Like Sweet Potato Pie (3 page)

“She’d better not! That’s the whole point!”

Becky grinned as the puppy licked her chin, whining. Tail batting the sides of the box. “They said this’n’s pretty close ta housebroken. Probably had a family before. An’ German shepherds learn real quick!”

“She’ll chew furniture! She’ll cry all night!”

A quivery black nose appeared over the side of the box, followed by a curious ear.

“She’ll be jest fine.”

“It’s a she?”

“Yep. You’ll thank me later.” Becky reached in to scratch her ears. “I got ya some toys jest in case.”

“In case what?”

“You decide to keep her.”

I stared down into the box, not liking that tonkatsu-sauce feeling. Oozing out all over and turning my will of iron into mush. “Becky, I’m not even home during the day! You know that. I work all the time.”

“You’re home more’n the SPCA volunteers.” Her voice held a sorrowful tone. “I’m shore she’d be grateful for any attention ya gave her. An’ … well, ya know when they cain’t find homes for ‘em, they …”

I shoved the box back at Becky then stomped out to the mailbox, trying not to think of the colorful adjectives Lowell would use when he saw that puppy. And then I spotted the fat envelope with my name in harsh block letters.

I pulled it out of the mailbox, reading and rereading the return address with a sinking lurch.

And I doubled over as if punched in the stomach.

I
blinked and jerked the envelope closer, turning it over in my hand to check the authenticity as my pulse pounded in my ears.

Yep. The real thing all right. A coolish breeze blew my hair and snapped the flags on nearby houses while I slowly tore the envelope open, praying silently for the whole thing to be a mistake. A dream. Anything but this.

As I pulled open the folded letter, printed and stamped on stark white paper, I felt my knees buckle.

I grabbed the metal mailbox for support, trying to make the two houses across the lawn merge into one.

Oh, God, no … please, no! Not now! Not when I’m trying so hard to sell the house and get out of here!
I pressed a shaky hand to my forehead, mind whirling through a dozen crazy options of desperation. None of which solved my predicament in the least.

A rusty Mustang reverberated down the street in my direction, and before anyone could poke a head out the window and gape at me, still standing there with the envelope in my quivering hand, I slammed the mailbox lid shut. I trudged back to my small, rectangular country house where Becky waited with boxes, bags, and a squirming brown thing, which had begun to yap and whine.

“You okay?” She peered at me as I fumbled for my keys. “Yer white as a sheet!”

“Sure.” I tried to smile and shoved the envelope in my cute Kate Spade purse a little too forcefully—a purse which probably cost more than Mom’s whole house. Back, yeah, when I had money. Ironic that it was now slung over a shoulder stained with soda and red-pepper soup.

“Don’t gimme that, woman! Ya done fessed up about Jesus. Might as well fess up ‘bout this, too.”

I unlocked the door of Mom’s creamy-tan house and slipped off my shoes, Japan-style. Stepped into a pair of striped house slippers. Offered a pair to Becky, who by now knew the routine. At least it kept my floors clean now that I was trying to sell the house.

“So ya ain’t gonna tell, huh? Well, no matter. Anyhow, yer gonna love havin’ a dog around here fer protection! ‘Specially with that murder out this way. Ya hear about it on the news? They think the guy killed her by—”

“Cut it out!” I pushed my running shoes back by the door with the tip of my slipper.

“Tim’s daddy said it ain’t good fer a single gal to live alone, ‘specially out in the sticks.”

“What? Churchville isn’t the sticks.” I flung my hand toward the front window, where three people across the street stood in a clump, heads together. Probably discussing in great detail the contents of my envelope, and maybe even what I ate for lunch. “I’ve got gobs of neighbors with prying eyes galore!”

For me, a city chick who’d never seen a live sheep until a few months ago, my new neighborhood put me in the furthest reaches of anything I could possibly imagine for myself. Crawford Manor harbored rednecks, boasted one resident in a purple house and another with truck parts adorning the front lawn, and reeked of country music. But … so far I wouldn’t call it the projects either. Not … exactly.

