| General Fiction posted November 26, 2024 | Chapters: |
...6 7 -8- 9... 
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Marie's trip to North Carolina
A chapter in the book The Devil Fights Back
The Devil Fights Back - Ch. 8
by Jim Wile
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.| Background Three intrepid women team up to conquer medical challenges. |
Recap of Chapter 7: Dana meets Fran for dinner and confesses to Fran that she wasn’t completely forthcoming about her knowledge of Glyptophan. She tells Fran that her company’s actions towards it are creating a moral dilemma for her because she can see the value of it, yet her company wants to smear it. She’s impressed to find out that Fran’s brother invented Glyptophan.
Dana then relates to Fran that she didn’t always have such morals and gives her the story of her youth in which she was a bully, especially towards a girl named Abby St. Clair whose intelligence she was jealous of. She relates how many years later she ran into Abby again at a country club where they were both members. Dana had stolen a unique invention that, unbeknownst to her, Abby had made—a golf suit training aid that Dana subsequently used to beat Abby in the club championship. Abby figured this out and demanded the suit back. Dana confesses that this was a turning point in her life, and thereafter began a process of reformation. She and Abby are now friends.
The chapter ends as Fran suggests to Dana that, rather than complain about her company’s smear campaign and other unethical and possibly illegal activities, she might consider becoming a whistleblower. Dana says she will think about it and also confronts Fran with her suspicions that she’s really a cop or a fed.
Chapter 8
Marie
The cab dropped me off at LaGuardia Airport at 9:00 AM. I hurried inside because it was fucking freezing this morning. My flight would depart at 10:20 and arrive in Charlotte at 12:15. I should have plenty of time to rent a car and get to Julia’s house, or, if running a little late, to the church by 2:00 PM for the christening.
My first hint of trouble came while sitting at the gate waiting to board the plane. The attendant at the desk announced that due to the unusually cold temperature this November morning, it would be necessary to de-ice the plane, and the flight would be delayed by 20 minutes.
Not a huge deal because I thought I’d built enough time into my schedule. Besides, the earlier flight would have been at 8:00, and I would have had to get up at 5:00 AM to catch that one. No, thank you.
As I was boarding the plane, the stewardess said, “Ma’am, I’m afraid your carry-on bag is too large to fit in our overhead compartments, and you’ll have to check it. They should have caught this before you entered the jetway, but I’ll be happy to take it from you, and you can get it from baggage claim on your arrival.”
“What do you mean it’s too large? I travel with this bag on planes all the time, and I’ve never had a problem before.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am. I understand your frustration, but this is a regional jet, and our size and weight requirements are a little more stringent.”
Waiting for the goddam bag in baggage claim was going to eat up any spare time I might have had. Now it would be close.
I felt like arguing with her some more, but I’m a reasonable person, so all I did was frown, yank the baggage claim tags from her hand to show my displeasure, and begin heading down the aisle to my seat.
We didn’t actually get off the ground until 11:00, and the flight time was an hour and 45 minutes. When I arrived in Charlotte and retrieved my bag from baggage claim, it was just after 1:00. I still had to pick up my rental car from Budget. Charlotte is a big enough airport that the rental cars are kept a couple of miles away, requiring a shuttle to transport you there. The shuttle is supposed to run every 10 minutes, but I must have just missed one because I ended up waiting at least 10 minutes for the next one.
I had rented an economy car—a Nissan Micra. I still had my North Carolina driver’s license, and even though it was expired, they didn’t catch that at the rental counter because I covered up the expiration date with my thumb. Living in New York City, I have never owned a car nor had a New York license, and I haven’t driven in years.
This car was strange to me, and I couldn’t figure out how to start the damn thing. There was no key. I had to enlist the help of the lot attendant to show me how to start it. She also asked me if I knew how to use the navigation system. I had planned to use Google Maps on my phone for that, but she told me that it would be unsafe unless it was mounted. This car didn’t have built-in GPS, but she was able to pair my smartphone with the onboard display, and 15 minutes later, I finally pulled out of there.
After all this farting around, it was 1:40, and the GPS said I would arrive at Julia’s house by 2:30. I would be late for the christening. Not that I cared that much about that aspect of the trip, so I guess I shouldn’t have been so uptight about it. At any rate, I texted Julia that I would be late and not to wait for me, but that I would meet them at the house when they returned from the christening.
She texted back that she would leave the front door open for me to let myself in, and I should make myself at home.
Cherryville was exactly how I pictured it—a small, rural town of about 6,000 people, whose biggest attraction is a truck museum. Whoop-de-doo! The road to Julia’s house passed by a number of farms and woodlots. The barn I had seen on Google Street View was a few hundred feet from their house up on the right. When I got a good view of it, her house seemed incongruous with the rest of the area because it was modern and very attractive. It looked new because the lawn wasn’t fully grown in yet, the shrubs were small, and the trees were staked.
