Southern Fried Sushi (39 page)

“He’d just come down the hillside lookin’ for ya when we told him we’d seen somethin’ weird,” said the kid, identifying himself as Trevor. “Couple a guys lurkin’ around down here, up to no good, and we thought we heard a girl screamin’. So we came up kinda quiet-like to see what was goin’ on.” He shook his head. “Bunch a idiots! My dad’s done called the cops.”

Of course. Cell phones. And people smart enough not to leave them on the backseat of the car.

I shivered. Trevor gave me his handkerchief like a gentlemanand called me “ma’am.” It was probably a period handkerchief, too, and not a Wal-Mart knockoff. But I thanked him and sponged my face.

When we came up out of the trees, a scattered cheer rose across the dark hillside.

“Hoo-rah!” shouted a crowd of soldiers and bystanders with thick accents, high-fiving Adam and Trevor and pushing us up the hill. And then: “Let’s git ‘em, boys!” Our reinforcements poured into the woods at top speed. That pro-militia Michael Dewberry talk-show host would’ve been proud.

They hustled me up the hill, never stopping. Darkness had settled, purple, and a dim orange horizon still flickered over the empty battlefield. I thought of the men who’d crumpled there in the heat of the day and how I’d prayed to God, feeling for the first time a bit of kinship with the ache of battle.

Stupid Southerners! My stomach heaved, gray coats swirling in my head. Side pulsing angry and sore.

Southerners had attacked me, but they’d also risked their own blood for my safety. I doubled over in pain, not sure what to think anymore.

“Over here!” yelled Adam, and we ran smack into Tim and Randy.

“For Pete’s sake!” shouted Tim, practically popping an artery. I’d never seen his face so furiously red. “Egg-suckin’ scumbags! I can’t believe it! Shiloh, are you all right?”

Randy threw his yellow-chevronned coat over my shoulders, which I gratefully accepted in the cold fall chill. I didn’t even care when he kissed me and called me “honey.” I just wanted out of there as fast as my legs—or someone else’s—could carry me.

Tim Senior hollered on his cell phone, giving directions to the officers and directing patrols to the opposite side of the woods to catch the one that got away. He crushed me in his hug, cheeks wet, then boosted me up onto his shoulder.

Everybody was yelling, even as we ran, stumbling to the topof the hill where a small crowd had gathered. And then, beautiful flashing police lights.

“Did you find it?” Adam asked, out of breath, as the officer approached me, pulsing in blue and white.

“Find what?”

“Your mom’s keychain.”

At that moment, if he’d asked me to marry him, I would have said yes.

I arrived home at two in the morning again, after an X-ray at the emergency room and chat with the police. My ribs weren’t broken—just badly bruised. The doctor gave me a medical excuse from work for the next five days and an ice pack.

I thought I wasn’t hungry, but when I left the emergency room, I could have eaten the leaves off a tree.

So we stopped at Cracker Barrel around nine o’clock, where I tasted corn muffins, pinto beans, mashed sweet potatoes, and sugar-cured ham for the first time. And learned that on Southern menus, macaroni and cheese counted as a vegetable.

After bawling out the police, the two Tims paid for dinner, as well as my X-ray, and Becky cried most of the way home.

They dropped off Randy first, but not without him offering—no, begging—me to stay at his place. Even started getting my stuff out of the trunk. Adam and I both argued with him, but he grinned anyway. “I’ll call ya first thing in the mornin’,” he said, covering my face with kisses until I pushed him away. Hard.

When I hobbled out of the car, all my strained muscles and ligaments starting to stiffen up, Stella ambled over from her yard, caught in their headlights in her nightdress. Out for a late-night smoke.

“What on earth happened to ya?” she crowed, puffing smoke across the gravel. “You drunk?” She sniffed me.

Nosy Stella, wanting details. I groaned and sat down. Thethought of all Crawford Manor knowing I’d been attacked by hicks didn’t set well with me.

“No.” I eased across the driveway with worried Becky’s help and sat down on the top step. “Long story, Stella. I’ll tell you later. And Becky—stop worrying. It’s just sore. The doc said I’m fine, remember?”

“He said nothin’s broken,” Becky corrected sharply. “Don’t ya wanna come with us? We’ll put ya up, Shah-loh. I mean it! I ken … I dunno, make ya chicken soup or somethin’.” She wiped her eyes.

“I’m not sick.”

“But ya hafta go ta trial! Back up’n Winchester in a few months!”

“Trial? What’d she do?” Stella repeated, her wild thoughts swirling and circling like the moths around my porch light.

Becky teared up again. “Git in the car. Come stay with us.”

To tell the truth, bunking at someone else’s house just made me feel even more out of control. Just like I’d felt in the woods. I couldn’t explain it. I wasn’t sure I even understood.

Shiloh P. Jacobs may carry an ice pack, but she’s no coward.

“I just want to sleep in my own bed, Becky. Please? Trust me?”

Becky hesitated, sniffling. “Ya shore ya ain’t mad? ‘Cause I don’t blame ya. It’s my fault.”

“The only thing that’ll make me mad is you calling me at seven thirty in the morning again.” I shook my finger at her. “I’m sleeping in tomorrow, and that’s final!”

She laughed through her tears. “Well, ken we come getcha t’morrow after church? An’ have lunch tagether or somethin’?”

“I’d almost go with you,” I heard myself whisper, remembering the open pages of Mom’s journal. The dried roses tumbling out, fragile as butterfly wings. My prayer as the battle roared around me.

“Huh?” Becky hollered. “What did ya jest say?”

I know! I’m out of my mind! Medication or stress overload. Something
.

“Nothing. Just … maybe next Sunday …” I didn’t finish. I wasn’t committing to anything—just learning more. Any good reporter would do the same.

