Title: INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER

Author: Sue Corkill

Category: Challenge

Status: Complete

Rating: PG

Content Warning: M/F

Season/Sequel info: None

Spoilers: None

Archive: Heliopolis, SJHW

Summary: Tea Room Early Days Challenge—Janet makes a decision.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Feedback: Cheerfully accepted.

Copyright © M. Susan Corkill, October 2000

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INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER

Throwing her pencil down in frustration, Janet wadded up another piece of paper and threw it into the already overflowing wastepaper basket. Sighing, she rubbed her eyes tiredly, feeling the prickle of tears just beneath the surface. Life couldn’t be this unfair, she thought. Yeah, right, if life were fair she wouldn’t be struggling like this now.

No matter how she rearranged the figures--adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying them--it always came out the same way, not enough money. Not enough money to go to medical school, not enough for books, for food, rent, and—she glanced out into the living room at the man passed out on the sofa, not enough to support a husband. She had been ecstatic beyond belief when the acceptance letter from Baylor had arrived in the mail earlier in the day. Her dream was finally going to come true—she had been accepted to medical school. It had been a rough road to reach this point. She was honest enough to realize however that she really couldn’t complain too much as all the detours she had taken had been of her own making.

Taking a sip of her now warm and flat coke, she thought about the preceding four years—and the man in the other room. She really should be more grateful to Roy she thought. After all, he had been her ticket out of Boise City. She had been so desperate to get out of that town that she had left with the first guy to come along. At 17 she could already see the writing on the wall if she stayed—stuck in western Oklahoma with no hope of escape, married to a man with no ambition to ever leave Cimarron County, and popping out a baby every year—just like her two older sisters. She had wanted more, and Roy Dupont had been her way out. He had been in town with a drilling company that was working in the county during the spring of her senior year, and at seven years older than her, he had swept her right off her feet. He was from Texas and had big dreams of becoming an oil rig fire fighter. He had sweet-talked her with the life they could have together in Texas, the places they would travel, and the money he would make. When the drilling company had finished their job in June, she left with Roy for bigger and better things.

Of course, it hadn’t worked out quite like Roy (or she) had planned. They ended up in Fort Worth, which was a far sight better than Boise City as far as she was concerned. And Roy had, surprisingly, insisted they get married. She had agreed and less than a month after leaving Oklahoma she was married and working as a cashier at the local supermarket. Roy had quit with the drilling company and got a job at one of the local refineries. It only took her a month to realize that she had only traded locations, not lifestyles. She could have stayed in Boise City and worked as a cashier—and while married life had some benefits she soon discovered that being Roy’s wife mainly involved being his maid and occasional sex partner.

And it also meant putting up with his drinking. While they were dating she hadn’t been smart enough to realize that he drank heavily, or maybe she just refused to see it, she couldn’t be sure. It was only after they were married that it really became apparent. Not that Roy was a mean drunk or anything; he was mostly a nice drunk…………if there was such a thing. However, it also meant that he missed a lot of work and sooner or later would get fired or laid off. More often than not they depended on her salary to get them by.

If had hadn’t been for Lavonne…………Janet realized she needed to call her friend and tell her the good news about medical school. That is if she ever figured out a way to pay for it. Lavonne had been one of the other cashiers at the supermarket. She was only three years older than Janet was, yet had been filled with such single-mindedness and determination to make something of herself that you could almost see it. Working and going to school full-time should and did fill Lavonne’s entire schedule, yet she had taken the time to befriend Janet and encourage her to go to college. Lavonne had even helped her to find scholarships and grants after Roy had refused to help pay the tuition. He had said he didn’t care if she went to college or not, just not to expect him to help. Not that she had been particularly surprised, she had soon learned that anything that she wanted for herself she had to pay for out of the money she earned at the store.

A loud snore and snuffling noises drew her attention to her husband, sleeping it off in front of the flickering TV. His friend, Jimmy, had brought him home drunk—once again. Well, at least Jimmy brought him home instead of leaving him wherever they happened to be drinking for the night. Going to Baylor would mean moving to Houston. She had already decided if Roy didn’t want to come with her he could just stay in Fort Worth. But she doubted he would do that, he still had big dreams and would probably see a move to Houston as an opportunity to start fresh and make good on those dreams.

Still no closer to finding the money she needed, Janet sighed and got up and walked into the living room. She glumly surveyed the sparsely furnished room, the furniture—and its sleeping occupant—looked even drearier when lit only by the light from the TV. She began searching for the remote to turn off the TV when the commercial airing caught her eye. The narrator’s voice saying, "Join the Air Force. Work towards building your future. Contact your local recruiting office for further information regarding Air Force education benefits." A wild thought suddenly hit her—maybe she should join the Air Force! She imagined they probably needed physicians and she was pretty sure she had heard somewhere that if a person would make a commitment to serve for a certain number of years that they would help pay for their education. The commercial had ended and Janet realized she was staring at a man in a chef’s outfit trying to sell her a set of knives that could cut anything. Shaking her head, she shut off the TV and pulled the afghan off the back of the sofa over Roy.

She went back into the bedroom then, her thoughts wandering back to the Air Force commercial. Deciding she didn’t have anything to lose, she went over to her desk and sat down. Taking a piece of fresh paper she wrote at the top of the sheet ‘Join the Air Force’ and then made two columns—‘pros’ and ‘cons’.

THE END