Besides playing Hank Williams Jr. too loudly and riding their lawn mowers up and down the street, my neighbors didn’t bother me. Most of the time. When they weren’t squealing their jacked-up truck tires or getting into fistfights.

I pushed the button on the answering machine, which blinked an angry red six. “I’m fine, Becky. And I didn’t say I’d keep her.”

“Oh, ya will.”

“What makes you so sure?”

Becky rolled her eyes.

“Oh no. They did not.” I glared at the answering machine as message after message spilled out, all from Shifflet Septic Services. “I’ve told them to take my number off their list—how many times? Ten?” I fumed, punching buttons through the messages, all of which came courtesy of you-know-who.

Becky snickered, and I whirled on her. “You think it’s funny? They’ve come here twice to install stuff I never asked for, and every day I get at least three or four messages. I hear their silly jingle in my sleep!”

I slapped the answering machine off, knocking my purse on the floor and scattering the hateful envelope. Becky, stifling a laugh with difficulty, glanced up at me as I tossed it on the table.

“That from them, too?”

“No.” I turned away. “It’s a bill, okay?”

“A bill? Fer what? I thought yer big spendin’ days were over.”

As much as I loved Becky Donaldson, I couldn’t get the words
IRS
or
back taxes
out of my mouth. They stuck there like peanut butter, immobile.

“They
are
over. No more credit cards like I used to rack up back in Japan. And I quit my online master’s, too, for a while. But … well, this one caught up with me,” I managed, hanging up my jacket. The envelope winked at me from the table, a sliver of spiteful white. “It’s from my Japan days—and before that, even when I studied at Cornell. It’s bad, Becky.”

“How bad?”

I swallowed hard, breath still shallow. “Mom’s house just has to sell. It has to.” I stared out the window at green leaves, tinged with dying gold. “If it doesn’t sell in a couple of months, then …”

The words
lose the house
stuck in my throat like a chunk of sticky rice.

“It’ll sell. We’re prayin’, Shah-loh. Hang in there.” Becky shoved the box at me. “Here. Play mama a bit. It’ll he’p ya.”

Against my better judgment, I lifted out the little puppy and plopped her on the living-room floor. Legs still clumsy. Nose quivering. She wagged a stumpy tail and tottered across the carpet. Barked brightly. Sat and pricked her ears.

Smiled at me. I could swear she did.

“Oh my goodness, Becky,” I groaned, feeling like a traitor. To my bills. To Lowell. “She’s adorable!”

“I know.” Becky squatted with her hand on her knee, looking like she might take her back if I hesitated even a second. “Don’t she make ya just wanna squeeze her? She’s had all her shots, too, an’ ev’rything. German shepherds make the best guard dogs and pets. Bunch a people told me so.”

I cradled the puppy’s little warm body against my chest and felt her heart beat fast and quivery against mine. She squirmed and licked my cheek.
Checkmate.

“Well, she’s got to have a name,” I said reluctantly.

“Told ya.” Becky smirked. “What kind a name ya want?”

I hated to bring up the subject of names so soon after Becky miscarried her baby. I remembered her in the Barnes & Noble, baby-name book in hand. She loved names. But she put her chin up and didn’t cry.

“Hmm.” I thought awhile, dragging a string across the carpet and watching the puppy pounce. “I suppose I ought to keep the current trend, don’t you think? NASCAR drivers. You and Adam both have dogs named after them.”

“Yer funny, Shah-loh. She’s a girl!”

“Who said women can’t drive for NASCAR?”

She considered this. “Well, there’s been a couple. Sara Christian in 1949 bein’ the first.”

“Appropriate name, then, don’t you think?”

Becky’s head came up, and she went all blotchy again. “Ya can call her Christie,” she offered, sniffling.

I picked up the wiggly little body, snatching her claws and teeth away from my tennis-shoe lace. “Christie it is. And thank you, Becky. I’ll just find some way to hide her from Lowell.”

“Well, while yer dreamin’ up hidin’ places, we gotta get this place all ready fer the big event! Pronto!”

Christie toddled around the newly painted and decorated kitchen while we threw on a lace tablecloth and lit two tall candles, all courtesy of Becky and Co. Set out gleaming china plates and crystal serving dishes, along with the makings of a fabulous meal. Roast chicken and green beans. Rosemary potatoes. We nuked everything in the microwave until it steamed.

