|
Kevin
Byrne
|
Running
to Home |
Chapter
9 - On the Road Again
Part
1
Lesley
took off the headphones after listing to the last CD in the
Simon and Garfunkel set. She noted that it was now
dark outside. She could not see very far in the
darkness that enclosed the bus. The road seemed
deserted. The bus seemed to be traveling like a
ship, alone, far away from any other ship. She ejected
the CD and put it back in the case. She turned to hand
the CD set and the disc player back to Bridget.
Bridget, howver, had her eyes closed. She reached to
put the CD set and disc player in the pocket in front of
Bridget.
"I'm awake," announced Bridget. "I was
just resting and thinking."
"What were you thinking about?" asked Lesley.
"What I'm giving up to do all this," Bridget
responded.
"And what are you giving up?"
"Nothing," answered Bridget, flippantly.
Lesley leaned back in her seat and turned her head to look
at Bridget. "What was your life like before I met you?
What ever happened to your parents? How did you end up
in a foster home? And how did you become
so hard?"
Bridget opened her eyes and looked over at Lesley.
"Whoa, whoa girl. That's a lot to answer for. You
want my life history?"
"Yes," answered Lesley simply.
"Okay, I'll give it to you on one condition,"
Bridget answered as she faced forward again.
"Name it." challenged Lesley.
"After I tell you my story, you answer the question you
didn't answer
before."
"And what question was that?" asked Lesley,
racking her brain for what she could have failed to reveal.
"You have to tell me how you became such a great
singer." Bridget demanded with a slight smile.
"Deal," said Lesley. "Since I asked
first, you go first."
"Remember, you asked for it," warned Bridget.
"Don't fall asleep on me to get out of the deal.
I'll just wake you up and keep telling the story. I
guess, like all stories, this one started with my mother.
My grandfather had died in Vietnam so my grandmother had to
raise my mother on her own. My mother got to be a
handful, wouldn't listen to my grandmother at all. My
mother starting drinking, smoking, hanging out with the
wrong crowd. She started staying out all the time, for
days at a time. Then she started doing drugs,
marijuana, coke, whatever. My grandmother kept trying
to get her straighten out but my mother kept doing her own
thing. She finally moved out, moved around with her
'friends.' She didn't have any money so she started
trading sex for
drugs. She finally got pregnant with me. I don't
even know who my father could have been. I don't think
she knew."
"Oh, how awful," interjected Lesley.
"How were you born without problems?"
"Well," continued Bridget, "when my mother
figured out she was pregnant, she came home. My
grandmother would have kicked her out if she wasn't
pregnant. But since my mother was, my grandmother took
her in under some severe restrictions. She kept my
mother away from drinking, smoking and drugs while she was
pregnant with me. She kept on her all the time, didn't
let my mother out of her sight unless someone else came
around to watch her. So I was born healthy."
"My mother managed to stay clean for a year or two,
even got a job as a cashier. Then she went out for a
party one night and didn't come back for a week. She
had run into her old crowd and went back into drugs.
My mother was up and down for months till my grandmother
couldn't take it anymore. One day, when I was about 2
and my mother was out on one of her binges, my grandmother
dumped her clothes on the sidewalk, changed the locks on the
doors and wouldn't let her back in. She then went to
court and got sole custody of me. My mother got
visitation rights but nothing else."
"So you were raised by your grandmother?"
asked Lesley.
"Pretty much, for the first 10 years or so. My
mother was allowed to visit one day every two weeks and on
holidays. But she rarely made it. I maybe saw her
five, six times a year. And she was usually high or
loaded when she showed up. She would start by hugging
me and fussing over me. A lot of times, I could smell
alcohol on her breath. And she stank too. She
didn't take care of herself very well. Then my mother
would get emotional or bent out of shape about something,
argue with my grandmother and then stomp out of the house,
not to be seen for a couple of months. I usually ended
up upset and crying and my grandmother would have to calm me
down somehow."
"Your grandmother must have been a tower of
strength."
"Well, when I was younger, she seemed that way.
As I grew older though, I started smelling alcohol on her
breath too. She basically turned into an alcoholic.
By the time I was 10, I was running the house, buying the
food, cooking, cleaning, dusting, whatever. My
grandmother was usually too much out of it to be able to
handle anything beyond some cheap liquor."
"God, it must have been awful."
"I was managing okay. But things got worse.
There's one day I'll never forget. I was 12 then. A
police officer came by, asking for my grandmother. She
was upstairs sleeping off a bender. I told the officer
I could handle what ever was going on. He was real
reluctant to let me do it but finally, he figured he had to
get me to handle the matter."
"What was it?"
"The guy took me to the morgue. They led me into
the back and had been identify my mother's body. She
had died of an overdose. They found her in an
abandoned house, the needle still in her arm."
Lesley gasped. No words could come. Bridget
looked over at her. "Yeah, it's something no
12-year-old kid should have to do, ID their dead mother.
But that wasn't the worst thing that happened."
