

  “And I’m no fool. I grabbed the bedroom. I’m done with climbing ladders to get into bed.”

  “Did you have bunks as a child?” Ducks pressed a carrot on the back of his fork.

  “No, but the upper berth on my sailboat can only be reached by a ladder.”

  “You have a picture of you on the deck of a yacht in your den, don’t you?”

  “That’s the Direct Deposit. Reggie bought her right after we were married. We sailed her all over the world.”

  Ducks’s hand paused in midair. “Reggie? Maxine Davies. You’re Reginold Davies’s widow.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “I followed his adventures when he was in the press. Quite a man.”

  “Indeed, he was.”

  We finished our lunch in silence. My head was bursting with information and precious little time to process it.

  “How will you get everything to Mississippi?”

  I gave him a copy of the current plan Johnny and I had concocted. “How about you? You’re more than welcome to make it a convoy. Ride with us if you don’t have a car. Meet us if you do.”

  “I’ll meet you. My car’s too small for any but the barest necessities, though.”

  I pointed to one of the papers in the growing pile beside Ducks’s coffee cup. He should feel free to ship large boxes to Whip’s office. The address was in the stack. He could drop off smaller things at my apartment for me to bring in my car.

  “Do you have a bike rack? I’m rather an avid rider.”

  “Sure do. Drop it off.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t know enough to know what I didn’t know. We went over the terms of his employment, salary, and time off. Ducks signed the contract and tax form. We shook hands. I wanted to do back flips across the restaurant. My last major headache was behind me.

  ####

  Over the next couple of days, Ducks dropped off three soft-sided duffle bags, two guitar cases and his bicycle.

  “Too much?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Do you need help loading this?”

  “No, thanks. Two of the maintenance men in the building volunteered.”

  I raised a hand to my forehead and rubbed my temples. Jeez, I hoped it all fit. If not, well, that was what UPS was for, wasn’t it? I handed Ducks the coordinates for the church parking lot where we’d be camping.

  “I’ll be off in a couple of days. Do a little sightseeing along the way. I’ll be there in a week and a bit.” Ducks opened my apartment door and walked to the elevator. “Ta.”

  “Drive safely.”

  A cheery flip of the hand was all I saw before the elevator door whooshed closed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  New York, week of September 12

  After a weepy send-off dinner with the Great Dames, I left the underground parking garage a bit after dawn and pointed the nose of my overstuffed Rover west across the George Washington Bridge and south onto I-95. Skyscrapers glowed pinky-gold in the rising sun. Rays glinted off car windshields, making them appear cleaner than they were.

  My excitement about starting a new adventure when the season was changing grew as New York City faded in my rearview mirror. Soon enough, I’d be in Richmond with Johnny. Right after that, I’d be reunited with my Peruvian travelers. Whip had wrapped up his job and was on his way to the airport in Lima.

  “I missed you, pretty lady.” Johnny kissed me.

  “I missed you too, funny man.” I hugged him.

  We headed out for a late dinner at Capitol Ale House downtown, where we relaxed in a corner with glasses of wine and beer.

  “Unimaginable destruction and miles of nothing. Debris piles everywhere. You drive through the rubble, come around a corner and find a large swath of dirt scrubbed clean.”

  “What about trees?”

  “The old oaks survived. No plants, grass, or bushes. Nothing green.” Johnny swallowed a sip of beer.

  “Nothing green? Oh my.” He had to be exaggerating, didn’t he?

  “I shouldn’t have taken a detour into New Orleans. I felt like a damned voyeur.” Johnny covered his eyes with one hand. “Believe me, you don’t want to be there. That city’s so sad the air itself smells like it’s dying.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “I’ll take Mississippi any day. It may feel empty at first, but it isn’t.” Johnny nodded at our waiter, who held up two fingers to indicate he’d be over in two minutes to take our food order. “Vast stretches of nothing. When you look ahead, you see a battered stone building in the middle of a patch of dirt that might have been a parking lot. Some rickety shacks survived with such heavy damage I can’t figure out how they made it through the wind, rain, and tidal surge.”

  What would it be like to lose everything? I’d had fears of being homeless and penniless for years. Oprah Winfrey, one of the richest women in the world, talked about being afraid she’d lose all her money. She maintained a stash of cash in case she ever needed it. She called it her bag lady money.

  The idea of being destitute was ridiculous, both for her and me, but primal terrors weren’t easily rationalized. I’d have to watch my reaction to loss because I didn’t want to channel my anxiety to Emilie—as if I could prevent her from knowing what I was feeling.

  “We should be in good shape, though. We built an expandable fenced compound in a church parking lot for the cook tent, sleeping tents, portable toilets, and the trailers. Even a shower tent, just like they have in the military.” Johnny ticked off points on his fingers.

  “Jeez, not you too. They’re not trailers. I should never have told you about the Great Dames’ toast.”

  “Even though you won’t be sleeping in a trailer, I will. As will most of the crew, if they’re lucky.” He shook his head. “The area can be expanded when more crew members get in. I want everyone living inside the chain link fence.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just safer
. We carry our tools in our trucks. Harder for someone to steal them if they’re inside a fence.”

  “I see.” I returned to one point that didn’t feel right. I fiddled with my silverware. “What about the church? I still don’t get why they won’t let some of us camp in the basement. Or in the church itself.”

  Johnny howled. “You’ll get it when you see it.”

  “Okay, but if someone talked to the minister, I’m sure he’d open his doors.” Nothing in what Johnny said made a lick of sense.

  “I haven’t met Pastor Taylor yet, but I know he won’t open his doors to the workers.”

  “Seems rather unfriendly, don’tcha think?” I sipped my wine. Why was Johnny dead set against asking the pastor to help? “When do you want to leave?”

  “First thing Sunday morning. Can you be ready?”

  “I can.”

  “Are the RVs here?” Johnny flipped his menu closed.

  “Yes. I spoke to the dispatcher yesterday.”

  The waiter ambled over; we placed our orders.

  “And the bus?”

  “The leasing company’s delivering it.”

  “I can’t wait to see it.” Johnny, like Ducks, had visions of the old Madden horse trailer.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s been repainted.” As Ducks would say, I had a grand giggle at the looks of disappointment on the men’s faces. Alex hadn’t seen the bus yet, but he’d howl his disapproval to the heavens about the paint job.

  “Ah shit! Is the teacher going to live in it?”

  “Where else would a teacher live but in a ‘school’ bus?” The image appealed.

  “Poor guy. Nothing like living in your home office to keep you tied to your job.”

  Ducks wouldn’t be able to get away from his day job. None of us had ready escape routes. No popping home for a weekend unless you were local. Or had your own private plane. Which I did.

  We headed back to Johnny’s apartment for the night.

  ####

  I met Whip, Emilie, and Alex at the Richmond airport the next afternoon. Alex blasted through the doors from the concourse and threw himself on me.