Chapter one

“Where am I?” Marty said aloud, rolling over and seeing the empty beer cans lying on the floor next to her. Not remembering for a few minutes what brought her here, but then it all came rushing back to her. Having to find a place to hide, she’d ducked in here, fearing the authorities or her parents would find her.
Glad she’d packed the extra pair of jeans and tee shirt in her backpack before leaving the center, now she wished she’d thought to pack clean underwear.
At least this dump had running water, so she could clean herself up before hitting the road again. Looking at her watch it was 6:00 a.m. If she hurried, she could make it to the state line before noon. She’d have to find her way through the woods, taking the highway would be too dangerous.
Hoping to get to Big Dave’s place before nightfall, she knew he’d take care of her, he said he would. They’d met two months earlier at a party she attended without her parents’ permission. Any party she attended was without permission, usually slipping out after her parents went to sleep. Being only sixteen, Big Dave promised her he would arrange for her to get a fake id, and put her to work in his strip club across the state line. That was before her parents took her back to the drug rehabilitation center.
First going to rehab at age thirteen, when she started smoking pot, after that she was in and out. By the time she turned fifteen, she’d graduated to harder drugs, and would steal from her parents to feed her cocaine habit.
Wishing she had a toothbrush, Marty settled on the mint-flavored gun she swiped off her counselor’s desk. At least her face was clean and her hair combed neatly. She stuck her purse into her backpack and threw the backpack over her shoulder.
Walking slowly out of the abandoned house she looked in every direction to make sure no one was watching. She’d found out about the old house from some of the kids in rehab. Seems the old woman who owned it died, and the heirs lived twelve hundred miles away. Empty beer cans lying around, and used needles in the bathroom, showed evidence of others being there.
Heading for the woods, she stayed close to the riverbank. Luckily, she’d been on the run before and knew her way around. Cars coming by made her nervous. Feeling positive the councilors from the rehab had contacted her parents by now, she had to be careful. Holding her breathe as she saw a patrol car pulling up to the curb less than a hundred feet from her, she told herself, “Act normal and don’t look at them.” Pulling her hood up over her head, she looked like any other ordinary kid on her way to school.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she made it to the edge of the woods. Knowing the creek flowed toward the edge of town, she followed close enough to hear it running, yet far enough away so as not to be spotted.
Getting hungry, she unzipped the side pocket of her backpack, and pulled out a half eaten candy bar. Sticking the whole piece into her mouth at once, she washed it down with a few ounces of water from her thermos. No telling how long the water had been in there. She wished she’d refilled it before leaving the abandoned house, but it never crossed her mind.
Finding a moss covered tree stump, she sat down to rest and looked at her watch again. She’d been walking for four hours, and had only a few miles to go. Hoping Big Dave would remember her, she panicked thinking he might not. They’d spent the night together in the back seat of his shiny red Cadillac convertible, he had cocaine and she wanted her share. Next day he’d left her standing on the corner, two blocks from her home. She’d not seen him since.
At 12:45, Marty arrived at the back of the club. The red neon lights on the sign by the highway flashed, “Big Dave’s”. There were several eighteen wheelers sitting beside the road, probably belonging to drivers who’d stayed too late and had too much to drink, and the cars in the parking lot belonged to employees; she knew because they had parking stickers on the windshields.
Walking up the back steps to the small concrete porch, she trembled, not from nerves as much as the need for a fix. Flies and gnats swarmed around an overflowing garbage can and a cat rubbed against her leg. Trying the knob, she found it locked. Then discovering the bell, she rang it. Several minutes passed before she heard footsteps coming, “Who’s there?” a woman’s voice called.
“It’s Marty,” she replied in a shaky voice.
The door opened and a small woman with bushy blond hair and big boobs stood there looking as though she’d just gotten out of bed. Her hair hung over one side of her face and she wore a pink see-through shirt with a pair of black short shorts.
