Read The Trip to Raptor Bluff Online
Authors: Annie O'Haegan
The Trip to Raptor Bluff
By Annie O’Haegan
This story is dedicated to Laura Wheatley and Clare Uribe
nts
Chapter 3
Hammer Mountain State Park
Brenda, Shelly, Libby, and Pepper
Brenda, Shelly, Libby, and Pepper
Chapter 8
The Teams Days Four and Five
Brenda, Shelly, Libby, and Pepper
March, 2011
Like the rest of the world, Joshua Zeem watched the news footage of Japan’s 2011 Great Tōhoku Earthquake and its ensuing tsunamis with morbid fascination, but it wasn’t until he stumbled across a television special on the Pacific Northwest’s Cascadia subduction zone fault that his fascination turned to genuine fear.
Joshua was a native of Northern California and had heard his whole life that the
Next Big One
would originate at the San Andreas Fault. He had never heard the words
Cascadia Fault
to describe the tectonic plate interface under the Pacific Ocean from Northern California, through Oregon and Washington, and into Southern British Columbia. He did not know that a Cascadia Fault earthquake at 9 p.m. on January 26, 1700 was tied for the earth’s 4
th
largest earthquake, and that it had caused a tsunami thousands of miles away in Japan.
Once Joshua began to research, he was amazed at the plethora of online information available on the Cascadia subduction zone and its potential to cause the most destructive natural disaster to ever hit the United States. Why had he heard so little about it? How was it that a San Andreas earthquake was the natural disaster California residents feared the most? He began taking notes on a yellow legal pad as he researched, checking and double-checking his facts.
Fact 1:
The Cascadia subduction zone is over 600 miles long and runs under the Pacific Ocean, between 50 and 60 miles off the Pacific Northwest coastline.
Fact 2:
There are three tectonic plates in the subduction zone that subduct (descend) beneath the North American Plate: the Explorer to the north, the Juan de Fuca in the center, and the Gorda to the south.
Fact 3:
The plate interface creates a giant fault where stress builds up in places where the plates have become stuck.
Fact 4:
If the fault ruptures, the North American Plate will flex and drop, causing a megathrust earthquake and savage tsunamis from the tip of Northern California to Southern British Columbia.
Fact 5:
A megathrust earthquake is the world’s largest earthquake and can register a 9+ magnitude.
Fact 6:
The first tsunami to hit the Pacific Northwest after a megathrust earthquake could be within thirty minutes.
Fact 7
: The potential for a Cascadia megathrust earthquake was not discovered until the early 1980’s, so most of the buildings and bridges that exist in the Pacific Northwest are not built to seismic design standards.
Fact 8
: Japan, the most earthquake-prepared country in the world, was surprised by the size of the 2011 Tōhoku megathrust earthquake. The earthquake itself was the earliest tsunami warning but even so, thousands lost their lives when they couldn’t evacuate to higher ground fast enough.
Fact 9:
In the 300 years since the last Cascadia earthquake, the strain along the Cascadia Fault has been reloading. Another Cascadia megathrust earthquake could happen at any time.
“Holy shit!” Joshua muttered to himself, laying his pen down on his notepad. He was not an impulsive man or a man prone to entertaining irrational fear, but by his reasoning, the situation was in black and white. He called his wife and told her to put their beachfront home on the market. Then he called an architectural firm that specialized in earthquake-resistant office buildings and made an appointment. It was time to prepare his family and his business for the inevitable.
June, 2016 Five years later
In 1987, Joshua Zeem mortgaged a house he owned outright, emptied his savings account, and pleaded with banks for the loans necessary to produce his first Zeemercise exercise infomercial. He used the last of his borrowed funds to pay for prime-time television advertising spots, and then he held his breath and prayed.
The combination dance and martial arts exercise program shot to fame like a burst of fireworks, mostly due to Joshua’s insistence that the infomercial be flawlessly produced, and that the workout itself was fun and honestly effective. The athletes who performed in his infomercial were true believers, and that sentiment came across to the television public.
Within two years, Joshua was a very wealthy man and the owner of a thriving business that sold millions of copies of the ever evolving Zeemercise Workout. He built his own production studios and added an office building to accommodate his growing employee ranks.
Joshua never took his wealth for granted, knowing full well that the enormous risk he shouldered when creating the first Zeemercise infomercial could have gone either way. He expressed his gratitude by donating heavily to charities, and by giving back to his community of Cleardon City in Northern California.
