A Guide to a Happier Life

By Allison Drennan

Liz knew it would be the story of a lifetime, but was it worth dying for? 

Elizabeth Kohen, a young journalist trapped in a dead end job, takes on an assignment that she thinks could be the story of a lifetime. Desperate for a sense of professional fulfillment, she flies to New Mexico to meet a man who vanished decades ago. 

Raymond Kowalski was an internationally renowned artist, until he orchestrated his own disappearance. Now he’s an aging squatter in New Mexico’s back country, with no family, friends, or legal identity. In Elizabeth, he sees an opportunity that he can’t resist; the chance to be the author of his own legacy. 

When they meet, it will change both of their lives forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barely Salvageable
• Release date: May 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781943522033

Allison Drennan

Tina Shelton is an author, a student, a mother, a wife, and a pretty good cook. She grew up in Wyoming until she achieved escape velocity and moved to Western Washington. From there she’s visited Japan, France and Belgium. She’s also seen some interesting sights closer to home, having visited Yellowstone Park, Devil’s Tower, Mt. Rushmore, as well as traveling north to Whistler, B.C. and enjoying the Vancouver B.C. area as well. She’s a humongous nerd who is married to an even bigger nerd, and they are raising their little nerdling to appreciate the classics as well as introducing him to new and marvelous stories. She like to be social and hang out with her friends, she enjoys taking walks and cooking up new stories, and she likes to drive and listen to podcasts. That may sound a little dull, but that’s because she’s an escapist and spends a lot of time letting her imagination roam freely. All the better to write with.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Liz needed to get off the plane. It felt like a coffin, the stuff of mine shaft disaster stories, just wrapped up in hygienic plastic and accompanied by a safety lecture. It made her skin crawl.

It was true that she was a nervous flyer, and this flight was too short to make taking a sedative practical. She’d had to make due with a glass of wine to get her through take-off, and that had long since worn off, leaving her headachey and enervated for the descent. Take-off and landing were always the worst. This time, like every time, she clenched the armrests and the fear she felt became more and more prolonged, until she wished with every part of her that the plane would crash, because then at least death would bring an end to this terror.

She had found herself an hour in, flicking her finger across the screen of her tablet, looking at things that she’d already read but unable to stop herself from fidgeting. The airlines packed people in like steers on cattle cars, and her left sleeve felt damp from the sweat of her seatmate. With so many people in such a small space, vital tasks such as napping and going to the bathroom suddenly became collaborative efforts, dependent on the goodwill of ones fellow passengers. Like chimps caged too close, people were likely to act out.

The fact was, airplanes and airports were bleak in-between places, thousands of people thrown together, with no established community or social hierarchy. With societal norms discarded, nobody knew exactly how to act other than to ignore one another and hope for the best. Airports in particular were strange. They always felt enormous to her. The newer the airport, the bigger it felt. But all of that extra space was marginal; it was in high ceilings, in large banks of windows, in airy vaults that people would never use. She wondered if these enormous, unusable spaces were constructed to distract passengers from the fact that their personal space would routinely be invaded for however long their travel lasted; by authorities, by staff, by fellow passengers. As though all that space near the ceiling served as a surrogate space in the mind of the observer and numbed them to the feeling of constantly being intruded on.

Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am? Ma’am?

Liz looked up, annoyed by the repetitive noise, and found herself eye to eye with a contrite looking stewardess. Yes? She smoothed her face into a mask of calm professionalism. The woman stood awkwardly in the aisle of the plane amid a crush of impatient passengers, stretched tall to rummage through the bags in the overhead bin.

Is this your bag, ma’am?

No, Liz responded without bothering to look. It was the first time she could remember being called ma’am, rather than miss, and it had happened four times in the span of a minute.

Do you have a bag up here?

No, I have my bag. None of those bags are mine. Liz did her best to suppress the annoyance in her voice

Thank you, the flight attendant said, looking downward, and moved on to the next passenger.

