Flat Rock Salvation

FLAT ROCK SALVATION

By Bob Gabbert

Bob Gabbert e-Books

Publisher: Smashwords, Inc.

ISBN: 9781310284052

Copyright

Copyright © 2014 by Bob Gabbert

All rights reserved, except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission by the publisher.

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Smashbook Edition: November 2014

First revision: December 2014

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

About the Book

Amy Beth Cook does not see her future in hot, dusty, and small Flat Rock, Texas, where she grew up. When a stranger offers to make her a star, she is naïve and desperate enough to grab the opportunity to leave Flat Rock, only to discover that she’s been sold into a life of prostitution in New York City.

Amy escapes and lives on the streets of New York where she enters a whole new world of living by her wits, stealing food, clothes, and sleeping in cars at night. She hides out in the New York Public Library and discovers a thirst for learning and educates herself.

John Schwartz owns a modeling agency, and when he sees Amy, he recognizes the great potential of her youth and beauty. With modeling school completed, she’s taken under the wing of Karen Delany at the modeling agency. Karen becomes her guide to high fashion, to modeling, and to life—a mother.

Amy becomes spokes model for PK Cosmetics, a breakaway firm from Calvin Klein. She takes the modeling name Kristi Burlington, and overnight she becomes a sensation.

Kristi Burlington tours America as PK Cosmetics goes national. She becomes world famous, and PK Cosmetics goes international. Kristi Burlington makes Paris and London and Rome her own, and then it’s time to introduce PK Cosmetics to the Middle East.

On the way to a local university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Kristi Burlington and Karen are kidnapped. No one knows what happens to them until Kristi Burlington appears in a video where terrorists threatening to cut off her head if US troops are not withdrawn from the Muslim Holy Land within 30 days. Kristi Burlington has 30 days to live.

Table of Contents

Title Page

About the Book

Chapter One

Chapter Ten

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-Six

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter One

The New York Journal American, May 13, front page:

American Supermodel Kidnapped

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, US Ambassador Henry Wainwright told reporters last night that Kristi Burlington, the supermodel representing PK Cosmetics, has been kidnapped. He said that Ms Burlington had been in Riyadh for two days, and she was scheduled to appear before a group of Saudi students at King Saud University, but that on the way to the university, her limousine disappeared without a trace. Thus far, no person or group has claimed responsibility for her disappearance.

Amy Beth Cook was born on January 14. It was a Sunday. Her father, Bobby Joe, wasn’t at the hospital in Abilene, Texas, for her birth. He and others were at the Flat Rock Community Center watching the Super Bowl on a large-screen TV. The Miami Dolphins defeated the Washington Redskins 14 to 7. Being born on Super Bowl Sunday was only the first major event that Amy would be associated with in her star-crossed life.

It was ironic that Amy was born on Super Bowl Sunday, because Flat Rock, Texas, was known for only one thing—football. Conversation among Flat Rockers was dominated by what happened on the high school football field on Friday nights. If football was not in season, then conversation turned to what happened last season or what was going to happen next season.

Amy’s mother, Helen, was 17 when she got pregnant, and dropped out of school to marry 22-year-old Bobby Joe Cook. Before Amy was two, Bobby Joe ran off with another high school girl and never came back. Helen, who never finished high school, did her best to provide for her daughter. She put food on the table, but there wasn’t enough money for much of anything else.

Houston’s Café was the only place in town to eat for the 922 people who call themselves Flat Rockers. If other choices were desired, Abilene was 15 miles away. Tom Houston was killed during World War II, but the several owners of the small café since then had always kept the name. Mel Johnson bought the small café 11 years ago. He often wonders why.

Mel was married when he came to Flat Rock, but after two years of living in Flat Rock, his wife ran off with a traveling salesman and never came back. She wasn’t the only woman to grab an opportunity to leave Flat Rock.

Boys and men had some opportunity to leave by joining the military. Occasionally one was good enough to get a football scholarship to college, but most ended up farming or ranching, or working on construction or in an office in Abilene.

The girls and women of Flat Rock had even fewer opportunities. When Amy graduated from high school, the military was not yet a viable option for women. Consequently, most young women got married soon after high school and started raising a family. Some became beauticians and worked in the two salons in Flat Rock, but most worked in Abilene as filing clerks or secretaries.

Amy started working at Houston’s Café when she was 13. She worked after school, on weekends, and full time during summers. Her mother also started working there when she was 13. Child Labor Laws didn’t mean much in Flat Rock where everyone in the family had to work to make ends meet.

When Amy graduated from high school, her mother switched to the evening shift, so Amy could work days. She wanted Amy to have her nights free so she could meet someone, get married, and leave home.

That was definitely not Amy’s plan. She really didn’t have a plan except to leave Flat Rock, but she definitely knew she didn’t want to get married and have a bunch of kids, and then work hand-to-mouth the rest of her life like her mother had.

Helen Cook was an orphan raised by an elderly aunt in Flat Rock. When she got pregnant in high school with Amy, she didn’t see it as a problem, because Bobby Joe was going to treat her right. After Bobby Joe ran off and left her, it ended even the possibility that she might finish high school. Consequently, Amy was raised in an environment where education was not promoted or even thought necessary—for girls.

