Southern Fried Sushi, page 30
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.”
A bittersweet glow radiated from the gray windows outside, and the yellow light overhead reminded me of where I’d come from and where I still needed to go.
We all avoided each other’s eyes, and for the first time I felt a twinge of sadness at the thought of leaving. But that was life, and I needed to find mine. Far away from here.
“Wale,” said Tim, extending his hands to us. “There’s one thing we do at these times. We pray.”
We bowed our heads over the table, three sojourners, as Tim prayed for me and my finances, for Mom’s house, and for Becky and the baby. Then we raised our heads and dug in like old times, passing biscuits and gravy. Laughing as if we’d share meals like this forever and none of us would ever leave.
After lunch Tim flipped through all my envelopes one by one and totaled them without flinching or fudging. I was ashamed at the debt I’d managed to rack up, as if snooping in a stranger’s bills. How could that have been me, spending six hundred dollars on a Gucci bag?
It felt an eternity ago. Now I checked prices in the grocery store. Bought generic and store brands. Cut coupons. Turned off the car air conditioner to save gas. Checked my weekly hours at work to see if I’d have enough to pay my bills.
Becky sat there quietly, never making a snarky comment. Patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Tim’ll getcha outta yer fix as fast as he can. I know you’re tryin’.”
I looked for judgment in their faces as he opened the Louis Vuitton envelope, but found none. With the $390 I’d spent on a silk scarf, I could have gotten Adam’s brother some new medical equipment. Bought Becky some smashing maternity clothes. Invested in tickets to come see my mom, even if out of principle.
But I had been so intent on playing the part—a woman above my means—and snagging a man like Carlos, who in the
end didn’t even want me at all.
Tim watched me redden and squirm as he wrote down the amount and finally smacked me with the corner of the envelope. “Gotta face ‘em, Shiloh! Face ‘em head-on. That’s tha way ta do it.”
“I know. I just can’t believe I was so stupid with money back in Japan. I’d have a nest egg saved up by now.”
“How much’d ya make?”
I gulped. Covered my eyes. Told him. In the past I would have lied, but his “face-’em-head-on” speech emboldened me. I’d pretended too much of my life away already.
“Yep. But that’s how ya learn. No sense cryin’ over it now.”
We did some more budgeting, and then Tim told me to call every single one of the companies, on Skype if I had to, and ask them to waive the late fees. To tell them the truth and see if they’d cut me any slack.
In the past my pride would have refused, but now I obediently jotted it down in my planner.
Tim wrote me out a weekly budget for necessities and added another small category: house repairs. To get me in Lowell’s good graces again. Said he’d help me if I promised not to do anything myself.
Then suddenly: “What time is it? Shoot, we’re late! It’s on!”
“What’s on?” We all jumped up, including Gordon, who bayed and wagged his tail.
“The race!” And he dashed to the living room and turned on Mom’s TV. “It’s in Daytona ta boot! Shewwweee!”
“NASCAR, silly!” giggled Becky at my blank face. “Siddown right here and watch!” She smacked the sofa.
“NASCAR?” I repeated stupidly, not moving. “We’re really watching NASCAR?”
“Watch and learn!” Tim gave a silly grin, stretching out his gangly, cowboy-booted legs and hugging a couch pillow. “And let’s see if our sweet tea’s ready while we’re at it!”
I’d never seen cars go around a track so many times. I got dizzy after a while, but between Tim and Becky’s excited cheers and explanations about drivers and crews and sponsors, and who cheated and who didn’t, the whole thing began to make … well, a bit more sense. Maybe.
I memorized a few car numbers and who was “pole position” and absorbed (not necessarily intentionally) all kinds of weird information about the greats. Tim liked a new upstart named Vic Priestly, number 54, who drove for John Deere. He’d come in the top five in the last four races and won the Brickyard 400, beating all the favorites.
When I decided to cheer for Juan Montoya, it made things instantly easier. I now had enemies.
And every time one of us said “Jeff Gordon,” Gordon bayed and waggled his backside. I hauled him onto my lap, where he snoozed comfortably.
“Doggone it, Vic!” yelled Tim, throwing the couch pillow. “Now don’t go runnin’ inta the wall! Git ‘em! Show ‘em how it’s done!”
I grabbed the pillow and dusted it off. “Quit throwing my house-staging props!” I scolded. “They’re supposed to make rich people buy my house!”
“Oh, and this, too?” He picked up my basket of half-folded, wrinkled laundry. “Yer smelly ol’ socks oughtta bring ‘em in by the truckloads!”
“Go! Go! Go!” screamed Becky to Tony Stewart, sitting on the edge of her seat. “You ken pass him! Pass that ol’ Jimmie Johnson and leave him in the dust!”
Then she let out a soft groan and doubled over.
“What’s wrong?” I put down my iced-tea glass. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She waved me away. “That chicken must a woke up! Don’t worry ‘bout me.”
