Southern Fried Sushi (31 page)

I ducked my head and lowered my voice to a mumble. “Yes. I got a job, okay? At The Green Tree.”

“As what, a table dancer?” she snapped, eyes flashing fire. Gordon’s tags jingled, and he jerked his head up.

My eyes popped. “Excuse me?”

“If you’re so doggone ashamed to tell me you got a job at a restaurant, that’s all I can imagine!”

I whirled around. “Now hold on just a second, Becky! You don’t know what it’s like to have to scrape for jobs, do you?”

“No? Well then maybe you’d like to know I worked sellin’ car batteries at AutoZone when I was in high school, and at Hardee’s, too! A lot lower on the daggum totem pole than The cotton-pickin’ Green Tree. So are ya embarrassed to be seen with me now?”

My heart froze. Not Becky, the last person on earth I wanted to be fighting with. “Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous.” I sat down on her bed and knotted my arms. “I’m just not used to … that … kind of work.”

“Well, git used to it! Ain’t nothin’ wrong with honest work, woman! You ain’t gotta put on airs for nobody!” She let out herbreath huffily. “You done lived too long in that world a yours tryin’ to impress people, haven’t ya?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Plopped down on the bed next to me and looked in the mirror. “And that’s just what I done today, ain’t it?”

“No, Becky,” I managed, fixing a strand of her hair. “You made yourself beautiful for the man you love most in the world. I can’t think of anything more honorable than that.”

She sat there a long while, and then the waterworks started again. She reached for my purse then drew back and wiped her eyes with her fingers. I snatched up my purse and threw it in her lap.

“Get it yourself!” I snapped, trying to make her smile. “You might find my off-duty numbers in there.”

She grinned then wobbled into a sob. I wrapped her in a hug, and she cried into my shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Shah-loh! I shouldn’t have said nothing. I don’t know what got into me. Will ya please forgive me? I can be so stupid sometimes! An’ this ol’ mouth a mine … forgive me, too, Lord! If You don’t fix me, I’m always gonna be sayin’ stuff I shouldn’t!”

And she bawled some more. I just sat there, chin in my hand.

“You’re right about one thing, Becky.” I picked at my purse strap. “I’ve lived in a world where the main goal is to eat or be eaten. Like a river full of piranhas. You always have to be the best, the brightest, the top. It’s an obsession. It’s in your blood. You just … do.”

I stared down at my hands, ringless and empty. “I guess that’s why I … you know … racked up so much debt. It’s hard to start over.”

“I know.” Becky sniffled and balled up her tissue. “I pray for you ev’ry day ‘cause I know it ain’t easy. You done better than most of ‘em would, an’ I’m real proud of ya.”

“Proud of me? For what?” Of all the times in my life to

receive praise, now certainly didn’t rank near the top.

“I know waitin’ tables ain’t your thing, and Staunton ain’t your kinda place neither. But ya stayed.” Becky’s voice started to choke up again. “I didn’t know if you would, with so much hard stuff in your life, but ya did. You got guts, Yankee! And I’m proud to know ya.”

I looked up, embarrassed. “Did you say you pray for me every day?”

“Sure I do. Look.” She pulled a notebook off her shelf and flipped through it. “Back here, last week. I prayed for you to smile. An’ ya look happier lately.”

“What day?” I demanded, laughing. “I don’t believe it.”

“Thursdee.”

“See? Nothing happened on Thursday. Just …” I chuckled. “Oh yeah. That’s the day Kyoko got her
omiyage
.”

“Her what?”

“A present. Souvenir. I sent her pork rinds.”

“Pork rinds?” Becky scrunched up her face. “What for? At least send somethin’ she ain’t never seen before!”

This time I laughed so much my sides hurt. If Becky could have heard Kyoko’s words over the phone, she’d be praying for her, too.

“What is this?” It was my turn to snoop. I reached for the notebook, but Becky had squirrel-like reflexes.

“And here.” She flipped another page and pulled it away when I grabbed again. “I prayed for ya to make friends, and the same day you called an’ tole me about Jamie and your new job.” She followed something with her finger. “I prayed for yer meetin’ with the Realtor to go good. Yesterday I prayed for somebody to do somethin’ nice for ya. Don’t know if it happened or not.”

Instantly I remembered the basket of garden vegetables Earl, my plumber neighbor, left on my front porch after he mowed my grass. I didn’t know what to do with a bunch of zucchinis and string beans, me being the supreme non-Southern cook, but

the thought warmed me.

