Art for Art's Sake

By Carol Wakefield

Catt Russell, an ordinary suburban soccer mom with unordinary, uncontrollable and unreliable psychic powers, and her society star sister, Micky, are plunged into intrigue on a remote west coast island, populated by a collection of dubious characters claiming to be a colony of artists, one of which is Catt and Mickey’s brother, Art. But there is more going on than meets the artistic eye!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Wakefield
• Release date: Oct 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466037748

Carol Wakefield

As far as biographies go, I am probably like you, the reader - a suburban housewife, who loves a good read to pass some spare time. If you want to know my whole story, go to www.carolwakefield.com but the short version is I live a pretty ordinary life in Richmond Hill, Ontario, with my husband and son and a whole lot of cats and I love to write about adventures that I hope I never experience for real (except for the fact that I really wish I could do the things Catt does).

Book preview

Chapter One

Like everything in my life of late, this whole thing started so simply and quickly went downhill from there.

My ordinary suburban life has taken a few odd twists in recent months. My husband, Jack, is an idea guy and he’s been devoting more time to his ideas, some of which are maybe a little out there. And my soon-to-be twelve year old son, Josh, still believes we’re perfectly normal, despite all the decidedly weird stuff that’s been going on around here.

Thankfully, we’ve all pretty much adjusted to moving my Gramps in with us. I mean nothing’s perfect. Especially Gramps. And I’ve even made amends – sort of – with my nutty folks, and most recently, Micky. So, excuse me if I thought things were finally beginning to work themselves out. But no-o-o. It seems it’s way too soon to relax.

Take today, for example.

Just an ordinary Saturday. An ordinary Saturday afternoon interrupted by an impromptu visit by a sibling. How ordinary is that? So, yeah, that should have been my first clue.

And now look at us.

"You’re kidding? Micky repeats, just in case the girl behind the counter is either stupid, speaking gibberish, or playing a mean practical joke on us. Stand-by?"

The girl nods. The badge on her official blue jacket says Mandy and the poster behind her shows a happy middle aged couple being greeted by a perky air hostess. Mandy looks anything but perky. Mandy looks distinctly pissed off. Stand-by, she repeats firmly.

"But, I have reservations! Of course, Micky has already said this. Several times. Not to mention in many different tones and volumes. Most of them shrieky. But it doesn’t seem to have helped any. Except that now Mandy is shooting us dangerous looks, like she’s just about to call security if this keeps up. If? She clearly doesn’t know my sister. First class!" Micky adds for emphasis.

This girl is not fazed. As I’ve explained, ma’am, she says through lips so thin you could slice carrots, the flight was overbooked. Here she shoots an icy glare our way. "You were late."

I guess this isn’t the time to tell her that, to Micky, late is considered fashionable.

If it weren’t for the fact that it is actually very late and I’m already exhausted, despite the fact that we haven’t even gone anywhere yet, and there is a mutinous line of people behind us who look as though they wouldn’t mind travelling stand-by, so what the heck is our problem, I would probably stay out of it. Lord knows, it’s safer that way. Micky is used to getting her own way.

But this girl has just called her ‘ma’am’. This doesn’t bode well.

We’ll take it! I say quickly, before Micky opens her trap and makes matters worse. Stand-by.

Micky snaps her trap shut and turns her glare and her bad temper on me. "What?"

"It’ll be okay," I insist under my breath. I flick my eyes back towards the line behind us but Micky is way past caring what people think of her. Well, these people at any rate. After all, these people are after her plane tickets.

"Okay is getting my reservations! Micky shouts, giving Mandy the evil eye. Okay is not standing here missing our flight!"

Well, Mandy shoots her own version of evil eye Micky’s way. Then she punches in a bunch of stuff on her computer and says, "there is one other flight..."

"There, Micky says, gloating with victory. Was that so bad?"

Well, actually, it is.

It’s not often that Micky’s words come back to bite her. That’s mainly because most of the time they’re frightened into silence. She can be a pretty awesome force to deal with. Mere words don’t stand a chance against her.