Momma, what if I wanted to get out of here and go to college?

You know we can’t afford college. If you don’t want to work in the café, then go to beauty school at night and become a hairdresser? It pays a lot more than working in the café.

Amy was a cheerleader for all four years of high school. She was very intelligent, but no one would ever know that from her C+ average grade. School didn’t challenge her, and she was bored with it. Her grades might have even been lower, but the school required cheerleaders to have at least a C average. C average was easy and didn’t distract from her dreams of the world that she read about in magazines.

She was blessed with great beauty. She had long blonde hair, blue eyes, and a perfect complexion, combined with a firm slim figure that kept boys up late at night thinking about her.

Amy had all of the attributes necessary to make it in the world, but there had been other beauties like Amy in small towns like Flat Rock. Most of them realized their dreams only in their sleep.

Noah Carl Evans was born in Enid, Oklahoma. Enid is much larger than Flat Rock, but dry-land farming makes the area very similar, and the people are the same type—do anything for you, but wouldn’t hesitate to shoot you if you crossed them.

Noah was just over six feet tall and had sandy blond hair and a freckled, boyish grin. He was handsome in a good-ole-boy sort of way. He was raised on a farm by loving parents. They raised cotton, corn, and alfalfa, and during the good years made enough money to send Noah to Oklahoma State University where he graduated with a mechanical engineering degree.

Navy recruiters were on campus the year Noah graduated, and seeing the world seemed like a dream come true, so he joined the Navy. He was sent to Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he was commissioned as a Navy Ensign. He received orders to report to the pre-commissioning crew of the USS Arleigh Burke DDG-51 at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. He was assigned as division officer for auxiliary machinery with 12 enlisted sailors in his charge.

While living in Bath and helping to organize how the ship would operate once it was commissioned, Noah fell in love with Julie, a local woman, and they got married. Ten months later, they had a daughter they named Annie. Annie was only seven months old when Julie was killed in a car accident. It devastated Noah. He was brought up to believe that there was only one woman for each man; consequently he thought the romantic portion of his life was over. When the Burke was commissioned, Noah took Annie to live with his parents in Oklahoma.

The Burke was commission less than two months after Amy Cook graduated from high school. By then Noah was a lieutenant junior grade and he was promoted to main propulsion assistant, second only to the chief engineer in the engineering department. However after the death of his wife, his priorities changed. After three months at sea, he volunteered for Navy SEAL training in San Diego, California. He thought that since SEALs were based in San Diego and Little Creek, Virginia, he would be able to spend more time with his daughter.

Karen Delany was born in Newburgh, New York. Unlike the hot and dry country where Amy and Noah grew up, Karen grew up along the green banks of the Hudson River. She graduated from the State University of New York at New Paltz with a marketing degree, and headed to New York City to start her career.

John Schwartz had just started his Models and Talent Agency when Karen applied for a job. Schwartz only had one client at the time, but Karen was a beautiful young woman, and he hired her to be the secretary, the receptionist, and to run his one-man office. Although he was married, within weeks he and Karen were having an affair that lasted for almost six years.

Even after the affair ended, Karen was indispensible in running the office, so she continued to work for Schwartz. Over time, they became best friends, but there was always a spark between them that kept Karen from marrying anyone else.

Chapter Two

In Houston’s Café where Amy worked, pictures of football players from days gone by were displayed behind the counter and around the walls. Every now and then a farmer or rancher would point to his picture on the wall and talk about the zenith of his high school fame.

An old jukebox with a cracked glass sat near the front entrance with country music on it. It played songs by Roy Acuff or Hank Snow rather than Ronnie Milsap or Reba McEntire, and most in Flat Rock had never heard of Garth Brooks or Taylor Swift. Playing a song on the jukebox still only cost a dime or three songs for a quarter.

The L-shaped counter had an opening at the turn so the waitress could go through to serve the four booths located along the wall where the windows were. The four booths and seven seats at the counter were usually enough to serve locals and the occasional traveler who stopped in from Interstate 20. If it was an especially busy day, two additional tables could be set up in the middle.

Afternoons during football season were usually quiet times at the café. On Fridays, Flat Rockers were getting ready to go to the game that evening. On Saturdays, they shopped for groceries in the morning, ate lunch at Houston’s Café, and spent the afternoon watching college football on TV. On Sundays, they went to church in the morning, had lunch at Houston’s Café, and then went home to watch an NFL game in the afternoon.

One such lazy Sunday afternoon, Amy sat on a stool behind the cash register filing her nails. Mel leaned across the counter from behind it reading a newspaper with the ever-present wooden matchstick in his mouth. He didn’t smoke, but he always had a matchstick in his mouth. When someone asked why, his standard reply was, So people like you can ask silly questions.

Mel, Amy shouted, turn that air conditioner up! It’s hot in here.

Mel didn’t move.

