Southern Fried Sushi (35 page)

I gaped at him, open-mouthed. “You’re serious.”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to make money?”

“This isn’t what I had in mind!”

“Aw, quit whinin’ and get to work! It’ll be a blast! The Harlem Globetrotters—in my restaurant!”

I slowly dumped the apron over my head. “Where are you going to put them all?”

“They’d be sittin’ on each other’s laps if I tried ta stuff ‘em down here! I opened the overflow space on the second floor and spent the day puttin’ tables up there. Got some extra cooks and dishwashers and a couple of busboys, but still short on waitstaff. But … this is as good as I can do, Shiloh! We’re sizzlin’! Ain’t it fun?”

“Fun?” I tied my apron and glared.

“A little bit a mayhem ain’t gonna kill ya, Shiloh! It’ll make ya stronger!”

Jerry was starting to sound like a mustached Jamie. I scowled.

“The Harlem Globetrotters, Shiloh! You’re gonna be servin’ some of the most famous people in the world!” Jerry hit me again with the notepad as if to knock some sense into me, still grinning. “You can git their autographs! Just do your job and you’ll have the best night of your life.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

My fingers shook as I hung up my purse. I’d held interviews with Japanese heads of state without a nervous butterfly, and suddenly a bunch of hungry Staunton-ites and traveling basketball players scared me out of my wits?

“Start with these tables out here.” Jerry rushed me to the kitchen door and handed me my tray. Pushed me into the main room. “Good luck, kiddo!”

A couple scanning a menu looked up expectantly. Quiet music tinkled overhead, and an older couple gestured to their water glasses. I took a halting step forward then ducked back into the kitchen.

“Git on out there!” scolded Jerry over his shoulder. “Tonight ain’t no night to get nervous and freeze up. Now go on! Git!”

“I’m not freezing up, Jerry!” I argued back. “I need a water pitcher. And I just had an idea.”

“What idea? Make it fast.”

“You need more waitstaff. Can I call a friend who might want to fill in?”

“You can call the Pope! And if he showed up, I’d put him to work.”

“You’re serious? Even without proper training?”

“As a heart attack! Anybody can pour a glass of water! Now make your call and git back out there in sixty seconds or …”

“Or what? You’re going to fire me?”

“Not tonight,” said Jerry facetiously. “But don’t tempt me.”

I fumbled for my cell phone in my purse, tray under my arm, and hastily dialed.

S
ilence. Pure, beautiful silence.

I opened my eyes weakly, and I tried to remember why I felt like watery grits, exhausted and poured out. Why my hair reeked of fry oil and my arm was sticky with … ketchup? I sniffed. Dried and caked like blood.

Ugh. Not a nice premonition.

As if the shi in my name didn’t sound enough like death. Danger. Mishaps.

My eyes focused on the delicate Japanese fan ruffling across one pale blue wall I now called mine. Sunshine. And a pile of reeking restaurant clothes scattered across the carpet.

No Barnes & Noble. No Green Tree. Just beautiful, blessed quiet.

I rolled over with a yawn. Didn’t even lift my head to look at the time.

Last night I stumbled into bed around three in the morning, waving good-bye to a bleary-eyed and soiled Jamie Rivera—both of us with aching feet and covered with coffee and roasted red pepper soup. We’d served hundreds (or so it seemed)—and they just kept coming, no matter how fast we scurried. We even rang people up with the credit card machine and booked reservations

for the following week.

Reading specials and memorizing orders and running for heavy, steaming plates, over and over, all endless night long. Dawn the Helpful burst in, called in on emergency, and eased our load by commandeering a busboy and ordering him to stay with us. Our trio kept the entire restaurant in order—seating people, taking orders, serving plates, refilling glasses.

Only after nine o’clock we realized we were alone—the hostess didn’t show, Jerry never reappeared, and all the other waitstaff stayed upstairs serving the Harlem Globetrotters, who’d slipped up the back way.

At ten Jerry closed the restaurant and ushered us upstairs to gawk at the famous-of-all-famous basketball players. They looked ten feet tall—giants in the little room—surrounded by agents and coaches and personal members of their own press.

