Last Chance Llama Ranch (28 page)

Sam breathed deliberately through his teeth. “Fine. You know what? I'll take my harsh home and leave you all to your mellow. But you, Miss Manning…I don't want to see your face again until you
fix this
!”

He shouldered his guitar and stomped out into the night.

Guess our truce is over
, Merry thought. It hurt more than she'd expected.

A lot more.

L
ast night I had a rather unpleasant dream, dear readers. In it, I lay paralyzed in my cot while over and over someone whispered in a satanic voice, “Baaaaaaaaad news. Baaaaaaaaaad news.”

When I woke I would have thought nothing of it were it not for a strange and disturbing fact: The door of my cabin was open a crack. And that hellacious smell I mentioned from prior nocturnal visitations? It had returned.

To the list of “Don't Do What I Dids,” I may now with authority add, “Do not overimbibe margaritas, no matter how delicious, if you are subsequently to be haunted by the world's smelliest ghost.

Because feh.

Your friendly neighborhood hungover travel writer,

Merry Manning

Some days it doesn't pay to check email.
Merry scrubbed a hand over her hungover face and hunched down in her booth at the café, which Bob and his helpers had magically put to rights overnight. A cheese-and-chile-smothered breakfast burrito sat next to her laptop, daring her to test her queasy stomach, and a latte with a tiny foam skull and crossbones floating in it steamed at her elbow, promising sweet succor for the margarita-and-shame-induced headache that throbbed behind her eyes.

Café Con Kvetch was as quiet this morning as it had been hopping last night.
And thank God for that
, she thought, fighting the urge to slap shut her laptop and crawl back to her cabin at Dolly's. But like it or not, she was going to have to face this day. She'd tossed and turned all night over Sam's very public diatribe, wondering how much truth there was to it, and what, if anything, she could do to set things right.

She'd grown up with more than most people ever dreamed of having, and she knew it. She'd never wanted for anything, from educational opportunities to financial support. Her parents had enthusiastically backed her in her quest to win Olympic gold, paying for her training, flying her all over the world to compete. She'd had everything a kid could want—unless it was acceptance one wanted. She'd certainly never been through the kinds of things Joey, Thad, and the other Survivors experienced on a daily basis.

Was I insensitive? Am I so used to getting things my way that I'd bulldoze those kids for
the sake of a story?

The truth was, Merry didn't know. She'd never given much thought to the effect her articles might have on their audience—or their subjects. She'd simply never considered herself that influential. Of course, in her competitive days, she'd been conscious of her responsibilities as a role model, and had kept her nose clean. But now?

Does anyone really give a damn what I do?

If I want to know the answer to that
, she told herself,
I'd better see how the column is doing
. She'd been posting as the evening went along last night—she refused to call it live-blogging—but she had no idea how the little experiment had gone over. She switched her attention back to the laptop.

Then groaned again as another email caught her attention.

“You've got to be kidding me!” Merry yelped.

And just as she was digesting that one, another email popped up. It was from her editor, and it said only one thing:

I
've got good news and bad news, kid,” Joel said.

The bandwidth at Café Con Kvetch was as sluggish as Merry herself this morning, causing his face to freeze on the Skype session so Merry couldn't read his expression properly. Her own image, captured in the unfortunate little inset window, was scary enough. Despite her attempts to tame it, her hair seemed determined to escape her pounding headache by standing out all around her head. Her skin was pallid, and dark circles—whether caused by guilty conscience or ghostly visitation was a toss-up—ringed her bloodshot eyes.
Way to be a professional, Merry
, she thought with a wince.

“Which am I going to want first?” she asked the tableau of Joel with half-closed eyes and unhinged jaw. She saw what she feared was egg salad in the depths of his mouth, and shuddered. Her screen jerked and jumped. Her stomach lurched.

A smile burst full blown across his chubby features, then vanished just as quickly. “Good news,” he said definitively. “That'll make
me
feel better, anyway.”