“Could I help you?” The voice reminded Marty of Olive Oil.
“I’d like to see Big Dave.”
“And who shall I say is here to see him?”
“Marty…my name is Marty.” She hoped this wasn’t his wife.
“Do you have a last name Marty?”
“Just Marty...” Not wanting to give her last name, she wished she could think of something witty to say. She’d have to work on that.
“Ok just Marty, come on in and have a seat. I’ll see if he’s here.”
Taking a seat on a chair next to the door, Marty watched the bushy blond disappear into a small office across the hallway and shut the door behind her. In about twenty minutes, the door opened and out walked Big Dave. The blond walked out behind him tucking in her shirt and zipping up her shorts, needless to say what they were doing in there.
“Hey Marty, I thought you’d forgotten me. Come on into my office.”
Marty smiled weakly and followed Big Dave into the tiny office. He pointed toward a leather sofa sitting against one wall, “Have a seat.” He shut the door behind them.
“I’m here for the job you promised me.” She sat down on the worn sofa.
“Can you dance?”
“I can do whatever is required.”
Big Dave reached over and turned on a small radio sitting on the desk. There was a rolling stones song playing.
“Show me what you can do.” He leaned back in his chair and lit a cigar.
“You want me to dance here…?”
“You can dance here in private or we can go out to where the other girls are practicing.”
“I’ll dance here.” Reluctantly standing up, she felt a bit uncomfortable. If only she had a line of cocaine.
“I need something to relax me.”
“I have just what you need.” Big Dave pulled open a desk drawer, taking out a plastic bag and laid out two lines, one for her and one for him. He pulled a hundred dollar bill from a roll of money in his pocket. She rolled it up and put one end to her nostril. Holding her finger over the other nostril, she inhaled deeply.
Relaxing for a few minutes, she felt her inhibitions slip away. With the music pounding in her head, she began to grind. She knew by the look on Big Dave’s face that he liked what he saw and she was sure she had the job.
With her hair bleached blond Marty looked much older and her new id card showed that she was twenty. The men loved a fresh face around the club. This was a dream come true for her. She was making her own money and there was always plenty of coke, not to mention other drugs. Within a year, she bought her own car. It was a 1981 Chevy Caprice. She didn’t drive it much, there was no need to, she had all she needed right here at the club. Big Dave rented her a room in the back with some of the other girls. He didn’t charge much and even advised her he would trade out the rent for sex. Some of the girls made extra money by prostituting, but not Marty, no matter how many drugs she did, she couldn’t bear for the men to touch her. She’d even rejected Big Dave’s advances lately and he didn’t seem to mind, he had plenty of other girls willing to give him sex in exchange for drugs or to pay their rent.
One day she took a drive into town to buy some new clothes. She didn’t go to town much, but it’d been three years and she wasn’t worried about anyone finding her. She was twenty years old now. There wasn’t anything anyone could do to her. If her parents had tried to find her, they hadn’t succeeded. She’d begun to think they didn’t even care.
After trying on several pairs of jeans and a dress or two, she put the things she wanted to purchase over her arm and went to the cashier to pay. She’d meant to go to the bank where she had an account, in her fake name, but being excited about buying new clothes, she’d forgotten all about it. When she opened her wallet and took out two, one hundred dollar bills to pay for the clothes, the sales clerk behind the register said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have change. Do you have a smaller bill?”
“No I don’t. I just got paid and haven’t been to the bank this morning.”
“That’s a lot of cash to be carrying around. Where do you work?”
“I work at Big Dave’s.” She wasn’t ashamed of her profession.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t have change.” When the woman repeated it, Marty noticed the way she looked at her. That’s what got her attention. She walked away from the counter leaving the clothes lying there. Was it disgust or pity in the woman’s eyes? Whichever, Marty made her mind up that no one would ever look at her that way again.