His gift to Cleardon City the current year was a sponsored summer trip for eight students from St. Mary’s Catholic High School. He funded the two-week trip in which the girls would perform volunteer work at Raptor Bluff Rehabilitation Center outside of Eugene, Oregon. They and their chaperones would stay in a luxury hotel and spend Mondays through Fridays helping to care for the orphaned and injured raptors at the rehabilitation center. Since each student at St. Mary’s was required to perform a minimum of eighty hours of community service per year, the trip to Raptor Bluff would fulfill the upcoming year’s entire service requirement.
Joshua’s wife Lucinda spent hours researching Eugene and the surrounding areas so that the St. Mary’s girls would have plenty of entertainment during their off time. Part of the planned entertainment was the scenic coastal drive along US 101 from Cleardon City in the far northwest corner of Northern California, to Cooper’s Bay, Oregon. From Cooper’s Bay, the bus would transport the four chaperones, eight students, and two children to Eugene.
Chaperones:
Lucy Zeem, age 37; Joshua’s daughter and COO at Zeemercise
Brenda Campbell, age 47; Joshua’s first employee and CIO at Zeemercise
Rick Wright, age 45; IT Manager at Zeemercise and bus driver for the trip to Raptor Bluff
Andrea Teeple, age 45; Salesperson at Zeemercise
St. Mary’s Teens:
Abby Platt, age 17 - senior
Leanna Crib, age 18; Lucy Zeem’s foster daughter – senior
Libby Beaker, age 15 - sophomore
Pepper Zykowski, age 17 – senior
Reba Lynch, age 17 - senior
Kate Cramden, age 16 - junior
Sarah Aiken, age 16 – junior
Tara Teeple, age 17: Andrea Teeple’s daughter - senior
Children:
Dakota Zeem, age 12, Lucy’s daughter
Shelly Campbell, age 13, Brenda’s daughter
Abby pulled her rolling duffel bag to the front door and went back to her room to collect her backpack. The sounds of eight-year-old Marty’s Saturday cartoons hummed vaguely from the family room. Her sisters Kelly, Erin, and Nora were still sleeping, as was her mother. Her father always worked on Saturday mornings and had already left the house.
Abby walked to the family room and poked her head in the door. Marty was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table with his super-sized bowl of cereal. His eyes were glued to the TV. “Hey Marty, I’m leaving. I’ll see you in two weeks.”
Marty glanced at her, waved good-bye, and turned his gaze back to the TV. Abby slung her backpack over her shoulder and headed for the front door. The display on her cell phone told her she had thirty minutes before she and the rest of the students were due to meet in the Zeemercise parking lot. If she left immediately, she would be fifteen minutes early but that is how she liked things; she always left a little wiggle room in case something unexpected occurred.
The coastal air was sharp and damp as Abby bumped her rolling duffel bag down the street. She was grateful for the blue sky that held only the faintest shreds of clouds; the scenic drive on coastal route US 101 through Northern California and up Oregon’s southern coast would be spectacular. She smiled as she felt the first real stirrings of excitement for the upcoming trip. There would be orphaned raptor babies at the rehabilitation center – lots of them – and Abby couldn’t wait. She picked up her pace, feeling the weight of the four paperback books she carried in her backpack. Four books were probably too many, especially if the work at the raptor center kept her busy, but being without reading material was unthinkable.
Even fifteen minutes early, Abby was one of the last to arrive at the Zeemercise buildings. The parking lot was teeming with students and their parents, all chattering excitedly in anticipation of the field trip. A middle-aged man wearing shorts carried the last of the bags into the mid-size luxury bus.
Abby quelled the slight twinge of anxiety that arose when she saw the cluster of schoolmates with whom she would have to live for the next two weeks. Unlike the other girls, she had signed up for the trip because of her interest in raptors, not because she wanted to knock out her next year’s community service requirement. She didn’t have any close friends at St. Mary’s but that was by intention; she was contemplative, reserved, and preferred the company of books and animals to humans. She wasn’t disliked or bullied by her schoolmates; she was simply an acknowledged but uninteresting presence among them. Deflecting attention was an art form that Abby had honed to perfection. Her dark blonde hair was always in a long ponytail, her face was makeup free, and her neutral colored clothing hung loosely on her 5’ 2”, ninety-pound frame. Her pale-lashed, serious brown eyes observed the world around her with acuity, but she observed from a safe distance. She was a spectator where other people were concerned, and was perfectly content to watch from the sidelines.
When she saw a yellow Labrador Retriever puppy bounding towards her, she dropped to her knees to greet him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laughed as he licked her face, not noticing the hairy legs planted in front of her until a man’s mirthful voice said, “Cut it out, Caleb! Enough!”