Press? I ached to see their press releases—proofread them and correct the misspellings and dangling participles. To whip out a notebook, ask friendly questions, and then bang out a story on my laptop before you could say “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.” And then listen to my boss pour on the praise.

Instead I meekly extended my hand and let them shake it heartily in their huge ones. I meant nothing to them. A waitress. A hick. A nobody. Not a soul in the room would guess, in my frazzled ponytail and stained apron, that I once worked for the Associated Press in Shiodome, Tokyo. That I accepted one of the highest journalism awards this side of the Pulitzer, auditorium hushed as I rose to my feet.

“Well done,” Jerry had said as we filed out, clapping me affectionately on the shoulder. “Shiloh, you’re an angel. You’ll share tips with everyone else, ya hear? We’re splittin’ it up fair and square tonight. You guys were gold.” He always said that. “And Jamie?”

“Yes, sir?” Under the exhaustion she looked nervous, like showing up at the wedding of someone she didn’t know.

“Sir nothing. You were fantastic. You want a job?”

And that’s how Jamie joined The Green Tree staff. I guess so, after Jerry took us into the hallway and counted out a staggering five hundred dollars—in real dollars—right into our hands. EACH of us. Told us the Globetrotters were generous men.

Jamie and I staggered, dream-like, into the black and empty Staunton streets. I stayed awake on the long drive home by listening to right-wing talk radio host Michael Dewberry, a new guy, who advocated a return to militias and spent an inordinate amount of time talking about guns and deer hunting.

And here I lay, comatose. With … the phone ringing?

I groaned. No way on earth I’d swing my legs over the bed and plod out to the kitchen just to answer the phone. Please. All I needed was more sleep. I pressed the pillow to my ears and buried my face.

Pause. More ringing.

Please, please, go away! I threw something at the door, trying to close it.

And then—the buzz of my cell phone vibrating from my Green Tree pants pocket. I grunted angrily then reached over and clumsily dug it out.

I flipped open my phone with a scowl. “Becky?”

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead!” she chirped, forcing my closed eyes open. “Yer goin’ outta town today!”

“Out of town?” I repeated incredulously, fumbling for my alarm clock. “What time is it anyway?”

“Seven thirty. Time for ya to be up, Yankee!”

“Seven thirty? Are you crazy?” I hollered, scrunching the pillow around my head. “The Harlem Globetrotters ate at our restaurant, and I just got home!”

“Shore, an’ I’m Bob Hope!”

“No, Becky! I’m serious!”

I heard her giggling and covering the phone. “Shah-loh thinks I’m gonna believe the Harlem Globetrotters was at The

Green Tree last night,” she guffawed to Tim.

I glared, grumpy enough to give a lecture on the verb “to be.” I was, they were. Is it really that hard?

“So, can we come pick ya up now? Are ya decent?”

“Decent? What are you talking about? Where are we going?”

“To reenact the Civil War.”

This conversation made no sense. “The war ended over two hundred years ago, and we’re not bringing it back.”

“A little over a hunnert ‘n’ thirty,” Tim corrected me in the background. “Check yer hist’ry books! If they ain’t made in Jersey, that is!”

“You’ve got me on speakerphone?”

“Okay, we’ll pick ya up in ‘bout half an hour. See ya.”

I don’t know if I was more astonished at Becky’s “invitation,” which I still hadn’t accepted, or how we managed to have parallel conversations among three different people. Maybe I was still asleep. I closed my eyes and opened them. Nope. No such luck.

I groaned and rolled out of bed. Stared at my haggard reflection in the mirror. Crawled in the shower and scrubbed Coke and marinara sauce off myself then dried my hair and put on fresh clothes, feeling slightly better in clean jeans and a green print top. Clear kelly green made everything better.

Then, per my promise to Adam, I lugged the water bucket down into the flower bed.

I ate some cereal, puffy eyed, then heard Becky knock cheerily on my front door. Jerked it open and promptly spilled orange juice all over myself.

“What ON EARTH?!” I shrieked.

