A Steal of a Deal (7 page)

I take her hands and squeeze. “Laura told us about you and all you do for the kids.” The memory leaves me feeling awkward and inadequate. “You know? I love what I do, but it seems so . . . so inconsequential here.” I turn to Miss Mona. “Sorry.”

She nods, a shadow of sadness in her eyes. “Don’t apologize, honey. I understand how you feel.”

I turn back to our new friends. “How can I—we—help you? What’s the plan? I mean, I know we’re heading for the orphanage, but I don’t know any details.”

“I’m glad you know about The Father’s Lambs orphanage already.” Trevor’s British accent clips his words and seems to give them extra importance. I listen up. “The quake left these children with nothing, and they had precious little to start with. This country was—and still is, after all this time— more devastated than I can begin to tell.”

The thought of the children’s suffering makes my heart ache. “We’re headed for the mountains, aren’t we? That’s where most of the destruction happened.”

He shrugs. “It’s quite hard to say what might be worse when we see ravaged villages and neighborhoods just about everywhere outside the few major cities.”

I shudder. “Ouch. The Lord’s laid on my heart a real hunger to help. Can’t we get going?”

Emma holds out her hand. I take the slender fingers in my much larger paw again and let her draw me toward the church. “We’re staying with the pastor. Let’s go meet him, pray, and then talk action.”

“I like your style.”

She cocks her head and studies me for a minute . . . two. “I’ve heard I’m going to like yours too.”

A ripple runs through me, but I’m not sure if it’s from excitement, fear, or a motley mix of both.
Lord? You brought
me here, and I’m so glad you did. Thanks. I want to help, to
do something more real than sell bling-bling on TV. Oh yeah!
And please keep trouble far away from us while we try to
be your hands and feet. We’ve had way more than enough
of that already. We sure don’t need any more. And if Robert
didn’t do the deed, help the cops find the guy who did.

Introductions are brief. Then, once the formalities are over, Trevor holds out his hands; Miss Mona takes the right and Glory the left. I snag Aunt Weeby, and still holding onto Emma, I bow my head with everyone else.

In his rich bass, Trevor says, “Father God . . .”

After an emotional handful of hours, during which I hear more tales of pain, misery, and courage than I ever thought possible, we leave the Musgroves until the next day, aware that our efforts will change little in the greater scheme of things. Still, not one of us is about to quit before we do our part.

“Sorry we came?” Miss Mona asks as we board our van.

“Me?” I glance at the nondescript brown car that’s followed every step we’ve taken since Farooq’s demise. What can I say? They do have a dead body.

Still . . . “Nuh-uh. I’m ready to get out there and do . . . whatever I can.” I settle in next to Glory. “I’m surprised you ask. Are you? Sorry, that is?”

“No, honey. But I clocked in more than a few hours on the mission field in my day. I knew what to expect. But you . . . you’re younger, and more a New York City kinda girl than me.”

“Whoa!” I roll my eyes. “Forgetful all of a sudden, huh? I’m the missionary kid here. You know Mom and Dad never saw the needy African tribe they didn’t want to help. And I was right there with them. I don’t know that I actually helped, but I did share my toys and books with the little girls.”

“You probably did more’n you know, sugarplum,” Aunt Weeby says. “It’s not always the big things what make the difference. It’s more the loving and doing and being the bit a’ Jesus someone else is gonna see that does the doing for you.”

At my side, Glory wriggles, shifts the big red bag of electronic whatzits she always has at the ready, then tucks a lock of gleaming black hair behind her ear.

“Do you have enough room?” I ask.

“I’m fine.”

And I’m the Big Bad Wolf; she looks anything but fine. I don’t know for sure what’s bugged her. I have to wonder whether it’s the mission, the poverty, the tragedy, and the earthquake’s devastation, or whether it’s our faith talk that’s got her so uncomfortable. I slant a look her way and notice her downcast eyes.

I know Miss Mona doesn’t make faith a job requirement, but most S.T.U.D. employees are strong believers. “What did you think of the Musgroves?” I ask, my tone light and my expression—I hope—none too nosy.

Glory’s eyes pop open wide. “Me?”

I nod.

