Unconditional
Authors: Cherie M. Hudson
Unconditional
Always
, Book One
Cherie M Hudson
Unconditional
Always
, Book One
Cherie M Hudson
Published by 5x5 Publishing
Copyright 2014. Cherie M Hudson.
Cover by Valerie Tibbs
Editing by Heidi Moore
Formatted by
IRONHORSE Formatting
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All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
Dedication
For my dad and my brother, who both have Parkinson’s disease and refuse to let it get them down. And for my mum and sister-in-law. Who love and support my dad and brother unconditionally through the good times and the bad.
Table of Contents
The Argument about Copulating Koalas
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Shaky
Four Days and Counting. Damn it.
Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees.
The Royal Family, Photographs and Getting the Fuck out of Dodge—AKA Australia
The Arrival
Australia was not what I was expecting. Sure, I was only in the airport, but still, where were the kangaroos? The koalas? Where were the hot guys walking around in Speedos? Where were the Tim Tams? Didn’t those delicious chocolate cookies fall from the sky over here? I’m sure I’d read that somewhere? Or maybe I’d dreamt it.
I must admit, the second I’d learned I’d won my college’s scholarship to study Environment Studies abroad—and by abroad, I mean a gazillion miles away from Plenty, Ohio, my hometown and the only world I’d ever known—I’d been experiencing weird dreams about Australia.
In one, I was dating a kangaroo that sounded like Chris Hemsworth. I remember waking in the morning stroking my pillow with the words “You had me at g’day,” whispering through my head. Curse you, Mom and your Tom Cruise movie marathons.
In another dream, a shark called Bruce kept trying to take a bath with me.
See what I mean? Weird dreams. I chalked them up to nerves. Winning the scholarship, partly funded by Plenty’s only college, partly funded by the University of Sydney, was a double-edged sword.
On one razor-sharp side there was the awesomeness of winning the scholarship in the first place. Mind you, winning makes it sound like luck had something to do with it, which it didn’t. Hard work, long hours studying, zero time socializing, movies missed, days and days researching, so many days I sometimes forgot what the sun looked like.
That’s
what earned me the scholarship. That and my passion for the environment.
I’m what my folks call a tree-hugging greenie. Well, my
mom
calls me that. My dad—who had grown up in Australia and moved to the U.S. when he met Mom during a vacation to LA—has been dead for over three years now. Killed when a drunk driver ran off the road and struck him and our dog as they were jogging.
I was a tree-hugging greenie wrapped up in the unassuming guise of a twenty-two-year-old hometown girl who still has bangs and wears pigtails on the weekend. Who still eats peanut butter straight from the jar and loves watching
Sleepy Hollow
and
Glee
when she’s not studying environmental degradation and its impact on wildlife the world over.
On the other even sharper side of the damn blade was the fact I had to fly over a gazillion miles to Australia. Did I mention I’d never been outside of Plenty? I
did
mention a drunk driver killed my dad and my dog only a few years ago, right? Leaving my mom a widow?
Did I mention my mom suffers from Parkinson’s disease?
Did I mention I do as well?
No on the last two, huh? Sorry about that.
Yeah, I’m a shaker. But I’ve got it under control. Good meds, meditation, tai chi and did I mention good meds? Add them together and I’m okay. Mom, however, isn’t. And with me being on the other side of the world, who’s going to help her up when she falls down? Which she does. Often.
She told me to go, that’s why I’m here. She
demanded
I go. But being this far away from her… God, I don’t even…
Sorry. Didn’t mean to get maudlin. Long and short of it, Mom has Parkinson’s. She’s alone and I’m here because I’ve never seen her so proud. How could I not go?
But now that I’m here—and I’m excited to be, I really am—where are the kangaroos? I mean, I know I haven’t even made it out of the airport yet, but you’d think there would be kangaroos at least? Even a stuffed one on a pedestal or something. That’s what the country sells itself as, right? The Outback, hot guys in those little bathing suits, beer, beaches and kangaroos? Where were they?
And more to the point, where was my passport? Oh my God, where was my passport? I was about to go through Australian customs in about twenty seconds and I couldn’t find my passport. It was in my bag on the plane. So where was it now?
“Next.”
I started at the deep, authoritarian command. Shot the man behind the counter a few steps in front of me a harried look.
I shook my head.
He raised his eyebrows, raised his hand and waved his fingers at me. In a come-here gesture.
I swallowed. Suddenly aware my fingers were shaking, I clenched my fist. Was it nerves? Or—
“Miss?”
The customs official was now frowning my way. A prickling pressure at the back of my neck told me my fellow travelers were glaring at me. Why wouldn’t they be? I’d be glaring too at the idiot who was rooted to the spot and holding up traffic in the line that allowed you to enter the country you’d just flown over nineteen hours to get into.
I swallowed again. Cleared my throat. Squeezed my fist—crap, I really
was
shaking—and stepped forward.