“Does a gift on my front porch count?” I asked, feeling hair stand up on my neck, like when I found that book in my hands at Barnes & Noble. The one with the cross. Right after I prayed.

No way. I rubbed my forehead, glancing uncomfortably at the notebook. Don’t be silly!

“‘Course it counts! Then that’n’s answered!” Becky was beaming now, all tears gone.

“Are you serious?”

“Shore! Whaddaya think I do, make these things up?”

“No, but … isn’t that luck? Omens?” I remembered the omamori charm hanging from my rearview mirror. I had to admit it had been pretty useless the day some idiot dinged my parked fender, but it still mattered, right?

“Luck? Ain’t no such thing as luck, woman!”

“Of course there is.” I folded my arms, feeling chilly. “How else does all this stuff happen? And don’t say—”

“God.” Becky’s eyes met mine soberly. I gazed back at her sudden intensity, startled, then abruptly started folding up the shopping bags.

“I don’t believe He answers prayers like that.”

“Well, ya oughtta. ‘Cause He does.”

“Did you pray for me to get a job today or something?”

She flipped the notebook page and read. “Nope.”

“Well, what did you pray then? Let me see.” I held out my hand for the notebook. She didn’t give it.

“For you to know He’s with ya.”

Which is sort of what I prayed with Faye.

“Well. I’m … well.” I sat there tongue-tied. I hoped it wasn’t like voodoo. What if Becky prayed for me to get fat or marry a hillbilly or start growing a mullet?

“Does He answer everything you pray?” I got up and shoved a hanger in the closet.

“At least you recognize He answers prayer.” Becky flickedan eyebrow. “And no, He don’t give me ev’rything I want. Don’t ya think I’d have a houseful a kids by now? And a bigger house? Mercy, an’ all kinds a stuff!”

“Then I don’t get it.” I untangled some more hangers, feeling grumpy. “Either God answers prayers or He doesn’t. Which is it?”

“‘Course He does! But His plans and His timin’ ain’t always ours.”

I turned to face her. “You’re telling me God has plans for me? For my life? Here in the middle of nowhere, working at restaurants and shelving books?” My cheeks reddened with anger.

“I’m sayin’ exactly that, Shiloh Pearl Jacobs! But sometimes you gotta wait to see His answers.”

Her words hung there, over the littered hangers and discarded tennis shoes. I twisted the metal neck of a hanger back and forth, thinking.

“How about Mom? Faye said she believed in God, but He let her die of an aneurysm in her own backyard. How’s that for an answer?”

The room fell silent as a Japanese subway car, nobody speaking above a whisper. I heard Gordon snore and roll over, crinkling a fallen bag.

“You don’t have any idea what God might a been doin’ in her life,” said Becky, face turning blotchy as tears swelled in her eyes. “We ain’t the judge.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have answered her that way.”

“You ain’t God! An’ how are you to know what she prayed for?”

“Not this,” I retorted, gesturing out the window at country pines.

“All’s I know is that God loves ya, my friend.” Becky spoke strong and clear over her tears. “An’ He loved your mama, too, more than life itself. I’m leavin’ it in His hands. I trust Him.”

“Yeah. I said that about Carlos, too.” I turned back to the closet, but Becky snatched my hanger.

“God ain’t Carlos.” Her eyes flashed. “He loves ya, Shah-loh!

Don’t ya get it? What Carlos did ain’t love.”

I didn’t reply. Just rummaged in the closet, my eyes starting to water.

“Shucks, I done prayed for ya to come to church a bunch a times so you’ll hear how much He loves ya.” She whapped me facetiously with the notebook. “But He ain’t answered that’n yet.”

“Hmmph.” I shut the closet door. “Keep praying. But I make no guarantees.”

“Believe me, I will. And there are some other things I might show ya one day when they come true.”

“Like what?”

“Hmmph yerself! Reckon you’ll jest hafta wait.”

“Well, maybe I’ll just pray some things about you. What do you think about that?”

Becky stuck her chin out. “Go right ahead! I ain’t scared.”

“I’ll start by praying for you to name your little boy Arthur.” I tickled her belly.

“How do you know it’s a boy? And he definitely ain’t gonna be no Arthur, although you can pray all ya want! Lord knows He’d like to hear ya talk to Him ev’ry now and then!”

Y
ou memorize the orders for each person, never ‘auctioning’ food,” Jerry was saying. I’d stumbled through two weeks of training, and my exhausted brain could barely cram in more information, much less scribble more notes. My writing sagged as I yawned, bleary-eyed.