Amy shook her head and went to the wall thermostat and lowered the temperature. I swear, Mel. I know why your wife ran off—you wouldn’t move if you were on fire.

Mel didn’t reply.

Mel had a couple of women in Flat Rock who cooked breakfast for him from time to time. He even made a pass at Amy a couple of times. She slapped his face, but he still copped a feel every now and then. She didn’t mind a friendly pat on the butt. It showed he liked her.

Mel was not the only man in Flat Rock who appreciated Amy’s shapely bottom and gave it a pat from time to time. She was almost 19 and smart enough not to get pregnant right out of high school. It’s not that she didn’t have the opportunity.

I can’t wear that thing, Amy. I can’t feel anything with it on.

Then forget it; I’m not going to have a baby!

What if you did, Amy? We’re going to get married anyway, so what’s the big deal?

Mike! I’m not going to marry you or anybody else in this dump. I’m waiting for Mr Right to come and take me away from here.

I thought me and you and Bud and Bitsy were going to get married and live in that duplex we saw that time.

We were kids then, Mike. I’m a grown woman now. I have needs, she said, climbing over the seat into the front of the car.

I have needs too, Amy.

I’m not in the mood.

Come back here and I’ll get you in the mood.

She turned on the seat and glared at him. Do you have a million dollars? No! Do you have a nice car? No! Do you ever take me anywhere that we don’t end up here? No! Take me home.

"But Amy!"

It was not the first or last time their date would have such an ending. Mike wanted to get married. It was the only thing he knew to do after high school—get married, have children, buy a house with a long mortgage, and work the rest of his life trying to pay for it, just like his father before him and his father’s father.

When Amy and Mike broke up, Bud left Bitsy and started dating Amy. Bud was no more successful than Mike had been. You may as well go back to Bitsy, because I’m not marrying you or anyone else in this dump.

I can’t go back to Bitsy. She’s going with Mike now.

With the very limited supply of boys and girls in Flat Rock, Amy’s former boyfriend, Mike, did the only thing he knew to do. He and Bitsy got married four months later. Their first child was born seven months after that.

In September, a year after Amy graduated from high school, she was beginning to think she’d never leave Flat Rock, but her luck was about to change.

She was sitting at the cash register reading a novel when a man about 35 came in. Amy put the book down. Can I help you? When she looked up, her heart did a flip. Leo Nelson was tall, handsome, and wearing a suit and tie. The only thing missing was a white horse.

He smiled. Where should I sit?

Sit here, she said, patting the counter next to the cash register.

He looked around the empty café. Where is everybody?

Football—they’re playing Cross Plains this afternoon.

He shrugged. I don’t know much about football.

I was a cheerleader, she said proudly. What will you have?

What’s good here?

Me! she blurted out without thinking. She blushed. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Mel is at the game, but he made a couple of sandwiches before he left, and chips of course.

He smiled at her embarrassment and sat down at the counter. I think I liked the first thing you mentioned.

A sandwich?

No. Before that.

Her face turned crimson again. Me?

Less than five minutes later, Amy had him in the back where Mel had a small bed. She didn’t even lock the front door.

Half an hour later, she was sitting next to him watching him eat. What’s your name?

Jim. My name is Jim, he lied. He was good at lying.

I’m Amy. Don’t think I do that with just anybody.

Oh, I don’t. I’m special, he said teasing her. He got up. How much do I owe you?

It was my pleasure.

No, I mean for the food.

Oh! she giggled, Of course. With tax, $9.03.

He put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter. Keep the change.

Wow! Thanks. Where are you going?

Dallas. I have to catch a flight home. I do business in Abilene, and I usually fly, but I wanted to see the countryside, so this time I drove.

Are you going to drive next time?

"I will definitely drive if you’re going to be here."

She kissed him. "I will definitely be here."

Over the next month, Nelson stopped by the café three more times. Amy kept asking him where he lived, what kind of work he did, and other personal information, but he was well practiced at deceiving his targets.

On the third visit, they were lying in bed when he said, Okay, I’ll tell you. My name is Jim Brown. I was named after the famous football player.

She frowned. You were named after Jim Brown and you don’t know anything about football?

He ran his hand along her exposed leg and laughed. No, I’m more into… fun things like this. Amy, you and I could make a lot of money.

Doing what? You haven’t told me what is it that you do?

He rolled over onto his back. Why bother? You probably wouldn’t leave this town.

"Yes, I would. I’m dying to leave. I’ll go anywhere with you."

He turned on his side. Do you mean that?

Yes. I would have gone with you that first time if you’d just said the word.

What about your parents?

"There’s just Momma—she works the evening shift. My daddy ran off when I was little. Momma says he was killed in an accident, but I think he just wanted to get out of this town. So do I. I’ll do anything to get out of here."

Anything?

Well, I’m not going to shoot somebody or something stupid like that.

How would you like to go to Hollywood and become an actress?

She sat up with eyes wide. I would love to be a movie star! Do you really think I can?

Sure you can. You’re beautiful, sexy—you have a great body. I know people who could make it happen. How would you like to make $100 dollars every night?

Do they make movies at night?

"No,