Nowhere
for Christmas
By Heather
Gray
Astraea Press
Astraea Press
http://www.heathergraywriting.com
http://www.twitter.com/LaughDreamWrite
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Anything can happen on the road
to Nowhere…
A journalist and single mother,
Avery is used to being in control though she tries to remind her-self to let
God take lead in her life. Eli, her son, is happy as long as he has his music,
plenty of food, and the occasional adult on which to practice his rapier wit.
Gavin, a virtual stranger, is a photojournalist who mysteriously dropped off the
scene a few years ago.
The trio ends up together for a Christmas road trip to the small town of
Nowhere. An eight hour drive in a rental car turns into two days of
misadventure and calamity as bad luck seems to stalk them. They get a flat
tire, the bumper falls off, the car overheats – and that's only the beginning!
Along the way they meet some interesting people – from a bait shop owner who
moonlights as a mechanic to a chatty preacher's wife and a highway patrolman
whose wife and mother can't agree on the best way to remove a skunk's stink.
Hungry, cold, and tired, the three finally reach Nowhere only to discover the
town is nothing like they expected. They learn that reaching their destination
doesn't necessarily mean the journey has ended.
Excerpt
Gavin's at the coffee shop on
Central between Edith and Arno.
Clicking
her fingers on the phone, she sent another message. How will I know him?
He's sitting outside. Grey
stocking cap. With luggage.
A
short while later, Avery was pulling their car up in front of the coffee shop. Only in Albuquerque would a coffee shop be
painted the color of terra cotta and have dried chile peppers hanging from the
ceiling.
She
got out of the car and gazed at the front of the coffee shop. A nip in the air
had encouraged all other patrons to enjoy the indoor atmosphere of the
establishment.
Avery
took note of the man as she approached. He was younger than she'd expected.
With the stocking cap pulled down low, she couldn't get a look at his hair, but
the scruff on his cheeks and chin was black as night. She couldn't see his eyes
behind his sunglasses, but he had an angular face, a strong chin, and… he was
drinking a fruit smoothie.
A
bright yellow frozen beverage. At a coffee shop. In December. I'm going to have to make allowances for his
artistic temperament. I get it. But is this necessary, God? Sticking me with a
man who goes to a coffee shop and doesn't order coffee? You're laughing at me,
aren't You?
Pulling
her it's-okay-if-you-don't-love-coffee smile out of storage,
she approached the man. She held out her hand and said, "Mitchell sent me.
Ready to go?"
He
put down his blindingly bright beverage and ran his eyes up and down her
figure. His sunglasses kept his eyes concealed, but his perusal still made her
uncomfortable. When he made no move to shake her hand, she began to wonder if
she had the right person. "What's your name?"
"I'm
Gavin," he said. "Who are you?"
Eyeing
his luggage, she took note of the oversized backpack and two large hard-sided
cases she assumed held camera equipment. This
has to be Gavin, but what if it's not? What if this guy murdered Gavin and
stuffed him in an alleyway, then sat down in his spot to lure me into a false
sense of security so he can do away with us, too, at his leisure? Homicidal
tendencies might explain the yellow drink.
Before
the man had time to sneeze, Avery whipped out her cellphone, took a snapshot of
him, and texted it to Mitchell. Is this
him?
She
imagined the man blinking his eyes in surprise behind his dark glasses. Artsy isn't exactly the first word that
comes to mind here. He was wearing black jeans, a grey jacket hanging open
to reveal a like-colored sweater underneath, and a grey scarf wrapped around
his neck a couple times. I thought
artists wore lots of color. Guess that's what I get for assuming. He makes me
think of a beatnik.
Avery's
phone chirped at her, and she glanced down at it. Yep. That's Gavin.
Again
frowning at the man's fruity beverage, she tried to shake off the feeling of
dread swirling through her stomach. Straightening her shoulders, she held out
her hand for a second time and said, "Hi Gavin. I'm here to pick you up
and head to Nowhere."
