Rough draft help

Okay, here’s the first draft of the short story: comments, feedback, corrections, and title suggestions appreciated, and if you don’t like reading rough drafts and want to wait for the final version (probably reasonably similar), stop reading now. Oh, and sign up for the mailing list, because I’m only going to be sending this to mailing list subscribers.

Although I guess if you don’t want to be on my mailing list but do want to read the final story, you can leave a comment and I’ll email it to you directly–I don’t mind. (This post will probably get taken down once the story is final, since it defeats the purpose of a subscription bonus if the story is easily available online, I think.)

Thanks for your help!

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Welcome to Tassamara

The guy stumbling his way down to the bathroom in the back of the bus reeked of beer and stale cigarettes.

Egg salad, Maggie thought, shifting in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position, her head propped on her folded jacket against the window. Like his mom used to make, with sweet pickle relish, on toast. But good bread—he’d like a nice, crunchy wheat better than the white spongy stuff he’d grown up with.

She sighed and closed her eyes again.

She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d made a simple egg salad. There’d been that smoked salmon involtini stuffed with an herbed egg mixture, but that was made with crème fraiche and fresh dill and chives—about as far from the drunk guy’s sandwich as an Egg McMuffin was from the Eggs Benedict she used to prepare for Sunday brunch.

Would Robert keep that on the menu? He’d always argued that it was too bland for their restaurant, not ‘fresh’ enough.

Fresh.

His favorite adjective.

What an asshole he was.

But the hole in her heart still hurt.

Impatiently, she stuffed her jacket into a tighter ball and squeezed her eyes shut.

Sleep, damn it, why couldn’t she sleep?

The motion of the bus in the quiet night should have been soothing, the hum of the engine taking her away, away, away, but instead she felt stifled, too warm, too uncomfortable.

Too sad.

She was supposed to be over it. Over him. The divorce was final. She’d walked away, not empty-handed, but without any part of the restaurant they’d worked so hard to build.

She didn’t regret it.

Maybe it had been their baby once, but from the night she’d walked back in two hours after her shift ended and found Robert screwing their head waitress against the bar, she hadn’t been able to bear the place.

Every memory—every moment of joy and satisfaction, of finding a perfect seasonal menu, of an experimental recipe working out just right, of the look of delight on a customer’s face as they bit into her vanilla dessert soufflé—all those achievements were gone, wiped away by the bitterness of seeing her husband moaning as he buried himself in Veronica.

Maggie wished she could find it in herself to hate Veronica. But she couldn’t. They’d been friends. And Robert… well, she knew only too well how persuasive he could be.

She only made it through the divorce by refusing to talk to him. All communication through lawyers. Fortunately, he cared about the restaurant too much to push after the first and only time that she’d thrown her apron onto the floor of the kitchen and stalked out. Surviving the dinner rush mattered more to him than talking to her. And he’d probably thought she’d balk at his proposed divorce terms, enough to start arguing.

Instead, she’d signed the papers and headed to the nearest Greyhound station.

By now he would have had a hell of a night. A Friday night with a full reservation list was rough enough when the cook showed up for work. Still, if he hadn’t realized she’d be gone, more fool him. It was the least he deserved.

The bus slowed and stopped.

It was pitch-black outside.

Still, she’d screwed up, too. A bus to nowhere was not nearly as romantic as it sounded. Instead, it was tedious motion and miserable seating and way, way, way too many people. She kept her eyes tight shut even as she felt the weight of someone taking the seat next to her.

Her new seatmate promptly fell asleep.

Of course, he snored.

Of course.

The sky lightened as the sun rose and Maggie stared out the window, eyes aching with tiredness, listening to the snoring sleeper next to her.

By ten, she couldn’t bear it anymore. The bus was slowing to a stop, bumping its way down some Podunk town’s main street. She stood and stepped over Sleeping Beauty, grabbing her duffel bag from the overhead rack. She’d get off here. Find some breakfast more interesting than the homemade oatmeal bars she had in her bag, walk around and stretch her legs a little, then catch the next bus south.

The bus stopped for a bare second and the driver was already starting to close the doors. “Hang on,” she called out. “Getting off here.”

He looked startled. “You sure? You’re ticketed to Miami, aren’t you?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “I’ll grab a later bus.”

“But, miss,” he started to protest as she hopped off the bus.

“I know I’ll have to buy a new ticket,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

“But…”

She ignored his further words as she looked around.

Okay, she’d found the middle of nowhere. But the air was warm, a pleasant change from the chill New York winter, and it smelled of green things and flowers, which was an even nicer change from the exhaust fumes she was used to. And the town wasn’t plastic, not just another series of strip malls and fast food restaurants, like some they’d passed through the previous day. The small shops and houses looked like a cozy, run-down, pastel version of Disneyworld’s Main Street USA.

“Are you the cook?”

A voice interrupted her assessment as the bus pulled away, the driver apparently giving up on her.