But this, apparently, is one of those moments.

The good news, if this can be called good, is that we did get a flight. The bad news is that it only took us halfway. Then there was meant to be a connecting flight that would take us the rest of the way. That didn’t sound so bad when Mandy explained it.

But then, she hadn’t told us exactly what our connecting flight consisted of.

"This is it?" Micky shrieks. Again. Just in case everyone around here is totally deaf, and despite the fact that we seem to be pretty much the only ones here. This is getting to be her mantra. But she has a point.

We are standing on a barren tarmac in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Nowhere.

And, although it’s still reasonably early, the humidity is making the air shimmer like a television with a faulty horizontal hold. But that’s okay. There’s not much to look at anyway. The skyline is as flat as though the earth is trying to swallow itself whole.

I suppose our first hint that this was going to be the trip from Hell, or perhaps to Hell, should have been when we got on the first plane, a small puddle jumper that, under ordinary circumstances, Micky would have turned down on sight. But this was not an ordinary circumstance. Because Micky had a point to prove. Even if it killed us.

Well, it didn’t. But this might.

This plane doesn’t look like it could get out of its own way, let alone transport us, and all fourteen of Micky’s absolutely necessary pieces of matching designer luggage, halfway across the country. Heck, it doesn’t look like it could cross the street for an oil and lube job. This is probably a good thing, because there don’t appear to be any streets here. Just tumbleweeds.

This plane appears to be held together with spit, a lot of duct tape, and what looks like chewing gum. And, to our dismay, it seems, from the clanging coming from somewhere near the front, that it is currently in need of further repairs.

A man in a grubby coverall turns from where he is whamming the heck out of a piece of metal lying on the ground. The stitching on his left pocket says ‘Gordo’ and is complemented by a grotty cloth poking out of that pocket. His face is only slightly less grubby than his coverall and is flaunting a serious case of eczema.

Good morning! Micky says, maybe a little too brightly. It isn’t, and she knows it. But this is strange territory and she may just have learned her lesson, courtesy of Mandy, that not all people have her best interests at heart. Micky is nothing if not a fast learner. Uh... Gordo, she finishes.

On! the man states with emphasis. He gives the metal another whack. With equal emphasis.

Uh, what? Micky asks, trying to decipher if this is country talk for ‘hello’. And then she decides to go with the flow. When in North Dakota or Saskatchewan or wherever the heck we are.

On! she agrees brightly.

Now it’s his turn to look puzzled. At least it takes his mind off of walloping that poor defenceless piece of metal. I wonder what its crime was.

Wha--?

Your turn! Micky passes the buck, looking at me as though it’s my turn to deal with this new and confusing language. After all, she doesn’t do the mixing with the riff raff thing.

I shrug. Time to try a different approach.

Excuse me, Mr...uh...Gordo, I begin.

On! he says, sounding almost as peevish as Micky usually does. But not, I suspect, for the same reason. This guy seems to have an especially short fuse. Oh, wait. Maybe it is the same... "On."

Okay, okay! I nod, willing to show that I’m on board with this, but wondering if there might be some hand gestures that maybe go along with it. There are some I’d like to employ but we’re not exactly on a first name basis. Or, for that matter, in a car fleeing in the opposite direction. "On to you, too."

Nooo! He whams the piece of metal one last time. Hard. Then he lurches to his feet and, jabbing at his chest, shouts, On! On! On!

Micky and I involuntarily shrink back, before we realise there is no protection out here in this flat alien wilderness. There are only us and this weirdo, who doesn’t apparently speak anything but gibberish, but carries a really big wrench.

And then Micky’s purse gets in on the act.

With a lurch, it falls to the ground, heaving and grumbling like a thing possessed. Gordo steps backwards into the side of his plane. The purse twitches angrily, then flies open and a blur of white flashes across the tarmac, attaching itself to Gordo’s leg. It snarls with the intensity of a rabid dust mop.

