West of Nowhere (8 page)

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After a dismal start, Utah had turned out to be the most interesting state so far. The drab rolling hills had become winding canyons leading into Salt Lake City, and the blinding salt flats had given way to a deep red sunset over rugged westward peaks. Seven states in three days, with only Nevada and California left.

Amber waited in the truck with Skippy while Joy checked in at the campground office. “One more day, boy. Then we’ve got to go to work.”

Though she’d tried to appear confident about taking care of Joy’s father, she wasn’t all that sure she could pull it off. It had always been a point of personal pride that she didn’t take shit from anybody. Anytime one of her bosses gave her attitude, she usually gave it right back and then some. But that was when she still had a roof over her head in case she got fired.

From the way Joy talked about her father, he might well be a flaming asshole, and she had no choice but to suck it up. Even more than that, she was worried about screwing up and getting fired again, only this time, she’d be two thousand miles from everyone she knew.

Joy returned to the truck and placed a permit on the dashboard. “Anywhere on Row Three, he said.”

They crept slowly down the pavement through a canyon of campers and motorhomes, all parked diagonally and separated by a picnic table, outdoor grill and trash can.

“There’s a spot,” Amber said.

No sooner had the words left her lips than the door opened at the adjacent motorhome. One man practically fell outside laughing at another who appeared shirtless behind them, flipping him off and screaming that he was a motherfucker. Each man held a beer can, and several more were stacked in a pyramid on the picnic table.

“On second thought…”

Joy parked at the end of the row and, after hooking up the water and electricity, went to work preparing dinner, which was pasta shells with peas, tomatoes and tuna.

“This is really good,” Amber said. “Where did you learn to cook?”

“This isn’t cooking. This is called making dinner. I’m sure people who actually cook understand the difference.”

“Maybe to you, but this would be gourmet at my house.”

Joy set the pasta box on the table and turned it toward her. “Nearly everything I make has the recipe on the side of the box, or the bag or the can. If I want something more complicated than that, I go out to eat.”

Amber slipped a forkful of tuna to Skippy, who had been watching every bite with anticipation. “I thought for sure you were going to tell me they taught you to cook in the navy. They taught you everything else.”

“One of the girls I went to boot camp with studied cooking…culinary specialist, she was called. Guess what she’s doing now.”

“Wearing a poncho at Taco Loco?”

Joy chuckled. “She’s working in the kitchen at the White House.”

“Now there’s a job I’d like.”

“She had to work her way up to that, including about six years cooking below decks on an aircraft carrier.”

“Screw that. You and your crazy boats.”

“Ships.”

“That’s what I said.” Amber collected their dishes and twisted in her seat to set them in the sink. “I’ll clean up if you want to get a shower.”

“Good deal. We probably should turn in early. Ten hours on the road tomorrow gets us home.”

By the time Amber got the dishes washed, dried and stowed where they wouldn’t bounce around, Joy was back.

“You might want to skip over to Row Four to walk to the bathhouse. Those two guys we saw on the way in are smashed, and they’re getting into it with the old couple next to them. I won’t be surprised if the cops show up soon.”

“Wonder why the owner doesn’t just kick them out?”

“He should but someone that drunk doesn’t need to be driving out of here, especially in a vehicle as big as a motorhome.”

“Good point.”

Joy and her father were technically her bosses now, and she needed to get used to taking their orders. Still, she couldn’t resist checking out the raucous excitement and she walked down the row hoping to hear the fight between the two drunks and their neighbors. Whatever had gotten stirred up was over. The campground was relatively quiet and most campers seemed to be turning in. Two others were leaving the bathhouse, an older woman and a toddler who might have been her granddaughter.

Amber took her time, savoring the steam of the shower as she shaved her legs and conditioned her thick, curly hair. Just because she didn’t iron her tank tops didn’t mean she couldn’t make herself presentable. A good first impression on the old guy would probably make her job a lot easier.

It was almost eleven when she finally exited the bathhouse, her dirty clothes rolled up inside her wet towel, and she felt bad for taking so long. Joy was probably waiting up, since she’d never go to sleep without locking the camper door.