Lesley was stunned. "You mean it got worse?"
"Yep. A couple months later, I was coming home
from school when I saw a lot of smoke on my block. I
got scared and ran. I got close enough to see it was
my grandmother's house on fire. I tried to run inside
but
the fireman caught me and wouldn't let me get close.
The place almost burned to the ground. They had
trouble saving the houses on either side. There wasn't
a whole lot left of my grandmother."
Lesley was going from stunned to horrified. "What
had happened?"
"My grandmother had been smoking and drinking and
passed out with a lit cigarette on the bed. The
cigarette set the bedspread on fire and burned down the
place. I don't think my grandmother ever woke up.
I lost everything that day, everything except the clothes on
my back and the books in my backpack. I cried for
hours, even when the child services people took me away.
That's the last time I cried."
"So then, you ended up in a foster home?" asked
Lesley.
"I ended up in four foster homes over the next three
years. I had problems in everyone. The first
couple, the Carpenters didn't seem so bad. They were
in their forties, middle class couple, no kids. I was
with them for a few months. It seemed to be working
out at the start. I was going to an okay school, getting out
a bit. It just that Mr. Carpenter kept looking at me
in a creepy way, particularly when he thought I didn't
notice. It finally made sense one night. He came
in to say good night. I was in my pajamas, in bed,
ready to turn the light
out. He sat on the bed and said he wanted to give me a
goodnight kiss. I thought it was kinda funny but I played
along and turned a cheek. He reached around, put his
hand on my thigh and tried to kiss me on the mouth."
"Oh, God!! Did he...?
"Nay, he didn't get any further. I grabbed an
alarm clock on the night stand and hit him with it, twice.
He backed off, screaming in pain, there was blood all over
things from the cut in his head and his wife came running
in?"
"Did you tell what he was trying?"
"Yeah, but she didn't believe me. He claimed I
hit head because he was grounding me for some imaginary
infraction. They sent me back the next day. The
social worker wasn't sure who to believe, him or me, so they
took them off the list of potential foster homes until they
investigated."
"Anything come of that?"
"I never heard what came of the investigation.
But I saw Mr. Carpenter's name in the paper of few months
ago. He could picked up for using the Internet
to trying to entice an underage girl across state lines for
immoral purposes. He was real surprised when the
14-year-old girl he was expecting to meet turned out to be a
45-year-old detective who was posing as an underage girl to
trap creeps like him."
"Glad he's out of circulation," remarked Lesley.
"What was the second foster home like?"
"A little bit worse. The family was the
Lasateratos. He owned a small grocery in one of the
lower class areas. He had a couple kids younger than
me. I soon as I got there he put me to work in the
grocery store. He taught me how to run the register, how to
handle produce, stock shelves. He figured he didn't
have to pay me since I was family."
"But you weren't!"
"What can I say? The guy was a cheapskate.
He had me working almost any time I wasn't in school.
I barely could get any homework done since he had me at that
grocery store almost all the time. He had a couple
other workers but he let them go so he didn't have to pay
their salaries. I complained to the social worker
handling my case but she didn't have time to check up on me.
She had a hundred other cases, a lot of them little kids.
If a little kid gets hurt in foster care or after they're
taken out of foster care, the place goes ballistic.
The
newspapers get on you, the politicians start screaming, the
parents, either the foster ones or the real ones, start
showing up for interviews all over the place, it gets to be
a real mess. So the social workers worry more over the
little kids and leave the teenagers go. Plus my social
worker was a burn out case. She was counting the days
to retirement and she had about four years to go. She
wasn't going to do more work than she had to and, with 100
cases, she had more work than she could handle."
"What finally got you out of there?"
"Mr. Lasaterato finally had me work instead of going to
school. After a couple weeks, the school called the
social worker to report I wasn't in school. She
checked it out and found out I was working. They
pulled me out of there because Mr. Lasaterato was violating
about a dozen different rules. They got him to pay me
some money but then he went bankrupt and moved. I had
enough to get the CD player and the Simon and Garfunkel set.
That's about all I have to remember him by, thank God,"
summarized Bridget with relief
"What was the next family like?"
"The Jones? Nice family but fundamentalist
Christians. It was okay but I wasn't real thrilled
with all religion getting pushed on me. They regarded
me as a misled sinner who had to be save from the Pope, or
as they called him, the Pimp of Rome."
"Oh, how awful. He's such a nice, decent, holy
man."
"He's okay but he is just a little too old fashioned
about women to suit me. Anyway, with the Jones, I was
going to a private religious school Their math was
okay. Chemistry and physics was limited because they
didn't have money for labs. Biology was a mess.
They were good on plants and animals, life cycle, some of
the basics. But they were hung up on proving evolution
wrong. They were teaching that the earth was created
somewhere around 4004 B.C., I think on April 16 at 10:05
a.m. I just drove them nuts with my questions on
creationism. I keep bringing up fossils, carbon dating
back to campsites 15,000 years old,dinosaurs. They had
answers, but they didn't sound convincing. The Jones
told me I was embarrassing them. I didn't care."