FitzRoy, otherwise known as DitzBoy.

I should have known. Micky never travels anywhere without her precious lap mutt.

And then Gordo does the unexpected, which, considering we have no idea what to think or do, catches us even more off-guard than if we’d suddenly discovered we are actually sharing a strange nightmare in which we have stumbled into the afore-mentioned Hell, or some place pretty close to it, and we could expect to wake up really soon.

He reaches out one huge grubby hand and scratches DitzBoy’s ears. With his other hand he points the wrench at the name stitched on his shirt.

"On, he says, slowly and with painstaking enunciation, My name is Gord-on." He blinks at us until we get it. Gordon. Oh. Okay. And then he explains, It ain’t all there.

Hmmm. Something tells me that’s not the only thing. But this is not the time for semantics. This is the time to recover DitzBoy who, by all appearances, has gone over to the other side, and our dignity. And not necessarily in that order.

Now that Micky has determined that this guy is merely the hired help and she, for one, knows how to handle herself around individuals of such ilk, she takes the bull by the horns. It seems her memory, that thing about learning one’s lesson and not tempting fate to screw things up even more, is as short as her temper.

Yes, well, she sniffs, waving an imperious hand around her as though, by doing so, an airport the size of LaGuardia might suddenly appear, perhaps you could direct us to our flight.

Yes, ma’am, Gordon says. There goes that ‘ma’am’ thing again. He doesn’t appear to notice the twin flashes firing from Micky’s eyes, or the way her lips kind of flatten out. But then, judging from the fact this place might as well be on the moon, he’s probably just not up to snuff with experiencing seriously pissed off expressions. This here’s Matilda. He lovingly pats the corroded side of the plane. A puff of rust rises in the air. Some-where out of sight, a dull clunk indicates that Matilda has just suffered another loss to her body work.

Oh great.

Before Micky has a chance to open her mouth and ensure that we spend the next forty years wandering around in this wilderness without food, water or directions, or any personal belief that we will actually reach civilization again, I hastily interject, Great! When do we leave?

I really didn’t think it was such a difficult question. But Gordon stops petting DitzBoy long enough to scratch his own head and blink at the horizon for several seconds. Then he slowly grins and holds up the metal piece he has been whamming the life out of. He looks like some axe murder who has temporarily forgotten where he left his weapon, but is more than willing to wing it with whatever he has at hand. Just lemme put this back on. We kin go right away.

Micky looks aghast. It finally sinks in that this is our only way out. That climbing into a derelict tin can with wings, and trusting our fate to a Neanderthal with grease under his fingernails and not much between the ears, may just be her final act of repentance for having lived such a vacuous life up to now. At least I’m hoping that’s what she’s thinking.

But, nah. That’s not it. I should have known.

Well, then, my sister says, gamely approaching Matilda and looking for a way in, like maybe red carpeted stairs or an escalator to the doorway, I get the window seat.

Chapter Two

The thing to remember about me and my sister is that we are not so different. Oh sure, there’s always been that superiority thing between us. The thing that has always guaranteed that Micky got the best of everything and I got the leftovers. But that could be because she’s older and thus more entitled. Yeah, right.

But, if truth be told, we’re not actually as different as we would probably like to be. And for this we have our father to blame.

This isn’t because Micky received preferential treatment in our formative years, though I’m sure I can relate stories that indicate just such happenings. Oh, no. It goes way deeper than that.

Micky and I inherited more than a deep dislike of all things back to nature and a huge desire never to follow in our parents wandering footsteps.

We inherited abilities.

Mine first surfaced following an accident at my son’s soccer game. Micky’s began rather rudely just a few months ago and left her thinking she was going nuts. Sometimes, with Micky, it’s hard to tell. Okay. Cheap shot.

All I know is that, in my case, these abilities are random and uncontrollable. Micky’s behavior has always been thus, so sometimes I find myself rooting for the abilities.