“I don’t mind,” Abby replied as she wiped her wet face on her sleeve and rose to greet the man who she had seen loading the bus. “I love dogs! How old is he?” She couldn’t help but smile back at the lanky man in the baggy cargo shorts and Grateful Dead t-shirt who grinned down at her. Good humor emanated from the depths of his hazel eyes, making his wide, dimpled smile seem like an afterthought.
“Just turned five months. I’m Rick, by the way. I’m Zeemercise’s IT Manager but for the next two weeks, I’ll be your master of transportation and a chaperone on the trip to Raptor Bluff. I’m driving the bus.”
“I’m Abby, and don’t look now, but a really mad looking woman is heading this way.” Abby watched as the tall, stocky woman strode purposefully towards them. Her hair was short and blonde, and she would have been pretty if her face wasn’t pinched into such a scowl.
Rick swiped the shaggy, reddish hair from his eyes before he winked at Abby and turned to face the angry woman.
“Rick, your damn dog just proved what I’ve been saying since you got here. He ran away and charged this poor kid, and he couldn’t have cared less that you were calling him. I just texted Joshua and told him that you sneaked a dog on this trip without telling me about it. We have eight students to look after, plus Lucy’s kid and my daughter. No one has the time to chaperone a misbehaved
dog
!”
“And I’m sure Joshua told you that I asked his permission first, and that I also cleared it with the raptor center staff. It is already settled, Brenda. Caleb is going on this trip.”
“I don’t appreciate you going over my head for Joshua’s approval without checking with me first. You report to me, not Joshua.”
“This trip isn’t work related and I don’t report to you twenty-four hours a day. Besides, Joshua owns the company and what he says goes.”
Brenda stomped away, red faced and furious, and Rick shrugged at Abby. “Brenda was Joshua’s first employee. He does the sales and she does just about everything else. Luckily, she works from home most of the time. The whole building quakes when she’s in the office.” Rick noticed a flash of worry cross Abby’s face and laughed. “She’ll be OK with you guys. It’s only the other employees who she terrorizes. I’ll be punished for at least two months for this dog infraction, but she’ll eventually find someone else to bully and I’ll be off the hook.”
“Is she really that awful? Wow!”
“I started working right after she did so I’ve had years to get used to her; she doesn’t get under my skin anymore. The sales assistants and accounting staff are terrorized, though. She has at least one of them in tears almost every day.” He looked around the parking lot and said, “Hey, where are your parents?”
“Dad’s at work and Mom is sleeping. I live just a few blocks from here so I walked.”
Rick gave her a searching look but did not comment, and Abby was grateful that he left the topic alone. If her schoolmates hadn’t begun to notice that Abby’s parents never attended any of her school functions or extracurricular activities, ever, Abby wouldn’t have known that their lack of interest in her appeared strange to other people. Her first true inkling that something might be ‘off’ in her family life came when she had appendicitis during her sophomore year. Her father had wasted no time getting her to the hospital when she complained of stabbing pains in her side, but he left her with the medical staff after the diagnosis. Neither he nor Abby’s mother visited the hospital until twenty-four hours after the surgery, and if Abby’s nurse hadn’t been so offended, Abby would not have known that parents always stuck around when a child was in surgery. She was not at all fazed by her parents’ apparent lack of concern – it was life as usual in her family – and she didn’t understand why her attending nurse took it more personally than she did.
“I’ll put your bag on the bus while you grab your name tag off that table over there.” Rick pointed to a table beside the bus and glanced at his watch. “Five minutes until departure. See you on the bus.”
“Can I take Caleb with me to get my name tag? Can he sit with me on the bus?”
“That would be great. I didn’t put much thought into how I was going to control him while I was driving, and Brenda will go nuts if he doesn’t behave.”
“I’ll sit up front and he can lie under my seat. I would love to babysit him.”
“He would love it, too. He really likes you. You must have a dog at home.”
“I wish,” Abby said wistfully. “Dad loves dogs but Mom always finds a reason to get rid of them. We get a puppy and a couple of years later, it’s gone. It just disappears one day while we are at school. We kids finally told Dad to give up. It’s just too hard to let them go.”
“Well, consider Caleb yours for the duration of the trip, and thanks for agreeing to watch him on the bus. Are you sure you don’t mind? I doubt that any of your friends will sit up front with you. High school kids seem to prefer the back seats.”
“Nah. I don’t mind. I get along with the girls on this trip but I’m not really friends with any of them. I guess I’m too much of a loner.”
Rick gave her another searching look but said nothing. They both turned towards Brenda when she began clapping her hands and directing people onto the bus. The students quickly formed a line but two brunette women stood apart, both of them glaring at Brenda. Abby raised an eyebrow at Rick.
