Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Wednesday's Words: The First Chapter Reformation

Of all my chapters, chapter one inevitably undergoes the most transformation. Always. This book is no exception to the rule. Not only has the first chapter been redone, redone, and redone, but I changed the setting. Starting out, the book was set high in the Andes in Patagonia. (A place I love and have visited twice.) Even though the Lost City of the Caesars is somewhere high in the mountains, I decided to move my story to the swampy Brazilian Rainforest. (A place I would love to visit.) This means I have to change the title from The Andean Adventure, so it'll soon be The Rainforest Rendezvous. My writing group complained that my first chapter had too many characters in it, and I felt it took a little too long to get to the meat of the story, so, as always, I gave the first chapter a serious haircut. I'd love your thoughts. You can read the original first chapter here: 
 And here's the new beginning of The Rainforest Rendezvous, formerly known as The Andean Adventure

God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.

Rudyard Kipling

CHAPTER 1

DEEDEE

 

Connecticut, Modern Day

DeeDee padded up the stairs. Horace, her furry faithful companion, trotted after her. Lively conversation and laughter from the living room below floated up the stairs where the people DeeDee loved the most in the world had gathered. DeeDee longed to join them, but she had a mission.

An important mission.

She had to prove the shrunken, prune-faced man posing as Mom’s long husband was nothing more than a conman. To do that, she needed to steal the man’s hairbrush. A DNA sample should prove he wasn’t DeeDee’s father, as he claimed. She shivered. The thought of being physically related to this man made her ill.

DeeDee paused in the hall outside Mom’s bedroom door. Horace sat on his haunches and cocked his head. Hundreds of memories flooded through DeeDee. She’d played dolls in this hallway, danced her way to recitals through the doors, and walked these stairs in a wedding dress. Never once, that DeeDee knew of at least, had Mom ever shared her bedroom with anyone other than a sick child, dog, or cat.

DeeDee put her hand on the doorknob.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. DeeDee pulled her hand away as if she’d been scorched by flames. She scurried down the hall and ducked into her own room. Horace trotted after her. After shutting the door, she leaned against it. Her heart hammered. Quickly, she stripped off her clothes and tossed her favorite nightie over her head.

After plopping onto the bed, she came up with a plan. She’d wait until when she had the house to herself to poke around Mom’s room. But she had to hurry. The sooner she’d rid this man from her family the better.

DeeDee sat on her bed, her legs dangling over the edge, her feet 6 inches off the floor. This was the curse of being small. She glanced up when she heard a knock on the door.

Please don’t let that be Mom, she thought. Still, when any of her family knocked, she could never turn them away. Even if, or maybe even especially when, they were deluded. “Come in.”

Celia poked her head in the room. DeeDee knew it was a cliché, but Celia really had blossomed in her pregnancy. Rosie cheeks. Full lips. Glorious baby bump. She was ripe, luscious, and ready to be plucked. DeeDee couldn’t wait to meet the grandchild that was about to come into the world.

“Are you okay, Mom?”

“Of course, darling. Why do you ask?”

“I worry about you.”

“Sweetheart, I’m fine. Just a little tired.” She did not want another discussion about Mom and Hans with her daughter.

Celia padded into the room with a steaming teacup in her hand. “Grammy asked me to bring you this.” She set the cup on the nightstand. “I’d let it cool, if I were you.”

Celia had slipped off her shoes, and her feet looked like little purple onions at the end of her legs. Her toes were swollen and bruised by the upcoming child and accompanying water weight.

DeeDee’s memories drifted to her own long-ago pregnancies. The soft, sweet newborns. The giggly, gurgling toddlers. The mischievous preschoolers. Her heart broke a little bit each time her children got on the school bus, went on their first date, and graduated from high school. And now here she was, decades later, her baby producing a baby of her own.

Celia plopped onto the bed and the bed the mattress shifted beneath her weight, scooching DeeDee closer to her daughter. Celia placed her fingers, fat and sausage like, on DeeDee’s knee and gave it a squeeze. “Oh Momma, I know you’re struggling.”

“I feel fine,” DeeDee lied and ran a mental catalog for all the emotions plaguing her. Frustrated. Discouraged. Incredulous. DeeDee tried to steer the conversation away from Mom and Hans.

“You know all of my latest scans were clean,” DeeDee said. “It’s a miracle really.”

“You’re a miracle.” Celia nudged DeeDee with her shoulder. “I think it’s safe to say we all feel blessed to have you with us.”