Are we having fun yet? I shoot her a mind flash. This is one of our abilities, sending thought messages to each other. It really saves on cell phone charges and is invaluable in those social situations where it might be considered rude to venture an indiscreet opinion out loud. Not that Micky gives a toss. She’s used to being tactless.

I can just see the back of her head, which seems, for some unknown reason, to be plunged into her lap.

Very funny, comes the reply. It is followed by the kind of deep stomach groan that indicates not all is well.

You wanted the window seat, I point out.

Don’t remind me, she responds. Ulp!

My own stomach lurches in sympathy. I’m sitting on the floor wedged between Micky’s luggage and an enormous drum of something that smells really bad. I’m afraid to think what might be in there, though whatever it is keeps sloshing back and forth with every movement of the plane.

Don’t got no more seats, Gordon had said, moments after he hoisted Micky in through Matilda’s yawning mouth of a door and turned to face me, but you kin prob’ly fit in the back.

Sure. Me and enough handmade designer luggage to open a small boutique. But somehow he had managed, with a lot of head scratching involved, to pack everything in.

No seat belt, he said unnecessarily. That’s okay, I was thinking, there’s no seat either. Besides, it’s so crowded in here he’s more than likely going to have to pry me out with a crowbar.

Then he said sheepishly, Don’t normally carry passengers.

No kidding. I feel like a sardine. I’m hoping that Micky might be having second thoughts about the merits of stand-by at this point. I sure am.

But I can see that she’s staring out the window in horrible fascination. I strain to see what has captured her attention. All I can see is a tree.

Wait a minute! A tree? What is a tree doing in the sky? Unless... unless---

"What are you doing?" Micky shrieks. Since this is pretty much my thought too, I keep quiet and let her handle it. After all, she is the older sister. Oh, right, and the one who got us into this mess, though this probably isn’t the best moment to mention that fact.

Then the plane dips and the contents of the drum gurgle ominously. Great, I think. My floor mate is about to hurl.

Relax, lady, Gordon says in a voice that is beginning to sound too completely axe murderer for my tastes. Won’t take long.

What? What won’t take long? Dying?

And then the plane drops again and I see power lines drift by above us. What is going on here? Doesn’t Gordon know that planes are supposed to fly above power lines? Does this guy even know how to fly this thing?

"Are you nuts? Micky continues in her self appointed role as goodwill ambassador and travelogue commentator. You’ll get us killed doing that!"

Gordon doesn’t answer immediately. Presumably the words haven’t had time to filter into his brain. On the other hand, there’s always the chance that they fortuitously took another flight and are, even now, lying around the pool scarfing piña coladas.

The plane banks to one side and dives down even lower. I can tell from the way my stomach is suddenly trying to escape through my mouth that this wasn’t exactly on the itinerary. Even Micky’s luggage has gotten into the act, doing their very own rendition of the jitterbug and threatening to skip the light fandango, if they could just figure out what the heck that means.

And then three things happen all at once.

The plane levels out, the drum beside me begins to gurgle and thrum, and Micky starts to scream.

"You tryin’ to make us crash?" Gordon sounds aggrieved. Or maybe just puzzled. He’s trying to keep his attention on the view outside the plane but it’s clear that Micky’s behavior is kind of freaking him out. It’s not doing a lot for the state of my underwear either.

"No! You are! Micky yells. You’re trying to fly us into the ground."

Gordon shakes his head. Nope. That ain’t it. He shakes his head again, thinking perhaps that, by doing so, this annoying person in the adjoining seat might just disappear. I’m just doin’ my job.

This apparently doesn’t sit well with Micky, who screams back, "Your job? What’s that? Terminator?"

You mean like Schwarzenegger? Gordon brightens perceptibly, reaching out and pressing a whole bunch of buttons that don’t seem to alter our course one little bit. This last is not missed on Micky. She’s starting to hiccup now. Never a good sign. He’s my hero!

"No! Micky shrieks. I mean – hiccup - like we’re all – hic -- going to – cup - die!"