“Okay then…hurry, lay it on me before the connection cuts out.”
Or before that burrito I just finished comes back to visit.
Merry could see Joel lean back in his chair, propping his feet on his desk and very nearly knocking over the takeout container from his lunch. He was wearing a shiny new pair of wingtips, she noted; the cool-kid Converse he'd been sporting last time nowhere in evidence. The red sweater vest he had on over his usual rumpled oxford even looked clean, as if he was posing for a Christmas card photo.

Merry found herself very uneasy.

“Good news is, Don't Do What I Did is now certifiably a thing! Hashtag and all.” Joel paused to let that sink in.

Merry's mouth dropped open, until she caught a glimpse of how unflattering that looked on Skype, and shut it. But…
Ho-ly wow!
Becoming “a thing” on the Internet was a Very Big Deal, as Merry had learned during the many social media lectures she had been required to attend during her tenure at
Pulse
. Like going viral, it was nothing one could control, and every bit as desirable. Because once you were
a thing
, people didn't forget you. If #DontDoWhatIDid was trending, it meant it had made it into the vernacular. “You're shitting me,” she said, hardly able to take it in.

Joel shook his head. “I shit you not. The data is in, and readers are lapping up those llamas like you wouldn't believe. Your numbers are through the roof, and your click-through rate on the ads has half of sales out of the office with celebratory hangovers.”

“That's great! Well, not the part about the hangovers, but you know what I mean.” Merry had a lot of sympathy for hangover victims just at the moment, and even some for their sales force.

Joel smiled indulgently. “Knew ya could do it, kid. And I knew I was a genius for creating Don't Do What I Did in the first place.”

Merry let him have his moment of self-congratulation. She was having one of her own, if more discreetly. “I'm so glad,” she said. “I really think this place is something special. The minute I got here, I knew people would love Dolly and the ranch.”

“That Sam dude is going over even better,” Joel said. “You should read some of the comments after that picture you posted of him playing guitar last night.” He tsked his tongue. “Filthy minds you ladies have.”

I've got no one but myself to blame for that little fiction
, Merry reminded herself. Sam would no doubt go through the roof if he found out she'd snuck a picture of him into her column. Not that it was likely possible to make him any angrier than he already was. “Yeah, well,” she said, “that all sounds fabulous. So what's the bad news?”

Joel was silent long enough that Merry nearly reset the connection.

“Well, kid. Bad news is, you're fired.”

S
orry, Joel, My connection must have cut out. Can you repeat? Heh, heh. You won't believe what I thought you said.” She couldn't tell if the screen was frozen again, or if Joel just looked like an axe-wielding executioner all of a sudden.

“I said you're fired, kid.”

“Shit, Joel. I think I better call you back from a landline. I keep mishearing what you're saying. It's so hard to get a good Wi-Fi connection out here!”

“Kid,” Joel said.

“Yeah, Joel?”

“You didn't hear wrong.”

“But…what about what you just said? About how great DDWID is doing? I mean…
a thing
! You said it's a thing!”

Her editor sighed, reached for a takeout cup and tipped it to his lips. He made a face that said, “Ew, sour milk” and tossed the container in the general direction of his wastebasket, which, like everything else in his office, was filled far beyond its capacity. A small, disconsolate thunk accompanied its dismissal.

A lot like the noise my soul is making
, Merry thought.

“It's nothing you've done, Merry. Thing is,
Pulse
just got bought out, and the new owners aren't keen on a lot of our old content.”

“New owners? What the hell, Joel?! I hadn't heard anything about a buyout.”

“Well, I'm guessing Bloomberg Business isn't part of the cable package out there in North Bumblefuck,” Joel said drily. “Anyhow, word only just came down from corporate last night. Mandate's changed.”

Merry wasn't of a mind to enjoy his attempts at levity. “Who are the new owners?”

“Good Word OmniGlobal,” Joel told her. Even with the poor connection, Merry saw his wince.

“The right-wing Evangelical Christian conglomerate?” Merry noticed that her voice had gotten all funny and high. She swallowed.

“The very same.”