“It’s been three years,” DeeDee said. Three years of cancer holding her hostage, shaking up her life and turning it upside down. But the disease had made her reflect and reevaluate which things were truly important, worthy of her time and attention. DeeDee had stopped looking for love in all the wrong places. Turning her devotion to her children, her mom, and their business, and to herself had felt like a glorious release. She’d be forever grateful for the big C because it had reawakened her to the magnificence of her own life.

“But you know I wasn’t talking about the cancer,” Celia said.

“No?”

“You don’t like Hans.”

“I don’t have to like him.”

“If you’re not careful, you’ll cause a rift between you and Grammy.”

DeeDee feigned surprise. She widened her eyes to look more convincing. “Nonsense. Your grandmother is a grown woman. She’s free to…hook up with anyone she chooses.” Hook up. She hated that saying. It made two people sound like train cars latching together and pulling a caboose. DeeDee waved her hand as if she could brush all of that messiness away. That man with his phony-baloney accent, ugly gray skin, and laughing, conniving eyes. Why couldn’t her family see who and what he really was? DeeDee tried to sweep him from her thoughts.

“I know you don’t believe in Witching Well,” Celia said. “But look at what it’s done for me and Jason and Cami and Joel.”

DeeDee did not believe time travel stories. Oh, she might believe the water from the Witching Well had some sort of hallucinogenic properties such as the old legends claimed—even the modern-day scientists agreed this could be the case. But she didn’t want to argue with her daughter.

“Celia, I know you and Jason had some sort of delusional episode after drinking the witching well water,” DeeDee said. “I get the water is tainted. I also believe you are meant to be with Jason. He suits you and you suit him. I’m thrilled for you.” She wrapped her arm around Celia’s shoulder.

Celia sagged against her. “Why can’t you be happy for Grammy?”

“I love your grandmother with all my heart. Of course, Hans loves her, too. He would be an idiot not to.” DeeDee was as convinced of this as she was that the sky was blue.

Mom had always been there for her and now did DeeDee would be there for her as well. She’d protect Mom from this vagrant the way Mom had sheltered DeeDee after her own two failed marriages.

“But you don’t believe their love story,” Celia said.

It wasn’t just their story DeeDee struggled with—although theirs was more fantastical than most. DeeDee had fallen into one early marriage with disastrous results, and after years of struggling in a parent/child relationship, she finally realized she had tried to create a father figure out of her husband.

It hadn’t been fair to either of them. It had been a mistake. When she tried to find her own feet and voice, Chris had left.

The second marriage to Stan had been fast and furious resulting in two beautiful children but very little else. Still, she couldn’t regret either husband. To do so would rob her of her children.

“I am over the moon for you and Jason and this baby,” DeeDee said. “I could not be any prouder of the life and family you are creating. This child is so lucky to have the two of you. And Joel and Cami and Mia…” Her thoughts stuttered and her spine stiffened. She had to drop the pretense and be honest. ‘Sweetie,” she said, “I can’t have this man in my house, around you and Mia and Joel.”

“Mom,” Celia countered, “you don’t have a say.” She kissed DeeDee’s cheek to soften her blow. “And, technically, it’s Grammy’s house.”

“I can help her see she’s making a mistake.”

“She won’t thank you for it.”

“I think the world of Grammy. She has been there for me through two terrible marriages and cancer! If I can prevent her from making this mistake—”

“But what if it’s not a mistake?” Celia gazed at DeeDee with her vivid blue eyes. “What if everything they say is true?”

“He’s an…” Her thoughts sputtered through a litany of appropriate labels: indigent, bum, hobo, con man. She settled on, “outsider.”

Celia pressed her hand to her chest as if DeeDee had stabbed a silver stake through her heart. “What if he is your father and my grandfather? Then, of course, he belongs here.”

DeeDee slid a glance to the door before returning her attention to Celia. “He shows up out of nowhere. For all we know, he’s recently escaped from jail or an insane asylum.”

“Mom!” Celia closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath.

“I’m sorry if you find the truth painful. Sometimes the truth hurts. But that didn’t mean it shouldn’t be told. Mom has convinced herself of some bull-hockey story and she finally found someone willing to play along. Even if he is who he says he is, she still hasn’t seen him for sixty years! People change—a lot—in half that amount of time.” She cast a worried glance at the door. She didn’t care if Hans heard her—his opinion of her mattered less than Horace’s—but she did worry about her children. They were much too accepting. Who would have thought she’d raise such a tribe of gullible and trusting souls?

Of course, they were related to her own mother.