She drove back to the house where she packed up her clothes and told the other girls she was leaving. She had a gram of cocaine and a quarter bag of pot, taking it out of the hiding place in her closet; she flushed it down the commode.
She’d miss the girls that she’d come to know as family and they’d miss her.
“Are you ever coming back?” Lorna, her roommate, asked. She wouldn’t be back. She’d changed in the last few months, and was different from the rest of them. She spent a lot of time alone in her bedroom and didn’t even come out when Big Dave had a party for them. His idea of a party was getting the girls stoned on whatever drug he had for them and then having an orgy.
“No, I won’t be back.” The tears falling on her arm let her know the girl was crying. “If you ever decide to get out of here…call me. I will write to you as soon as I’m settled and give you the number.” That was the last time Marty saw any of the girls. Once she left Big Dave’s she never looked back.
She drove to the bank and withdrew the two thousand dollars she’d saved, not giving them an explanation of why she needed it, and they didn’t ask.
Getting herself off drugs was the hardest thing she’d ever done, yet with an unheard of amount of determination, she soon had herself cleaned up. She’d driven twelve hundred miles to get away from that life and she didn’t want to ever go back.

CHAPTER TWO

Looking through her mail as she took it out of the mailbox, JoAnne hoped there was a reply from one of the publishing houses she'd sent query letters to, but not today, only bills and advertisements. Writing her first love story at the early age of seven, this was her first time ever trying to get anything published. There were boxes full of manuscripts in the attic of her mother’s old house, along with other childhood memories, some of which she didn’t want to bring back to mind.
Arriving at work fifteen minutes late, JoAnne found the door of the restaurant unlocked. That meant either Freddie, her boss, was already there, or Marty, her roommate had left it unlocked. Not seeing signs of Freddie being there, she assumed it was the latter.
Singing as she worked, JoAnne rushed to get thing set up for lunch. The song “Money” by the Beetles kept running through her mind, as she sliced veggies and fruits for the salad bar. If she hurried, Freddie would never know that she come in late. He’d warned her about it several times, even threatening to fire her if it happened again.
Making two pots of tea, she put them into the tea cooler and dumped three pitchers of ice in. She then made two pots of coffee, one regular and one decaf. She’d just finished sitting the salad bar up when Freddie came in. She could always tell when he’d won at the casino; he went every night after work. If he came in whistling, she knew he’d won on the black jack tables. If he came in throwing things around and barking orders at her, she knew he’d lost. This morning he was whistling.
“How much did you win?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he replied in his gruff, from lack of sleep, voice.
“Evidently you didn’t win enough to keep you out of my hair today.” She pretended to be kidding, but she liked it much better when he wasn’t here.
“Did I hear someone say you won at the casino?” Jerry, the cook, said as he walked in and put his cigarette out in the sink.
“I’ve told you not to do that.” Freddie smoked, yet he didn’t like it in the building.
“How much did you win?” Jerry was a big man, six feet four inches tall and weighed two hundred and eighty five pounds. He’d come to work for Freddie two years ago to pay off a gambling debt, but he didn’t have it paid off yet.
“Not enough, so get to work so I can make some money today.”
Freddie’s Pizza House was a small restaurant on the outskirts of town, a mile from the high school. The casino was a mile in the other direction, so on weekends he got the high school kids after the ball games, and the gamblers who’d lost their money and stop by for pizza instead of going for the steak dinner at the casino.
JoAnne didn’t say anything about Marty leaving the door unlocked, there wasn’t anything there to steal anyway. One time she’d left it unlocked and some high school kids came in and took some sodas and candy bars. From the way Freddie carried on you’d think they’d stolen a million dollars. For the next three months, he stayed until closing, or sometimes he’d leave then come back at closing to lock up, but after a while, he started letting Marty close again.
