Double Wide by Gretchen Archer

Author:Gretchen Archer [Archer, Gretchen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cozy Mystery
ISBN: 1737245620
Amazon: B097RKXTCN
Goodreads: 58436719
Publisher: Author
Published: 2020-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Fantasy Is Off to Light Our Rescue Fire!

Dear Bradley,

Honestly, I can’t believe it’s come to this. I can’t believe how long we’ve been here. I can’t believe, when everything is stripped away, what matters and what doesn’t. Finding forty gallons of water and shoes matters. Finding a way to light a rescue fire matters.

We poked through the golf garbage looking for a book of matches. There were none. The whole time we were poking, me in my duck boots, Fantasy in her new peep-toed golf shoes, the stove was right behind us. We didn’t realize it because we were in such states of exhaustion, excitement, and vodka. We were exhausted because we had every single right to be. And we were excited because we had enough water to live a few more days, Mango wasn’t dead, we had at least a general idea of where we were, we had shoes on our feet, and we were about to light our rescue fire. The combination of all that was probably how we missed that we were searching for a way to ignite a fire all around an obvious source, the same way we cooked mac and cheese, the stove.

We tore Missouri out of the atlas (sorry, Missouri), rolled it tight, lit it, then used burning Missouri to ignite a tiki torch dune-brush branch. I watched Fantasy from the doublewide door until she and the tiki torch were out of sight, then I made lemongrass tea for Mango. I stirred it with the gold fork. I went in the bedroomette to check on her and found her awake. Weak as a kitten, ghastly pale under the rash and camphorweed paste, still with the fever, she hadn’t moved an inch, but her eyes were open.

She took in my new outfit, the Waffle House cup, and the gold fork.

I pulled up a chair.

(I sat on the tiny sliver of wood between the two skinny closets at the foot of the bed. I think there’s supposed to be a small television there.)

First, I said, “How are you feeling, Mango?”

She croaked, “What happened?”

I told her she’d probably contracted Zika virus from a mosquito. She asked how long she’d been out. I told her at least ten or twelve hours. She asked if she was going to die. I told her she’d feel better when her fever broke.

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Mango?” I slowly waved the gold fork. She followed it with her eyes. Then I pulled the printed article Casino Nelson wrote from the waistband of my golf skirt. “You’ve known who we were all along.” She stared straight through me. “What is it you want us to find?”

When she opened her mouth, I truly thought she might give me a straight answer, but instead she told me human brains were 73% water.

I got it.

I held her head and tipped the lemongrass water to her lips. She gulped, sputtered, coughed, and drank almost all of it, then turned away from me. I

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