“The smaller woman is Lucy Zeem, the company owner’s daughter.” Rick grinned when he said, “She and Brenda hate each other’s guts. They have been fighting since Lucy joined the company on her 21
st
birthday. Lucy is irritated that Brenda is taking control, and that’s why she’s wearing a sour-puss.”
“Who is that big lady standing beside Lucy? The one who looks like she dressed for a poolside brunch at the Ritz? She seems more upset than Lucy.”
“That is Andrea Teeple,” said Rick. “She is a Zeemercise salesperson and our resident Zeem family suck-up. She hates Brenda only because Lucy hates Brenda. Andrea is best friends with everyone in the Zeem family except Joshua himself. She uses her friendship with the Zeems to lord it over the other employees, and people have to put up with it because she runs to Lucy or Lucinda Zeem if someone forgets to treat her like royalty.” The look Abby gave him made him laugh out loud. “Don’t worry about the weird chaperone dynamics. Brenda and Lucy have learned to live together for the most part, and Lucy will keep Andrea in line. There won’t be any fighting during the trip to Raptor Bluff: just lots and lots of dirty looks.”
“See that tall kid? The one with the long dark hair wearing the red lipstick?” asked Abby as she nodded to the line of students boarding the bus. “That’s Andrea’s daughter. Her name is Tara and she told us her mom works for Zeemercise and is going to chaperone the trip. She is exactly like the description you just gave of Andrea. You have to treat her like royalty or she makes your life miserable. She ignores me because I’m not important enough, but most of the other girls kiss up to her. Just watch.”
“And the heavy girl beside Tara is…?”
“That’s Tara’s best friend, Reba, but she’s known around school as
Jaba the Hut
.” Abby’s lips disappeared into a thin line of contempt when she said, “She is lazy, she is loud, and she is just plain
nasty
. She gets away with it because people are afraid of Tara.”
“Well, I’m going on this trip to see the raptors,” said Rick. “I plan to enjoy the raptors and enjoy Caleb. Who cares about the other people and their dramas, right?”
“Right! You, Caleb, and I can stick together.”
Abby sat behind the driver’s seat while the others filled the back of the bus. Caleb climbed into the adjoining aisle seat and sat beside her until Rick pulled onto the US 101. As soon as the bus’s motion became smooth and consistent, Caleb curled up on the floor and fell asleep at her feet. Abby began to take out a book to keep her company until they reached the scenic parts of the ride, but caught Rick’s smiling eyes in the rearview mirror.
“So far, so good,” he whispered. “The narcissist, the borderline, and the manic depressive are all under control.” He laughed at Abby’s quizzical look.
“Human psychology fascinates me and I am absolutely convinced that Lucy suffers from narcissism, Brenda suffers from borderline personality disorder, and Andrea is manic-depressive. I’ll bet my life on it.”
“How does the company even function with those three?”
“Joshua ignores it. Brenda isn’t going anywhere and Lucy isn’t either. Neither one could get the quarter million a year he pays them anywhere else. Brenda was a bookkeeper when she and Joshua started the company, and Lucy didn’t make it past high school.”
“Are you kidding me? They make that much money?”
“Yep! The exercise DVDs that the Zeems produce sell in the tens of millions every year. The family is rolling in money.”
“So why do Lucy and Brenda hate each other so much?”
“I probably shouldn’t be airing the company’s dirty laundry, but you don’t seem like the type to make trouble. The heart of the problem is that Brenda worked her butt off to get where she is, and Lucy doesn’t do much of anything. She never has. She shows up at work when she feels like it, does absolutely nothing that Brenda can’t do better, and she treats the other employees like they are field peasants. Joshua bestowed the title of Chief Operating Officer on Lucy on her twenty-first birthday, gave her a big corner office, and made her an equal with Brenda. I get why Brenda is so resentful, but Brenda is such a terrorist herself that I can’t feel sorry for her. Even so, I would rather work for Brenda than Lucy. Lucy makes decisions like she is an all-knowing supreme leader and you aren’t allowed to question her, even in areas where you have knowledge and experience and she has absolutely none. She’s a joke to everyone but herself.”
“How do you stand it?”
“I work from home, my work is interesting, I make three times what I would anywhere else, and I love Joshua. He’s a really good guy and one heck of a salesman. He’s also even-tempered unless Lucy and Brenda bring their fighting to him. That’s the only time he goes ballistic, and that hasn’t happened for a while. Brenda and Lucy have learned to keep their war under wraps.”