Marty worked night shift from five until one in the morning. JoAnne came in at ten and set up the lunch buffet. They opened the restaurant at eleven. She hated her job here, but the tips paid her half of the rent on the small two-bedroom apartment she shared with Marty, and put gas in her old car. She bought the car three years earlier, it was a 1969 Ford Mustang with 100,000 miles on it then, and now had 120,000. She only drove it to work and sometimes to the casino. Most of the time she walked to the mall, it was so hard to find a parking place and her apartment was only three blocks away. That’s one reason she took the apartment, the convenience of the location, and the fact that the rent was cheap.
With the buffet set up and ready for lunch, she poured herself a soda and sat down at the table in the back corner of the dining room. At eleven o’clock, she unlocked the door and put out the “open” sign. The customers were already lined up outside waiting to get in as they usually were on Fridays. There were many people out shopping and getting ready for the Fourth of July, which was coming up next weekend. Nobody wanted to miss the celebration in Shreveport Louisiana on the fourth, people came from as far as a hundred miles or more to see it.
The parade started at four o’clock, and competitors come from everywhere for the barbecue rib cook at six. After dark, the fireworks display was the biggest JoAnne had ever seen in her life, Of course she hadn’t seen that many. The one in the small town of Weaver, where she’d grown up, only lasted fifteen minutes and consisted of a few bottle rockets and streamers. Until she came to Shreveport, she didn’t realize Independence Day was such a big holiday.
One hundred and twenty people came for the lunch buffet that day; she usually averaged around a dollar per customer in tips, and hoped she had enough to go to the casino after work. She and Marty always took anything they made over a hundred dollars to gamble on.
At four fifty nine, Marty came in.
“It’s about time!” Freddie yelled as she came into the kitchen and picked up her apron.
“It’s not five yet,” She yelled right back at him, “I can tell you didn’t win at the casino last night.”
“Little do you know.” That was Freddie’s way of making conversation. He wasn’t as tough as he wanted people to think, but he talked as if he could move mountains. Of course, JoAnne and Marty knew how to handle him.
Taking off her apron, JoAnne laid her tips out on the table and made herself a cup of coffee. One hundred, thirty-two dollars, and fifty cents, she counted and thought I can go to the casino.
She cashed in her ones in exchange for a one hundred dollar bill, which she put in her wallet. The thirty-two dollars would be gambling money; she put it in her back pocket.
The deal between JoAnne and Marty was…anything either of them won at the casino would be split between the two of them. Thus far, they’d won four hundred dollars once and one hundred twice. Their losses were much greater, probably around a thousand dollars…a few dollars at a time.
“See you at home in the morning,” JoAnne said to Marty on her way out the door, “Unless I win big at the casino, then I’m getting the hell out of town as fast as I can.” She liked kidding with Marty. They’d been friends and roommates ever since the day Marty came to work at Freddie’s five years ago. At the time, she was sleeping in her car, a 1981 Chevy Caprice. At the time, JoAnne had recently moved to Shreveport, from Weaver, and started working for Freddie only two weeks earlier. She’d rented a two-bedroom apartment because she couldn’t find a one bedroom, and was looking for a roommate. The two of them hit it off right away and JoAnne invited Marty to share the rent on the apartment. Marty accepted and they’d been friends ever since.
Most people that came into the restaurant thought they were sisters, because they had the same brown eyes and looked so much alike, and if Marty didn’t bleach her hair blond, it would be the same dark brown as JoAnne’s.
The strong smell of cigarette smoke and stale perfume made JoAnne’s head swim as she walked into the Casino, but she’d adapt to it after a while, she always did. Someone sat at her favorite slot machine, and he didn’t look as if he’d be leaving anytime soon, so she sat down at the one next to him. Having stopped at the cashier to trade the ones for a twenty and a ten dollar bill, she fed them into the money slide on the machine, she hated feeding the machine one dollar at a time.
JoAnne played five credits at a time for several hours, running the credits up and down. The one time she had it up to four hundred she thought about cashing out. That would be a hundred dollars, same as a full day’s work.