The man behind the counter gave me an expectant look. “Passport?”
During the nineteen-hour flight over, I’d passed the time by imagining my first few moments in Australia. In my admittedly sleep-deprived fantasy, the customs official who granted me access would sound like the kangaroo I dated in my dreams. Yes, I will admit now, I have a thing for Chris Hemsworth. But how could you not? Have you looked at him? Is there a sexier, hotter guy on the planet? No, I don’t think so. He would smile at me and tell me I looked amazing after such a long flight.
I didn’t, by the way. My hair was flat and greasy, my eyes were scratchy and puffy and I’d managed to spill most of the coffee the flight attendant had poured for me somewhere over the Pacific Ocean somewhere around three a.m. all over my shirt. Or maybe it had been two p.m? Who the hell knew? Helpful tip if you’re planning on any long-haul flights, don’t wear a white T-shirt, no matter how cute you think you look in it. It’s a bad idea.
So, going back to my mid-flight fantasy…I’m greeted by a super-hot customs official who tells me I look amazing, just as a camera crew from one of those travel shows they make in just about every country with electricity runs over and asks me if I mind being interviewed about being an American college student in Australia. Added to that, they also inform me Chris Hemsworth is in the airport and wonder if I’d like to meet him. He’s researching a role in a movie about the plight of the dingo in the Outback and has read my paper about the environment and native animals online and wants to talk about it with me.
In
that
fantasy, I had my passport.
In reality, I had no idea where it was.
God, how could I lose it between the plane and—
“Passport, miss?”
I gave the official, who didn’t appear inclined to say anything to me that sounded like, “you look amazing”, a wobbly smile.
Do they arrest you in Australia for trying to enter the country without a passport? I suspect so. I opened my mouth. A sound that may or may not have been a strangled squeak emitted from my throat.
The official’s frown deepened. I couldn’t help but notice his right hand slipped under the counter.
“I’ve lost my passport,” I said, although I think I may have mouthed it. For some reason, my voice had disappeared. Maybe it was with my errant passport? Perhaps both were on their way to Paris?
The man behind the glass leaned forward. A little. “Please repeat that, miss.”
“I’ve lost my passport,” I said. Again. Louder this time. With less silent asphyxiation.
His eyebrows shot up. “Since you boarded?”
I nodded.
“What flight?”
My mind went blank. Oh God, I was doing a woeful job of representing the USA at this point in time. “Err,” I said. “Big plane. Had a…a kangaroo on the tail.”
The man’s forehead furrowed. “A Qantas plane?”
Relief flooded through me and I nodded, looking, I’m sure, like an unhinged bobble-head. “That’s it. Qantas.”
“So you’ve just deboarded a Qantas flight from…”
His silence told me I was meant to supply the answer. “Plenty,” I gushed. “I mean Dallas.”
I scrunched up my face. Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes. I ached for Mom so badly my heart felt like it was being torn out of my chest. What the hell was I doing here? Where was my brain?
“I’m sorry.” I scrubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands—right first, then left. My vision went that special kind of blurry that only ever happens when you put way too much pressure on your eyeballs, and I blinked. I needed to get a grip. Or a passport. A passport would be nice.
I wondered for a stupidly surreal moment if the traveler behind me would let me borrow hers. Only until I actually got
into
Australia. Then she could have it—
“Are you Maci Rowling?”
A deep male voice with an obvious Australian accent caressed my tired, overwrought mind and I jerked my head to the left, my heart pounding fast.
An elderly gent who had to be at least ninety in the shade was standing at my elbow, holding what looked to be an American passport in one hand. In his other, he held a cane. Truth be told, it was the cane doing most of the holding, keeping the gentleman vertical.
I looked at him.
“I found it on the floor in the line a sec ago,” he said, a friendly smile on his wrinkled face. “Think it might be yours.”
He was old and feeble and wobbly and holding a passport.
And if he knew my name, it meant it was
my
passport.
What else could I do?
I threw myself against his frail body in a massive hug.
Knocking him to the ground.
Three hours later, I was allowed into Australia.
It’s insane how long it takes to apologize copiously to the elderly gentleman you’ve just wounded in your enthusiasm to thank him for finding your passport. Who knew it would be so easy to knock an eighty-two-year-old to the floor with a hug? I didn’t help my hug was pretty…enthusiastic. Of course,
after
the poor old guy was taken away in a wheelchair, I then took part in a serious discussion about senior-citizen care with the airport police, one of them who seriously looked like Russell Crowe. If Russell Crowe was fat. And older. And a woman. And by
take part
I mean I continued to apologize for my physically intense gratitude. And after
that
I was the rather mute member of an even more serious discussion about passport safety from the same humorless officials.
Yay.
Finally, with the public humiliation and authoritarian lectures over and done with, I was allowed into the country.
Only to wait at the luggage carousel, watching it go round and round until I was the only one left, with no sign of my luggage on the conveyor belt.