He
cracked a smile this time and said, "Heading to Nowhere – isn't that a
country song?" Then, looking behind her, he asked, "Where's
Avery?"
She
stole a look behind her at the white car. What
was he expecting? A limo? She gave him a puzzled look, brows drawn
together, and said, "I'm Avery. Avery Weston."
Gavin
jumped up out of his wrought-iron chair, knocking it back. "You can't be.
Avery's a man."
Avery
scratched her head and said, "I've been accused of a lot of things, but
that's not one of them."
He
turned the tables on her then, taking her picture with his phone, presumably to
verify her identity with Mitchell.
Eli,
evidently tired of waiting in the cramped confines of the car, climbed out and
said, "What's the holdup? At this rate we won't make it to Nowhere till
two in the morning. Come on, people, daylight's burning!"
Gavin
glanced from her to Eli. Then his phone vibrated, and he peered down at it. The
part of his face she could see through the pseudo-beard flushed. His hand
clenched around the phone in a death grip before relaxing.
"I
don't travel with women. I thought I was riding with a man named Avery and his
teenage son."
Eli's
eyebrows shot up. "You thought Mom was a man? That's awesome. Wait till I
tell Grandma and Grandpa! They're going to love it!"
Avery
watched as Eli immediately began texting. Great.
Now I'm a topic of gossip between my son and parents.
First Chapter
Chapter
One
Albuquerque,
NM
December
22
Some women are satisfied with one
man in their life. There are even women who would say that's too many. Not me,
though. Oh, no. Not me. I get to juggle two.
Avery
Weston stormed into her editor's office and slammed the door behind her.
Mitchell peered up from his catastrophe of a desk. The newsroom had been
battling mice off and on for two years now, but Mitchell's office had remained
rodent-free. Her theory? The little
beasts are terrified of getting squashed under a falling stack of paper, or
worse, getting lost in this mess and starving to death.
Mitchell,
bushy black eyebrows raised, inspected her and asked, "Yes, Avery?"
She
threw herself into the only chair not filled with file folders, books, and
other paraphernalia. "I got your memo. You didn't have the guts to tell me
in person?"
His
eyes returned to the article he was reviewing, red pen in hand. Mitchell was
old enough to be her… big brother… but he insisted on doing things old school. There was no way he'd ever
get caught editing important articles on his computer. He wanted a printout in
one hand and his red pen in the other. "I thought your temper might cool
down during the walk from your desk to my office."
"You
thought wrong."
"I
see that." Mitchell laid his red pen down on top of the printout he'd been
studying. "Has it occurred to you this might be fun?"
"Has
it occurred to you I might look for a job elsewhere?" She'd worked for
Mitchell more years than she could remember. He'd given her the start she'd
desperately needed, and because of him, she was able to provide for the other
man in her life. They both knew she wouldn't be looking for a job elsewhere,
but that didn't stop her from voicing the empty threat now and then.
"Think
of it as an adventure."
Yeah, right.
"Have you spent much time with teenagers recently?"
Mitchell
removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Is that the
problem? You don't think Eli will want to go?"
Avery
sighed and sank back into the chair she occupied. "He's fifteen, Mitchell.
I told him we'd go north for Christmas so he could go skiing. Now I'm going to
be hauling him across three states to a Podunk town in the middle of nowhere.
Nowhere! Do you have any idea exactly how not
happy he is going to be with me?"
Mitchell
opened his mouth to say something.
Avery,
ignoring him, continued her monologue. "He's not going to blame you,
either. Eli won't think Mom has such a
rotten boss. How dare he ruin my Christmas plans?" She let out a sigh
and said, "This is all going to be my fault as far as he's concerned. I
will have broken my word to him, and he will have one more reason to resent me
for the rest of his life."
This
time Mitchell lifted a hand to stop Avery so he could say something.
