The life of a speculator. This wasn’t the first time Terry had been backed against a wall, but he had never been boxed in.
“I’ll work on it,” Terry said. “I’ll get back to you.”
They disconnected and Terry fell back on the mattress and closed his eyes. It had been years since he had awakened wiped out this severely by a hangover. And it had been years since he had received a call like the one he had just gotten from his accountant.
He took no small amount of pride in being the legendary wealthy and successful “self-made man.” OC he had been called many times. Uptight. Control freak. A psychiatrist for whom he had built a five-thousand-square-foot house told him it came from his childhood, when he’d had control of nothing, when his life had been in a constant state of upheaval due to his mother’s ups and downs with husbands, or boyfriends, or her career.
Well, Walt had his attention. That hard-won Ledger success was at stake. Even if he wanted to torture himself, he no longer had the luxury of fooling with Marisa and the crackpot citizens of Agua Dulce. He had reached that conclusion before, but this time, it couldn’t be ignored.
He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. Hungover or not, he was a problem solver, accustomed to hammering at a thing until it fit his need or his idea. His attention to detail, his drive for perfection, his concentration on the prize were all unique abilities that taken him to a plateau beyond the wildest dreams of most thirty six-year-old men who had started with nothing.
His thoughts began to come together in his mushy brain. One trip to Oklahoma City and he could pin down Larson’s and come away with a signed contract. He had already figured out that they wanted to move on the Pecos Belle’s property. The axiom he had in common with Bob Nichols came to mind. People always do what they want to do. Stalling on signing a final contract was just Larson’s way of playing hardball, hoping Terry would weaken and sweeten their deal. Distracted by Marisa and the Agua Dulce oddballs, instead of maintaining control in the travel-stop deal, he had let Larson’s bully Kim and call the shots. If he got his shit together and acted now, the mega travel stop could be doing business in Agua Dulce in six months.
Marisa and her mother had to go.
Fuck
.
As far as Ledger Ranches was concerned, for all practical purposes, a few more details and street construction could begin. The cash from the sale to Larson’s was slated to be set aside for that purpose.
But to get his hands on that money, Marisa and her mother had to go.
And so did Tanya.
Visualizing a grand opening of a Larson’s Truck & Travel Stop took his thoughts to Mandan Patel and his cute kids. Terry didn’t especially like Patel, but he recognized hard work when he saw it. Patel and every member of his family slaved in that service station and convenience store. Terry continued to salve his conscience where Patel was concerned by reminding himself that even if Larson’s didn’t put the guy out of business, sooner or later, the State of Texas would.
Then there was Bob and his motel. Terry had the Days Inn franchise in hand, had assured Larson’s he would build it to open in conjunction with the travel stop. It would sit next door to the travel stop, on the opposite side from the Starlight Inn.
Bob Nichols’ days in the motel business were numbered.
Tanya and Jake Shepherd. Tanya was a surprisingly talented artist. After he razed the building where she showed her work, what would she do? She probably didn’t have the contacts to get into a good gallery. And once he closed on the deal to buy out the XO, her husband would be out of a job.
By Terry’s calculations, only Ben and Gordon Tubbs had a secure existence in the future. Gordon, because Terry had promised Larson’s the Sweet Water RV & Mobile Home Village would remain open year-round, and Ben, because he didn’t own anything in Agua Dulce. He only rented a tumbledown mobile in the RV park.
He stopped himself. Hell. He was doing it again. Instead of making decisions about his development and his future, he was stewing over the Agua Dulce residents. He had to quit it.
And he had to get to Fort Worth and sit down with his accountant for a strategy session and at the same time check on the houses under construction by Terry Ledger Homes and collect a million dollars form a baseball player.
He sat up and pried off his boots, then got to his feet. His stomach roiled. Hanging on to the walls, he made it to the bathroom. For the first time since he had come to Agua Dulce, he wished for a TV, driven by a sudden urge to hear the news and weather reports and learn what was happening in the rest of the world. He took the radio to the bathroom to listen while he shaved. Besides country music, all he was able to tune in to was a farm and ranch report from somewhere in New Mexico.