Then Jeff Gordon crashed with Vic Priestly, and we all turned back to the TV screen. Tim stood up, arguing with the commentators and waving his arms. Plopped back down in frustration, slapping his knee.
And then Becky, “Ow!” Sharper this time.
Tim and I both turned. “Sugar? What’s wrong?”
She sat up again, brow wrinkled. “I don’t know. Prob’ly nothin’. I just … felt some pain outta nowhere. Just some cramps, I reckon.”
We turned back to the TV, but something niggled in my brain. I watched her profile out of the corner of my eye as she sipped her tea and followed the race. Cheered when Tony Stewart sailed past Vic Priestly into first place. But she massaged her belly as if something still hurt.
Kyle Busch cut off Juan Montoya with a buzz of tires, grabbing third—and then Becky’s face furrowed in pain, so strong she gasped.
She frowned and stood up. “I’ll just use the bathroom real quick.”
The race shifted to a commercial break, and Tim and I followed her, exchanging silent glances. Cold uneasiness crept over me, like when I’d seen shadows on the trail in Winchester.
“Go on! Y’all don’t have to listen!” Becky called through the closed door.
“What?” Tim hollered back. “Cain’t hear ya! We was just listenin’ ta Becky use the bathroom!”
I chuckled and emptied another ice-cube tray into the pitcher. Sweet tea sure made us go through ice awfully fast.
The race came back on, but neither Tim nor I made a move for the living room. Becky hadn’t come out yet, and I busied myself with washing the table, trying not work myself up and upset Tim. But I worried. Especially when I heard her groan in pain again. And give a sharp cry.
“Baby?” He rapped at the door anxiously. “You okay?”
No answer. Then a weak, “Yeah, I think so. I just don’t know why I … oh no. Oh no. That ain’t good. Oh God! Tim?” She opened the door a crack and peeked out with scared eyes. “I’m bleedin’!”
“Bleedin’? You mean … sweetie? You think …?”
Becky doubled over again, looking pale. “I think we’d better …”
I felt cold all over so quickly goose bumps prickled on my arms.
“Let’s go! Right now!” He helped her put her shoes on, coaching her to take it easy. Put her arms through her jacket and zipped it up in such a gentle way it nearly made me cry. “Shiloh, I’m sorry ta bail on ya, but—”
“I’m going!” I shouted. “Just get in the car! I’ll drive you!”
“But yer all banged up, an’ Gordon’s here….”
“Get in the car!” I ordered. “Gordon’ll be fine. You take care of Becky. Just tell me how to get there.”
And we bolted into the rainy evening.
I drove as fast as I could, Tim and Becky sitting in the back, praying in low tones. Fingers laced together. Becky’s groans punctuating the swish of wet tires.
I stopped at a red light, windshield wipers swashing back and forth, and prayed myself. Wished I could send out a red alert for everybody to pray at top speed. Maybe numbers made a difference—like in finances.
The hospital hid in the middle of nowhere, clear on the other side of the county—or state. I wasn’t sure which. I pushed the Civic as fast as possible on the rainy roads, gripping the steering wheel until my nails dug into my palms.
The baby’s fine! You’ll see! I calmed myself into a numb oblivion, pressing the accelerator and signaling and watching for signs. Squealed into the hospital parking lot and unloaded Beckyand Tim at the front door.
“I’ll find you.” I squeezed her hand tight. “Don’t worry! Just get in there! Everything’s going to be all right.”
I parked the car, shaking all over, and then rushed inside the spacey-looking complex of white, metal, and glass. Sat down on the hard hospital seat and clasped my hands tightly together and waited. And waited. And waited.
I tried not to look at the people around me, all in various stages of worry or stress. This made my second visit—in one weekend—to the emergency room. My stomach heaved at the smell of antiseptic.
I called Faye. Called Adam. Sat riveted to the seat, waiting for any movement from the emergency-room door. Waited for Tim to come out with a grin, telling me Becky had swallowed a fly or some silly joke. All would be fine. We could go home, recap the race, feed Gordon, and get up tomorrow smiling.
Please, God … please, God … I prayed, hands wrapped around my still-throbbing abdomen and half-thawed peas, which did little to relieve the pain. Two children played with blocks in a corner, the girl’s blond hair in pigtails.
Please, please, God …
Time dragged on, and I ached. Shivered in air-conditioned blast. Wrapped my jacket tighter and wished I’d brought some aspirin or a fresh bag of peas.
Faye called, on her way, and Adam promised he’d leave as soon as his dad arrived to stay with Rick.
Adam and I texted back and forth:
ANYTHING?
NOTHING.
ANY WORD YET?
NO. I‘LL LET YOU KNOW.
The white ceiling and beams screamed futility. People walked
into hospitals one way and out another—either saved, like I’d been in Winchester, or changed forever in an instant. And all out of our control.