“Excuse me?” she responded, glancing over her shoulder in the direction the voice had come from.

Huh. Hot guy alert. Not that she was interested but she wasn’t blind, either.

Ah, and he wore a wedding ring.

Okay, not hot. Married guys, never her thing, even more so since Robert decided their wedding vows meant for better or worse as long as he could have a bit on the side.

Still, she wasn’t blind. Dark hair, deep blue eyes, fine wrinkles that said he laughed a lot, a build that said he stayed on the move, and a smile that somehow managed to be disarming despite the fact that he was a strange guy approaching her at a bus stop, a move that ought to send her every instinct into high alert.

“The cook?” he repeated.

“I—yeah, I cook.” She frowned, puzzled. She hadn’t slept much for the past few days and she was floating in the slightly surreal glaze of over-exhaustion, colors seeming brighter than usual, sounds more grating. But it was weird that she was being asked about cooking, wasn’t it? At a bus stop?

“Good, good,” he responded, sounding relieved. “You weren’t what I was expecting.”

She looked down at herself. What had he expected?

Wait, expected?

“Um, I don’t think you’re looking for me,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Oh, really? Where are you supposed to be?” He sounded so authentically interested that for a second tears burned in her eyes and she wanted to blurt it all out to him, the whole horrible story.

Where should she be? She should be at home, in the apartment she and Robert had found with its incredibly good light and incredibly bad plumbing, planning out the dinner menu for the restaurant that once meant the world to her.

But no, that wasn’t her home anymore. Or her world. “Nowhere.”

“Great. You’ve found it then,” he said cheerfully. “Or pretty close, anyway.”

She blinked at him.

She was dreaming. That was the explanation that made the most sense. Despite snoring dude, she’d managed to fall asleep and the bus was driving on to Miami while she snoozed on the window. She hoped she wasn’t drooling.

The guy gestured toward the sidewalk with an open hand. “Shall we?”

“No,” she responded with an automatic roll of the eyes. “What am I, stupid? I’m not going anywhere with some total stranger.”

“Oh, right,” he replied. He stuck out his hand. “Max Latimer.”

“Does your wife know you’re picking up strange women at the bus stop?” Maggie asked, voice acid.

He laughed. A nice laugh. Maggie didn’t shiver, but she felt it hit her, running along her spine. How long had it been since she’d heard an honest laugh or laughed herself?

Married, she reminded herself. Off limits. Now and forever, off limits.

Not that she needed the reminder as he said easily, “Eleanor’s used to me. And she knows that my occasional erratic moments always turn out well. In this case, she’d like a good cook in town as much as I would. Not her favorite activity, cooking.”

Maggie rubbed her eyes. She was tired, definitely, but she felt awake. It wasn’t one of those dreams where everything seemed unreal. The air, the smells, the sights—no, she was awake.

A boy on a red bike cycled down the middle of the road and came to a stop next to them. Maggie wasn’t good with kids’ ages but she’d guess he was around ten or eleven. His dark brown hair spilled into bright blue eyes, as he asked, “Hey, grandpa, can I go to the springs?”

Grandpa? Maggie’s eyebrows arched. Okay, that was unexpected.

“Manners, Dillon?” The words were a gentle reminder, not a reproof, but the boy flushed.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He gave Maggie a polite nod. “Good morning, ma’am.”

“Good morning,” she repeated automatically.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” he asked.

“It’s beautiful,” she agreed.

“Okay?” The boy turned to his grandfather, who nodded at him. “So, can I go to the springs?”

“Have fun.”

“Thanks!” The boy stood on the pedals, sending the bike swooshing away.

Max Latimer watched him go, shaking his head, his smile fond. “We may have to work on the polite good-byes.”

“He’s your grandson?” Maggie asked, trying to reconcile their respective ages and their interaction—surely more fatherly than grandfatherly?—with the boy’s words.

“A long story,” Max answered. “And I’m sure you’d rather see the restaurant.”

What restaurant? Who was this guy? And how did he know her? How had he been waiting for her? She didn’t realize she’d spoken her thoughts aloud until Max answered.

“Oh, I don’t. I just had a feeling that we might find a cook today. And you’re the only one who got off the bus.”

Maggie blinked at him. Okay, he was crazy. That was the explanation for this entire interaction. “Maybe you should wait for the next bus,” she suggested.

“Well, I could.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “But the bus only comes through once a day and it doesn’t run on Sundays. It’d be a long wait. No, I think you’re the one I’m looking for.”

Maggie felt her mouth fall open as she took in his words. She closed it with a snap, looking down the street after the long-gone bus. That was what the driver had been trying to tell her. Hell and double-hell.

Two days.

She was going to be stuck in Podunkville for two whole days.

Well, that was a pisser.

“I don’t even know where I am,” she said, shaking her head, still in shock.

“Welcome to Tassamara,” Max answered. “I think you’re going to like it here.”