“I . . . I thought they were fine. They’re pretty committed to their work, aren’t they?”

“I don’t think it’s their work they’re so committed to,” Aunt Weeby says. “They’re just about some a’ the most on-fire, obedient Christians I’ve ever met.” She turns to me. “Kinda like your mama and daddy, sugarplum.”

I nod but keep my eyes on Glory, who looks at me with what feels more like curiosity, or maybe questions, than before. She must be one of Miss Mona’s rare nonbelievers.

Allison, our makeup genius extraordinaire, pipes up. “Miss Weeby, anyone would have to go a whole lot farther than Kashmir to find a more real Christian than you.”

I can just about feel Glory’s surprise. “Really?” she says. “Where’ve you been to . . .” She seems to want a word, a precise one. “To do the Musgroves’ thing?”

Sadness fills my aunt’s still pretty face. “Can’t say I’ve ever been any too far from Louisville. I did go to Jamaica many, many years ago, and helped make clothes while my late husband worked to rebuild a church that burned down.”

Allison pats Aunt Weeby’s arm. “Foreign missions aren’t all God calls people to, and you know it, Miss Weeby. You’ve been teaching and living it all out for us to see right back in Louisville. We needed you—still do, you know. Remember when you taught my Sunday school class? I was six years old, and I’ve never forgotten Joseph and his coat of many colors.”

Aunt Weeby’s laugh is full of mischief. “We sure did make us a good ol’ mess with all that fabric and glue, didn’t we?” “But we made an awesome coat out of those bits and pieces of rags,” Allison counters. “I thought it was the most beee-yoooo-teee-full thing I’d ever seen. Never forgot how Joseph lost his coat and everything else, thanks to his brothers’ jealousy.”

“Is that all you learned?” Aunt Weeby asks, her voice rich with dismay. “Well, phooey, girl! I went and blew it, then.”

“No way.” Allison shakes her brown mane for emphasis. “I got it all. The best part was when the drought came and Joseph had become the big man in town. His brothers knew who was who then.”

Glory’s eyes, which had bounced from woman to woman, land back on me. “Did you do the same class?”

“Nope. I’m too old. Allison’s a baby compared to me.”

“Give me a break,” the baby says.

I wink.

Glory leans forward. “So Joseph’s not just some old show.”

Before I can stop them, my eyebrows meet my hairline. “You didn’t know Joseph was real and lived in biblical times?”

“I knew he was an old guy Donny Osmond played in an old musical.”

Yikes!
Joseph, an old musical guy . . . and Donny Os-mond?

Aunt Weeby beats me to the punch. “Well then, Glory-girl, let me tell you what all you’ve been missing about Joseph and his coat . . .”

By the time we get to the restaurant, a favorite with tourists (we’d rather skip Montezuma’s revenge and don’t check out the quaint but not-necessarily-compatible-with-American-digestive-systems local feeding spots), we’ve all learned more about Joseph than we thought possible. He’s one of Aunt Weeby’s Bible faves—understandably so.

But I digress. For dinner, we do some kind of banquet thing called a Wazawan—
waza
being what they call the chef. We have
yakhni
, a cream-colored meat dish with a curd base, and
munji-hakh
, kohlrabi—ever have kohlrabi?

Neither had I, until now. Anyway, the Kashmiri delicacies are delicious, and my ever-empty stomach is happy as I chow down with zest. But then, as I close my mouth around some
yakhni
and white rice, I hear a rumble of whispers behind me, a bit to the right.

I pick up my soupspoon, shine it on my napkin and, feeling rather Pink Panther-ish, if I do say so myself, use it to look over my shoulder.

Groan.

Aunt Weeby places her hand on my arm. “Sugarplum! Was that you? Are you feeling peckish all of a sudden? I bet it’s that nasty ol’ corroded gut a’ yours again. I did bring me a bottle a’ Great-Grandma Willetta’s cod liver oil with me. It’ll set you right in no time.”

Perish the thought. As a kid, I was a victim of good ol’ Willetta’s favorite remedy many a time—gotta love my aunt Weeby. Don’t want to go there again.