I hate to break up their little reverie with important things, but I’d kind of like to point out that this tank beside me is humming away like no tomorrow, and I’m not so sure that’s a really good thing.

Excuse me! I give a little wave so as not to unduly alarm them though, God knows, Micky’s doing enough of that for both of us. Um...this, er, tank thing. Should it be making that noise?

Gordon gives me a puzzled look for a moment. And then his expression clears and he only looks partially demented. I’m inwardly asking myself whatever possessed me to get into this flying death trap in the first place. Oh, yeah. Micky.

Well, sure, he agrees, that’s just the poison.

"Poison?" Gee, I didn’t think Micky could actually hit those high notes, but I guess I was wrong. That’s what comes of not keeping in really close touch with family. I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future.

Well, sure, Gordon nods happily. But don’t worry. We’re almost done. Then I kin take you where you’re wantin’ to be.

Actually, where I’m wanting to be is anywhere but in close proximity with this peculiar, not to mention possibly dangerous, individual. Mind you, I know better than to voice this particular sentiment. Micky, on the other hand, apparently is not possessed of such salient sensibilities, such as self preservation, keeping her trap shut, and oh yeah, not unduly stressing the weird guy at the controls.

"First you try to fly us into the ground, and now you’re trying to poison us? she screeches. What kind of pilot are you?"

Well, I thought you knew, Gordon tells us. His brow is creased with the effort of having to spell things out for us, and I’m starting to feel a bit bad for his sake. Just learning the vowels seems way beyond his capabilities. This is obviously more mental exercise than he’s had to do in quite some time. I sure wouldn’t want to overload his circuits. Not when we’re still in the air, that is. I’m a crop duster.

And it is at this precise moment we discover what happens when you distract a crop duster in the commission of his duties.

"Bird strike!" Gordon yells.

And then, amid a flutter of feathers and noisy squawks, we plummet to the ground.

Chapter Three

Fortunately for us, Matilda is only thirty-six inches above the ground when we crash.

Unfortunately for Matilda, the impact is enough to send even more parts scattering. Even more unfortunately, Gordon doesn’t seem to be taking this at all well.

You! he says, with a whole lot of anguish and more than a little menace, keeping his eyes on Micky so she can’t cause any more damage. His face is bright red and I don’t think that’s just the eczema. "You."

"Oh, pooh," Micky asserts peevishly, failing somehow to appreciate just how serious this situation actually is.

I mean, we’re standing in the middle of a chemical soaked cornfield, with the only person in the world who actually knows where we are and how to get out of this mess, and she seems quite content to continue ticking him off. As if wrecking his beloved plane and putting a serious crimp in his employment abilities hasn’t already put us quite high on his shit list. Does she really think that he’s going to feel charitable towards us?

"It’s just a scratch."

I sneak a glance at Matilda. She’s listing to one side, doing a pretty fair imitation of a drunk heaving his guts out. Except, in Matilda’s case, what’s leaking from the brand new hole in her side is actually the contents of that drum in the back. A scratch? I’m pretty sure even an industrial sized Band-Aid isn’t going to do the job.

Even Ditzboy isn’t dumb enough to cause a fuss, though periodically he pokes his nose out of Micky’s purse and sniffs the air as though that might tell him it’s safe to come out. One look at Gordon’s face should be all the hint he needs, but then Ditzboy isn’t nearly as clairvoyant as Micky and look where that’s getting her.

Completely oblivious to the Vulcan death chant Gordon is muttering beneath his breath, Micky is pacing back and forth, furiously tapping at her cell phone. It’s apparent, from the way she periodically glares at it, gives it a good shake and then taps in even more numbers, that she’s getting no joy. My guess is that all the networks in Hell are down at the moment, or possibly nonexistent, and we’re just going to have to wait until this place catches up with the twenty-first century. By my calculation, it’s got a few to go.

I hesitate to mention this possibility. Micky never could take no for an answer. She also likes to have her own way. All the time.

There’s something wrong with this phone,