Instead of Becky, there stood a bearded Confederate soldier—as authentic as I’d ever seen—pointing his very sharp and very real bayonet right at me. His unsmiling eyes bulged large and angry, matching his gray battle uniform, and every single button and badge shone. His boots—real period boots—gleamed, and I jumped back as another Confederate peered up at me throughthe bushes, clutching his saber. I didn’t know whether to freeze or flee.

The sound of laughter shook me. I looked up and saw, through my haze, Becky doubled over with laughter. She finally straightened up and slugged the soldier with the bayonet in the arm.

“Tim?” I managed.

He dropped the pose and guffawed, putting the sheath back on the bayonet and leaning it up against the porch pillar. “Shucks, Shah-loh! I didn’t think ya’d fall fer it!”

“What on earth are you doing?” I burst out angrily, wiping orange juice off the front of my shirt. “It’s not Halloween!”

My breathing gradually slowed down as I saw Tim’s face underneath his Rebel-flag hat. He’d grown his beard out and everything.

Tim and Becky only laughed harder. The soldier in the bushes with a CSA belt buckle (Confederate States of America?) stood up and slapped his knee. “Good one, Donaldson! That’s the ticket!”

“Who are you?” I demanded, not quite believing the charade was really fake. They looked so authentic. The Rebel in the bushes even had bright yellow chevron stripes on his shoulders and a real leather saber case.

“Randy Loomis.” He had penetrating green eyes and a goofy sort of smile. Rusty-colored hair hung over his collar. “Tim’s cousin.” He doffed his cap and bowed then held out his hand for mine.

“Hmph.” I offered it reluctantly then snatched it away when he tried to kiss it. “Hope you didn’t ruin my marigolds. They have to sell this house, you know.”

I let them into the living room and went to change (ironically) into a New York Mets T-shirt then stomped moodily back out with a baseball cap in my hand. “This better be good.”

“It will be.” Becky put her arm around Tim the Confederate. “Tim’s a reenactor.”

“I’ll give him something to reenact,” I muttered.

“Aw, now, Shah-loh, don’t be crabby. You’ll love it.” Becky patted my arm. “Tim an’ his dad have been doin’ reenactments for years. His dad’s a brigadier general. You’ll see him there.”

“Where’s there?”

“Winchester.”

“Where’s Winchester?”

“A short piece up 81,” said Randy. “We just gotta pick up that Carter fella first.”

I turned to Becky for translation—hilarious as that sounds—who fortunately had kept her sweet blond hair nicely styled. She wore lip gloss, too. The closest thing she’d come to lipstick. My “Chapstick-doesn’t-count-but-is-better-than-nothing” speech must have gotten her attention.

“About two hours’r so north on the interstate. Perty drive and ev’rythang, an’ you ken see some new places.” She peered at me worriedly. “You really okay? Ya look kinda like tha livin’ dead.”

Death.
Shi
. Four of us in the car.

“Firing real cannons doesn’t sound safe, Becky.”

Randy’s green eyes lit on me, glowing like overeager embers. “I’ll take care of ya.” He inched closer, breath prickling my hair. “If yer scared, ‘cause there’s a lotta smoke an’ all, I’ll …”

“Forget it. I’ll be fine,” I said shortly. And reluctantly grabbed my purse.

We stopped by someplace to pick up Adam (the only non-Confederatized male), and then Adam, Randy, and I packed into the backseat of Becky’s sedan like Japanese smoked squid in vacuum-sealed bags, suckers smooshed against plastic.

Good thing her car was roomy because I had no intention of being pressed against Randy’s prickly bronze stars for the duration of the trip. Although from his grinning stares, he certainly wouldn’t mind.

A hot cup of coffee from Hardee’s, although not the snazzy stuff I liked, helped wake me up enough to absorb the conversation about the Civil War and Tim’s reenactment history as we sped toward Winchester. All the sabers, emblems, uniforms, and hats, all identical to those used in the 1860s—even down to the stitching. Homemade hardtack, from real nineteenth-century recipes.

The soldiers, all having honest-to-goodness ranks, actually drilled and practiced and shot blanks from cranky old muskets and cannons.

Tim and Randy talked excitedly about war tactics and battles lost and won. What the Confederacy could have done to improve their strategy and win the ones they lost.