Lesley asked, "How were they on literature?"
Bridget shrugged. "They were pretty good on
things like grammar and spelling. But the stuck with
the Bible and other religious stuff for literature.
Keep it real limited. I got bored fast. But I
wasn't allowed to read anything else. So I had to read
the Bible through a couple times. They like the parts
about the Ten Commandments,
punishment of sin, Daniel in the lions' den, that kind of
stuff. I kept bringing up the wars, David and
Bathsheba, Deliah, all the stuff they didn't want to
acknowledge. When I worked through the Song of Solomon
with my own interpretations, they were a bit crazed.
They wanted towash my mouth out with soap but I told them
social services would be on their back."
"If they wanted you to convert so badly, why did they
let you go?'
"I finally ended up being a bad influence on one of the
boys, or at least that's their story. The church they
went to didn't believe in dancing, going to movie theaters,
hanging out at the mall, other stuff like that. So
they had a lot of church picnics. The picnics were
pretty boring although some of the teenage guys were cute.
Finally, on
one picnic, one of the cuter guys, Steve Acker, got me to
take a walk in the woods with him. His parents thought
he was a true religious gentleman, a credit to
modesty."
"Well, was he equal to his reputation?"
"Oh boy, he didn't come close. When he got me out
far enough from the adults, he grabbed me and started
sticking his tongue down my throat. No buildup, just right
for the mouth."
"Did you cool him off?"
"I guess he got the message after I bit his tongue.
He backed off and starting yelling at me, calling me a tramp
and a whore, leading him into temptation. What a hypocrite,
just a typical teenage boy. So I decked him."
"What??!!" exclaimed Lesley.
"Yeah," smiled Bridget, recalling the memory with
a little pride. "I hit him in the stomach,
smacked him in the face and then, when he was bent over, I
caught him in the chin with my knee. Went down like a
wet cardboard house. Of course, the Jones couldn't put
up with such a sinner, striking down innocent boys when the
boys wouldn't give into my wicked advances," commented
Bridget with sarcasm. "What a crock he gave out
to cover his butt. I ended up back in the
system."
"So," asked Bridget, "what about the fourth
family?"
"Oh the Foresgers. They came across nice enough.
Plus the social agency was short on foster families so they
stretched the rules to fit them in. Turns out, Mr.
Foresger was an alcoholic who had trouble keeping a job.
Mrs. Foresger brought me in just so she could get the state
money they were paying for taking a foster child. I
figured that out in the first week when I complained that
they weren't feeding me enough, that I was hungry.
Mrs. Foresger walloped me upside the head, knocked me down,
told me that I was a miserable bastard who should keep
her mouth shut. So I went hungry and her husband drank
up the extra money."
"Is that when you started running away?"
"Yep. The social worker was tired of me getting
booted out of foster homes. So she was making sure I
stayed with one that wanted to keep me."
"Didn't you tell them she was hitting you?"
Part
2
"I
did but since she didn't believe me the first three times, I
finally concluded I was wasting my breath over it. So
I keep running off. I finally managed it. I'm
finally out of there and on my way to New York. And
look what I fall into. Helping a world class runaway
soprano to get her money back from a cheating conniving
manager. I guess getting your manager is my way of
getting back at all those people who wanted to use me for
their purposes, who didn't care about what I wanted or what
was good for me. Now," Bridget announced as she
turned toward Lesley, "it's your turn. You got to
tell me how you ended up running around with a snake like
Blondin."
"A snake? More like a greedy hippo," retorted
Lesley. Bridget laughed at the aptness of the
description. "Good shot. Now, let's get
back to your story. How did you become such a great
singer?"
Lesley leaned her head back and became reflective.
"I guess I was born with the gift of singing. My
parents always claimed that it was caused by the way they
met. My mom went to a pub one night with some of her
chums to listen to some Celtic music. She spotted my
dad sitting there alone. One of my mom's friends told
her that he had been stood up by his date. My mom
thought it was a shame that some girl would stand up a fine
looking man so she went to talk to him. One thing lead
to another and they starting dating. My mom soon
learned that he got stood up because he did not have much
money. But she liked him despite the money. When
they got married, they had lots of music at the wedding and
reception. My mom once told me I was conceived one
night after they had listen to Linda Ronstadt sing some old
big band songs. There are some things that a kid doesn't
need to know about their parents. Anyway, when she was
pregnant, she kept playing music because there was a theory
that playing music to kid before birth would help in their
brain power. So I was practically bathed in music before I
was born.
"My birth was rough. My mom said I almost didn't
make it. It was hard on her too. The doctor told
her she could never have another kid. So, she
concentrated on me, singing all the time to me. My dad
didn't know
what to do with a daughter. He handled me like I was
made of glass. He would play some of his rock music to
counterbalance whatever my mother sang.