She stayed on the machine until all the credits were gone, and as she started to leave she remembered the two dollars and fifty cents she still had in her pocket. Reaching in, she took the two one-dollar bills out and put them into the slot machine, eight credits registered on the machine. She played all eight credits at once, and as she got up to leave, the bells started ringing and security came hurrying over to where she sat. She’d hit for twelve thousand dollars. Jumping up from the stool, she screamed, “I won! I won!” She’d never had twelve thousand dollars in her life. The security guard was talking to her, telling her to sign the paper one of them handed her. She looked at the amount written on the paper. No, it wasn’t twelve thousand. Taking a closer look, she realized it was one hundred and twenty thousand. She didn’t believe it, and needed to be pinched. One of her dreams had come true; she could quit her job at Freddie’s, go back to school and learn a profession, but what did she want to do? She could pursue her dream as a writer. Everything started running through her mind all at once, there was so much she could do with the money.
She took the check the cashier handed to her. After taxes, it was printed out for one hundred thousand dollars. Should she call Marty now…or wait until her shift was over at Freddie’s? That was more money than she’d ever seen at one time. She couldn’t wait, she had to call Marty or maybe she’d go back to Freddie’s and show her the check. Marty being from a wealthy family probably wouldn’t be as excited as she was.
JoAnne was the oldest of five children and raised dirt poor, in the small town of Weaver, Louisiana. She started working at the age of fifteen to help her mother support her younger siblings, being her father drank his meager earnings, as a janitor, up. After graduating high school, she went to work as a receptionist in an attorney’s office, and worked at McDonald’s at night. When her younger sister Annie graduated high school, she quit both jobs and moved out, vowing to never return to her father’s house. She was twenty-five years old when she took the job at Freddie’s Pizza House. She planned to work there until something better came along and yet here she was five years later, still working for Freddie. At least she’d managed to save sixty thousand dollars while working there. She only paid two hundred dollars a month for her share of the rent on the apartment, and the utilities were included. She learned early in life that she could survive on very little. Most of the money she made in tips went into her savings account. She hardly ever bought clothes and when she did she would get them on sale or either at the Goodwill store.
JoAnne’s dream was to write a novel and become a famous author. She’d finished the novel over a year ago, but wasn’t having any luck getting it published. She’d sent out queries to ten different publishers and had already gotten back six letters of rejection, but she wasn’t giving up, she knew that someday her writing would be accepted.
JoAnne was feeling the aftershock when she got back to Freddie’s Pizza House at one o’clock that morning, knowing Marty would be closing. There were three servers working the night shift and JoAnne knew that it wouldn’t take them long to clean things up.
“Is something wrong?” Marty knew that JoAnne was usually home in bed at this time of morning.
“No…nothing is wrong.” She calmly took the check out of her purse. “I just wanted to show you this.”
Looking at the check, Marty had to sit down, one hundred thousand dollars and half of it hers. “I can quit this job…right now.”
“No, we can’t leave the place in a mess. Come on, I’ll help you clean up.” If not for JoAnne, Marty would have walked out of the place right at that moment.
“Alright, I’ll do it for you.” With the other servers help, they had the restaurant clean and orderly within thirty minutes.
Marty and JoAnne got little sleep, thinking of their winnings, and Next morning wasted no time getting to the bank. After giving Marty her share of the money, JoAnne deposited what was left into her savings account. They went back to the apartment and took the phone off the hook; knowing Freddie would be calling to see why JoAnne wasn’t at work. She didn’t care; he’d always treated her badly, now she would get even with him. She took a quick shower and went back to bed. Hearing pounding on the door, she abruptly jumped out of bed and threw on her robe. Looking at the clock, she saw it was nearly noon.
“Who the hell is that?” Marty yelled from her room.
Stumbling to open the door, JoAnne didn’t expect Freddie to be standing there. He had a menacing look on his face, one that she’d seen many times before, but this time it didn‘t scare her as it had in the past.