That explained the wingtips and the sweater vest. “But…Joel, why would they want
Pulse
? I mean, we're not exactly their speed.” Merry frowned, bewildered.

“Anything with seven million page views a day is their speed,” Joel said with a sigh. “They're gobbling up sites like the Rapture's tomorrow. And if they don't like the content, they just…
rebrand
it.”

“Can't they rebrand
me
?” Merry asked. “Joel, I promised Dolly. I can't just leave in the middle of my gig…”
And without a home. Or money to rent a new place
.

But it was more than that. She was just getting to know the people of Aguas Milagros. And the longer she stayed, the more she felt their lives deserved better than a few tongue-in-cheek features on the Internet. “I feel like…well, like the story isn't
finished
.”

Joel shook his head. “Afraid it is, kid—at least at
Pulse
. You didn't make the cut. Something about ‘swimming in llama shit' didn't sit well with OmniGlobal. They're sanitizing all our features. You should see what they did to Allison's ‘Advice from an Active Alcoholic.'” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of bourbon, though it couldn't have been later than eleven in the morning in Chicago. Not finding a glass handy, he scrounged around at his feet until he found the Starbucks cup and shook the last of the contents in the vicinity of his garbage pail. He poured a couple of fingers of Maker's Mark into the container and slugged for all he was worth.

“Anyhow, I couldn't save you this time, kid. OmniGlobal plans to make ‘Don't Do What I Did' a cautionary column about underage sex and the perils of rejecting Jesus as your personal lord and savior. Nothing I could do to dissuade them. I'm halfway out the door myself. If I can't get current with Evangelical megachurch culture within the week, I'll be out on my ass.”

“But, Joel, what am I supposed to do? My place in Chicago just kicked me out, and I've got bills like you wouldn't believe. I can't go home, and I can't afford to rent another place either.”

“What about your family? Aren't they insanely rich?”

“Yes,” Merry said through tight lips. “Also insanely insane.”

Joel made a sympathetic face. “Heard that. Family's the worst. Can you believe my wife threw me out last month? Said I was a slob.” He rolled his eyes.

“I can't imagine what possessed her,” Merry murmured.

The look on her editor's face became thoughtful. “What about…can you stay with the woolly folk awhile longer?”

Merry shrugged. “I'm only meant to be here another week or so, until their regular hand comes back from his honeymoon.”
Besides
, she thought,
I dunno about Dolly, but I've sure's hell worn out my welcome with Sam.

“I'm sorry, kiddo. I managed to get you a couple weeks' severance, and we'll pay you to write one final column, but that's about the best I can do. I'm sure you'll land on your feet.”

Merry gulped.
I'm not exactly known for landing on my feet. Not since the accident, anyway.

Joel's “buck up, kiddo” mask slipped into something much closer to sincere. “Listen, Merry. You've got a lot of talent, and this assignment has shown me you've got grit too. We hired you because we thought readers would enjoy the novelty of a badass skier and we could capitalize on your name recognition. But this past year, you've proved you're a badass
writer
too. You've got solid journalistic instincts. You say there's a story still to be told out there. So if it was me? I'd follow the story.”

“But…” Merry protested. “Without
Pulse
, how can I?”

“People can't get enough of your dispatches from llama-land,” Joel said. “So screw OmniGlobal. Direct your fans onto your own site and do whatever the hell you want with 'em. They love you, Merry. You've got a voice that makes readers want to cuddle up with you and rub your feet. They want to eat pie with you and braid your hair at slumber parties. So take that, and make hay with it.”

I can't eat hay
, Merry thought.
Maybe my alpaca friends can, but I need a bit of lettuce, myself
.

“I'll think about it, Joel. And thanks, I guess.”

“Chin up, kid. If you ever need a reference, you can always hit me up. That is, if I'm not editing the Koch brothers' corporate newsletter by then.” Joel gave her a salute, then cut the connection.

Leaving Merry stranded deep in the heart of North Bumblefuck, and facing, once again, a very uncertain future.

She bolted for the bathroom before the burrito could make its second appearance.