A Ghost of a Chance, Cherie Claire [a court of thorns and roses ebook free .txt] 📗

writing was my dream in college, a career I wanted to start the moment that journalism diploma hit my greedy little hands. But it’s not something you major in, interview for and start the next day. You could nab a similar position at a magazine or become a newspaper travel editor, and lord knows I tried getting on at Southern Living and the Times-Picayune travel section for years. Or you could do what I did and cover the cops beat in St. Bernard Parish for the New Orleans Post while writing travel on the side for the Sunday edition and a few other small magazines and newspapers.

That’s how I met Henry Torrington Wallace. I had driven to Birmingham for a journalism conference and took some side trips to compile into a feature for the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday weekend. The travel piece garnered a Louisiana Press Award and Henry called to ask if I wanted to join his agency’s press trip to Nashville. I wasn’t able to accept free trips at the time — against newspaper policy — but I kept his card just in case.

Needless to say, my cops job in St. Bernard Parish washed away, pun so very much intended. Good riddance. Once I got established in Lafayette, Henry was the first person I rang.

“I’m freelancing now for the chain in southwest Louisiana and a few magazines,” I told him. “Got any trips in the Deep South?”

Did he ever. I was in business before you can say, “Your hotel room is complimentary.”

I grab my polka dot bag and do as instructed, travel to the baggage claim and look for signs from Henry’s PR agency, the Wallace Group. As expected, Henry is waiting at the bottom of the escalator, his arms full of press packets. He tilts his chin up at me and I smile, tingling with excitement. I can feel those silky-smooth sheets already, after which I will relax in a bathtub full of free upscale products. For not the first time I wonder if the other journalists — those working at travel writing longer than me or who live in equally nice residences — feel the same rush when they exit the plane knowing what’s coming.

“How’ve you been, Viola?” Henry asks me after an obligatory hug. His agency hails from Tennessee, so he’s Southern to the core. He also pronounces my name correctly: VIE-O-LA.

“I’m great, Henry.” If only he knew just how, staring down at a press kit announcing “Heaven in the Ozarks!”  

“Is this it?” He grabs the handle of the polka dot bag and heads toward the exit.

“I always travel light,” I say apologetically. Do other journalists bring more? What’s funny is that practically everything I own is in that bag. You know I’m not kidding.

“Am I the only pick-up?”

As soon as I ask, I realize two other travel writers are waiting by the door, a dark-haired woman dressed in a Talbots-style outfit complete with high heels and several layers of gold necklaces, intent on text messaging on what looks like a Blackberry (I honestly don’t know, never had the money to buy one), and an older man in jeans and a Lacosse shirt scoping out the local newspaper container. I smooth down the designer linen shirt I found at Goodwill, sorry for my choice since traveling between those two armrest hogs has rendered it a massive wave of wrinkles. I also worry about my tried and true Converse sneakers my mother calls adolescent. These days, I don’t care what my mother calls my clothes but I’m self-conscious around these people.

“Small news hole,” the tall guy says without looking up.

I extend my hand. “Viola Valentine.”

Tall guy ignores me. “I hate it when they put ads on the front page.”

“Richard Cambry,” Henry explains, then nods his head toward texting queen. “And Irene Fisher.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say, but only Irene responds, without looking up.

Ah, a nice polite bunch. We make our way to the van, one Henry has rented for the trip, and the Friendlys deposit their bags at the back while Richard talks about his newspaper days and grabs the front seat. Irene sighs and mutters something under her breath.

“Do you need help?” I ask Henry, who gives me a sweet “Are you kidding, get in the van” look. He opens my door and I do the obligatory Southern conversation, asking about his wife, his job and Henry gives me a quick roundup with a smile.

“Don’t we have to be there by four,” Richard asks from inside the van. “I don’t know, just saying. It has four on the schedule.”

Henry smiles politely as only PR people can do; it’s an amazing talent they own, being able to offer impeccable customer service in the presence of assholes.

“Be right back,” Henry says and heads back inside the airport.