“But Mom,” Celia pressed, “don’t you see? True love doesn’t change. Just like we can’t change the past. Love is love is love. It’s always there. It rides around with us, sits on her shoulders, and dictates our moves.”

“I don’t believe that, and I refuse to believe you do either. I raised you better than this.”

Celia gave her the same look she’d worn the day she’d told her that Muffin, Horace’s predecessor, had died.

DeeDee snorted. “Don’t you see what’s happened here? Sixty years ago, your Grammy had an episode just like you and Jason had where she fancied she met the love of her life.”

“Your father!” Celia splayed her fingers on her bosom. “My grandfather.”

“That man is no more my father than the man in the moon. And if he is, then that just means…Well, I don’t know what it what it means.”

Except she did, of course. It meant she had to get to work. She had to prove that this man was not who he claimed he was. And even if he was, DeeDee had to get rid of him.

DeeDee had fought cancer and won. Ousting Hans would be a walk in the park.

 

#

 

LIAM

Somewhere near Osorno, Chile, 1947

Liam ushered the three German men across the airstrip. The flight over Puyehue’s steaming volcano, had, as always, been beautiful, but also uneventful. Were they disappointed? They’d chattered in an unfamiliar dialect, allowing Liam only flashes of comprehension. Now, he felt a flutter of impatience for the flock of them to be gone.

“You will deposit us at the hotel, yes?” Juan, the guide, confirmed.

“No problem.” Liam pulled the keys of his jeep out of his pocket. Shuttling sightseeing businessmen to and from hotels wasn’t typically in his job description, but since Juan’s car’s battery had died—Liam had agreed to drive the men into the city center.

Juan sputtered instructions in German before shepherding his charges into the Jeep. The air above the park had been blissfully clear, allowing them sweeping vistas of the rugged mountainside, lush meadows filled with herds of alpacas and llamas, and, of course, the steaming volcano pit, but here back on Osorno’s flatland, coastal clouds blew in a fine mist that coated the Jeep’s windshield.

“It’ll be kind of wet,” Liam told Juan. “If I’d have known I’d have company, I’d have put on the roof.”

“How could you have known?” Juan asked. “This is all my fault. It’s very generous of you to drive us to the hotel.”

Pesos rather than generosity had prompted Liam’s decision, but since he didn’t consider himself a mercenary, he didn’t need to admit this.

With the solemn-looking business men buckled into the backseat and Juan strapped in up front beside him, Liam started the engine. The six-mile drive from the airport to the city center and hotel promised to be uneventful—and short. Liam had seen something he hadn’t noticed before and he couldn’t wait to consult his maps. With his head already on tomorrow’s hike, he drove on autopilot.

“Do you know these men?” Juan had to yell to be heard over the wind rushing through the open roof.

Liam glanced across Juan at the beat-up truck pulling along beside them. Carlos Hector. One of Victor Mont’s more reckless henchmen. Carlos grinned and leveled a gun at Liam.

A gun? Really? He couldn’t be serious.

But both the gun and the glint in Carlos’s eyes looked very serious indeed.

Liam pressed the gas pedal to the floor. “We’ll lose him in a minute.” Liam made a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep but could potentially die trying. The wind whipped his words over his shoulder.

Beside him, Juan clutched the edge of his seat with both hands. The three men in the back who hadn’t broken a smile over the course of the whole trip, seemed pleasantly surprised by the sudden acceleration.

The jeep shot over the road, but Carlos’ truck managed to rumble up beside him.

“What does he want?” Juan yelled through tight lips.

“He thinks I have something belonging to him. He’s mistaken.” Liam gunned the engine.

Carlos swerved to sideswipe them, but Liam managed to out-maneuver the Chevy.

“Could you just talk to him and explain the situation?” Juan asked.

“You don’t talk to people like Carlos. He doesn’t speak our language.”

“What language does he speak? I know five.”

“A language of violence.”

“Aw. That’s one language I’m poorly trained in,” Juan said. “Get off the road. I know another way.”

Liam shot him a glance.

Juan pointed at a path to the left veering into the woods.

Indecision and fear burbled in Liam’s gut. The path had been made for carts, not vehicles. “Are you sure?”

Juan did not look sure, but he nodded anyway.

Liam gripped the steering wheel and peeled off the highway. Mud splattered over the windshield when they bounced onto the dirt path. The Jeep moaned as Liam navigated a steep and winding hill into a forest. They plowed through a small creek. Moments later, they came to a fork and merged onto a path that looked wide enough for an emaciated cow. After climbing steep slope, Liam caught up to man on a bike pulling a cart. Liam braked, and the Jeep skittered through the mud. A quick glance in the rear-view mirror told him he’d lost Carlos. His previously stoic businessmen were now smiling and jabbering.

