Kindle Edition
Amazon
Category:
Literary Fiction
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services
ISBN-10: 1511749881
Type: Fiction
Pages: 285
Copyright: March 8, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781511749886
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
In a galloping departure from her previous novels, author Maggie Plummer takes the reader on a wild 1970s ride – an adventurous coming of age journey along America’s back roads.
At twenty, Jessie Morgan is fed up with just about everything. It’s September 1971 – time to drop out, tune in, and turn on.
She leaves college and Detroit in the rearview mirror, hitting the road in her 1965 yellow Volkswagen convertible. Wandering the country’s byways from Kentucky to Key West to Montana, Jessie is out to experience everything.
She didn’t count on meeting a man like Twisty.
Bell-Bottom Gypsy is recommended for mature readers due to 1970s-era sex, drugs, and cussing.
Excerpt
Jess had been driving too long. The sun had gone down hours ago, and she was so tired she was dizzy. At a stoplight in Jesup, Georgia, she turned on the interior light and studied her map.
Crunch!
She didn’t know her car was rolling forward until it collided with the one in front of her.
“Crap!” She should have stopped for the day sooner, but wanted to get to the Atlantic Ocean. She was so close.
A red-faced, middle-aged woman emerged from the boxy Plymouth sedan, huffing and puffing. She turned to Jess and jammed her fists on her ample hips. “What the hell!”
“Sorry,” Jess tried to say. But only a croaking whisper came out. She gripped the wheel with white knuckles and tried to swallow. The front of her Bug, which was the trunk, had hit the Plymouth’s high rear bumper. The VW’s hood was smashed in.
The Plymouth barely had a scratch.
“Call the cops!” the woman hollered imperiously to a guy watching them from his front porch. “Wait till my husband hears about this.”
The man went inside.
People gathered on the dark sidewalk.
Oh, man, Jess thought. Here she was alone in a strange place in the Deep South, wearing her raggedy bell-bottom jeans. So scared her scalp was prickling, she slowly got out of the car.
The furious woman paced back and forth. “Sure, Michigan plates!” she sputtered in a nasal twang.
“I’m so sorry,” Jess began.
“You will be!”
“I’m tired, and I was looking at the map…”
“Look what you did!” the woman shrieked, pointing at her sedan’s back bumper.
Jess looked. All she could see was the crumpled hood of her VW. It made no sense trying to talk to this woman. Jessie slumped sideways on the driver’s seat with the front door open as she lit a cigarette and inhaled sharply. It was beginning to drizzle.
The Jesup police swooped up in a flurry of flashing lights.
Jess was surprised to see that the cop was an older black man.
“Look, Don!” the woman demanded.
“Now, Mrs. Mullens, it’ll be just fine,” the officer crooned.
It sounded as if the man had dealt with this woman before.
“She rammed right into me, when I was sitting at a red light.”
“You stay dry in your car while I talk to her.”
In a huff, the woman got back in the Plymouth.
“I’m Police Chief Don Rice,” the man said. “License, registration, and proof of insurance.” He sounded gruff.
“Yes, sir.” Jess got her driver’s license from her wallet, handed it over, and began rifling through the glove box for the other papers.
“Jessie Morgan,” he read, flicking his flashlight over her license.
“Yes.”
“Detroit, huh?
“Yes.”
“I have cousins up there.”
Jess found her registration and insurance card, and handed them over.
“Listen,” he said under his breath, “Mrs. Mullens can be, umm…”
“…a real bitch?”
“I didn’t say it.” He grinned, glancing at her insurance card and registration. “Let me deal with her. You stay here, all right?”
“OK.” Her hands shook as she took a deep drag of her cigarette. But he seemed nice.
Chief Rice straightened to his full height, hands on his hips as if he was giving Jessie a stern lecture. He strolled to the front of her car, bent down to look at the damage, and snapped pictures with a point-and-shoot camera. Then he went to talk to Mrs. Mullens.
Jess put her cigarette out. It didn’t taste good.
After a few minutes, the woman started her Plymouth and drove away into the dark Georgia night.
“Let’s pull over,” the chief drawled in his Southern accent. “Then tell me what happened.”
Jess started her car and pulled it into a parking spot, watching as he followed and turned off his flashing lights. The bystanders were leaving.
Jess got into the front seat of the police car. “I told her how sorry I was.”
He nodded, rolling his brown eyes. “She’s excitable.”
“That’s one word for it. I was too tired, from driving all day, and I was looking at my map.”
“No harm done, except to your Beetle. Mrs. Mullens can call your insurance company.”
“Oh.” This sounded reasonable.
“You by yourself?” He looked at her license again.
“Yes.”
“You get tired, you stop, y’hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you and everyone else safe.” He handed back her license and the other cards, then grinned at her. “Reckon I can’t let you keep driving.”
“Right.”
“See that little motel over yonder?” He pointed down the street.
Jess located the bright neon sign. “Yes.”
“They’ll help you out,” he said. “Kindest folks in town.”
***
The cozy apartment behind the motel lobby soothed Jessie’s nerves like a warm blanket. She sat at the kitchen table across from Martha, eating peach cobbler that was fresh from the oven. Had she somehow landed in an honest-to-God oasis of southern hospitality? Not only was the cobbler delicious, the entire place smelled like fresh summer peaches and butter.
Martha was a soft, curvy woman about Mom’s age. She wore a ruffled, flower print apron over her T-shirt and slacks. On her lap sat her miniscule Chihuahua, Penny, who was shivering in spite of how warm it was in here. Penny wore a pale pink dog sweater. Maybe the animal was trembling from excitement, being so close to Martha’s bowl of cobbler. Now and then the woman fed the dog a tiny crumb of the biscuit topping.
Chief Rice had called Martha and her husband, J.B., and asked them to look out for Jess.
That they did.
Martha called her “honey” and gave her a good deal on a room they were “fixin’ ta” remodel. She was so gracious, she undid the bad impression Mrs. Mullens had given Jess of the town.
“Oh, that woman,” Martha was saying, shaking her head. “Mean as all get out, making trouble for everyone. Bless her heart.”
“You poor thang,” J.B. chimed in from the living room, “running into that battle-axe, of all people. Gawd!”
Martha slapped her chubby knee and giggled.
Jess giggled with her, relaxing a little. Astounding, to go from a nerve-wracking fender bender to this. And she’d never tasted anything like this peach cobbler. It was simple perfection: warm, fresh peaches and a buttery biscuit topping.
“Martha,” she said, filling her fork again, “This is so good! Can I get your recipe?”
“Why, sure, but without our fresh Georgia peaches it just ain’t the same. Seconds?”
“Don’t mind if I do. Thanks!”
“Let’s put ice cream on it this time.”
“Oh, you’re bad.” Jess grinned at her.
Martha giggled again and kissed Penny’s little nose.
After another helping of cobbler, Jessie’s eyes drooped.
“Honey, you’re worn slap out.” Martha put their bowls in the sink. “You go on to bed, and we’ll see you in the morning.”
|