“You’re fired!” he yelled at her.
“I’ve already quit.” She slammed the door in his face, and it felt good. She’d often dreamed of doing it, but never before could afford to.
With her savings and the Casino winnings, she could open her own pizza restaurant if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to, she’d use her part of the money to promote her dream of becoming a famous author.


CHAPTER THREE

JoAnne smiled as she thought about how mad Freddie must be. She was still so excited she couldn’t think of anything but her winnings. She called her youngest sister as she usually did once or twice a week, just to check on her and her mother.
“I got accepted to the university,” her younger sister told her, “I will start in the fall. I’ve saved enough money for my first year’s tuition, and have applied for a student loan and a Pell Grant.”
At twenty-two years old, Annie took night classes at the local community college while working full time in a doctor’s office as a secretary. She now wanted to follow her sister Shelia’s example and stop working to attend college full time. Knowing her sister would do well, just as her other siblings had, JoAnne supported Annie’s decision. Her oldest brother Jimmy graduated college five years earlier with a veterinarian degree, and her younger brother Bobby was in his last year of law school. JoAnne was proud of all of them. They’d survived their childhood and turned out well-rounded, which was surprising, considering the way their father stayed drunk.
JoAnne never returned home, but kept in touch with her mother. In their last phone conversation, she found out her father had suffered a light heart attack and they’d discovered a spot on his lungs. They made an appointment to have some more x-rays and test run, and the doctors warned him to quit drinking and smoking, yet he was drinking even more and smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. JoAnne tried to get her mother to leave him, but she never would. After the way he treated her and her children all those years, she still loved him.
Beginning to have hunger pains, JoAnne needed something to eat.
“Get up Marty and let’s go get some lunch. I’m starved.”
They usually ate at McDonalds or Pizza Hut, but being they’d won big at the casino, they decided to go somewhere else. Driving along the same old streets and seeing the same old scenery, Marty said, “Let’s go to Nashville.”
“Are you crazy? We can’t go that far, we didn’t bring a change of clothes.”
“We can buy some clothes.” JoAnne wasn’t as spontaneous as Marty.
“We can’t up and leave, we don’t anyone in Nashville.”
“I didn’t know anyone when I drove twelve hundred miles to come here and look how things turned out for me. I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“Ok, you’re right. I keep forgetting that we have money now.We can go anywhere we want to.” She’d never gone that far. Nashville Tennessee would be a great place for a vacation. Turning the car around, she headed east on the interstate highway toward Nashville.
Driving all day, only stopping to eat or use the bathroom and get gas, they arrived in Nashville Tennessee early the next morning and got off the first exit showing a Holiday Inn sign, both wanting to take a shower and get some sleep.
Marty woke up at nine o’clock the next morning, went down to the lobby, picked up two cups of coffee and returned to the room.
“Wake up Sleeping Beauty,” she said to JoAnne, “I’m starving, let’s go get some breakfast.”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into coming to Nashville,” JoAnne said, “Now what do we do?”
“Why don’t we stay for a while, if we don’t like it, we can move on. I don’t want to go back to Shreveport.”
“We can talk about it over breakfast.” Rubbing sleep from her eyes, JoAnne threw her legs over the side of the bed in an attempt to get up.
During the fifteen-minute wait at Shoney’s JoAnne called her voice mail, from the pay phone, to check her messages.
“Hello Miss Bray, this is Stanley Price with Honeycutt Publishing House. I’ve read your manuscript and would like to publish your book. Call me at 1-800- PUBLISH to discuss details if you are still interested.”
She didn’t listen to the rest of her messages, instead went running back to where Marty waited to be seated.