It was set well back from the road. I drove up, parked, and let myself in. The first order of business was to find where they kept their liquor and make myself a drink. I’d had a couple on the plane, but it was definitely time for another.
I made my way into the kitchen, where there was a large pantry. There were a few bottles of booze on a lower shelf, which I had to stoop to retrieve. They obviously weren’t big drinkers because the choices were few and they were inconvenient to get to, but I found some vodka and bourbon that would do.
In the fridge, I found a carton of orange juice and fixed myself a screwdriver. I made my way into their family room, where I sat down on the sofa to drink and wind down after that nerve-wracking trip here. God, I hate traveling. I don’t know how Julia does it all the time. We make occasional trips to other cities to perform, but that’s all she does. I wonder how having a baby will impact that.
I looked around the room, and it was pretty obvious a baby was in residence here. There were shelves of baby toys, covers on all of the electrical sockets, rubber guards placed on the corners of their glass coffee table, certain cupboards that were tied closed with stiff rubber bands, and a stack of picture books in a neat pile on an end table next to the sofa. I don’t remember doing all this crap when Julia was little. I guess times are different now.
When I finished my drink, I got up to pour another. Then I started snooping around. There was a closed door just outside the kitchen, and I opened it. There was a landing and a set of carpeted steps leading down. I flipped the light on and descended to find what appeared to be a laboratory with some very expensive-looking equipment.
So, my guess about her drug addict husband was almost right. He wasn’t a drug kingpin, but a drug maker a la Walter White. * I wondered if he made crystal meth too or some newer, more exotic drug. No wonder these two are so rich.
I went back upstairs and continued my tour of the first floor. It was large, but not ridiculously so. I also wandered upstairs. There were five bedrooms, one of which was obviously a nursery. There was a crib with a colorful mobile over it, a rocking chair, a chest of drawers, and a dresser covered with a checkered pad that was the changing table. The walls were covered with penguin wallpaper. The sun streamed in the window, and it was a bright, cheery room.
I wandered into the master bedroom, which was quite spacious. There was a large walk-in closet, and the master bath was also large, featuring a jetted hot tub.
Back in the bedroom, I noticed a picture of a pregnant Julia wearing a denim jumper and playing the violin with a couple of scruffy-looking guitar players dressed in plaid shirts and overalls in the background. She actually looked very cute, but what the hell was that all about?
It was right about then that I heard the garage door open and the slamming of a couple of car doors. Sounded like the christening was over and everyone had come back. I guess it’s showtime.
I hurried back down the stairs and back into the family room, and in walked Julia carrying a large baby boy. “Hello, Mother. I’m happy you made it.” She looked at the baby and said, “Johnny, meet your grandma.”
Johnny looked at me and said, “Ga-ga?”
 Recognized |
* Walter White is the central character in the famous series Breaking Bad. He is a mild-mannered (at first) chemistry teacher who finds out he has terminal lung cancer and decides to cook meth and sell it to provide for his family after his impending death.
CHARACTERS
Fran Pekarsky: One of three narrators of the story. She is an FBI agent from the North Carolina field office in Charlotte.
Dana Padgett: One of three narrators of the story. She is the assistant marketing director for a Big Pharma company.
Brian Kendrick: Fran's younger brother. He is the inventor of Dipraxa and Glyptophan.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother.
Cedric (aka Cecil): The doorman at the apartment house where Marie lives.
Lou D'Onofrio: Fran's boss at the FBI.
Thing-1 and Thing-2: Two agents from the FBI's Inspection Division, the FBI equivalent of Internal Affairs.
Kevin Glazer: Fellow FBI agent whom Fran suspects is a mole who stole the formula for Dipraxa.
Patty Mattson: A hacker friend of Fran's.
Brittany Edwards: Kevin Glazer's contact at the patent office where she is stealing secrets for him.
Abby Payne (nee St. Claire): A girl from Dana's past, who she used to bully but has befriended during their adulthood.
Photo courtesy of Playground-v3
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Fran Pekarsky: One of three narrators of the story. She is an FBI agent from the North Carolina field office in Charlotte.
Dana Padgett: One of three narrators of the story. She is the assistant marketing director for a Big Pharma company.
Brian Kendrick: Fran's younger brother. He is the inventor of Dipraxa and Glyptophan.
Julia Kendrick: Brian's wife.
Dr. Marie Schmidt: Julia's mother.
Cedric (aka Cecil): The doorman at the apartment house where Marie lives.
Lou D'Onofrio: Fran's boss at the FBI.
Thing-1 and Thing-2: Two agents from the FBI's Inspection Division, the FBI equivalent of Internal Affairs.
Kevin Glazer: Fellow FBI agent whom Fran suspects is a mole who stole the formula for Dipraxa.
Patty Mattson: A hacker friend of Fran's.
Brittany Edwards: Kevin Glazer's contact at the patent office where she is stealing secrets for him.
Abby Payne (nee St. Claire): A girl from Dana's past, who she used to bully but has befriended during their adulthood.
Photo courtesy of Playground-v3
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