“Church? You wanna come ta church?” Becky sniffled.

I ducked my head in embarrassment and scowled. “If you don’t tell the whole neighborhood, maybe! Now let me go to bed.”

Becky sniffled and stepped down the driveway. “Gracious, Shah-loh, take it easy, and call me if you need anything. Ya hear?”

I watched their car disappear then pulled Mom’s precious keychain out of my pocket. I’d paid dearly for it; I should have it enshrined. Then eased myself up and unlocked the door.

“Where you goin’? You didn’t tell me nothin’!” yelped Stella.

“Just wait.”

I wrapped a fresh bag of peas in a clean towel, replacing my soggy ice pack. Filled the watering can halfway and plodded stiffly down the deck.

I should have been depressed, angry. And I was, on some level. But something unexpected bubbled up: a giddy delight in Mom’s creaky old house and broken-down roses, which I thought I’d never see again. Stella’s infuriating cigarette smoke.

And my ridiculous life, so absurd I nearly laughed out loud. Broke! Fired! Mugged! And surrounded by crazy Southerners who drove me NUTS. All of them! If the deep fryer didn’t kill me, Southerners would.

I laughed and cried at the same time, hugging my aching side as the screen door banged behind me. I was coming unglued; my mind spun.

And yet I’d been rescued. Bought by someone’s blood. Given a second chance.

A second chance at life.

The dark woods. The green hillside. Another hillside where crosses jutted into the sky, like the cover of the book in Barnes & Noble.

“I meant what I told You today, God,” I whispered, joy leaping up at the sound of my heartbeat. My breath. My pink skin, alive, where the duct tape had stuck.
I want to believe in You like Tim and Becky and Adam do. Like Mom did
.

I don’t yet, but I want to
.

I tried to lift the heavy watering can, but it hurt. Stella barked at me to “let that fool thing alone” and watered for me. I wrapped my arms around my middle, watching dark sparkles trickle down over the rose canes in the porch light.

And then I clapped my hand over my mouth. Screamed.

“What’s a matter?” shrieked Stella, dropping the watering can like a hot biscuit. “Snake?”

“No.” I dropped to my knees. “Mom’s Kobe rose bush. It’s alive.”

I
couldn’t sleep after verifying with a flashlight, again and again, that Mom’s white Kobe rose plant was indeed coming back. It had bushed out all over, green and leafy, new and tender shoots in midsprout. The first sign of something stirring beneath the soil.

Just like me.

I plodded up to the shower, still in awe, and scrubbed off Winchester dirt. Washed my hair and put on pajamas. Padded toward my room, checking and rechecking my door and window locks.

And just as I passed the library, I heard Skype ring on my computer.

Kyoko. Nine missed calls. I groaned out loud, face in my hands. I’d promised to chat with her since Wednesday. I glanced at my watch, my bandaged side, and then reluctantly slid my sore body into the chair. Clicked past all my open windows of job postings, AP wire service, and newspaper sites and answered.

“Kyoko?” I rubbed my narcoleptic face in an attempt at coherency. Warm water plus painkiller definitely took their toll. I was turning to rubber.

“Shiloh P. Jacobs!” Kyoko roared into the speaker, jolting meawake. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve spent three days searching for your face in the Missing Persons file!”

“You won’t believe—”

“Try me!” she growled. “And it better be good!”

“Well, in the space of twenty-four hours I’ve met the Harlem Globetrotters, witnessed part of the Civil War, been attacked by rednecks and a skinhead and rescued by Confederate soldiers, and a rose bush I killed came back to life. And I’m kind of thinking of becoming a Christian.”

Total and utter silence on the other end of the line.

“Kyoko?” I rubbed my eyes and jiggled the mic. “You’re not watching movies with the sound off again, are you?”

No reply.

“Kyoko? Are you there?”

“Oh no.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “You’ve gone mental on me. I worried all the stress might do it to you, Ro. But it’s so much worse than I thought.”

Kyoko didn’t believe me. I could tell by her voice. She said she did and gave all the appropriate comments and “uh-huhs” when I offered more details, but she seriously thought I’d lost it. Asked the same questions in different ways to catch me off guard and see if I’d change my answer. An old reporter’s trick.

I didn’t know what else to say. So I bid her good night and dreamed of skinheads and knives until I woke up and turned all the house lights on.

When I finally dozed off at dawn, the first thing that jarred me awake was the endless ringing of the phone.

“Shiloh. I’m comin’ by yer house. Whatcha need?”

“Who is this?”

“Your true love.”

I groaned and leaned against the wall, blinking bleary eyes at the answering machine, which showed eleven messages. “Randy.”

I rubbed my face, wondering why nobody in this town ever let me SLEEP.

“So can I come?”

“No, Randy, just … thanks but no thanks. I’m going back to bed.”

After his fourth phone call “just to check” and a pounding at the front door that I didn’t answer, sleep was impossible. I made a pot of hot green tea. I carefully maneuvered myself and my teacup in as pain-free a position as possible in front of the computer, hoping to explain things to Kyoko in an e-mail. I was always better with words.

But … I just sat there. Cursor blinking. Tea steaming. Writing about guys lurking in the woods didn’t sit well in an empty house, especially as rain began to drizzle on the windows.

I’d try photos instead.

Kyoko had already received my most recent batch of uploads, which included a hat with an enormous bass attached to the top, three versions of the mullet, cowboy boots with flames up the sides, a license place reading “DUMHIK,” some homemade deer jerky at a gas station, and—I kid you not—a guy on his riding lawn mower with a “farm vehicle” license plate on the back.

I hadn’t even uploaded the reenactment pictures yet. To tell the truth, I might not. Ever.