Again
dismissing his action, she said, "Do you have any idea how hard it is to
raise a teenage boy alone? Or to raise any child alone for that matter? He
wasn't always a teenager, you know. Eli started out as a baby, and I thought
how hard it was to be a single mom to this tiny little thing that cried and
pooped all the time. I never slept. No matter how hard it got, I provided a
home for him because he was my responsibility, my joy. Then he was in grade
school, and I thought that was as hard as it could possibly get. I worked ten
hours a day for a tyrant of a boss, then came home to fix dinner for my finicky
son and spend three hours working on homework with him so he could pass to the
next grade."
Mitchell
cleared his throat.
Avery
kept talking. "You know, when I was in school, we didn't start working on
algebra until I was in junior high. Eli started working basic algebra equations
in second grade. Who does that? Algebra in second grade! Sure, it was easy
stuff, but whatever happened to being a child? But I did it. I wanted the best
for my son. I looked at it as an exercise in building confidence as he put in
the hard work and saw it pay off, so I sat there with him for hours and hours
every night. Because I'm his mom. Has he ever noticed any of that? Of course
not! He notices everything he doesn't
get in this life. And now, thanks to you, he gets to add skiing trip to the
list of things to hold against me. You're a peach, Mitchell! An absolute
peach."
As
her voice wound down, Avery eyed Mitchell and saw he had gone back to editing
the article he'd been looking at when she'd come in.
"Are
you listening to anything I say?" When Mitchell said nothing, she leaned
forward and slapped her palm against the edge of his desktop. She didn't use
much force, but the impact still vibrated up her arm and echoed among the
stacks of files and papers around the room.
Her
editor neither jumped nor reacted. Instead, the picture of calm, he put his pen
down, took his glasses off, and set them next to the pen. Taking his time, he
looked up and asked, "Are you done yet?"
She
tried to stare him down, but he was having none of it.
Mitchell
leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not an
entirely insensitive clod, despite what you may think. Sending you off to chase
a story over Christmas isn't my idea. This came down from higher up, and I
don't have a say in it. Apparently the Quaint American Towns feature you've been
doing for the past year has gotten a good-enough response that the big wigs at Corporate
are following through on their promise of syndication and have given me a list
of towns and times they want you to cover in the coming year. They're insisting
the national syndication of your feature start with this particular story, and
they demand it be authentically at Christmas. I did my best to cull down the
list and eliminate some of the ones that would take you out of town for
extended trips during the school year. Corporate would not, however, budge on
the Christmas trip. In fact, they went so far as to make it a contingency of
your national syndication."
When
Avery started to sputter again, Mitchell held up his hand to silence her.
"Contrary to popular opinion, I do have sympathy. You drive down tomorrow,
spend Christmas eve and day, drive back the day after, and then you'll have the
rest of his break to take the kid skiing. Besides, I already called Eli and
told him about the trip. I wanted to make sure he understood it was coming from
me, that you didn't have a choice in the matter."
"You
spoke to my son about this?" Avery's voice was filled with skepticism.
A
bark of laughter escaped as Mitchell shook his head and answered, "Two
days ago. I guess he didn't mention it to you?"
"My
son has known my job assignment for two days, and I am just now finding out
about it?"
Mitchell
shrugged. "Hey, I told him to pass the information on to you. The memo was
nothing more than the official documentation so Corporate has the nice paper
trail they prefer."
Avery
ran a hand through her light brown hair, not at all embarrassed by her previous
rant. "I suppose it's a good thing we're friends, and you can't fire me,
huh? If any other reporter came in here and went off on you like that, they'd
be out of here in a heartbeat, wouldn't they?"
Raising
an eyebrow, Mitchell replied, "I guess we can all be thankful you closed
the door when you came in."
Something
in his voice warned Avery she wasn't going to be happy with what she would see.
She spun around to look at the door. There it was, standing wide open. Turning
to look at her boss, she said, "I did it again, didn't I?"
He
nodded.
Swallowing,
she leaned back in her chair. "I'm not a very good example to your other
employees." This wasn't the first time Avery had slammed the door so hard
it had bounced back open rather than shut.