And just as I started to call Trinity, my coworker, I saw her orange Volkswagen pull into my next-door-neighbor’s driveway as planned, disappearing behind Stella’s big school bus.

“Here you go!” Trinity called through the screen door, coffee-brown skin gleaming in the porch light. “Delivery!”

I put the gorgeous dessert tray from The Green Tree restaurant, my other part-time wage-payer, in the refrigerator. Poured Green Tree signature roasted red-pepper soup, still piping hot, into two crystal bowls. Filled the table with yellow marigolds and the season’s last roses from Mom’s flower bed, and scattered petals on the lace tablecloth.

Becky and Trinity rushed around putting down silverware, unrolling cloth napkins, and pouring a cream garnish and little sprigs of fresh rosemary on the soup. We turned on some classical violin music and drizzled sparkling apple juice in glasses over ice.

And then, just to make good to my word, I got out pliers and loosened the bathroom shower faucet so it dripped. “Told Earl it was leaking again,” I confessed. “Oops.”

Then I shooed them out of the house and over to Stella’s yard, where they crouched in the bushes, waiting for Faye Clatterbaugh’s blue Escort to crunch up the driveway.

First things first. No way I’d meet Faye in cheap black pants and coffee-spattered polo shirt, my normally straight brown hair sticking out of its elastic like splayed sticks in a Japanese fan.

While Christie tugged on my house slipper with her teeth, I shook out my hair and ran a brush through it then smoothed my sideswept bangs. Stuck in a pretty clip. I untangled Christie from my feet and then the edge of the bedspread, dumped my soiled Barnes & Noble clothes in the washer, and pulled on dark blue jeans—the typical Tokyo preppy girl color. And a soft green sweater that matched the green flecks in my hazel eyes. I threw an ivory crocheted shawl around my shoulders just as headlights flickered on the curtains.

“Hi, Faye! Come on in!” I pushed open the screen door—which practically all Southern houses came with, as if issued by Mason and Dixon themselves—and heard what sounded like twenty dogs barking over on Wayburn Street.
Great. Now I’ve added another one. Why doesn’t Becky just park a trailer in my backyard, too?

“Where’d ya get that adorable little thing?” cried Faye, reaching out. Christie stuck out a happy pink tongue and licked Faye’s chin, making us both laugh.

I didn’t subject Faye to my Japanese house-slipper obsession. Just shut the door and watched her croon and scratch Christie’s ears.

Faye’s gently lined face reflected peace and the calm quiet of her heart. She’d collected Mom’s things after her death and then practically taken me in after my life fell apart.

Faye was probably born sweet as molasses. I’d spent my twenty-four years more like a sour grapefruit, although God was heaping a little sugar on top now, thank you very much.

She sniffed. “What’s that delicious smell? Did ya make dinner already?”

“Well, sort of. I know we planned to cook together, but tonight’s different.”

Faye single-handedly saved me from a diet of instant ramen noodles and corn flakes. Plus she helped me identify weird stuff in the grocery store like collard greens, grits, and buttermilk and turn them into something somewhat edible.

“What’s tonight, sugar?” She peeked into the kitchen then did a double take. “Flowers? Fine china? What’s all this about?”

My cell phone jangled abruptly. Or Adam’s, rather, until I could afford to buy one. I pressed it to my ear, whacking the little dangly peach-thing out of my way.
That
was mine: the trendy Japanese
keitai
(cell phone) strap. Everybody had them in Japan. Only I lived in Churchville, Virginia, so it looked like I randomly attached fruit to my electronics.

“Sorry, Faye. Just a second.” I turned back to the phone. “Becky? What’s going on?” I raised my voice for Faye’s benefit.

“You gotta come git me!” Becky hollered. Then she whispered to Trinity, “Quit! Yer makin’ me laugh!” and some scuffling.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Faye stopped petting Christie and looked up. “Oh no. You’re stuck without a car. I see.” It took all my concentration to keep a straight face. “No, don’t worry. Just wait right there.”