Southern Fried Sushi (40 page)

I clicked on a photo of Stella in her housedress, smoking like a furnace, and slowly withdrew my mouse. Not after she’d spent all night making a huge cheese, egg, and bacon casserole for me. Left it on the side porch with a
Git well soon!
note when I’d gone out to water my roses. Found them already watered and the sprinkler turned on.

Same with the photo of Tim’s truck with big old Gordon in the bed, baying his head off. Kyoko would certainly have some colorful adjectives for the people I called friends. Especially since she thought I was losing it.

I sheepishly squeezed my bag of frozen peas, trying to shakeoff the chill. Maybe Kyoko was right. Had I forgotten my purpose here? That Virginia served as a temporary stopover, and (earth to Randy!) I’d come to Staunton solely to sell the house and move on?

Girl! I could hear Kyoko say. What are you gonna do, sell pork rinds in Podunkville to pay off your bills?

I limped stiffly to the bathroom, muscles screaming. Scrapes and scratches covered my arms and legs, unnoticed in all the fuss, and my side bloomed bright blue-purple and angry. I could kiss my morning run good-bye for a while.

I turned on the weepy faucet and filled the tub. My tired body needed to soak. And I needed to think of how to finish what I’d come to Staunton to do. The perfect opportunity: five days of medical leave.

I finished my bath and slid on comfortable sweats. I checked for any trace of Randy Loomis hiding out in my bushes then grabbed an umbrella, marched over to Earl’s house, and scheduled him to fix my faucet Friday evening when Faye arrived, for propriety’s sake. And he sent me back with homemade cornbread and beef stew.

Because that’s the way people did business in Virginia.

I poured some hot cocoa mix in Adam’s mug and nuked it in the microwave then dug hungrily into the stew. It slid over my tongue delicious and meaty, piping hot—just the thing for a cold day. Then I turned my attention to the bedrooms. My first job: move the furniture out of my bedroom and start pulling up the carpet. Presumably before (1) Randy called again and I had to take the phone off the hook, or (2) he came by and offered to help.

I hauled, pushed, and grunted for about an hour, sliding the heavy chest of drawers out into the hallway. I found a tool kit and started to take apart my bed, sitting cross-legged with heavyiron beams across my lap and the floor strewn with screwdrivers. Awkwardly shoved the weighty mattress up against the wall.

Then I got out some heavy-duty pliers and started ripping the old carpet up from the corners. I rolled it across the room into a bundle, displaying the dusty, honey-colored wood flooring, and then hauled part of the carpet out to the laundry room. I could barely wedge my way between the furniture in the hallway. I dumped the carpet and then found some needle-nosed pliers to pull up the sharp little carpet staples, all the while answering two more of Randy’s calls with diminishing increments of politeness.

Whew! Talk about a job and a half! My side throbbed. I held my trusty bag of frozen peas against my rib cage until cold numbed the pain then took more pain medication. Ripped up some more carpet. Picked up the scraps, dumped the rest. Got a broom and some cleaner and went to work on the floor.

I’d just dipped the rag in the can of wax again, half the floor shining, when my body seized up.

Either I’d overdone it or Earl poisoned the beef stew. A jagged shot of white-hot pain through my ribs quickly convinced me it wasn’t the stew.

My hands shook, dropping the wax-covered cloth. I clumsily shut the can and took an aspirin then stumbled onto the softest place I could think of: Mom’s bed. Rolled over on my side and groaned, wheezing as the pain radiated throughout my rib cage.

I’d been stupid to think I could get the house cleaned up in my state—and so soon after a traumatic attack.

Perhaps I had an ulterior motive all along—to forget my humiliation as if it had never happened? To prove, once again, I could do it all?

Tears stung as I recalled the curses, the blow to my head, the taunts and laughter. My utter powerlessness, despite my best efforts. Struggling with duct-tape-bound wrists is for wimps, not strong girls like me. Not Shiloh P. Jacobs, who had always controlled her own fate and pulled herself up with her own two hands.