“Look what we got here, Jerry.” The shirtless drunk was right outside the door taking a leak against the side of the bathhouse. “This one’s not as ugly as all the others around here.”

“Not as fat, either,” Jerry said as he stepped around the corner into view.

After seven years of hanging out with bands, Amber had been around her share of drunks, enough that she could tell which ones were simply hopeless, and which ones were trouble. The fact that these guys had already tangled with the neighbors suggested they were in the latter group, and she decided to ignore them.

“Come have a beer with us. We’ve got some hooch too. You like hooch?”

Jerry sidestepped until he was blocking her path. “I bet she likes hooch, Ray.”

“No thanks, guys. Time to go to bed…sleep it off.”

“I’ve got a nice big bed back at my place,” Ray said, slipping his arm around Amber’s waist, and his fingers inside the back of her waistband. “You’d like my bed. I’d make sure of that.”

As she whirled out of his reach, Jerry caught her and slapped a hand over her mouth from behind. She responded with several backward kicks to his shins, ineffective with only rubber flip-flops. His massive arm pinned both of her elbows to her sides while Ray wrapped her legs in a bear hug. Together, they carried her past two motorhomes to theirs.

Amber kicked violently as Ray loosened his grip to open the door, and she saw his head snap back as her heel landed a lucky blow against his jaw.

“You bitch!” With blood spurting from his split lip, he drew back his fist.

“Let her go.” Joy’s trembling voice rang out from behind them, followed by a metallic click.

Ray, his eyes wide with fear, wiped his bloody chin. “Jerry, she’s pointing a gun right at your head.”

Jerry released Amber’s arms immediately, causing her to fall on her backside with a thud. Then he lunged toward Joy, swinging an elbow hard into her chest.

The blow caused her to stagger backward and she momentarily lost her grip on the gun.

Lucky for them, Jerry was too drunk to take advantage of the opening. The sideways lurch made him lose his balance and tumble over the bench of the picnic table.

From her sitting position, Amber kicked again at Ray, this time catching his kneecap squarely so that he howled in pain.

Joy recovered and swung the pistol from one man to the other. “Amber, get back to the truck.”

“Fucking dyke,” Jerry muttered, still crumpled on the ground.

Amber followed Joy back to their camper, checking over her shoulder to be sure the two drunks weren’t in pursuit. “That was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen in my whole fucking life. You were fucking amazing!”

“Pack up. We’re getting out of here.”

“Why? You had those guys pissing in their pants. They know better than to mess with us now.”

“Are you insane? I nearly got both of us killed. If that guy hadn’t been so drunk, I would have been sitting on the wrong end of my own gun.”

Amber secured the loose items inside the camper while Joy unhooked the water and power. In less than five minutes they were pulling out the front gate and back onto Interstate 80.

“I didn’t even know you had a gun. Where do you keep it?”

“Locked up. That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever pointed it at a real person.” Joy’s voice still shook, and her hands fidgeted all about the steering wheel. “I can’t believe I just did that.”

“Not only did you do it, you were fucking amazing. Believe me, if I had one of those, no one would ever fuck with me again.”

“Do you have to say fuck all the time?”

Amber was startled by the sharpness of her voice. Clearly, Joy was shaken by the experience. “Sorry. Are you okay?”

Her first answer was a deep sigh and a trembling hand through her hair. “I’m just freaked out because of what could have happened if I hadn’t come looking for you. You could have been…”

Amber finished the sentence in her head. She would have been raped. Even though both men had been stinking drunk, she’d been totally defenseless when they picked her up and carried her to their camper. And who knows what they might have done afterward to cover their crime?

But they hadn’t, and she had more than enough bad memories that were real without torturing herself over something that hadn’t happened.

A sign on the otherwise barren road said Elko, Nevada, was ninety-eight miles away, and Joy methodically located three different campgrounds on her navigation system. Though it was nearly midnight, Amber was too hyper to worry about dozing off, and from the nervous way Joy’s fingers kept tapping the steering wheel, she too was wired. They’d probably get a later start than usual tomorrow, but at least they’d be a couple of hours closer to Oakland.