It wasn’t the stewardess that was the root cause of her foul mood. With the plane parked at the jetway, there was some kind of delay that left her standing, slightly hunched beneath the overhead bin, trapped there by the crush of passengers in the aisle ahead of her and the sweaty seatmate behind her. The interior of the plane was warming quickly as New Mexico sun streamed in through the thick oblong windows. With the ventilation off, the air was still and heavy with the hallitosic exhalations of her fellow passengers. She felt the same kind of directionless irritation that one might feel behind a motorist paused just a half-second too long at a stop sign; an irritation that had no rational cause and no rational outlet.

Liz realized that her hand had strayed to her jeans pocket and was fidgeting with a folded piece of paper, rubbing the layers against one another with her thumb and forefinger. She imagined that she could feel the catch and release of each microscopic fiber in the surface of the paper as they slid across one another. She recognized it as nervous fidgeting, and slowly, deliberately pulled her hand out of the pocket. Her therapist had told her that adopting a calm manner would help; that the brain would respond to anxious behavior by increasing her anxiety, and that the opposite was also true. She took a deep breath and let her shoulders slowly relax and sink lower, trying to position her hands in what she thought was a relaxed shape, neither balled nor bladed.

She knew exactly what was on the paper. She knew because she had stared at it long enough to have memorized it; long enough that, had she the ability to draw, she could’ve reproduced a good likeness of it. It was a printout, in color, of a photo that she had been e-mailed, along with the text, "I expect that you haven’t seen any photos of me since I was in my thirties. I don’t know that my face is that much altered by the years, but I had a friend take this for me to send you as an aid to recognition. See you at ABQ."

She remembered when she first read those words; she had felt a rush of giddy excitement, not unlike infatuation. It took her back to those long months she spent researching him in college, pouring over photos of his drawings and portraits. The weeks spent reading about his meteoric climb to fame, and his sudden status as a foul-mouthed golden god.

She remembered one photo in a tabloid that had been taken while he was out shopping with a couple of blonde women at his side. He was standing facing the camera, and had spread his arms up and outward like christ on the cross, but instead of the lolling head and the eyes closed in divine agony, he was gazing straight down the barrel of the camera, and smirking. The photo was iconic. She remembered even that a stray curl of hair had fallen across his brow on the left side of his face. Such audacity, such flair; such a multi-layered statement captured in one silent moment across a busy street.

He had been perhaps the closest thing a young Liz had to a personal idol. While other young women at her school were fawning over musicians and hunky actors, this one rough character had caught her eye. Despite his demeanor, his work revealed a sensitivity to her that pulled at her heart, and the outrageous things he said and did made sense to her in a way that set her brain on fire.

The photo she now had in her pocket didn’t show that outrageous youngster. Instead, it showed a smiling man who did not look much past forty-five, though she knew him to be older than that. He was standing in the shade of some structure, but outside of that pool of shadow, the landscape was so badly overexposed that much of it was washed out to white by the sunlight. The man’s skin was tan, and creased in places where the younger’s had not been; around the eyes, across the forehead, and around his smile. His hair, much longer now than it had been in his youth, looked blonde instead of light brown, perhaps bleached by the sun, perhaps lightened by grey hairs. His eyes were the same startling clear blue as the sullen and smirking youngster’s, but that sullenness was replaced by an easy smile and well-worn laugh lines.

The man in the photo was the man she’d come to this crossroads to meet; one Raymond Kowalski. An artist of both note and notoriety, he had burst onto the scene in New York before she’d even been born. His productive years ended in 1997, when she was a teenager and he had simply vanished into thin air. Not even his family or friends could provide his whereabouts. There had been rumors of his death combined with rumors of sightings for five or ten years after that, and then he’d more or less dropped from the national consciousness. He had left his mark on American culture, though. His work appeared in the materials she had studied pursuing an art history minor, and on posters hung in college dorm rooms. And Liz was on her way to interview him.

She held the photo as a kind of talisman against failure, as though its physical presence added some kind of certainty to the adventure she was on. She was terrified that there would be some kind of disconnect, and that she would end up in Albuquerque with no guide, no plan, and suddenly no agenda.