We are all powerless. We are jars of clay.

Rain pattered softly on the glass, and I hugged my bag of peas, feeling the pain ease slightly as the aspirin took effect. Let my stiff legs relax. The phone, for one blessed minute, finally sat quiet.

I pulled open Mom’s bedside table drawer and lifted out her Bible. The one I’d been reading night after night, left splayed on the sofa or half-open on the kitchen table. Her yellow highlights and notes scrawled in the margin lighting up like signposts.

First John. I have to find 1 John. I flipped to the table of contents then paged to the back of the Bible.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”

I squinted at the black words, running across the page in blocks and columns like signposts. The language sounded funny, but something deep was coming—I sensed it.

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”

It sounded like Adam’s verse—the one about true Christians not harboring racism. Why? Because they reflect God. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in the image of Christ Jesus …”

I followed the words with my finger: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

The words pounded into my brain like the crashing waves boiling up on the Rio de Janeiro beach that Carnaval so long ago. Smashing down into the sand. The blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin.

So that’s what the whole Jesus business meant! No wonder Mom seemed different. She was different! She hadn’t just practiced “positive thinking” or mind games. Jesus had cleansed her. Set her free.

He’d given her life.

The thought was so bizarre—so strange and yet magnificent—I just lay there on the bed, staring up at the ceiling until a loud knock at the door jolted me to attention.

“Randy, go away!” I hollered, pulse pounding. “How many times do I have to …”

Huh? A hound? Gordon? I pulled back the curtain to find Tim and Becky standing on my front porch.

“Good night, Shah-loh,” drawled Tim, hauling in a bunch of steaming plastic bags as I opened the door. “You look like you done seen a ghost!” He’d shaved off his reenactment beard, but his mullet and mustache were still very much alive.

“Ya all right?” Becky worriedly took my hand. “Y’oughtta sit down a bit. How ya feelin’?”

She’d make a great mom the way she was always fussing over me. “I’m fine, y’all,” I joked. “Just working around the house and avoiding your crazy cousin.” I scowled at Tim.

“Which cousin? What are you talkin’ about? I got sixteen first cousins.”

“That figures,” I muttered. I tried to explain about Randy, but Tim’s train of thought had already jumped the track. He set the bags down on the kitchen table, yakking about somebody from church who killed a rattlesnake with a slingshot.

“Hope it’s okay we brought Gordon,” said Becky, still looking over me worriedly. “He was alone all day yesterdee and don’t do too well by himself, so I figger’d we’d just bring him along.”

“I love Gordon.” I knelt and petted as he wagged his tail and licked my cheek with a nasty, stinky, loveable tongue. “If you take your eyes off him for one second, he’s mine.” Lowell had said no pets for me, but he didn’t say no friends’ pets. So there.

“Hope ya love good ol’ Southern fried chicken, too!” grinned Tim, opening up the heavenly smelling boxes. “Ya got’ny tea, Yankee?”

“Green tea? I drink it every day.” I waved my teacup.

“Green what? Naw. I’m talkin’ sweet tea.”

“Oh. I don’t know how to make that.”

Becky and Tim both stopped in their tracks and stared at me. “You don’t know how ta make tea?” asked Becky, not understanding. Even Gordon jerked his head up, tags jingling.

Hopeless. That’s what Becky-who-can’t-conjugate-the-verb-to-be thought of my prissy Yankee self. Shaking her head in pity.

“You got some tea bags?”

I rummaged through the cabinets and found a metal tin. “Darjeeling?”

“No, that ain’t for iced tea.” Becky made a face. “Interviewed the daggum president a Japan and don’t know how ta make sweet tea!”

“Prime minister.”

“Whatever.” She rummaged and pulled out an unopened box of Luzianne. “Now we’re talkin’! Ya just bull some warter and dump some a these tea bags in a pitcher with a cup of sugar.”

“A cup?”

“Some folks put two.”