“None a this, ‘Who ordered the tuna salit?’ and looking around for somebody to grab it. This ain’t a warehouse!” Jerry shook his finger. “This is The Green Tree! You remember what people order because it’s important. You’re friendly but not chatty. You serve, smile, and disappear. You refill glasses before they ask. You watch but do not loom.”

Dawn rubbed her eyes, and I reached down to massage my aching feet with my free hand. I wondered if I’d ever snubbed a waitress. Or a bookseller. They sure worked a lot harder than I realized. Reporters, on the other hand, got to spend much of their time in comfortable office chairs.

My head crowded with plates. Salad dressings. The grills where the cooks sweated, yelling orders. Flash’s grin, missing a tooth. The dishwashing area clouded with hot steam and smelling of sanitizer. The frosty freezer room opening with a big metal door.

When Jerry finally spit us out with a friendly good night, I could barely keep my car on the long, winding country roads and stumble into Mom’s house. I threw myself on the living room carpet in sheer exhaustion, peeling off my shoes and sliding my sore feet into comfortable Japanese house slippers.

I tried to rid my head of whirling images of plates, wineglasses, and shiny metal kitchen counters. The odor of frozen cheesecake and pungent black olives. The soda machine’s hissing roar. Clinking of glasses and ice.

My humiliation as I practiced taking orders then delivered the wrong glass of soda. The shiny blond customer with too-cute Dolce & Gabanna sunglasses, probably younger than me, turned up her nose and shot me a hateful look. I wanted to ring her scrawny, California-wannabe neck.

And all of this back-to-back with Barnes & Noble shifts, changing clothes just to go to work again. I fell asleep this morning at the break-room table.

I flipped wearily through the CDs in Mom’s tower, neatly stacked in the corner, to see if I recognized any of her tunes. Nope, nope, and nope. Christian artists, probably, judging from their names. I twisted my head to read more. The Beatles, toward the bottom, and the Statler Brothers.

And there near the top: Tomorrow. Really? I snatched it up in surprise, turning the artsy cover over in my hands.

I slipped it into the CD player and rested my exhausted head on the floor, listening as edgy guitar chords and voices swelled and filled the room, drifting through my cluttered mind. Pulling me back to that peaceful afternoon in Adam’s truck where all that mattered was God and eternity, life and light and faith.

It seemed so long ago now in the clatter of real estate agents and bills and jobs. It was August already. Back in Japan, August sizzled with festivals: fireworks,
taiko
drums, steaming food stalls selling shaved ice and hot
yakisoba
noodles. I’d put on a pretty cotton
yukata
robe, sash around the middle, hair pulled up.

Instead I modeled wrinkled, soda-stained pants.

“God, what on earth am I doing here?” I whispered, running a hand through my sticky hair. I couldn’t even pour the first glass without spilling, and Jerry laughed at me. “I’m so lost. Where are You?”

Even Mama Bird, swooping into the eaves in the deepening dusk, had a home. So did her fat babies, who bulged out of the tiny nest. Ready to fly away to bigger and better places.

And I could not.

No answer. Just silver chords of the guitar and a voice lifted over the lush notes: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair …”

Wait. Crushed? Perplexed?

Didn’t Christians live on a cloud with their pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by nonsense?

“… persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

The words wrapped me like a blanket. I thought of Mom and her heartache, our dark memories, and yet the music kept singing, weaving, unafraid—as if one did not cancel the other out.

No toy in every Happy Meal, like Becky said. Her unanswered prayers. But still her smile, her faith. Her miracle child.

Pain and beauty, strangely coexisting.

As if God, in His infinite power, could handle both without crumbling. The thought had never occurred to me.

I rubbed my forehead with a grimy hand, mystified by the smiles I’d seen gleaming from Mom’s pictures before I stowed them in boxes. Laughter. Hugs. Hands holding crooked arms. Peace softening the lines in her face.

What was your secret, Mom? I slid a photo album from the shelf and reluctantly squeaked it open. All this time I’ve been playing hide-and-seek with what it was. And, perhaps, even with you
.

I traced the lines of her cheek with my finger as she laughed with a group of friends in this living room, a bouquet of snow-white roses on the table. Bad Polaroids of a boy with twisted hands grinning up at her. An African-American girl in a wheelchair, unseeing, Mom’s arm around her shoulder. Hiking. Gardening in gloves and trying to shoo away whoever was taking the blurry photo. Snapshots of her roses, looking neon-red in the sunlight, and dewy shots of pink and white buds.