Alice Henderson - Voracious

At the mention of their mother, Meg laughed. “Nope. Definitely not. She wants us to be stockbrokers.”

“Or work for a PR firm.”

“But not us.”

“Nope.” Carly pushed a handful of dreadlocks out of her eye and smiled. She was beautiful. A stunning, natural beauty. “We’re free spirits.”

“You two are sisters, then?” she asked.

“Yup,” Meg answered. “You got a sister?”

They were nearing the intense traffic of the trinket store and restaurant area of West Glacier, and they slowed to a crawl behind a line of cars waiting to get gas at the little service station.

“Only child,” Madeline answered. But she thought of Ellie and smiled sadly. She was the closest thing to a sister that Madeline could ever want.

She took in the pile of gear in the backseat next to her and in the trunk. “Looks like you two are heading on to new adventures,” she remarked.

Carly nodded. “Yep! Meg here scored a job as a cook in a backcountry chalet here in Glacier. I’m going with her to hopefully talk them into hiring me on in housekeeping.”

“Sounds like a great life,” Madeline said. She thought of her last few dark days and tried to envision a cheery future for herself full of travel. Failing that, she just tried to envision a future. But she couldn’t see past the horror and terror of the last few days, couldn’t imagine what lay in store for her in the next few hours, let alone the next few years.

“You okay?” Meg asked, watching her in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah,” she lied. “Just really tired.”

By now they’d made it to the far end of the gas station’s parking lot, moving steadily in the flow of cars. Meg pulled up at the garage. “Front door service,” she said, grinning.

“Thank you!” Madeline opened the door, careful to keep more gear from spilling out. “Take care,” she said, stooping to look through the window. “And good luck on your adventures!”

“Peace!” Carly said.

“Get some rest,” Meg added.

“Will do.” Madeline managed a smile, and the women pulled away, leaving her standing in front of the repair garage.

An hour later Madeline sat in an uncomfortable red vinyl seat in the repair garage waiting room, perusing a two-year-old issue of National Geographic . They’d towed her car back to the garage, and an elderly mechanic with a shock of white hair had been checking it over for the last ten minutes.

He entered through the employee door of the waiting room and walked up behind the counter, thumbing through pages on an ancient wooden clipboard. “Miss Keye?” he asked, looking questioningly around the waiting room, even though she was the only one there. She put down the magazine and walked to the counter. She fished around in the back pocket of Noah’s jeans for her wallet and realized she’d left it back at the cabin in her rush to leave.

“Yes?”

“Well, I’ve looked over your Rabbit,” he said softly. The sympathetic look in his eye did not do much for her confidence. “I’m afraid it’s bad. Now, I can weld some of the damage and get new fuel lines and a tank and filter, but the problem is that it’s an import, and I don’t have many VW parts here. The ones I do have are for the buses. Darn popular with campers, those buses. They got the pop-up top and those sinks and stoves and whatnot. Darn handy. But I don’t have any Rabbit parts. I’ll have to order them.”

She raised her eyebrows. Somehow she knew ordering them was going to take a long time. She asked the question.

“Two weeks,” he said. “Maybe a week and a half. Depends on if they’re making another shipment up this way. Otherwise I just get parts every two weeks.”

“Darn,” she said, using the old man’s word of choice. “That long? Are you sure?”

“I’m afraid so.” His soft blue eyes gazed on her kindly. “What do you want to do?”

She thought a moment, fingers drumming on the black and greasy Formica counter. What could she do? Towing it even as far as Missoula would cost her a mint. Leaving it here until he could fix it was the best bet. But she couldn’t very well stay here, with no friends and no escape car. No. She would leave the Rabbit here, get home somehow, and come back for it. She hated the thought of leaving her beloved car, the sense of familiarity it brought her, but it was the best choice.

“Can I leave it here until you fix it?”

“Sure can,” he answered. “Got a lot out back.”

She nodded. “Then that’s what I’d like to do. I’ve got to get back home, though. I’ll leave you my information so you can contact me when you finish or call me if you have questions.”

“Good enough,” he said, and produced a tablet from under the counter. In block letters he painstakingly wrote down what was wrong with the Rabbit and then handed the pen over to her to fill in her information, the car’s year, make, and model and sign at the X to authorize repairs.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s what I do.” He grinned, his blue eyes sparkling beneath the crop of short, white hair. She smiled back and hoped desperately that she was leaving her Rabbit in good hands.

Now she just had to find a way home.

Her first thought was George. No one else would be willing to drive five hours to get her.

Exiting the relative peace of the repair garage waiting room, Madeline entered the chaos of the parking lot beyond. Cars still circled endlessly, waiting to fill up on gas; kids screamed; parents yelled.

Across the street, Madeline spotted two public telephones. At one a gaggle of redheaded children and their parents gathered, each taking turns talking into the mouthpiece. On the other phone talked a lone woman in her mid-forties, with graying hair in a loose ponytail and a point-and-shoot camera in one hand. Her T-shirt advertised, God, Guns and Guts Keep America Free.

Madeline approached the telephones. Reaching in her back pocket, she remembered again that she’d left her wallet at the cabin. Luckily, though, she had her calling card number memorized. And at least leaving her wallet at the cabin was better than if she’d been carrying it during the flash flood. If she hadn’t stashed it in her car, her calling card, along with her two credit cards, her driver’s license, hell, even her Mothershead Library card, would be somewhere in the river, swept far downstream by now or sunk to voluminous depths along with her expensive, well-loved pack that she’d never see again.

She waited patiently as God, Guns and Guts chatted quietly with someone, and the red-haired family yammered away loudly to the grandmother of the familial clan.

As she stood there, baking in the afternoon sun that beat down between pine needles, she fantasized that someone walking along a beach in the Pacific Ocean would one day stumble across her backpack in a tumble of sun-bleached driftwood. They’d find the name tag on her pack and give her a call. Or maybe the pack would wash up in Hawaii or Japan. Maybe she’d have to go to Oahu to claim it, and would end up scuba diving with dolphins.

After she waited for a few more minutes, God, Guns and Guts hung up. As the woman walked away, she threw Madeline a gruff look over one shoulder. The woman’s face was tough, tanned, and leathered, and the eyes spoke of a rough life that hadn’t had too many lucky breaks.

Madeline smiled at her, and the woman managed a smile back, then turned away.

She walked to the phone and picked up the handset, getting a wave of psychic white noise as she did so. It hit her powerfully, and she dropped the phone, letting it swing at the end of its cord. Shaking her head lightly, she picked up the handset again, trying to tune the visions out, but the buzzing in her head only allowed itself to be reduced to a low hum instead of disappearing entirely. Normally she’d be able to tune out such a thing. But she was exhausted, and probably a hundred people had used the phone already today, leaving a sea of fresh vibes behind.