But Aunt Weeby’s not too far out in left field, either. During my time as a New York gemologist in the famous—or infamous, you choose—diamond district, I achieved a teeny-tiny ulcer problem (times three, but who’s counting?) that disappeared the minute I returned to Kentucky. Go figure. I wind up wrestling the mayhem wrought by two wacky seniors and a blundering cohost, and I heal.

Only me, you know?

Anyway, back to our exotic meal. I try to distract Aunt Weeby by shaking my head, smiling, and taking a bite of the
munji-hakh
that’s grown cold on my plate. Cold kohlrabi? Who’d a thunk?

But eating foreign food does nothing to put a lid on the tide of murmurs to my rear. A tsunami’s about to wallop us.

Thanks to my trusty spoon, I can see a slender woman in her late thirties elbow the older lady at her side. They put their heads together, and the older one points. The scene is repeated all around the eight people seated round the table. That’s when I hear the dreaded words.

“It
is
her,” the teenage girl at the far end of their group squeals. “I’m telling you, Mom. It’s the S.T.U.D.’s Andrea Adams. I just looooove her.”

Swallow me, earth.
I eat with more single-minded diligence and attention than even a fire-eater at a circus midway show. The older woman looks skeptical. “What would she be doing here? I’ve heard she’s a Christian. She wouldn’t come for Swami Devamundi’s Eternal Growth gathering like everybody else here.”

“Gramma!” the girl cries, exasperated. “Get real. She’s probably on the hunt for treasure. I just told you. We’re talking
the
Andi-ana Jones. Of gemology. You know.”

Ugh.
I hate that name. A gem thief thought she was so smart when she came up with it after what happened to us at a ruby mine little less than a year ago. I thought her just plain awful, and I still do, especially since she blabbed the stupid nickname during an early court appearance.

Ever hear anything dumber? I haven’t raided any ark, lost or otherwise. But it’s my latest cross to bear. Well, together with the cloud of nuttiness that follows my aunt and her best friend. And the gem-dunce cohost.

Oh, okay, okay. I’ll say it. I may have my own problem with tromping into trouble just about every other time I take a step. All by my only-lonely self.

Unlike this time, when I’m minding my business: food.

But once I decide the teen’s companions have chosen to ignore her, and I’m way more than ready to quit cringing, the girl lets out a disgusted-teen kind of sigh—yeah.
That
loud.

“You know,” she says. “I told you. Margie says her older sister and the girls of Delta Epsilon Zeta say they heard people calling her Andi-ana Jones during that murder trial. Like, she goes all over the world, catches crooks, and brings back all those bling-bling treasures. She’s just awe-
some
!”

I shovel the food faster than earthmoving equipment on steroids, but to no avail. Before I’ve washed down the last mammoth bite of the
yakhni
, the female neighbors make their way to my side.

My gulp is none too elegant, but it’d be so much worse to greet fans with a mouthful of mutton, no doubt.

“Excuse me,” the girl says. “I know you’re eating, and my dad said I’d be way rude to come and bug you, but I just had to prove it to my mom and grandmom. You
are
the Andi-ana Jones of gems, aren’t you?”

I wince, nod, and give a weak smile.

She turns, crosses her arms, cocks out a hip, and smirks. “I told you so.”

The mom shakes her head. “I’m sorry she disturbed your dinner. You’re her favorite TV personality, and she wouldn’t leave us alone until we came over. You are very good at what you do.”

I stand, my on-screen smile at full-watt power. “It’s okay. I’m starting to get used to it. I’m glad you like the show.”

The teen pumps her fist. “
Woot, woot, woot!
Toldja.”

“Stop it, Delia!” the mother scolds. “We’re in a public place, and Miss Adams is being very gracious. That’s just plain rude—your second episode in less than five minutes.”

Delia gives her mother a prodigious glare.

In an effort to offset the oncoming mother-daughter brawl, I say, “So what’s your favorite gemstone?”

“Gemstone?” Delia dons a look of total confusion. “Oh, sure. All that bling you sell.”

Now
I’m
confused. “Isn’t that what you watch me do?”

She laughs. “No way. That’s why Gramma watches. I watch you and your stud! He’s tooooo cute!”