Southern Fried Sushi (26 page)

I had a hunch Stella could give me the beef on everybody in Crawford Manor. Not a bad thing. Then again, what was she saying about me?

Stella lowered her voice. “But down the street ya got Misty Wilcox. Now she’s a piece a work.” I whipped my head up. That phrase again! “Boys think she’s mighty fine, but let me tell you! That girl oughtta get some sense before she turns out like her mama. Gettin’ married to that dumb Wilkes fella! Shewwweee! Makes ya wonder why God made brains.”

I smiled up at her in newfound admiration. Stella, in three minutes, had probably just filled up the rest of my “Southern Speak” notebook.

“Do you believe in God?” I asked out of the blue, surprising myself.

Stella puffed a few minutes, averting my eyes. “I reckon so. Elvis sang gospel, ya know? I think that’s what makes a person good. Stickin’ to their roots.”

“Okay.”

“I’m a good person and all. Don’t get me wrong. Jest don’t think I need to go to church. Me and God are close. Real close. That’s all I’m sayin’.”

Stella seemed edgy and even defensive, so I changed the

subject. “So what do you do?”

“I drive my school bus. Ain’t ya seen it over there?” She shook her head, tapping ashes off her cigarette. “Sheeewwwee! Kids shore ain’t what they used ta be, but it beats food stamps!”

Stella eyed me, trying to figure me out. “Yer a reporter, ain’t ya?”

I toyed with a wooden post on the deck. “I … well … yes. I was.” If I spilled to Stella about what happened, everyone in Crawford Manor would know by morning. Maybe before.

“Goin’ back real soon then, ain’t ya?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, if ya ain’t, Staunton’s got a paper! Good’n, too. I get it ev’ry mornin’.”

My heart picked up. “Really? Can I see a copy?”

“Shore, honey!” She eased herself up off the steps. “Come on over and take a look!”

I wandered over into the dimly lit house, which at first breath I realized wasn’t fresh and airy like Mom’s. Dusty. Dark. Full of carpet and aged fabrics in browns and greens—sofas, chairs, rugs. I felt suffocated.

Stella turned on an orange hanging light over a dining room table, which gave a creepy Halloween glow to the whole musty room.

But then a crisp newspaper folded next to her ashtray made me tingle. I snatched it up, smelling the clean scent of newsprint ecstatically, and opened it.

Newspapers. Words. Columns. Articles. Reports. Newsprint. They whispered to me like long-lost loves, sending secret messages in black and white. I looked down into the first familiar face I’d seen in days.

“Can I borrow this?” I asked, heart pounding. Staunton was small enough that
The News Leader
might not recognize me if I kept my mouth shut. I could earn a little money, pay off my debts, send myself back to school, and start over in New York.

“Barr-ee it? You ken have it. And here—take some a these.”

Stella shoved a glass jar of gumdrops at me. “I certainly don’t need any more on these big ol’ hips!” She snorted in laughter.

“An’ if ya need a job, just lemme know. My brother runs a restaurant up’n town. Real nice place, kinda upscale. I know they always need folks.”

I swallowed my gasp. “Thanks, Stella. But don’t worry about me. I’ll call the paper tomorrow.”

“You do that, darlin’. And if you wanna talk to my brother, just gimme a call.”

Never in a million years! Instead, I thanked Stella, folded the newspaper under my arm, took my gumdrops, and headed home.

W
e’re not hiring now.” The unsmiling receptionist at the
The News Leader
looked up at me with frosty eyes. She wrinkled her lip as she took my crisp stapled sheets, like I’d handed her a used flypaper.

“It’s my résumé,” I said tartly, in case she didn’t recognize one.

“Um … okay.” She shoved it under a stack of papers with the tips of her fingers. Then rudely waved me aside. “Sir? Can I help you?”

I put my hands on my hips in disbelief. This is the Staunton what? From where?

I’ve worked in better places than your fly speck on the map of mediocre, little-known, who-cares rags—a hundred times over! I fumed as the man stepped in front of me.

My heart pounded, ready to give Lee Ann whoever a piece of my mind. But it suddenly dawned on me—with cold realization—that I’d lost my right to fight. What could I say? I was a journalist fired for plagiarism, and now I depended on something new: grace.

I swallowed hard then walked out to the car, pride slipping away with each step. I pulled out of my hard-won parkingspace and thought murderous thoughts toward the
Leader
while I followed traffic under a train track. Past a giant metal flowerpot. A retro ‘50s diner. The old county jail, which had been broken up—so Becky told me, dead serious—into a spiffy little apartment subdivision.

Not a skyscraper or neon sign in sight on Greenville Avenue, the main drag—if you could call it that.

I was desperate for money. I needed a job.

The power company waived my late fee when they heard about Mom, and I paid the next installment so they couldn’t cut me off. But the phone and Internet company didn’t give a hoot about sob stories. They just put me on hold another hour.

Churchville offered no opportunities whatsoever, either for employment or cultural advancement. Long runs through the looped streets of Crawford Manor revealed endless rows of redneck cookie-cutter houses, most of them flanked by jacked-up trucks or discarded beer cans, and the narrow roads eventually disappeared into uninhabited pastureland.

I was, for all practical purposes, marooned.

Now I stared at my
omamori
good-luck charm dangling from my rearview mirror as I pulled up to a red light, fast-food joints blinking on either side.

Come on … work! Work! Just a phone call from the New York Times, or even the Post. Just one measly little …

All I got was the car behind me honking impatiently as the light turned green and a greasy, tattooed redneck leaning out of his mud-covered pickup to grin at me.

I found the mall and dismally parked then wandered aimlessly inside. Everything glowed strangely with natural light, all trimmed with polished tiles and plants. I felt unreal, like I’d dropped into Second Life by accident and suddenly gone virtual. I waved my hand in front of my face to make sure I was still breathing.