"But my parent keep telling me about the first time
they heard me singing. My dad was getting to watch a
soccer game on the TV. They started by playing 'God
Save the Queen.' Part way through, Dad suddenly
realized I was singing along. He was amazed at it
all. Eventually, I was singing along with the radio
and the TV all the time. When I was six, they got me
in the church choir. A few months later, the choir
director asked me to do a solo during the Communion
service. After that I was doing solos about once a
month. Father Reggie claimed the mass attendance went
up when I was singing. I thought he was just kidding
me at the time, but now I think he might have been
right."
"You must have been one of the most popular girls
around," commented Bridget.
Lesley face clouded with remembered pain. "I wish
that were true. But at that time, I started school
with Amber Foster. She was a banker's daughter and
real puffed up about it. She was the most popular girl
in
school. And for some reason, a reason I never figured
out, she decided that I was to be her particular
target. She decided I was working class trash and just
went out of her way to make my life miserable. She
would
tell outrageous lies about me. Anyone who even tried
to be my friend was cut off until she saw the light. I
became just about the loneliest girl in Birmingham."
"God, I've met girls like that," said
Bridget. "They're like emotional vampires.
They got stronger only by making other people more
miserable."
"Well, she succeeded," said Lesley, saddened by
the memories. "I only had my parents and my
music. I just hung around the house, listening to the
radio and reading. My parents got worried about
me. They took me
out to listen to music whenever they could. When I was
about 10, they took me to a karaoke contest. I begged
them to let me enter so, after pestering them for an hour,
they let me try it. I sang a song I loved at the time,
'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' When I got done, the
place was silent, absolutely silent. I was nearly in
tears because I thought they weren't clapping because I was
so bad. Then my dad started clapping and the whole
room started applauding, whistling and stomping their
feet. Mom later said the people were so stunned that a
little kid could sing like that, that they just couldn't do
a thing until someone broke the spell. I started
getting a sense of how powerful I was as a singer, how I
could bring joy to them and, in a way, get a charge, a sense
of power, of accomplishment when I sang. My parents
kept taking me to karaoke nights and a few karaoke contests,
which I won. I became the toast of the working
class. I was popular there but I wasn't really noticed
by the upper class people."
"Must have been rough, being popular with some people
and invisible to others," said Bridget.
"Well, when I was 12, I got my chance to break
out. I heard a local theater group was putting on the
musical The Secret Garden."
"I remember that book. They made a musical out of
it?" asked Bridget.
"Yes, with a few changes. Anyway, Amber kept
boasting how she was going to get the lead role of Mary
Lennox. I thought it was my chance to get back at
her. I begged my father to get me a tape of the show.
When he got it, I listened to it to pick out a sing for my
audition. I decided to do 'Wick' one of the songs Mary
does in the show. I practiced it over and over again
for a couple weeks. I thought my dad was going to go
crazy with it.
"The day of the audition, I came late so I was told I
was going to go last. Amber started in teasing me,
saying I should just go home, I was just wasting my time
because no working girl class had the talent to do the
job. I just got quiet and more determined The
auditions was being run by Mrs. Barker, the best voice
teacher in Birmingham. She had done opera when she was
younger but decided she wanted to teach. I listened to
all the other girls trying. Most of them did
'Tomorrow'. After the fifth time, I began to hate the
song. After the fifteenth time, I swore I was going to
strangle the next girl who sang it. Amber got up and
did a decent job with 'Tonight'. Amber was real smug
when she finished. She told everyone she had the role.
I got up next. None of the girls there had ever heard
me sing. I started with 'Wick' and I could see all
their eyes getting bigger and bigger, especially
Amber. They were stunned. When I was finished,
the whole room was quiet. Then Ms. Barker got up and
told everyone that, while she usually would think about it
and call people back, there was no real need to wait.
She said I had the role. She offered Amber the role of
a maid but Amber refused and stalked out, saying she would
never play a servant to me. But I didn't
care. I had finally shown her up."
"How did the play go?" inquired Bridget.
"We practiced hard. Mrs. Barker started to give
me private voice lessons to prepare. When the opening
night came, I was really nervous. But as soon as I said my
first line, I calmed down. I started getting into
it. I loved it. And the reviews! We got
lovely reviews from the local papers. And what I
really loved was the just about every review complemented
me. I was walking on air. Then to top it all
off, someone offered to manage my career."
"Blondin?"
"Yes, Blondin. We played three weekends. At
the last performance, Blondin came up to my family and
praised me to the sky. He stated I had a chance at a
career as a singer and offered to take me on. I was so
excited that I talked my parents into letting me take the
chance. So that is how my career started.
"Blondin wanted to turn me into a pop singer. But
Mrs. Barker insisted that my voice was a rare voice, not fit
for pop singing. Blondin wanted me to take lessons
from his own teacher but I decided to stick with Mrs.
Barker. As a compromise, Blondin had me take dance
lessons. I soon found out I was a complete
klutz."
"You mean you can't dance?" asked Bridget with a
smile.