“I’ve got to go home; they’ve accepted my book!” She was more excited than when she’d hit the slot machine. This is the break she’d waited for since deciding to publish her stories, she couldn’t pass it up. There were notebooks filled with her writings, which were still in her mother’s old house, in a box in the attic hidden under all the other stuff she’d kept up there. Later she’d written more short stories and a few magazine articles, but had never gotten any of them published. It was hard to believe this was happening; her latest novel would soon be in print. She had to call the publisher back.
“Why do you have to go home? You can have your sister pick up your computer and all your files and ship them to you. We can stay here, rent a condo, I can get a job and you can write.” Marty sounded desperate.
“Dream on, I can’t just write, I have to work, at least until my books start selling.”
“It’s not like you need the money, you have plenty of it now.”
“I don’t feel comfortable spending it.” Being raised as she had, JoAnne had security issues, and knew Marty didn’t understand.
Looking up, JoAnne noticed a tall, good-looking man winding his way through the crowded restaurant toward their table. Maybe he thought he knew them.
“Excuse me, my name is Simon Vance. I’m a movie producer, and am looking for girls in their twenties or early thirties to be extras in a movie we are shooting in Dickson, Tennessee. It’s about a family of moon shiners living in the hills of Tennessee and running moonshine to various parts of the country. We need about twenty-five girls. You two would fit the part perfectly. Would you be interested?”
“Yes!” Marty squealed, before even giving it any thought.
“Wait a minute,” JoAnne said, “I don’t know.” She was thinking it sounded a bit farfetched.
“We will pay you a thousand dollars a week and put you up in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, meals included,” the man said.
JoAnne was reluctant, but with some coaxing from Marty she finally said, “OK, but when this is over, we go back home.”
Marty and JoAnne joined the other girls, the next morning at nine o’clock, at the Hyatt Regency, where they were given a script, before going to the set. The girls didn’t have much to say, just had to look good. They were furnished wardrobe, which they could keep after the shoot …if they wanted to. Not all of the girls would be picked, they only needed twenty-five and there were about seventy-five to try out. JoAnne and Marty were two of the twenty-five picked.
They were on the set for nine hours the first day and couldn’t wait to get to their suite and get into the Jacuzzi. JoAnne had never stayed in a hotel at all except for one night when she first moved to the city, and she and Marty chose to share a room.
The girls celebrated, ordering t-bone steaks and Bananas Foster from room service, along with champagne spritzers, all paid for by the producers.
“This is the life,” Marty said, lying down on one of the big comfortable beds. Staying awake until 3:00 in the morning, they talked about how much fun this trip turned out to be.
“Aren’t you glad I talked you into it?” Marty asked JoAnne.
“Yes I guess I am.” She agreed it was more fun than working at Freddie’s.
JoAnne called the publisher back the next day agreeing to the terms of the contract and arranging to do the final edits and send in the manuscript. She’d have time to finish it after the movie was filmed. Funny how everything happened all at once, she thought. She’d won a hundred thousand dollars, her book was being published and she’d been picked to play an extra in a movie making a thousand dollars a week. Life was better than ever.
The producer informed them, they would finish filming in a month, yet it turned out they were there nine weeks. On the last day of the filming the girls were paid, the producers thanked them and left town that same day.
JoAnne and Marty decided to have Annie ship their things from the apartment the fourth day they were in Nashville. They only had a few things, being the apartment came furnished. Arranging for the local junkyard to buy her old car, JoAnne instructed them to mail the money to her mother. She hoped they picked it up soon or the property owner would charge her storage.
“Well…we’ve been in Nashville for two months and not had to spend a penny,” Marty said to JoAnne, “Except for a few changes of clothes and some underwear we bought at Wal-Mart.”
Most of the time they charged their food to the room, yet sometimes Simon would take some of them to dinner, Marty more than anyone. He flirted with her a lot, and called her his Little Hornet, because she grew up in North Carolina, about two hours from his hometown. JoAnne hoped Marty didn’t take his flirting serious, he had plenty of girlfriends, a different one showed up on the set every few weeks.