It was normal to be nervous, she knew that. But the worries spinning around in her brain seemed to grow ever larger the closer that she got to her goal. She was worried that she’d wind up at loose ends, that she’d forgotten some item while she was packing her bags, that she and her subject wouldn’t form the necessary rapport. That she would lose her job and not be able to find other work in the industry. That he would end up being a crazy person, perhaps even violent. Underneath all of that was a hulking and voiceless dread; the oh-so familiar impression that any small failure could represent an existential threat. All of those little worries were just different faces of that enormous black hydra of fear. A feeling that threatened to swallow her alive.

She knew it was irrational, and so she treated it like she would treat the crazy person on the bus. Don’t look, don’t engage, don’t give it any more power than it already has. She reminded herself that despite the flight and the worry, this was an opportunity. More, it was an opportunity that she had created. One that she had worked for, bargained for, and pleaded for. After all that had gone before, there was no way she’d back down now. She followed in the footsteps of thousands of journalists; people who neither asked for permission nor waited their turn, but reached out to grab what they wanted. Men and women who were bold, who took risks in pursuit of the truth.

Relief washed over her as the people standing in front of her started to move down the aisle of the plane. After a half an hour on the tarmac, the air in the cabin was close to ninety degrees, and none of the passengers seemed amenable to the polite farewells from the flight crew as they filed into the yet still warmer jetway. By the time she had walked up to the concourse, her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow.

The air conditioning washed over her like a revelation, lifting her mood considerably as she walked through the airport. She followed the signs to baggage claim, down a long hallway and an escalator, and felt her nerves starting to return. The baggage claim area was huge and boundless; how would she find him? She knew he wouldn’t want to draw extra attention to himself, and there were so many people. He hadn’t even specified that he’d meet her at baggage claim, just that he wouldn’t be able to meet her at the arrival gate, due to some difficulties with identification. She swallowed against the fear and walked to the carousel marked for her flight.

The advantage to the slightly quirky thrift store suitcase was that they’re often very easy to spot among newer, more expensive bags. It seemed to take forever for the first bag to plop onto the conveyor, and then she watched dozens of drab suitcases parade before her. People crowded around closer, picking off their own bags as they recognized them. Finally she saw the familiar bright purple nylon fabric with its lattice of scuffs, and took two long steps toward the carousel. She reached out to grab it and found she was placing her hand on top of someone else’s.

E- excuse me, but this is my bag, she said, startled, looking up toward the hand’s owner.

Is it now? asked the owner of the hand, as he pulled the suitcase off of the belt. His voice rippled with laughter and his eyes looked merry.

There was no need to retrieve the photo from her pocket; even with the cowboy hat pulled down over his forehead, she knew immediately who this was. You’re Raym…

Ray will do just fine, he said curtly, cutting her off and looking surreptitiously around their immediate area. You’re Elizabeth?

Yeah.

She was stunned by the reality of him. The photos she’d seen of him from his working days all portrayed him as boyish, even though he was in his twenties and thirties at the time. They never gave a real impression of the stature of the man. He towered over her by at least a half foot, and that combined with his wide shoulders made him seem like a giant. She felt the urge to step back from him and resisted it. His face had been refined by age rather than marred by it, and his eyes were warm and kind.

There was a force of presence radiating from him, a sureness of identity that was difficult to resist, but which also in a way repelled her. Here he was, flesh and blood. No longer a legend, distantly removed. No longer an object for adoration, or a spectacle for her amusement. Being confronted with him suddenly felt confusing and complicated.

Let’s get out of here, he said, looking down at her. Like soon.

Okay, we’re headed for the shuttle to the rental car facility.

Ray scanned the signs hanging from the ceiling, muttering under his breath, and then set off in the direction of the shuttle, his long strides eating up the ground.

Hey, I can carry my own bag! she called after him, trotting to keep up.

Come on, let an old man be of some use, he said over his shoulder.

Why are you in such a hurry?

He paused to let her catch up. There’s a woman over there staring at me. I don’t like it. He spoke softly, leaning down so she could hear him.

Outside, Ray passed her suitcase off to an attendant at the shuttle, who stowed it in the luggage rack near the front of the bus. She sat in the closest empty row, and Ray plopped into the seat next to her. The engine of the bus was idling as they waited for more passengers. Liz felt Ray looking at her, and looked up.