"Oh, I can do all right at a school dance. I can
move with the beat and not embarrass myself. But I
could not dance like the pop queens like Brittney or
Christina. I kept trying but just could not get the
coordination down. After several months, I started
getting it down a bit. So Blondin wanted me to work
with some male dancers to work out a routine. We
worked out one day on a routine. Then, at one point, I
went left instead of right. I collided with one of the
dancers and knocked him over. The other dancers were
lined up right behind him so
they went down like a row of dominos. When they got
up, they complained about bruises and knee injuries and
refused to work with Blondin or me. I should have been
crushed but I really was relieved. Blondin threw in
the towel and decided to keep me as a classical, show type,
singer. He got me some gigs in cities in the north of
England. He got me on some radio shows and a couple
local TV shows. He produced my album with a small
record company he owned and started getting it
distributed. I started to get a little following and
get popular in some circles. The CD started selling
fairly well. I started to be able to ignore Amber as
she got more jealous and more taunting."
"How did you end up coming to the U.S.?" asked
Bridget, drawn into the story.
"Ironically Blondin and Amber had a role in that.
Blondin started telling me that to really make it, I had to
tour the U.S. I was skeptical and I didn't feel
comfortable being so far from home. About the same
time, one of the cutest boys in town, Bill Townsend,
starting paying attention to me. He was nice to me and
take out to the movies a couple times. I was in
heaven. I thought things were finally turning
around. Then, one night, when I thought it the right,
most romantic time, we kissed, in the dark, in the
park. All of a sudden, flashlights came on all around
us and everyone in Amber's circle was out there, laughing at
me. Then Amber came up to Bill and gave him a 10 pound
note to pay off the bet that he could get me to kiss
him. I was so humiliated. I just ran home in
tears. The next day, I agreed to take the U.S.
tour. Blondin suggested that my parents would be
better off staying at home while he took me around so as to
keep expenses down. Blondin was claiming all sorts of
expenses for lessons, tour promotion, record promotion, all
sorts of things. So I wanted to earn some more money,
to give my parents a better life. About two weeks
later, we took off on the tour. So here I am, about
three months later, not trusting anyone."
"Look," responded Bridget, "the night you
left Blondin was the night you started taking charge of your
life. I think you're just about ready to make your own
decisions."
"I'm not so sure yet. It all still seems
uncertain know."
"C'mon. You must have dreams. You have the
talent to start making those dreams come true."
"I had dreams all right. I always dreamt that I
would one day sing at La Scala in Milan, the Covent Gardens,
the Met. Or maybe do Broadway or the West End.
My real dream was to have Andrew Lloyd Webber write a
musical just for me, maybe something based on "Jane
Eyre" or "Wuthering Heights." Now, I
only dream about getting back to my parents and going home
and staying there forever."
"You can't do that, Lesley. You're a great
singer, maybe the most talented teenage singer out
there. You have a range, a power, a purity of tone
that most of the rest of those girls can't match. You
can't just crawl under a shell and hide away the rest of
your life, just because someone screwed you over. You
just have to learn from it and make sure the next person
that comes along doesn't take advantage of you. You
got to believe in your dreams, Lesley. It may be the
one thing that gets you out of bed in the morning."
Lesley turned to Bridget and said, scornfully, "And I
guess you have dreams?"
"Damn right I do," said Bridget, a bit
heatedly. "My life has been ruined by drugs,
alcohol and smoking, and I didn't even do any of that. I
decided I would never go near any of that stuff. I
figured my only way out was education. So I stuck to
my books, no matter how much I was moved around. I
found out I was a math whiz. I'm a bit weak in
literature and writing but I can crack a differential
equation and make it tell me everything I want to
know. Once I turn 18, the state of California would
put me out on my own. I figured I would get a job and
work my way through college, get a degree in accounting or
business, maybe get a Masters in Business
Administration. I was thinking of becoming a
stockbroker or a financial manager, something to do with
money. Running away from the Foresger's and the foster
care is likely to put a crimp in my plans. I figure
though that if I can get to New York, I can take a high
school equivalency exam and find a college that
will take me. It may take me eight, ten, twelve years,
but I'm going to make something of my life. I'm not
going to end up like my mother or grandmother."
Lesley felt ashamed of turning on Bridget. "I'm
sorry for what Isaid. You have some great dreams for
yourself. And you definitely are bound and determine
to make it. Right now, I'm not sure that I can.
I envy your drive"
Bridget looked deeply into Lesley's eyes. "You're
starting off with one real advantage that I don't have, the
one thing that I envy about you."
Lesley, curious, asked the question that begged to be
asked. "What is that?"
Bridget took a deep sigh. "You have a family
behind you, a real functional family. You have parents
who love you and would go to the ends of the Earth for you,
or at least New York. I never had that. I never
had the support of people who loved me and were sober enough
to support me. I often dreamed about finding that kind
of family, the kind you have. But that is the one
thing I've given up on."
"Why's that?" asked Lesley.
