Like Sweet Potato Pie (17 page)

“Fact is, if we don’t keep the doggone deer population down, they’d overrun the place,” said Tim, pulling out his chair. “Few years back they was beggin’ us to bag as many as we could ‘cause they was destroyin’ farmers’ crops and gettin’ hit by cars. I take out a few of ‘em nice and quick, and we eat the proceeds. Sounds like a fair deal to me.”

As liberally as people gave away apples and zucchini (which I still couldn’t figure out why God created), they also gave away deer. Faye’s freezer bulged. Even Earl presented me with a couple of Ziplocs—the traditional redneck packaging—of frozen red stuff. They’d probably remain under my TV dinners until the next Ice Age.

“So, you gonna sit there all day, Yankee, or you gonna try it?” Tim slung an arm over his chair.

I stared down into my plate of venison, slivers of onion peeking out from the creamy gravy, and felt like a traitor to Bambi. Worst of all, it smelled delicious.

“Don’t they have diseases and things?” I sounded like Kyoko. “I mean, just running around outside with … you know … ticks and worms and …?”

“You tell me”—Tim took a bite and shook his spoon at me—“which one breeds more diseases—a cattle pen packed full a hundred head a cattle gettin’ fed artificial soy feed and hormones, all squished together in the mud, or a bunch a deer runnin’ free an’ wild in God’s green woods?”

The little cubes of brown venison sounded more appetizing all the time. I took a bite and swallowed. Gordon bayed and wagged his tail.

“All right,” I said grumpily. “I tasted it. Happy now?”

I ate two more platefuls.

“Now ya gotta try squirrel since ya et that up so fast!”

I dropped my spoon and gawked from Tim to Becky, and she finally burst into laughter. “Now, Tee-um, take it easy! She done ate yer deer. Let’s take things slow-like. Right, Shah-loh?”

“You eat squirrel?” My hand still hung open from the falling spoon. “I mean, like the squirrels that run around in my yard?”

“Have some more venison,” said Becky, ladling some more onto my plate. So tasty, all covered in that nice, peppery gravy, that I forgot what we were talking about.

Lowell’s news about my house, though, shocked me more than dead deer. Even after days of Tim’s venison stew, chili, jerky, and steaks, I couldn’t get his words out of my head.

“You won’t believe what Lowell said about my house. Ever. In a million years.”

I stabbed another sweet potato as Tim’s NASCAR clock made a zooming sound to mark the hour and jerked my head up to see the time. Fumbled with my knife. Swallowing my nerves at the thought of tonight’s ridiculous agenda. And why should I be nervous? I’d already decided not to go. Probably.

“Is that clock right?” I tried to sound casual.

“Shore it’s right. We got plenty a time. Why?”

Tim chewed, looking at me for a response. “Why? Ya got somethin’ after the big shindig?”

“Shah-loh?” Becky waved her hand in front of my face. “You breathin’?”

“What?” I jerked straight and turned away from the clock, remembering to inhale. And putting tonight out of my mind. “Sorry. I’m just …” I took a bite of sweet potato, not sure how to frame my hesitation.

“So what did Lowell say?”

“Empty.” I wiped my mouth with a napkin and forced myself to focus on now, on one problem at a time. “Lowell said the last two people who looked at my house said it was empty!”

I smacked my palm on the red-and-white checked tablecloth for emphasis. “Two separate couples! Can you believe it?”

“Empty?” Becky peeled the foil off a baked sweet potato and sliced it open. Steam rushed up in curls from its tender flesh, the color of Tim’s bright orange hunting cap. “What, like ya don’t got nothin’ in it? What’d ya do, give away all yer furniture?”

“No. They said it ‘felt’ ”—I curled my fingers in exaggerated quotation marks—“empty.”

“Well, that’s plumb ridiculous. Ain’t a house fer sale s’pposed ta be empty? Kinda?”

“That’s what I thought.” I held up the packet of Lowell’s “house staging” mumbo jumbo. “Anyway, he said the walls had to be painted off-white. All the personal photos and decorations taken down and something generic put up instead. I did that! How on earth could people call it ‘empty’? ‘Soulless’? That’s what somebody else said.”