Suddenly, the cart in front of them unhitched from the bike, and pitched and careened into a patch of tall grass.

Liam tightened his jaw. “Not my problem,” he whispered to himself and swerved around the bike after it pulled to a stop in the grass. But when the cart slammed into a side rail and several cages bounced to the ground and a deluge of chickens spilled onto the road, Liam had a problem. Several problems.

“Pollos!” Juan held onto the edge of his seat and braced his feet on the dashboard.

A barefoot, bearded man wearing a pair of overalls and a sombrero disentangled himself from his crumpled bike.

“He looks like he needs help,” Liam said.

“But not our help.” Juan flexed his fingers around the edge of his seat.

Chickens fluttered across the road. A black and red hen with a rooster comb squawked. Carlos’s white Chevy truck came tearing down the hill. Liam came to a no-going-back decision and made a sudden sharp turn, not braking but accelerating, veering off the road, away from the fluttering chickens.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Juan squeaked.

“I thought you did.” Liam white-knuckled the wheel as he steered down a path he hoped would lead back onto a road.

Nope.

Now they were in the thick of the jungle, chasing chittering squirrels, and dodging a trio of squalling cats.

A wooden lean-to with a corrugated tin roof seemed to be growing out of the weeds. A bewildered woman and her indeterminate breed dog stepped onto the back porch.

Liam rolled down his window and waved. “Lo siento, señora!”

The woman chased after them, shaking a rolling pin in her hand. Carlos, who had been following close behind, nearly barreled into her.

“Someone’s going to get hurt,” Liam muttered.

The Jeep bucked back onto the road. Unfortunately, a few chickens had gotten ahead of them. Liam veered around a white and tan hen and skirted past a black one.

As they approached the next intersection, Liam worked the brakes, but nothing happened. “Oh no,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong now?” Juan asked.

“My brakes! They’re out!” Liam pumped the pedal, but the Jeep didn’t slow.

“Downshift.” It was more of a command than a suggestion.

It didn’t help. The Jeep hurtled down the path like a steely in a pinball machine. Liam, with his foot and the brake pedal glued to the floor, pulled to the side and skittered along a rock wall. Metal and against stone screamed.

“I’m sorry, old friend,” Liam murmured.

The Jeep, as if rejecting his apology, bounced into the air and crashed down again. Behind him, the three business men chortled with glee. Something crunched beneath the Jeep’s tires.

“What was that?” Juan squawked.

Please don’t let it be a live creature, Liam prayed.

Juan craned his neck to look out the back window. “I think it was a tomato cage. It’s smashed now.”

Liam peered ahead; fairly certain the highway was just through a stand of pines. Should he try to stay on the road where he’d possibly hit another car or take a shortcut through the swamp on his left?

“January is the height of the summer season,” Liam muttered through gritted teeth. “I bet it’s drier than it looks.”

“What did you say?” Juan asked.

“Never mind. Just hold on!” Liam called to the passengers in the back.

A stand of cattails filled the swamp, and Liam crashed into them. The plants crumpled beneath the car, letting off a plume of brown fuzz. He turned on the windshield wipers but they hurt more than they helped and left a mucky smudge. The swamp’s stench surrounded them. The Jeep sputtered in the mud, spewing like a fountain as it trampled tall grass and lily pads.

The Jeep slowed to a manageable speed, and the tension in Liam’s spine eased when they rolled back onto the road. In the distance, the hotel gates loomed.

Liam coasted to a stop in front of the curb.

“You lost him,” Juan said with a touch of wonder.

“Momentarily.” Liam glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Carlos’s white Chevy truck barreling out of the trees any moment.

The business men climbed from the car, bowing, grinning, and chattering. The hotel valets came trotting over to inspect the mud splattered Jeep.

“What will you do now?” Juan asked.

“Disappear.” Liam thought about what he’d seen at the crest of Andes. The Lost City of Caesar. Could he have really found it this time? And if so, how could he keep Victor and his henchmen from following him?

 

#

DEEDEE

 

In the foggy lapse lying between sleep and wakefulness, DeeDee became aware of a number of things that didn’t belong. Instead of the late-spring’s snowy blanket of silence, songbirds twittered above her. A warm breeze carried the scent of wild citrus blossoms. Crickets chirped. DeeDee’s eyes flew open, and she gazed at an eggshell blue sky. Palm fronds. Monkeys chittering in the trees. As far as she knew, the only monkeys in Connecticut were in the Beardsley Zoo.

