Title: Rendezvous With Fay
Author: Larry Farmer
Genre: Travel Adventure Romance
Book Blurb:
Fay made everything seem easy. Life and love. Dutch knew he loved her as she did him. Texas seemed far away now. The rendezvous soon turned into a courtship when Fay asked Dutch to stay and he gladly agreed. This is where he wanted to be, in San Diego, the town where he had entered the Marine Corps a few years before. Now there was much more a bond with this town because it was Fay’s.
Excerpt:
The ache inside over Monica stayed with me every mile that I drove from Los Angeles to San Diego. Driving past Camp Pendleton took some of the edge off momentarily as I recalled my proud past from my days in the Marine Corps. Soon, however, frustrations I felt from then, during the so-called Age of Aquarius, made the anger and pain inside even more pronounced. That conflict, in fact, the Aquarian one with the Spartan one back in the early 1970s, was a perfect match for the conflict these few years later with her.
Why I got mixed up with a hippie was beyond me. And as much as I hated the anguish inside, I relished it too. Emotional self-flagellation. I deserved every ounce. Teach me what I need and let me move on with my life. The sooner the better.
Amen.
As I entered the outskirts of San Diego, warm memories began to predominate once more. My days as a private in the United States Marine Corps began here. Cherished days. Sacred days. Defiant days in how I joined to go to Vietnam and to take a patriotic stand. A stand against people like Monica, in fact, even though I hadn’t even met her yet. The defiance coming out now about those precious days was welcomed by me. I liked the grit and the fight in me again, over the hurt and moping I had been feeling trying to work things out with her the last few weeks. At least I knew I tried with her, but the defiance now gave me new wings and new direction.
I haphazardly checked the map as I drove on the freeway. Fay lived near the Chula Vista area just off the freeway I was on. I had her address scribbled on the map in big bold letters as if she was someone of importance, which she was, with a huge X to mark the area of San Diego that address was on.
More and more as I drove, thoughts of Fay and our days in Frankfurt, West Germany together, barely two years before, came through. I regretted not knowing her better. I even resented that I didn’t. I was with Monica then while Fay was with her boyfriend Joe. Me, the one Texan, trying to mix with these damn Californians. Except Fay was not damned. Anything but. And she didn’t belong in California, I determined, even back then. She had much the makings of a perfect Southern Belle.
And that’s why I was in San Diego.
The address was of a nice, middle class apartment complex. It lay in a prosperous looking neighborhood. Was Fay well off? She was a keypunch operator back in Frankfurt on the US Air Force Base where we worked in 1974, and from her letters she was doing something like that in San Diego. That and secretarial work. I doubt that paid very much even in San Diego.
I searched for the wing of the complex that entailed her apartment number. My mood was still sullen, but the closer I got to her apartment, the more I began to perk up. As I walked by the swimming pool area, suddenly I heard my name called out.
“Dutch!” someone yelled.
I turned towards the chairs to the side of the pool where people were sunbathing. A tall, slim, tanned, gorgeous, bikini-clad body ran towards me. She had her long brown hair slung in a ponytail.
“Dutch,” she yelled again as she hugged me. “It’s so good to see you. I can’t believe how excited I am. Someone from back then. The not so old days in Frankfurt.”
Before I got to hug her in return, she pulled away to grab my hand to lead me out of the pool area. As we walked, she gave a jump-skip for a step in glee while she swung my hand with hers joyously.
“You let your hair grow out again,” she commented as we walked. “I like it. To the nape of your neck like when Joe and I first met you back then, before you cut it all off. You look good. It’s so blond. Just like the surfer boys here. Except you have a long, tall, husky Texas body. And I’m sure you still have your washboard abs. I like that even better. I remember the first time I watched you work out in the gym and saw that washboard stomach of yours. I was so shocked. ‘This guy is a Marine from Texas’, I thought to myself back then.”
As friendly as Fay’s demeanor always seemed to be, and as warm as the memories were, I was surprised at the celebration she brought forth in our reunion. Any regret I ever had back then in Frankfurt about not pursuing her, about any longing inside towards her, magnified in me as we walked to her apartment. What did I leave behind there in Germany? And why the hell did I leave it, I thought as she left me to myself while she changed her clothes?
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
The Wild Rose Press: https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/rendezvous-with-fay
Nook: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rendezvous-with-fay-larry-farmer/1129347714?ean=2940161531709
Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Larry_Farmer_Rendezvous_with_Fay?id=X8NtDwAAQBAJ
Audible (as part of ‘A Thousand Miles From Nowhere): https://www.audible.com/pd/A-Thousand-Miles-from-Nowhere-Audiobook/B07L9JFNDF?qid=1544721299&sr=sr_1_2&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_2&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=CG5F970H8AFWCFCX2B95&
November is a time to be thankful. What are you most thankful for this year?
Fall weather, Thanksgiving, family, and football.
Why is your featured book worth snuggling up to?
For old friends to meet again is a warm and often affectionate feeling. But when Dutch met Fay after two years it seemed like more than mere affection. Why had he not pursued her when they lived in Frankfurt? The fact that she had Joe then and he had Monica suddenly didn’t seem worthy as an excuse. San Diego was where he had first been in the Marines. And here he was again to see Fay. That made San Diego special all the more. This had all the makings of a beautiful relationship.
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Open internationally.
Runs November 1 – 30.
Drawing will be held on December 1.
Author Biography:
I was born and raised in Harlingen on the border with Mexico on the southern tip of Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico. I was raised with old school values on a cotton farm. After high school I went to Texas A&M and was in the Corps of Cadets there. I quit in the middle of my senior year to join the Marines in the hope of going to Vietnam. I also served in the Peace Corps in The Philippines. I travelled around the world between these two events in my life and saw enough to need to relate it. I worked for eleven years in Switzerland. I married there and raised two of my three children there. I now work for Texas A&M. And finally have time to reflect on my life and its meaning. And write about it.
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Texas Author Page (Indie Lector Bookstore): https://www.indielector.store/larry-farmer.aspx