Chapter 27
Marisa returned to Agua Dulce several days later, exhausted and nursing an upset stomach. She blamed it on a weeklong diet of junk food. Mama had been moved from the ICU to a hospital room and would be coming home in a few days. Her neurologist had prescribed a newly developed drug to slow the deterioration of her memory. Unfortunately, it would do nothing to restore what was already gone.
Pecos Belle’s had been and was being maintained by a sober Ben. The kitchen was a mess, but the café doors had evidently remained open and Ben had sold food to a few customers brave enough to try his cooking. He had even sold some items from the flea market.
Self-imposed penance on his part. Marisa accepted the gesture as his way of apologizing for his role in what had happened to Mama.
Instead of confronting him with the sad result of his drinking and co-opting Aunt Radonna as his partner, Marisa left him to handle the cafe a little longer and went to the singlewide where she sank into a hot bath in Mama’s bathroom. Bubbles would have been nice, but suds in the hard water were too much trouble. She closed her eyes and gave each taut muscle the opportunity to un-kink and dedicated her overworked brain cells to rehashing and compartmentalizing the past week of her life.
During the stint at Mama’s bedside, with Aunt Radonna living in Odessa, Marisa had had an opportunity to take an occasional break and bathe. But unwinding at Aunt Radonna’s place was a pipe dream. A parade of people--mostly men, mostly losers--passed through her small singlewide mobile home at all hours, even if her aunt wasn’t at home. Marisa had never been certain while bathing that company wouldn’t show up at any minute.
Aunt Radonna had dropped by the hospital daily, bringing toaster-oven pizza from the bar where she worked or fast-food hamburgers, the cause, Marisa believed, of her upset stomach.
Though Aunt Rosemary lived a distance away, in Tahoka, she had come a couple of times, too, giving unrequested advice or delivering a dose of criticism to everyone in sight. Or venting her spleen at Aunt Radonna if the younger aunt happened to be present. A demon must surely live inside Aunt Rosemary, Marisa concluded, and she found herself happy that her older aunt
hadn’t
come to Agua Dulce to visit Mama all these past months.
Through it all, the image of Terry Ledger stood at the forefront of her thoughts.
If you really mean for me not to come back, you can believe I won’t.
He would follow through with that pronouncement. If ever she had met a man with the will and discipline to stand by a tough promise, Terry was that man.
On a practical side, what that knowledge meant to her at this moment was that if she didn’t get in gear and get moved out of Pecos Belle’s and out of the singlewide owned by Terry, she might wake up some morning soon confronted by a bulldozer. So she had her work cut out for her in the coming days, to be sure.
She took her time dressing in clean clothes, then returned to the café with solid resolve. She had plans to make and execute. No more time for pussyfooting around.
Ben must have passed the word that she was back--Bob, Mr. Patel and Tanya were waiting for her. Bob took one of her hands in both of his. “We’re so glad you’re back.”
“We have missed you, Marisa,” Mr. Patel said. “The coffee has not been good.”
“You need your hair trimmed,” Tanya said, touching the ends with her fingertips. “Come over and let me do it.”
Marisa managed to smile at all of them and say thanks.
After she reported on Mama and they departed, she looked over the kitchen and checked the contents of the cupboards, the refrigerator and freezer, preparing to resume business. She refused to ask Ben if he had seen Terry. Her short-term lover was history. A thing of the past.
Ben gladly turned the kitchen over to her, sat down at the lunch counter with a cup of coffee and lit a cigarette. “He left a couple of days after they found Raylene,” Ben said.
He was speaking of Terry, of course. News of his leaving was almost a blessing. “Who?” she asked.
“Terry. He went back to Fort Worth.”
“Guess that’s a good place for him.”
