Chapter 1

$100? No, I’ll give you $20. And so it went that afternoon. There were a lot of people for a Friday afternoon, just those that saw the ad, ‘Moving, everything must go!’. I should have said, to come and try to ‘steal’ what you can. That was the way I felt.

I decided that if Saturday was like this the trash, homeless shelter and a charity would have a few donations. I was not going to just ‘give away’ something I had paid $500 or $600 for and sell it for $20! I would rather give them away to charity; besides the main thing I was trying to sell was the car. It was a top end Lexus, less than 4 years old. New today they were like over $70,000. I wanted $29,000 and badly needed the cash.

Like more than one other divorcee, or soon to be, I was alone now. I was thankful I would not be a single mom at 26. Husband wanted, and I gave him, the divorce. He and the 16-year old ‘Miss Bakersfield, ‘ or whatever, were going to add to the population boom soon.

Small problem though, formerly he and I worked together and I would be damned if that was going to continue. We both were still paying off our Med school loans, rented a house and the business was a small clinic we both worked at and neither of us owned it. Read neither of us were flush with money. I hope ‘Miss Bakersfield’ gets what she deserves.

“What?” That sounded catty? I hope so. The good thing was, he was gone; the bad, he was gone. Going to bed now took on a whole new meaning. I had used the Internet to select someplace where the weather was not too hot, too cold, too wet, cloudy or dry. There seemed only to be a few candidates with populations large enough for a new doctor, I thought.

My starting cities were, Phoenix, Charlotte, Denver and Richmond. Other possible sites included, Atlanta, Mesa, Lexington, Annapolis, Omaha, Des Moines and Cincinnati. These alternates had rated 50 or 60% of the things that seemed important to me. Remembering that phrase about beggars not being choosy. I gave all 11 sites to an agency to see where I might be needed.

Seattle, Miami, Las Vegas and Dallas all came up as having spots right now for me. Not the life style for me. I could have stayed in LA or gone to NYC if I wanted a ‘rat race’ life style. No, I wanted, no needed, to find someplace for 5 or 10 years, pay off my bills and establish myself. A clinic or small hospital with an Emergency wing would be ideal. I think a ‘trauma’ response situation would offer me the challenge and growth a new doctor like me needed. The problem I faced was, Ta Da, I needed a job. Like now. That beggar thing popped up it’s ugly head again.

I even called my old Med School to see if they had any leads. A couple came in. Africa, The Middle East, China and some place that was 32 letters long in India came up first. Not me, I thought. There were openings at the VA, a lot, all over too. Navy in Maryland and Air Force had become serious options now. ‘Can I speak German?’ became the first interview question.

The phone rang! At the 11th hour, like most things in life, the voice on the other end was offering me a job. If I counted up the 10 or 11 things that I had told the agency were ‘must haves’. This met exactly ZERO of them. But it was a real job, with subsidized housing. In addition to a decent salary, if I stayed for five years, half my school loans would be paid off by them.

Albuquerque New Mexico. I thought I had seen it on a map somewhere. I looked it up on the Internet. Yep, there it was; right between walk and don’t walk, the desert and mountains all around, foothills they wrote. When I checked further a bit, I was really surprised. The weather there was rated as the best, not just in the top 10, but number ‘uno’ for all-round weather. Looks like I’ll be brushing up on my Spanish.

The blurb about crime, rape, murder and gangs seemed to pass on by. I laughed at that! LA was not in the top three, for nothing. I called Mr. Sanchez back and told him to get a scalpel ready with my name on it. I would be there in two weeks.

He took my e-mail, sent me a confirmation offer, which I accepted. Something about the hospital, a planned expansion, new services including my desire, an Emergency center.

Then he almost knocked my socks off; had I been wearing any, by saying the place I would be staying was subsidized, all right. It was free for up to five years!

‘Try us, you’ll like us, and you’ll want to stay’ became like a mantra now. It was a two-bedroom apartment, only two and a half blocks away from the job. It had been part of a rehab project and had housed a slew of doctors and nurses for the hospital.

He told me that my recommendation from school and the real world experiences in LA made me a ‘prime new hire’ for them. They planned an Emergency room to be in service within two years. They currently had some of the services available on a limited basis, and were planning on adding more.

One problem, he said, was a lack of doctors and nurses. Extra funding would be nice too but he was working on that. There might be a ‘deal’ with the VA and military in the offing.

Another problem, he said, was keeping me once I got there: hence, the free apartment.

‘Not too shabby!’ I thought. The idea of walking to work seemed unreal. Here in LA, I spend four to five hours, on a good day, driving back and forth. Maybe I would get a hobby with that extra time. Right! From the way he was telling me about staff shortfalls, I would be lucky to have only twelve hour days, seven days a week.

‘Experience, Leslie, experience, ‘ I told myself.

Sam read the ad. He needed a car. He needed one badly. LA was not for him. Too many memories; bad ones. The four-year-old Lexus seemed as though it was going to be more than he could afford; but hey, the address was less than thirty miles away via expressway, or five by the way a crow would fly. LA did not have the easiest of highways to navigate. He knew of no other cities than LA and NYC that had ‘traffic jams’ at three am.

At $49.99 a day and 38 cents a mile, he wanted his own car. Prison was somewhere he wanted to forget. His ex was another. If he had it to do over again ... yep, he would do the same thing to her ‘boy toy.’ Hell, they did that to bulls didn’t they. Five years ‘inside, ‘ and 5 on probation seemed ... Seemed? Hell, it was Hell. He had to start over, somewhere. He had been a ‘model’ inmate. His parol Officer would allow him to move. He just had to register, wherever, as long as it was in the US. He drove on; not even thinking ‘Destiny’ beckoned.

The suburb he drove into was much like any other in Southern California. It was built onto a leveled portion of a cliff, and the house was barely bigger than the small bungalow that he grew up in. There we not so many cars around but they, as did he, had to park on the street. The incline caused him to set the brake and turn the wheels in. He wondered then what San Francisco was like. He had heard that each day they lost a car or two to this feature.

There was a lot of things set out on the drive and on the lawn. He saw and read a hand lettered sign by the entrance that listed a few pieces of furniture that were inside and for sale. Not of any interest for him. He saw the pearl shine of the Lexus in the garage. That’s where he gravitated, looking casually at one or two ‘man’ things. Most everything else was geared to a female. Even the color of the car would not be the first choice for a guy, but it looked good.

Upon closer inspection he noticed a few dings and scratches. The tires were gone and he decided to inspect under the bonnet and inside the car.