Christie was shredding a newspaper in gray shards across the brown-and-white linoleum floor, which reminded me vaguely of Mom’s ugly ‘70s wallpaper. Before Tim and Adam replaced it with sleek, cream-colored paint.

“Please. It’s a house, for crying out loud! How can it have a soul anyway? It’s a blank canvas, according to Lowell. And that’s what I’ve made it.” I fished out a piece of venison for Gordon, who’d slung himself across my high-heeled boot in anticipation.

Tim shook his head at me in pity. “Bunch a Yankee weirdos with too much money, I reckon.”

Um … Connecticut and Maine, respectively. Not that I’d tell Tim that.

“Like them … whadda they call ‘em … pet whisperers?” His shoulders shuddered. “People plunk down a hundred bucks ta hear about their hound’s problem with his grandma! That’s what happens when people got too much money an’ not enough ta do.” He tittered. “I’m thinkin’ a gettin’ me a license fer pet psychology. Whaddaya think?”

My fist tightened on the fork, and my laughter wrenched suddenly toward tears. “You don’t understand. I need this house to sell. Badly.”

“It’s gonna.” Becky touched my arm.

“Yeah. I keep telling myself that.” I wiped my eyes. “My horrible half sister wants a copy of Mom’s will and said if she doesn’t receive it by the end of the month she’ll turn the case over to her lawyer.”

Becky looked up in horror. “Ya ain’t gonna send it, are ya?”

“Not until I get a court order.”

Ugh. Court. With a bunch of rednecks and a skinhead. Why on earth did I have to bring that up? I stabbed at my sweet potato, mentally counting off the months until February. Like a condemned man savoring his last moments.

And what did I get for my last meal? Deer.

“Everything’s against me! Why is it so hard to sell this place and move on?” I smeared butter on my sweet potato and sprinkled it with cinnamon.

“Maybe God wants ya here.” Tim grinned at me.

“In Staunton?” I glared then silenced the wrath that threatened to spill. After all, they
were
feeding me. “I’m made for big cities, Tim. For major newspapers. For … well, different things than Staunton can offer. You know that. So does God.” I forced a smile that I hoped didn’t look too farcical. “But thanks … uh … anyway.”

Gordon nudged my foot under the table, and I slipped him another morsel.

“It’s funny, though, Shah-loh, them sayin’ about yer house bein’ empty,” said Becky, shaking the ice cubes in her glass. “Fact is, a house is s’pposed ta have soul! Life! To hold in the mem’ries. The way that Lowell fella says it, it sounds almost like a skeleton.”

“He’d better not find any skeletons at my house, or I’m moving in here!”

I meant it as a joke, but Tim got this funny, faraway look in his eyes that usually preceded one of his more serious statements. “Ever’body’s got a few skeletons hangin’ around in their closet, don’t ya reckon? Goodness knows we ain’t born holy.”

“Who, you and Becky?” I teased.

“The people a God.” Tim shook his spoon at me, dripping gravy. “No matter how saved we look, we all got stuff we’d prefer ta fergit. Ev’ry last one of us. But ya know somethin’? Jesus comes ta kick all them skeletons outta the closet one by one! Just face ‘em! A couple a old bones ain’t nothin’ to be scared of. B’sides, ain’t He the one who made the dead rise and walk again?”

Tim looked almost tearful then he reached out with rare emotion and clasped Becky’s hand. “We’re the most blessed folks on earth, ain’t we, Shah-loh Jacobs?”

It struck me that Tim was calling himself blessed—
blessed!
—just months after Becky lost her miracle baby.

“I guess so.” I smiled back at them both in admiration, Gordon nosing my ankle for more handouts. “You guys deserve all the blessings in the world.”

“Deserve?” Becky nearly dropped her fork. “Shucks, Shah-loh! Ain’t none a us deserve nothin’! ‘Cept Tim, who, when he ain’t preachin’, deserves a kick in the pants from time to time.”