“Where do we go now?” JoAnne was packing her things, being they had to check out the next day.
“Why don’t we go to Palm Beach? My parents used to take me there as a child. You’d love the white sand beaches and the sound of the sea gulls.” Marty didn’t speak of her parents often, but when she did, it was always of good times they’d had together. JoAnne wondered if she missed them.
“What would we do there?”
“Find a job and stay a while.” Marty’s adventuress side was new to JoAnne.
The next morning they packed up Marty’s car and headed for Palm Beach, Florida. The radio played the top forty hits and they sang along, as they drove with the top down, the coastal air blowing their hair. They were carefree. Stopping along the way to eat and shop, they bought bikinis and sun visors in bright florescent colors for the beach. JoAnne had never been on such a spending spree, but liked it.
Monday afternoon they arrived at their destination, and went straight to the Holiday Inn to rent a suite on the ocean. They could rest there until deciding what to do. This time of year, they had the beach mainly to themselves, and spent the days lounging around at the pool or on the beach, before deciding to look for a job.
Within the week, JoAnne found a job as a server in a seafood restaurant, a few days later Marty landed a job as a bartender at The Breakers, the most beautiful Hotel in Palm Beach. There was a private beach there where the girls would hang out when they weren’t working. That is…when Marty wasn’t shopping in the exclusive shops or taking pictures of the movie stars that came in there.
They were lucky to find a quaint little two bedroom furnished cabin within walking distance of the beach, with huge windows overlooking the ocean. The rent being only eight hundred dollars a month, they could easily afford that.
Five months after arriving in Palm Beach, JoAnne’s book came out in bookstores. It was an instant best seller. Marty arranged a book signing at The Breakers, and all the employees and some to the guest bought a copy.
Within the next few months, the book sales soared and with all the publicity, JoAnne quit her job and lined up some book signings. She began working on her second novel, “Best Friends” which she based on the friendship she shared with Marty and their experience from working at Freddie’s Pizza House, to the trip here to Palm Beach. Of course, she had dramatized it quite a bit to fill the chapters.
With her books flying off the shelves, JoAnne decided to use the money to buy a condo on the beach. She’d always dreamed of living on the ocean and when the opportunity arose she took advantage of it. The older couple living there wanted to move back home to be near their newborn grandson. They could have gotten a higher price for the place, but accepted the first offer. It would be a good investment because she could resale it for more than she’d paid for it.
Now that she could afford it, JoAnne bought a new car, a red Mercedes convertible, never dreaming she’d ever own such a luxurious automobile. The first day she owned it, she and Marty drove it a hundred miles down the ocean and back, taking turns every half hour. Upon returning home, they took pictures beside the car. JoAnne wanted to send some home to her brothers and sisters and her mother. She wasn’t one to squander money, the car cost less than sticker price; by paying the full amount in cash, she got a huge discount..
Looking at four condos, she decided on the one with a private beach and a long gated driveway, it was perfect for writing, and would give her family a nice place to visit. After signing the contract, the closing would be in three weeks. That would give her time to shop for furniture.
The next few weeks, JoAnne spent going from one furniture store to another, trying to find the right furniture to furnish the beach house, finally getting on the internet to find what she needed.
With five bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, JoAnne anticipated having overnight guest. She could imagine her mother in the huge kitchen, preparing breakfast, as she loved to do, while the family sat on the large back deck overlooking the pool and tennis court.
After three days of cleaning windows and hanging curtains, they moved into their new home. JoAnne took the master bedroom, because the view overlooking the ocean put her in the mood to write. Marty took the bedroom with large windows looking out onto acres of evergreens and shrubs strategically planted to give the appearance of a small magical rain forrest. They both loved the house and spent all their free time just lounging around it. Marty couldn’t wait to get home after work and JoAnne never left home anymore, except when she had to go to the store for something. At last, she had a home she loved.

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 23.10.2009

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