“Lands,” I said in jest. “One’s fine!” Japan’s less-is-best sweet mentality had warped me forever.

Becky scooped sugar. “Now when the warter bulls, just pour it over and let it sit ‘bout two hours’r so. Then take the tea bags out, top it off with some cold warter, and put it in the fridge. Ain’t nothin’ better in the world!”

“Amen!” said Tim. “In the meantime, let’s eat up!”

He’d just pulled the top off the gravy container when he noticed the chest of drawers standing in the hallway, parts of the metal bed frame leaning against it. Gawked like it was Shenandoah-Valley-burning General Sherman come back to life.

“What’n tha tarnation …?”

“What’s a tarnation?” I peeked around him. “Oh, that. I was just taking up the carpet.” The big toolbox still sprawled in the doorway, tools and cleaning supplies strewn about.

“You?” He jabbed a spoon at me, still dripping with gravy.

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Guess I overdid it, huh?” I crinkled the frozen peas. “I got the carpet up though, and it just needs a good wax job before I work on Mom’s room. I figure I can probably get it done by—”

“See-it!” he ordered, scowling at me and crossing his arms. “Right now!” Nodded to the chair with his head.

“What?” I raised my eyebrows and sat. Becky put her hands on her hips to join in my condemnation. “What did I do?”

“Yer under doctor’s orders, Shah-loh Jacobs! Yer s’posed to be restin’! If ya needed that carpet outta the room so doggone fast, why didn’tcha say somethin’? One a us’d helped ya!”

“For goodness’ sake! Y’oughtta know better!” scolded Becky.

“No fair!” I yelped. “Tag-team setup! And our biscuits are getting cold.” I snatched one from the bucket.

“You ain’t seen tag team yet!” Tim rolled his knuckles playfully on my head. “But I wawnt ya ta promise not ta touch nothin’ until …”

“Until when?” I lifted my chin.

“Until you’re better and git some help.” His eyes were serious. “Sometimes ya gotta have the sense to know when enough’s enough!”

“Or ta ask fer help.” Becky flounced down in the chair. “Miss Independent.”

I took a bite of my biscuit, enjoying the buttery golden crustiness on the outside. “Well, since you’re leveling with me, I’ll level with you. I’m behind. I spend all my time working to pay my bills, and I’m not getting the house ready for sale. I’m worried.”

“‘Bout what?”

“My house is just sitting here. It’s not even on the market yet, so I’ve got no buyers and no prospects.” I picked at biscuit crumbs on the table and ate them. “And you know I didn’t come to Staunton to sit around and do nothing.”

“Ha.” Tim sat down and pulled up a plate. “If there’s one gal who don’t sit around and do nothin’, it’s you, Shah-loh! Down here we tend ta … I don’t know. Take our time. Right, sugar?” He kissed Becky on the cheek.

She opened the chicken box. “I reckon you was countin’ on those five days off a work, weren’t ya?”

Tim mused awhile as he fixed his plate. “We’ll he’p ya. And believe me, I understand what it’s like ta need moolah. Shucks—we all do.”

“Exactly. I … well … look.” I reached over and grabbed a stack of envelopes. Plopped them at his plate. “There. Go ahead. I trust you.”

He glanced at me then opened some envelopes. Read the numbers. Kept a straight face. “What’s yer income, Shah-loh? Ken I ask?”

I told him. He rubbed his chin with his fist. “I gotta crunch some numbers, but the first thing we gotta do is get ya on a budget. Start the snowball effect.”

“The what?” I imagined the Yeti peeking in my window.

“Where you pay off the smallest debts first and then use tha money yer not spendin’ on interest to pay off tha next biggest ones. An’ keep goin’ up the chain. Gives ya confidence and gits things paid off as fast as possible.”

“Can you teach me? My independent self welcomes any help.” I sniffed playfully at Becky, and she threw a napkin at me.

I sobered, looking into their earnest faces. “I really need to get back into my area of work. I can’t wait tables and work at Barnes & Noble forever. You know that as well as I do.”