“Said he ain’t coming back ‘til he’s ready to start construction.”
Could she expect anything less? Or more? Well, at least words like “construction” and “development” and “subdivision” no longer elevated her blood pressure. She had come a long way.
She stopped her activity for a few seconds and glanced at the auctioneer’s phone number she had written on a Post-it and stuck on the wall beside the phone. Another Post-it note in alien handwriting was stuck beside it, bearing a Midland phone number.
Ben’s voice got her attention. “What’re you gonna do, Marisa?”
“Haul everything to the auction in Odessa,” she answered, having at this moment just made the firm decision in her head.
“There’s a guy been calling you from Midland. Says he’s got a job. I wrote his number down on one o’ them sticky notes.”
Ah. The Midland Country Club. Now she knew where the additional Post-it had come from. All at once everything was moving at warp speed. The auction, a job, making a move to Midland. All she had to do was make the phone calls and catch up with the process that already seemed to be moving forward.
****
Terry was ready to return to Agua Dulce. He’d had the most productive month he had known since he won the eBay bid for the town. Dozens of faxes and phone calls had passed back and forth between himself and the Cabell County officials and they were satisfied with the retirement community project. He and the state were on the same page about a water and sewer system. He had loans in place and was ready to sign closing papers on his purchase of the XO.
The deal with Larson’s had closed, giving him the cash to move forward with Ledger Ranches.
Gordon Tubbs had told him Marisa and her mother were gone. A moving van had picked up most of the valuable items from the flea market and hauled them to an auction yard in Odessa. What Marisa had deemed junk had been trashed and burned. Marisa and her mother had moved to Midland. She had been hired by Midland Country Club as the cook, the caterer and the food manager.
A flicker of sadness passed through Terry, but he stopped it before it pierced the wall he had built around his heart. It had taken the whole month to construct that wall and he wasn’t about to let anything erode it. The fling with Marisa was just that. A fling. Not his first, not his last.
Despite his regret over all that had happened and not happened with her, the old excitement that always came with the launch of a new project drummed inside him. He intended to head to Agua Dulce as soon as he finished a meeting with Chick. On the periphery of the plans in his head he had been thinking of some things he wanted to hash over with his construction foreman that had nothing to do with home building, but everything to do with Agua Dulce. They met for lunch at Uncle Julio’s on the west side of Fort Worth.
“I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn the existing situation and the residents of Agua Dulce into assets,” he told Chick. He handed his menu up to the waitress along with an order for beef fajitas. “That whole area could be a tourist mecca. With Carlsbad Caverns just up the road and casino gambling in Ruidoso, Agua Dulce is a natural for a stopover, overnight or over several days. I’m already committed to Larson’s to improve the RV park and keep it open, so I’m thinking of turning it into one of those super campgrounds. Once I get under way with Ledger Ranches, I’ll have the sewer system and the water to accommodate it.”
Chick dumped sugar into a glass of iced tea. “Logical. What assets are you talking about?”
“Bob Nichols, for one. After we build that motel, he won’t have anything to do. He’s a little nutty, but he’s a good manager of his motel. Why couldn’t he manage a space museum? Or some kind of UFO exhibit? He’s already got a UFO landing pad built.”
“You’re kidding.” Chick’s eyes popped wide as he dipped a tortilla chip into salsa. “You mean all that little-green-men-with-big-eyes-shit?”
“Why not? Roswell’s right up the road a ways with that Area 51 crap. They’ve even got a UFO museum. And the Marfa lights are not too far to the south. A lot of people believe in that outer space stuff. Seems like a perfect spot for tourists who want to take it all in.”
Chick laughed and sat back in his chair so the waitress could place a sizzling plate of fajita fixings in front of him. Terry was undaunted by Chick’s laugh. Everyone who had ever lived in West Texas, including Chick, knew about the space alien stories out of Roswell, New Mexico, and the eerie lights that appeared around Marfa, Texas, which had never been explained by science.