No sushi in the food court—if you could call a couple ofdinky, run-down food stalls a food court. No chips for my cell phone. Just tiny, kitschy stores that made me rethink driving to New York overnight. At least there I could panhandle.

But then I spotted a Barnes & Noble complete with Starbucks and counted out my precious change to buy the first espresso I’d had since touching down in Chicago. Surrounded by books, words, and coffee, I felt somewhat comforted.

As I stirred sugar into my espresso at a side table, a girl with a shiny Barnes & Noble tag and even shinier dark hair smiled at me briefly—but sincerely—before sitting nearby with her own cappuccino.

I looked up in surprise. In New York, no one smiled at strangers, and in Japan it was unthinkable. I’d just spent two years in a culture where people desperately avoided eye contact—always looking at the ceiling, the floor, or an advertisement for noodles with profound interest, eyelids blinking nervously.

Wait a second.

I choked on my coffee, wiped my lips with a napkin, and rushed, uninvited, over to her table. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but are you reading … kanji?” I gasped and turned over her Asian-character-covered book.

Her dark eyes smiled back at me. “Not really. I studied Japanese my first semester in college, but I don’t remember it anymore.” She handed me the book. “Do you?”

“Sure!” I followed the characters with my finger. “‘North Star Angels.’ It’s a new manga comics series. Kyoko loves it.”

I flipped through the book, enthralled at seeing those familiar characters and cartoons—then realized I hadn’t even introduced myself. “Sorry.” I stuck out a hand. “I’m Shiloh Jacobs.”

“Jamie Rivera.” She gestured to an empty chair. “Want to join me? I’ve still got twenty more minutes before I go back to work.”

It didn’t take me long to learn Jamie was Puerto Rican-American and on summer break from college, getting ready to start her senior year. Paying for her college mostly herself, likeme, and working to make ends meet.

“Too bad you’re not looking for a job,” said Jamie finally, stirring her coffee. “One of our guys just quit, and we’re a bit short staffed these days.”

I wiped the expression of derision off my face. Me? Work in a bookstore? I averted my eyes and flipped through the book some more.

Then thought, with tightening stomach, of the bills on my kitchen table. The way Lee Ann had tossed my résumé aside like bird-cage newspaper. The red needle on Mom’s Honda pointing to empty.

Jamie had already changed the subject and was talking about something else.

“Did you say there’s an opening?” I heard myself ask, hands nervously gripping my coffee cup.

So at least I hadn’t stooped to waiting tables. I could sell books a few weeks—just until I got caught up.

Back home I checked for cell phone service again, but no such luck. My international card had run out, and I didn’t have money for fancy electronics anyway. I flipped my old cell phone closed for good.

In Tokyo I’d have gone right out and bought the nicest model, with all the bells and whistles. But those days were gone.

I suppose I could pray, but I wasn’t a praying woman. So I didn’t exactly. But I thought it. A lot. And hoped maybe God would notice. After all, Jamie said God brought me—that Travis the boss had spent two sleepless weeks wringing his hands over a hole in the staff, and I was God’s answer.

I didn’t completely believe Jamie, but it made my lonely heart feel warm to imagine a God who had plans for me—a liar and a plagiarizer reduced to shelving books.

So imagine my astonishment when, around six, someoneknocked at my front door. I opened it, soap still dripping from the dish in my hand, and found Adam Carter standing there on my front porch. Holding out a cell phone.

“Becky said you don’t have a cell phone that works here,” he said, ignoring my bewildered expression. “So you can use mine as long as you need it.”

“Me?” I stood there dumbly, so he reached for my one nonsoaped hand and plopped the cell phone in it.

“Go on. I’ve got another one I can use.”

“I can’t, Adam. You need it for your business.” I tried to hand it back.

“Nah. I can do with my old one. I switched the chips, so I’ve got all the info I need. It’s set up with my payment plan, which has a bunch of free minutes. You won’t run out.”

“But why? I can live without one, you know.”

“You drive around a lot, and Becky and Faye and I just wanted to make sure you’re safe. You do have a tendency to run out of gas in weird places, you know.” He smirked.

I looked up into Adam’s eyes, which I’d once written off as nondescript bluish. They didn’t dance with black fire like Carlos’s. But they were kind, in a way I’d rarely seen kindness, and I felt protected.

My cheeks burned, half from embarrassment and half from the unexpected feeling of someone—anyone—caring. I didn’t deserve it, and I knew it.

I lost any desire to jibe him about not coming inside and instead closed the screen door chastely behind me. I felt the golden evening breeze on my face as I thanked him, and he shrugged it off.

“Barn swallows.” Adam glanced up at Mama Bird, who sailed in gracefully.

“You mean target practice?” I turned the phone over in my hands.

He chuckled. “Not barn swallows. They’re good birds. You

just have to clean your porch a lot.”

“Tell me about it. The real estate agent I’m meeting this week is going to want them gone for sure. I hear he’s a real stickler.”

“So you’re going to tear out the nests?”

“No.” Mama Bird gave a yellow-beaked smile, preening politely under one wing. Three fat baby heads poked out. “I just have to figure out some way to hide them.”

Adam looked pleased then glanced around the side of the house. “If your agent’s a stickler, you’d better water your roses. They look kind of dry.”

Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Stella in a hideous orange-flowered housedress, stepping out in the yard for a closer look. And trying to hide behind a shrub. She sized Adam up, still smoking.

Adam wasn’t kidding about nosy neighbors forming opinions in a hurry.

His truck was still running. “Well, I’ve got to take care of Rick. Give us a call if you need anything. Congratulations on your job.”

He waved politely to Stella, who scuttled behind her satellite

dish like a hillbilly hermit crab.