Bridget looked stern, reflecting to Lesley the inner pain of
giving up. "Teenagers aren't really adopted that
much. The people who adopt go for the babies, the
toddlers, the young kids. They don't want to take on
teenagers. It too much hassle to put up with the
problems the bring. At least that is the
perception. I'm 15 now and I don't think any adult
would want to take me on. So, I have to find my own
way."
Lesley patted Bridget on the shoulder. "Once
we're through with this, once we get Blondin and Nigel, I
want to help you anyway I can."
Bridget turned to her and smiled. "Thanks.
But let's keep first things first. Let's nail Blondin
and get you back to your parents. Then we can figure things
out. Just remember, I'm not doing this for the
money. I'm doing this for a friend in need."
Lesley smiled at the comment. She felt that she
finally had made a friend who would stick with her.
"Okay," she said, "enough stories and
sentimentality for one night. Let's get some
sleep. We still have about 34 hours left on this
bus."
The girls settled back in their seat and reclined them as
much as they could. They drifted off to sleep to the
low drone of the bus as it roared through the night.
________________________________
Lesley felt herself being nudged awake. She opened her
eyes and saw that it was still dark outside, with only the
glare of the lights from a bus station in some strange
city. "What time is it?" she asked.
"Five
o'clock in the morning. Rise and shine," answered
Bridget, sounding a bit too please with waking Lesley up.
"Why in the devil are you getting me up at this ungodly
hour? And where are we?" protested Lesley.
"We're in Omaha, Nebraska and we're here for an hour to
get breakfast. We better get moving so we don't miss
out. And we have to change clothes."
"Am I going to have to change in the bathroom
again?" pouted Lesley.
"Yeah, and I got even worse news for you. You're
out of clean clothes so you're going to have to wear my last
clean set," Bridget responded as she pulled down the
backpack from the overhead rack.
"Great, now I get a chance to increase my discomfort
threefold," said Lesley.
"There are alternatives," teased Bridget.
"You could ..."
"Don't go there, Bridget, just hand me your clothes and
lets get moving." Lesley reached out as Bridget
plopped the clothes into Lesley hands. Bridget grabbed
a set for herself and then put the backpack back on the
rack. The girls walked down the narrow bus aisle,
alighted from the bus and looked for the ladies room.
Within five minutes, Bridget trotted back on the bus to put
the dirty clothes in the backpack, while Lesley waited in
the crisp morning air. The errand finished, the girls
went to the small dining room and grabbed a quick meal of
sausage, eggs, hash browns and juice. The meal done,
Bridget consulted her watch.
"We got about half hour left. Let's go to the
newsstand and see if we can buy something to read. We
still have a day and half to New York and we'll need
something to pass the time."
"Okay," said Lesley as she sipped the last of her
juice. "But we each get our own books, just to
make sure we have something we like. I'm not sure
you'll like my taste in reading."
"Don't worry about it. By tonight, I might be so
desperate, I might even read literature."
"All right, let's go." Lesley pushed away from the
table and got up. Bridget followed. They wandered over
to the newsstand to see the available selections.
Lesley looked the books over carefully. She rarely had
the money to buy books. Now she had enough to pick out
whatever favorites she could find. She was amazed to
find some of them available. She picked up "Jane
Eyre", "Wuthering Heights", and
"Emma", figuring those books would be enough to
keep her occupied for a while. As she turned to the counter,
she saw Bridget taking the bag of her
purchases after paying for them. Lesley paid for hers,
while Bridget waited. They both walked back to the
bus, edging through the passengers who were gradually
reboarding, and reclaimed their seats.
"What did you find?" asked Bridget. Lesley
pulled out her novels and showed them. "These are
some of my favorites. I've always wanted to own them,
and now I can."
Bridget recoiled. "Oh, god, you got
literature. Now you're going to go intellectual on
me."
"All right, miss modern culture, what did you
get?" Lesley playfully retorted.
Bridget pulled out a pile of comic books. "I got
some of your modern classics here. Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman, Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Legion of Super
Heroes, X-Men, some of the real good stuff."
Lesley arched her eyebrows. "Classics? More
like junk food for the brain. You plan on reading all
those?"
"Reading and savoring them, all the way to New
York." Bridget responded proudly.
"I think you need some real stimulation,"
announced Lesley. In one swift motion, she confiscated
the comic books from Bridget's lap and dumped "Jane
Eyre" on it.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" protested Bridget.
"You can have your comic books back when you finished
some good literature."
Bridget reached for her comic books but Lesley put them to
her side, against the side of the bus. Bridget back
up, still glaring at Lesley. "Go on," Lesley told
her. "Give it a try. You might even like
it."
"Sure," Bridget said sarcastically, "I'm
suppose to like something written by dead, white
Europeans."
"It's even worse than that," responded Lesley with
a smile. "These books were written by dead,
white, unmarried English women."
Bridget waved her hand in surrender. "All right,
I'll start on this thing. But I better have some of
those comic books back by the time we get to Chicago."