What? she asked.

Hi, he said, grinning as he reached out his right hand.

Hi… she said, fumbling with the purse in her lap as she freed her hand to accept the handshake.

You’re quieter than I expected.

I’m actually finding this situation pretty awkward, and I’m just eager to get the car.

I always expect you media people to be real chatty. He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. You know, forceful. Shouting questions and demanding the truth and stuff like that.

What?

Well, I may have had an adversarial relationship with the press in the past, but I guess I just expected you to be more... hard-nosed and pushy. I was pretty nervous about meeting you, after hearing how you buffaloed Peter. But it turns out you're, I don't know, so small and normal. To hear him tell it you were some kind of fire breathing monster.

Liz pressed her lips into a thin line. Okay, first of all, what you need to understand is that I'm an adult woman, and I'm here because I worked to get myself here. The doors to the bus closed, and the vehicle started to move. I wasn't sent here, and I'm not here on anyone's good graces. Second, neither my size nor my gender are relevant to the task at hand.

I didn't mean...

Liz looked at him expectantly, and he lapsed into silence, abandoning the unfinished thought. The bus stopped at the car rental facility.

You know, really, you are here on someone's good graces, he said, standing in the aisle to let her out.

Oh, and whose are those?

Mine.

Liz had reserved the rental car weeks in advance of her flight to New Mexico. It seemed more prudent than just waiting to see what happened to be available. As a result the wait was short. As she completed the paperwork and retrieved the keys, she could feel Ray standing behind her and just to one side, a large and silent presence following in her wake. She had the impression that he was watching her, puzzling over her, trying to figure her out.

Liz stepped out of the lobby and into the brilliant afternoon sun. Their car was one of hundreds laid out in long rows in the lot, parked neatly under shady metal canopies to spare them the harshest of the elements. It was a nondescript late model sedan in a silvery grey. It was so normal, in fact, that Liz imagined it was the corporeal manifestation of the average across all cars in the United States.

Liz fumbled with the electronic fob on the keychain, and popped the lid of the trunk. Ray lifted her suitcase into the trunk of the car, and went around to the passenger side to wait. Liz let herself in the driver’s side, and reached across to unlock his door. While he settled in the passenger side seat, she adjusted the mirrors.

It’s not a driving test. Let’s get out of here, Ray said.

Liz rolled her eyes. Do you want to drive?

Ray put his hand on the door handle and looked at her. We can do that.

No, nevermind, she said, and he settled back into the seat, smirking.

The car had the kind of smell that all rental cars have, the smell of a car that is frequently cleaned and perfumed, but still retains a ghost of the smells of its former occupants; tobacco smoke, fried foods, old colognes and perfumes. It was a bouquet both strange and familiar. The aroma of her traveling companion and guide was present as well… the smell of a person’s breath, the smell of clean skin with just a hint of acrid sweat, the smell of warm leather and that peculiar subtle musk that men seem to have and that women seem to lack. And then there was the ever present mineral aroma of the desert itself… a smell she had initially thought of as a lack of odor.

She fished the key out of her purse and put it into the ignition. The car started easily and ran smoothly and quietly; a good omen. She put it in drive and then hesitated.

So, where are we going? she asked Ray.

Us? We’re headed south.

CHAPTER TWO

The plane tickets arrived in the day’s mail, and as she held them in her hands they felt strangely warm. The put them carefully in a drawer in the kitchen of her apartment, and looked at them one more time before reluctantly pushing the drawer closed.

She stood for a moment in the dimly lit room, overwhelmed with a feeling that she couldn’t put name to. It was a feeling that straddled the line between excitement and fear; it was not unpleasant, but it left her in a trembling paralysis between fight and flight.

Tension was just energy without action, her therapist said, and there were certainly actions to be taken. She poured herself a glass of wine and walked out to the living room.

The apartment was not large, and the living room was more of a widened hallway filling in space between the kitchen and the lone bedroom. A single lamp glowed in the corner, leaving the rest of the area in dim shadow. She kept the place tidy largely by not spending a lot of time there, a trend that