I choked on my tea as they smooched over the napkin basket. Then I turned away, affecting great interest in a Remington rifle cartridge wall calendar, complete with a wild turkey gobbling on the November page.

“Hurry up, y’all!” Becky finally said, scooting her chair back. “We gotta hit the road! It’s gonna start at what, around six?”

“Maybe you guys can go without me. I’ll stay here and shop eBay for tapestries and lamps and stuff. Since my real-estate agent is so set on me spending more money.” I rolled my eyes and scraped the last of my rice with my fork.

“Well, if it’s fancy decorations he wants, I got ya some NASCAR posters and ol’ pitchers a Jeff Gordon!” Gordon howled at his name, tail thumping and tags jingling. Becky poked my arm on the way to the sink with plate in hand, grinning. “That’ll give yer house some soul! Prob’ly got a ol’ set a deer antlers ‘round here somewhere, too.”

My eyes popped. “I know! That stuffed groundhog Tim shot when he was … how old again? Seven?”

“Twelve.” Becky rolled her eyes.

Tim scowled at me over his rice. “Uh-uh, Shah-loh Jacobs! Don’t you be gettin’ no notions about my Brownie! He’s mine fair and square.”

“Please!” begged Becky. “Let ‘er have it!”

“It ain’t a ‘it.’ It’s a he, if ya don’t mind. An’ Brownie ain’t goin’ nowhere.” He leaned down the hallway and hollered. “Hear that, Brownie? Don’t ya worry! I ain’t gonna give you away!” He shook his head. “Ya made the poor thing cry.”

I stared at him, leaning my head on my hand in disbelief.

“Tim’s awful attached to that rodent,” Becky whispered. “Sleeps with it sometimes when I’m outta town.”

“
Shh!
Don’t you say that in front a comp’ny, woman! She’ll think I’m weird!”

“Well, she done figgered that out by now.” Becky carried her plate to the sink. “Goodness only knows! Don’t even git me started on the Cheez Whiz an’ badger episode!”

“The what episode?” She was joking. She had to be.

“Woman? Shush!” Tim glanced over at me, choking back laughter. “Did you say somethin’, Shah-loh? Thought I heard some high-pitched noises, but it didn’t make no sense ta me.”

“I got pitchers!” Becky called on her way down the hall. “So don’t sass me, boy!”

He pretended to pound the table in frustration.

Becky was still yelling. “Y’all better hurry up if we’re gonna make it over ta Adam’s before dark! I don’t know ‘bout you, but I ain’t missin’ that pie an’ bonfire fer his birthday!”

“Oh yeah.” Tim shoveled his rice and gravy into his mouth and swigged the last of his sweet tea, which Southerners drank no matter how cold it got outside. “Honey? Did we get him a present?”

“I’m wrappin’ it right now!”

“What is it?”

“Oh, just that ol’… what’d ya call it? Brownie?”

His eyes bugged out. “Now hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute!” And he pushed his chair back and dashed down the hall.

I twirled my empty fork on my plate, envying the warmth that welled up between Tim and Becky. I missed being known by someone—and still loved.

Loved, like Tim said, no matter what kind of skeletons hung in my closet. “
A relationship,
” Adam had called life with God last summer, as he and Becky and Tim sat over take-out pizza in my living room.

“
A romance,
” amended Tim.

I glanced out the frilly tan curtains at a poplar branch, which shook lemon-yellow leaves in the late afternoon sunlight. Remembering—for some odd, inexplicable reason—the long, pale scar that stretched across Adam’s knuckles on his left hand. I’d seen it before but never asked what happened.

A bike accident? Chopping firewood? Or did he fall off the roof like his dad a few months ago, necessitating (1) a rush to the emergency room and (2) the laughable “help” of one clueless waitress—
moi
—at The Green Tree to administer Rick’s medications?

I’m just glad I didn’t overdose the poor guy; Rick was certainly one of my favorite people, next to Todd, of course, and Adam, and …

Why am I thinking about Adam anyway?
I scooted my chair back abruptly and took my plate to the sink. Stepping over Christie, who had fallen asleep on a heap of torn newspaper bits. One shred hung in the fuzzy fur of her right ear.