Baby, Don't Go. Stephanie Bond

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СКАЧАТЬ she closed the door and after wrestling with the seat belt and the manual seat adjustment, she started the engine. Bo’s muffler, it seemed, was also questionable. Alicia waved to her mother and pulled out of the driveway.

      By the time she reached a convenience store with a gas pump, her thin T-shirt was already stuck to her back. The heat was unbearable—she wasn’t sure how she was going to make the four-hour drive without some kind of ventilation.

      Inside the convenience store, she was startled to realize men were openly ogling her legs. She already felt self-conscious in the short denim skirt and white sandals her mother had lent her, and the attention was unsettling. She usually didn’t garner a second glance in Manhattan, where she blended in with all the other thirtysomething women who wore dark business suits and blister-inducing stilettos. Besides, all the men in New York had their faces buried in the financial pages.

      Were Southern men really as sexually assertive as their stereotype? The intense gaze of Marcus Armstrong rose in her mind, stirring unbidden desire in her stomach. She squashed the sensation, attributing it to feeling like a fish out of water.

      Pulling her mind back to her objective, Alicia removed a large bottle of water from the refrigerator case. She was hungry, but the breakfast sandwiches were wrapped in grease-soaked paper, so she passed. The other offerings were pastries and packaged fare with names like “honey claw” and “cow pie,” none of which she found appetizing. If she were in Manhattan, she’d be having an egg-and-avocado sandwich on sunflower-seed bread and the world’s best coffee from Alfred’s café a block away from her office building.

      She was definitely a city girl, she mused. If Sweetness was more primitive than this area, she hoped her visit would be of short duration.

      On the way to the counter she spotted a battery-operated neon-colored plastic fan that mounted on a car’s dashboard with suction cups. The display model was generating a little breeze, and although Alicia found the item horribly gauche, she thought it couldn’t hurt, so she sheepishly plucked one from the stack. In a mirror near the counter she winced at her reflection. She had styled her hair this morning in a more casual version of her normal sleek bob, but humidity had taken over and it was already a frizzy mess. Luckily the eclectic racks at the counter also offered a package of elastic hair bands, so she added them to her bounty, along with a flip map of Georgia. The woman at the register gave her a big smile and called her “sugar.”

      It was like being in another country, she mused.

      Alicia looked around as she made her way back to the pickup truck with her purchases. Outside speakers blared twangy music, and the parking lot was jammed with trucks, muscle cars and motorcycles. Even the women drove huge SUVs, and everyone snatched up cartons from the barges of beer and soda sitting all around. Every person she passed nodded and smiled, as if they knew her. The first few times it happened, Alicia was startled, worried that someone had recognized her.

      But that was ridiculous—who would recognize her? Even if anyone here read Feminine Power magazine, she didn’t resemble the polished woman in her head shot. She climbed back into the suffocating truck cab and mounted the little fan on the dashboard. She parted her damp, frazzled hair in the middle and braided it into low pigtails. Then she retrieved a mini voice recorder from her bag and spoke into it.

      “I’m on my way to Sweetness, Georgia, on an undercover manhunt. Estimated time of arrival, about four hours. I’m hot, sweaty and driving a pickup truck. Not exactly sure of what I’m getting into, but here goes.”

      4

      The battery in the battery-operated fan died one hour into the drive to Sweetness. The radio in Bo’s pickup truck picked up nothing but howling country music stations. And when Alicia had to stand on the brake to allow a furry brown creature to cross a two-lane road, everything underneath the seat came rolling out at her feet, including a half-empty can of hot beer that soaked her sandals, and a pair of zebra-striped panties monogrammed with Pam.

      Since, to her knowledge, her mother didn’t go by the nickname Pam, it seemed safe to assume that Bo was spending his days laying more than sod.

      Alicia sighed for her mother. If Southern men were more sexually assertive than men in cooler climates, it would follow that they were less likely to confine their attention to one woman.

      Which brought her back to the matter at hand, she thought as she slowed to turn from a state road onto a more narrow paved one so new it wasn’t reflected on the map she’d bought. But from the sign posted, it would allegedly take her to Sweetness.

      These people were so far off the beaten path they could be operating the world’s largest brothel and no one would know.

      The truck had been climbing for a while now, but the landscape suddenly grew considerably steeper. Violet-colored mountain peaks towered all around, studded with evergreen trees and sheared red rocks. Candace had told her about the orangey clay that passed as soil in most of Georgia. It made for majestic contrast in the landscape, a photojournalist’s dream.

      Alicia had hoped the temperature would be cooler at this elevation, but instead it felt as if she was getting closer to the sun. She was absolutely miserable. Her makeup had melted off long ago, as had her deodorant. Her clothes were soaked through with perspiration, and her feet and legs were sticky and dirty from the spilled beer. She could smell herself.

      She’d planned to arrive a little dressed down from her normal appearance, but this was ridiculous. If her appearance offended people, there’d be little chance of anyone talking to her. Undercover was one thing—repellent was something else altogether. Besides, she was supposed to be looking for a man, not sending them running in the opposite direction.

      A sign on the right announced, Sweetness, Georgia, 3 miles. She slowed to take in the landscape on either side of the recently paved road. The expanse of green underbrush had been cut back…someone was taking care to ensure visitors got a good first impression. To the left ran a postcard-pretty creek—Timber Creek, according to the flip map. The water looked clear and gentle, especially since her throat ached with thirst.

      She spotted a metal bridge that spanned the creek. A sign next to it read Sweetness Recycling Plant, although no structure was visible, just unending trees and a prolific vine that she assumed was the “kudzu” she’d read about.

      In her research, she’d also stumbled onto a factoid that raised the hair on her arms—apparently, the North Georgia mountains were host to numerous rattlesnakes and scorpions.

      Scorpions, for God’s sake.

      Because the relentless heat, humidity and remoteness of this place wasn’t off-putting enough.

      Ahead in a bend she saw a red covered wooden bridge, obviously the landmark her mother had read about in the newspaper. From the website she recalled the original bridge had been destroyed by the tornado that had devastated the rest of the town.

      The structure was magnificent, she conceded, and so perfectly situated in its surroundings, it looked as if it had been there a hundred years. It tugged at her.

      She slowed to pull onto the side of the road to get a better look and to stretch her legs. Even though the sun was high overhead in a cloudless sky, it was a relief to escape the stifling cab of the truck. But when she climbed down, the full impact of her grubby condition hit her. Her clothes were plastered to her wet, gritty skin, and her feet were nearly black. She cursed her mother’s boyfriend, wishing she’d thought to bring moist wipes or something. She did have a couple of washcloths in her toiletry bag, if only she had some СКАЧАТЬ