"That depends on how fast you read," said
Lesley. They both felt the driver start up the bus and
begin backing out. Bridget flipped open the book and
found the beginning of the story. Lesley, out of
curiosity, took out Wonder Woman, and began reading.
By the time the bus got to the interstate, both were
absorbed in their reading.
_______________________
Part
3
QSpecial
Agent Risotto knocked on the door of Room 2432 at the
Waldorf-Astoria, Agent Myers at his side. Tom
Patterson opened the door and recognized them.
"Any news?" he asked hopefully.
Risotto held up a videotape. "We might have
something but we need you and your wife to look at it to
make sure."
Mr. Patterson opened the door wider. "Come on in.
We'll do anything to help."
Risotto and Myers walked into the hotel room. They
greeted Nora Patterson as she sat anxiously on the couch in
the main sitting room of the suite. Myers noted
Blondin and Trask were also sitting in the room, Trask on
the couch and Blondin on one of the two upholstered chairs.
Tom claimed the other one.
Risotto addressed the group. "We got a
transmission of something picked up by security cameras at
the Denver International Airport yesterday. We
enhanced the video as much as we good. It shows two
girls running. We need to see if you recognize either
one of them." Risotto turned on the television and the
video cassette recorder in the cabinet facing the assembled
group. He then popped in the cassette. The screen
immediately showed a black and white picture of the backs of
two girls running away from the camera. One looked
back for an instant and tripped over a suitcase in her path.
She fell and was grabbed by the other, hauled to her feet,
and given a push. Nora gasped with recognition and was
nearly in tears.
"That was Lesley who tripped! Oh, Lord where is
she?"
Risotto turned to Tom. "Mr. Patterson, do you
agree that that was your daughter?."
"I'm certain it was. She was showing her usual
grace there." Tom's small attempt at humor earned
him a nasty glare from his wife. He changed the
subject quickly. "What more do you have?"
"Agent Myers can bring you up to speed on that,"
answered Risotto, deferring to the young black agent.
Jason cleared his throat, nervous in front to these anxious
parents. He noted that Blondin seemed unusually nervous as
well. "We're following up reports of two girls,
one matching the description of your daughter, the other a
thin red haired girl, traveling together. So far,
we've traced them from a couple who gave the two a ride from
Los Angeles to Denver. We have reports of the two
appearing at a Catholic church where one of them attracted
attention by her singing. We then have a report of the
two girls eating dinner and breakfast at a soup kitchen at
another church about two miles away from the Catholic
church. We're following up reports on a claim that the
girl who resembled your daughter won a karaoke contest at a
Irish pub Monday night. Then we
have the video at the Denver airport. We have nothing
after that but our agents in the Denver office are scouring
the city for leads."
"Do you think they're still in Denver?" asked Tom,
as he grabbed his wife's hand to comfort her.
Risotto answered. "We have our doubts. We
think they may have found another way out of Denver.
We are checking trains and buses that are leaving Denver and
heading for New York. We are also checking car rental
agencies in the Denver area to see if anyone rented a car
with a stated intent to drop it off somewhere on the East
Coast. We have the word out among truckers and the
state police of all states between here and Colorado to be
on the lookout for at least two girls hitchhiking together.
If these two, and others, are traveling together, they are
probably traveling on the ground. Since the ransom is
to be paid somewhere in New York, we expect that we might
hear from the kidnappers tomorrow, once they get into this
area."
Tom looked skeptically at the FBI agents. "What
you're telling us doesn't sound like a typical kidnapping.
I would think that kidnappers would keep the person under
wraps, so to speak."
Jason opened his mouth to answer but his boss got in ahead
of him. "We are operating under the assumption
that your daughter did not initially know she was being
kidnapped. We think she was enticed away from the
hotel in Los Angeles by some girl the kidnappers thought
would befriend her and offer her some adventure. Mr.
Blondin indicated that Lesley was getting bored for the
concert tour and might have wanted to have fun with someone
her own age. So the girl, let's call her Red, gets
Lesley to hitchhike with her to Denver, gets her into a
karaoke contest and get some money. The news of your
daughter's kidnapper broke Monday night. We think that is
when Lesley found out the real reason she had been enticed
away. Red clamps down on her, tries to fly her to New
York under duress. Lesley bolts at her first
opportunity but trips. Red grabs her, gets her out of
the airport and spirits her away somehow to her
co-conspirators. We have Red's description ready to go
out
everywhere today, along with some police sketches. We
will be launching a nationwide lookout for her and your
daughter."
"Thank you," said Nora, near tears. "I
know you're doing everything you can."
"We'll do our best," promised Risotto. "We'll
get back to our office now and get to work. Later
today, we'll be sending over a team to set up extra phones
and equipment so we can catch any possible phone calls from
the kidnappers." Risotto turned to leave.
Jason followed in his wake. They left the room and
started walking down the corridor. After two steps,
Risotto addressed his subordinate. "I know you
wanted to give your theory on what is going on, but at this
point, this is still to be treated as a kidnapping
investigation."