You’d think plum assignments such as these would render people gracious and thankful, but there are jerks in the best of professions, and plenty of folks who need bibs and bottles. Now realize, we must have credentials and extensive work experiences to be asked on press trips, not to mention there is an art to this craft most people don’t understand. No, it’s not about writing what you did on vacation. But come on, folks. When someone’s paying the bill, lining up interviews and driving you around in a van where you don’t even have to wear a seatbelt, the least you can do is be polite and grateful. Leave your whining at home.

I enter the van and park next to Irene, who finishes her text and looks up. “Irene Fisher,” she announces, holding out her hand. I skip the reminder that we’ve already met and shake her hand, but dear old Richard doesn’t miss a thing.

“We had introductions in the airport, Irene. If you weren’t so busy on that cell phone….”

Richard must be around sixty or seventy with a head full of white hair to back up that statement and he launches into a tirade about young people and cell phones, using a woman not paying attention while driving as an example. From the way he describes this female, I pick up chauvinistic sentiments, not to mention arrogance and conceit. I didn’t like him back at the newspaper. Now I really don’t.

Irene tunes him out but he keeps shifting in his seat to look at me. Just for fun, I ask if he’s married.

“Who knows?” he answers, leaving this balloon of a thought floating above us. As if synchronized, Irene and I gaze at each other and silently vote not to pop that bubble. The pause we offer makes Richard uncomfortable so he launches into a lengthy explanation, mostly about how difficult women are to live with and how his wife is at fault for everything. Irene begins texting again and I stare out the window, noticing how rural the surrounding area is, when who should saunter by but Mr. Fancy Pants. He pauses at the van door with his laptop and garment bag — do people use those anymore? — and leans his head in to greet us.

It’s the first time I get a good look at his face, which is handsome with sleek, sculptured lines, a no-nonsense countenance although I detect a slyness lurking beneath. His salt and pepper hair is perfectly combed back, a bit of a white streak happening around one temple but this guy plays it up, embracing what I suspect is early middle age. His green-gray eyes match the whole ensemble, as if he did it on purpose. My gay-dar is beeping rapidly.

“You all remember Carmine Kelsey,” Henry says, adding for me, “and this is Viola Valentine. The Arkansas trip is her first with us.”

Carmine looks me in the eye for the first time, albeit briefly, raising one eyebrow. The atmosphere feels uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s because everyone now knows I’m a newbie to this business or Carmine had witnessed the wet opera singer. I realize someone must move to the back row to accommodate Carmine, so I take the opportunity to break gaze, stumbling into the back, the pieces of my press packet flying all over the floor.

“Nice to meet you too,” he says, which garners a laugh from Richard and Irene, and I immediately dislike the man.

As I rearrange my belongings and attempt to tame my now horribly wrinkled shirt, Henry jumps in the front and off we go. Richard begins a long discourse on the state of travel writing today and Henry politely listens while Irene and Carmine take to their electronics. I want desperately to ask Carmine about the wet apparition in the airport, but on the flip side, from his haughty demeanor and sarcastic snide, I want to cross him off my list with the rest of the van’s occupants.

Instead, I enjoy the rolling countryside of northwest Arkansas with the budding sycamore and maple trees, fields full of rolled hay and nonchalant cows and little rolling streams crossing the highway. We pass lovely farmhouses where people reside with all their belongings, photos carefully preserved in family albums. We pass a small town and I envy the smiling faces of the children riding the streets in their Schwins. A man pumps gas at a self-service, a canoe propped up in the cab of his truck. Two businessmen stand in a parking lot laughing about something. Butterflies flit past enjoying roadside flowers.

Suddenly a malaise so deep and powerful consumes me, knowing normalcy exists outside the borders of my disaster zone. I don’t know why I should be shocked that the rest of the country lives on, but I feel betrayed. I want to be these people. I want to wake up in a bed where all my belongings exist where I put them the night before.

I close my eyes, remembering why I am here. “This is what you wanted and Katrina gave it to you,” I tell myself.

But I can’t help wanting more, and that black hole that took the place of my heart years ago when Lillye died opens up once more, swallowing me whole.

“Isn’t that right, Viola?”

I realize with horror that Henry has been asking me questions. I wonder how long I have been in the dark place this time.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re from New Orleans.”

Where once was polite