"Which
is why I always tell them to do the exact opposite of whatever you do. Unless
they're on assignment. Then they can emulate you," he said with a wink.
"I
can't believe Eli has known for two days and said nothing to me." Her
voice was rueful, all trace of her previous drama gone.
"You
know he's somewhere howling in laughter over this. He probably has the office
bugged, and we don't even know it."
Avery
shook her head. "Even the bugs are afraid of your office," she said,
her voice dry. "I don't think he could have convinced any to stay in
here." She adjusted her scarf and asked, "Has Gavin been yet to take
the pictures? It helps if I can see the photos first so I know which parts of
the town to include in my piece."
Mitchell's
pronounced eyebrows climbed up again. "You didn't read the entire memo,
did you?" She shook her head, and he said, "Gavin's traveling with
you. This was a last-minute push by Corporate, and he hasn't had a chance to
get out there ahead of you, so he's going to have to go with you."
Avery
had a sinking feeling and could have sworn she felt a large stone being dropped
into her stomach with a loud kplunk.
Gavin
Eastly had once been a rising star in photojournalism. He'd fallen off the
radar a couple years back and had only recently started working again. The fact
that he was doing work for the Albuquerque Times spoke to how far from grace
he'd fallen. She didn't know the story behind it, but when someone as good at
their job as he'd been disappears as suddenly as he had, the assumption tended
to be a stint in rehab or a mental hospital. Maybe both.
She
bit her lip before saying, "Mitchell, I've never met Gavin. The only
things I know about him are the photos he takes… and his reputation. I'm not
sure I want to be confined with him for such a long trip." Her editor
watched her but didn't say anything. I
hate it when he does that. It always makes me say more than I intend.
"My teenage son will be with me. What if Gavin has… bad habits… that might
influence my son?"
His
lips twitched, and she had the feeling he was trying not to laugh at her.
"Gavin's
story is his own to tell," he said.
This
time it was her turn to cross her arms and stare.
With
a camaraderie built from years working together, Mitchell sat back, his muscles
loose and relaxed, as he looked her in the eye and said, "You don't have
to worry about Gavin being a bad influence on Eli."
"I
need something more than that. You ought to know that about me."
Mitchell
ran a hand through his thinning hair and said, "Close the door."
Surprised
by the command, Avery rose to shut the door then pulled her chair closer to the
desk so she didn't miss anything Mitchell had to say.
"Gavin
is family."
Avery's
stomach fluttered akin to when she was on the scent of a big story.
"Family?"
"On
my wife's side. That's all I can tell you, and you need to keep it quiet."
"Why
is it a secret?"
"It's
complicated."
"Smoking,
drinking, drugs? Anything I should watch for?"
"I
wouldn't be sending you anywhere with him if he had any dangerous issues. He's
clean, Avery. And a good guy. He's having a hard time right now is all."
"Mental
breakdown? Do I need to make sure the knives are removed from the table
whenever we stop to eat?"
His
eyes narrowed and he said, voice deeper than usual, "He's an amazing
photographer, good enough to make even the ugliest town look beautiful."
The easy posture was gone as Mitchell leaned forward and said, "Don't give
him any grief, and do your best not to ask questions. That's all I'm willing to
say about it."
I'm not going to let it drop that
easily, and you know it.
"Fine.
I'll go. When do we leave, and whose car are we taking?"
Mitchell
sat back, his brow wrinkling. "Uh, I've lined up a rental. It's in your
name, and they will come pick you up at your house tomorrow morning at ten.
Gavin is supposed to text you in the A.M. to let you know where to pick him
up."
"Sounds
like a plan," she said with a smile. "Thanks for setting everything
up!"
Avery
breezed out of Mitchell's office with a triumphant smile on her face. She'd
left him guessing, and she knew it. He couldn't hide his surprise or suspicion,
and that suited her fine. I'll drop my
questions about Gavin when purple monkeys start dancing on the hood of my
rental car.
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