"Yes sir," answered Jason. "But
something about this doesn't feel right. It feels more
like a con than a kidnapping."
"Yesterday morning, I might have agreed with you,"
commented Risotto. "But this videotape shows Miss
Patterson being pushed around by someone else. Plus,
we also have the ransom note. We will still regard
this as a kidnapping until we get evidence to the
contrary."
"Yes sir," answered Jason, a bit reluctantly.
"When we get back to the office," instructed
Risotto, "I want you to check back with the Los Angeles
office. See if they have any leads on the identity of
that red-haired girl. It may be a needle in a haystack
but it might give us a chance to pick up the trail."
"I'll get right on it sir," responded Jason
obediently.
Blondin and Nigel left the Pattersons soon after the FBI
agents and went two doors down to their own suite.
Blondin looked carefully around the room before speaking
softly to Nigel. "Blast it all! We have to
postpone our plans for another day."
"What do you mean?" asked Nigel.
"You heard them. They don't expect any contact
until tomorrow. If you called today like we planned,
they could get suspicious. You'll have to make that
first ransom call tomorrow. It will take them a day to
get the money together so we can't expect to have them leave
off the money till Friday at the earliest. It
was bad enough that it took them an extra day to get to New
York because they didn't have passports. And he had to
talk to the police which means we now have the FBI looking
over our shoulders. Now we have to wait one more day
to put things in motion to get the final prize."
"What if Lesley gets to New York by Friday?" asked
Nigel, nervous at the thought.
"It's a big city, my boy. She still has to find
her parents and us. By the time she does, we should be on
our way overseas where no one can touch us. By the
way, Nigel, how is the laundering coming?"
"It's all done," announced Nigel proudly.
"I've got everything transferred through several banks
and deposited in three accounts, one in Brazil, one in
Switzerland and one in Nevis. There's over 500,000
pounds altogether."
"700,000 pounds," remarked Blondin.
"That sounds like a nice tidy sum to start a
retirement, wouldn't you say, Nigel?"
____________________________
It was night again outside the bus. Lesley had the
headphones on again, listing to Bridget's CDs once more,
absorbing the poetry. It had been a long, boring,
tiring day on the bus. They had read for many hours,
with Lesley finding themes in the comic books of alienation,
loneliness, duel identity, internal conflict, dual
personality and a general feeling being somehow apart from
others that pervaded classic literature as well. She
was fascinated about how such themes could be portrayed so
effectively in such a forum. The stories were good as
well. Bridget had managed "Jane Eyre" and
earned back her comic books, but for variety sake was now
reading "Emma". They had managed a quick
lunch at some place named Walcott Junction, Iowa and an
early dinner in
Chicago. They had talked about their interests, about
the immaturity of boys, about England versus Los Angeles.
They had occasionally looked out over the wheat fields and
corn fields, watch the train cross the
Mississippi, watch the afternoon sun shine on the tall
buildings of Chicago. Now they were somewhere in Ohio,
rolling toward Cleveland, somewhere south of Lake Erie,
heading closer to whatever New York City held for them.
Lesley was waiting for one song, a song that came closest to
her mood. After hearing about fairs, patterns, and clouds,
the song came on. Lesley was caught up in it and starting
singing along.
I'm sitting in the railroad station,
Got a ticket for my destination,
On a tour of one night stands,
my suitcase and guitar in hand
An ev'ry stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one man band.
Bridget heard Lesley singing and pulled her head out of the
book. She listened, recognizing the wistfulness of the
song as it came through Lesley's voice. She knew it by
heart, as she knew all the other songs on the CD set.
She joined in softly singing the chorus.
Homeward Bound
I wish I was,
Homeward Bound.
Home where my thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Lesley heard Bridget singing through the headphones.
She looked over and flashed a quick smile and then went back
to singing along, pleased with Bridget's accompaniment.
Ev'ry day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines,
And each town looks the same to me,
The movies and the factories
And ev'ry stranger's face I see
Reminds me that I long to be,
Homeward Bound
I wish I was,
Homeward Bound.
Home where my thought's escaping
Home where my music's playing
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me.
Their voices became a little louder as they began the last
verse.
Tonight I'll play my songs again,
I'll play the game and pretend,
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me.
Homeward Bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound.
Home where my thought's escaping
Home where my music's playing
Home where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Silently for me.
The girls faded their voices as they heard the last guitar
chords, Lesley on the CD, Bridget in her memory.
Suddenly they were startled as the people around them on the
bus began applauding. They sat there, shocked and a
bit embarrassed at the attention. They looked at each
other and giggled. The applause died off into the dark
interior of the bus. Bridget turned off the light over
her seat and put up the book. Lesley snuggled back to finish
listening to the CD. The bus continued to roar into
the night, ready to cross the Pennsylvania mountains in the
dark, the last barrier between the girls and New York City.
>>
Chapter 10 - If We Can Make It
There
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