What had happened to her bedroom?

DeeDee let her head fall back onto the dirt, a small plume of dust and pollen rose like a cloud and filled her breath. What was going on? Where was she? She’d gone to sleep in her childhood home. Mom and Hans slept two doors down. Claiming to be husband and wife. After a separation, and hiatus of nearly 60 years.

As if that wasn’t nightmare enough, now DeeDee was lost in her own personal jungle.

That’s what this was. Her thoughts skittered back to the tea Mom had prepared for her and Celia had delivered. Immediately, DeeDee knew what had happened. Mom had concocted a brew from the Witching Well—all because DeeDee refused to believe Hans, the vagrant off the street pretending to be Mom’s lost love, was DeeDee’s father and her children’s grandfather.

Overcome with anger, frustration, and a touch of fear, Celia pressed her eyes closed. She could get through this. She had battled cancer and won. She could get through a delusional episode. As far as she knew, no one had ever actually died or overdosed from drinking from the Witching Well.

She would not wake until the episode had passed. She would not be sucked in to Mom’s hoo-ha. She wouldn’t be deceived the way her mother or daughter had been. She would be sensible, for once in her life, and she would wake up on the other end of this illusion wiser, smarter, sturdier, and stronger—just like she’d weathered chemotherapy. If there was one thing cancer had taught her, it was that she was a warrior. She would get through this.

Honk! Honk!

DeeDee’s eyes flew open again and this time she saw a jeep barreling towards her in one direction and what appeared to be some sort of bus coming from another. She propped up onto her elbows and realized she was lying in the middle of a dirt road. Dust blew around her and the jeep swung off into the weeds. The bus skittered to the left and a couple of suitcases that had been tied on the top flew free. They exploded like grenades around DeeDee—clothes and shoes bouncing as they landed.

DeeDee scrambled to her feet to dodge the wardrobe missiles.

She watched the backside of the jeep disappear into a sea of green. It sprang over a protruding boulder and smashed into a tree. Birds and monkeys sent out an alarm. Steam rose from the engine. The jeep sat like a tangled and mangled heap of metal.

The Jeep looked like a relic looked like a relic from a World War II Museum, and yet not as old as she would have thought. It lacked the wear and tear a vehicle of that age should have. For example, the upholstery wasn’t cracked or worn. The paint wasn’t faded. The tail lights didn’t have that cloudy cataract appearance typical of old plastic. She edged closer, expecting the driver to emerge, throwing curse words and threats. After all, in a totally unintentional way, DeeDee had caused the accident.

Where was the driver? Surely the Jeep hadn’t just driven here by itself. Although, in her diluted, drug-induced mind anything was possible. But then she spotted a boot. Clearly, the driver had been thrown into the pile of weeds. Feeling somewhat accountable and remorseful, DeeDee went to help, mindful of where she stepped.

For a delusion, she found the twigs snapping beneath her feet really uncomfortable. She tried to remember if she’d felt pain in her nightly dreams. She didn’t think so. Most of her dreams played in her mind like movies—far removed from physical sensations. Sure, she’d experienced fear, worry, and even sexual hunger, but actual pain—like the sort caused by stepping on a thorn? No.

She leaned against the Jeep and propped her ankle on her knee to inspect her bleeding foot. Easing the sliver out of her heel the her thumbnail, she wondered how something so small could cause so much pain. She looked up to find a man staring at her. Tall, dark-haired, but blue-eyed. Broad shoulders, slim hips. Just the sort of creature she’d expect to find between the pages of romance novel or drug-induced delusion.

Beunos dias.” His gaze ran over her, causing her to flinch.

Strange. She would have thought everyone would speak English in her fantasies.

“Hello,” she returned. “Who are you?” Her gaze strayed past him and landed on the boots she’d spied earlier on the ground.

Gun shots rang out. Birds squawked an angry warning.

The man grabbed her hand. “Come on, Dee,” he said in perfect English. “Unless you want to get shot, you can’t stay here.” He hauled her out of the weeds and onto the road.

How did he know her name?

She spotted something that seemed almost as out of place as she felt. Her bag! How had that gotten here?

“Wait, stop!” Her feet skittered in the dirt, creating a mini dust cloud. Ducking, she ran to pick it up while gunshots rang over her head. She crouched over her bag, protecting it from the unseen assailants. When the gunfire ceased and DeeDee uncurled, stood, and gazed around, the man had disappeared.


 

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