She studied Joy in the bluish glow from the dashboard. To the list of traits she’d already compiled to describe her—responsible, orderly, independent, capable—she’d add brave. And no matter what she’d said about nearly getting both of them killed, Amber still thought she was fucking awesome.

After a long quiet day on the road, Amber welcomed the growing cheer in Joy’s voice as they got closer to home. Both of them had been positively morose when they first awakened at the campground in Nevada, most likely still hung over from the events of the night before.

“I always tell everyone I live in Oakland because no one knows where Alameda is,” Joy explained animatedly as she drove through the residential grid.

Several of the streets were named for presidents, Amber noted, but not in an order that would help anyone find their way. They turned onto Garfield Avenue, where small, modest homes sat only ten or twelve feet from the sidewalk. No two looked alike, and yet all were similar, single-story with long narrow driveways that disappeared through a fence or ran all the way to a guesthouse in the back.

Joy pulled to the curb in front of a tidy bungalow, light gray with white trim, and charcoal steps and shutters. The front porch was covered and enclosed by a half-wall with two pillars on each side.

“Welcome to your new home…for a while, at least.”

Eager for a cigarette, Amber hopped out of the truck and lit up before Joy could remind her that she’d promised to quit when they got here. She still had three left and planned to savor each one.

“Looks like Rocky mowed the grass,” Joy said, nodding toward the front yard, which was no larger than an average living room. “He’s the kid next door.”

Amber furiously puffed her cigarette while she led Skippy around the yard, and then ground it out on the concrete sidewalk. On the steps, she caught Joy’s stern look and hustled back to pick up the butt.

“How many more?”

“Two.” She followed Joy onto the porch, noticing only a tiny beveled incline at the front door. “Where’s the wheelchair ramp?”

“Around back. Pop thought it might invite thieves.”

“You could always shoot them.” The hard-faced look Joy gave her made Amber wish she’d swallowed that quip instead of blurting it out. Thinking first wasn’t her strong suit.

Joy led her inside. On the right side of the house, the living room, dining area and kitchen were open all the way to the back porch. It was immediately obvious from the scuffed wood floors, the open space at the dining table and hip-high countertops that a handicapped person lived there.

“Pop’s room is here.”

They walked through a wide doorway on the left side of the house to a room that held an adjustable single bed, nightstand and dresser. There was no door on the adjacent bathroom, where the toilet, sink and shower stall had been custom-made for wheelchair access.

In the hallway outside were wide doorways leading to a smaller bathroom, and then a second bedroom.

“And this is your room?” Amber asked. There was a double bed pushed all the way up to the window, a chest of drawers, and a small desk and chair.

“Actually, it’s yours.”

Amber walked back out to the main living area and looked around. No more doors. She could see the whole backyard through the kitchen windows, and there wasn’t a guesthouse—only a carport that covered a white Ford sedan and a dark green Jeep with a canvas top.

“Okay, I give up. You do live here, right?”

“Yes, but my room is still parked out front. I need to open the gate so I can pull it around back and hook up the water and electricity.”

“You live in that fu—I mean that freaking camper all the time?” No wonder Joy was so quirky.

“I like my space.”

“And you call that space.”

Joy laughed as she drew a couple of beers from the refrigerator. “Someday I’ll show you a few pictures of life on an aircraft carrier. You’ll see why that camper feels like a palace. The best part is I don’t have to share it with seven others.”

Amber took a welcome swig of cold brew from the bottle. “Beer goes with cigarettes, you know. I might have to go get another pack just to get me through this bottle.” She jerked it away when Joy tried to grab it. “Seriously, can I smoke outside if I promise not to throw my butts on the ground? And I’ll shut the windows so it won’t blow back in.”

“I’m not your mother,” Joy answered, not hiding her disappointment. “You’re the one who said you wanted to quit because it was expensive. They’re five dollars a pack in California, so a pack a day is going to cost you more than a thousand bucks a year.”