'Til Grits Do Us Part (45 page)

He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and reached to shake our hands. “Shiloh Jacobs.” He wagged his head back and forth, those round glasses of his spattered with drops. “If you ain't a magnet for trouble. And I mean that with all due respect.”

“Um…thanks, I guess.”

“Stel called me this morning, and lands! Scared the daylights outta me. If ya ask me, sounds a bit like…” He broke off, his eyes narrowed in deep thought.

“Sounds like what?” I took a step forward.

“Aw, nothin'.” He waved it away. “Jest this case I heard once about some gal named Amanda. She disappeared, ya know. Real sad story. I never met her, but my heart broke jest the same. Take care, ya hear?” He reached out and touched my arm soberly. “And if ol' Jer can do anything for ya, jest let me know. Anything at all.”

“I'll be fine.” I made myself smile. “Adam and I will come see you when this is all over. And Jerry.” I caught his sleeve as he turned back toward the kitchen. “I'm so sorry about the restaurant.
Fine Dining
. The whole mess. I really tried to help.”

I scuffed my shoe against that beautiful golden flooring, wishing I could sink through a giant hole right there in the dining room. “Shiloh.” Jerry snapped his fingers for me to look up at him. “You listen here.” His voice turned stern, and tears swam in his eyes. “Every single thing you gave me was a gift, you hear me? And it don't get better than that. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. Not a daggum leaf on them trees. This place looks better than it's ever been, in all my years.” He reached out and gently touched a potted basil on a nearby table. “Sometimes your streak of good luck runs out and the hard times come. But that don't mean you ain't been given a gift. You gotta take the good with the bad and be thankful for all of it.”

Adam
. I closed my eyes, remembering the feel of his fingers through mine.

Jerry pointed at me. “Now git that chin up, and go get your paycheck. It's at the register.” And he disappeared into the kitchen, the double doors swinging closed behind him.

“G'won.” Becky gave me a push, smiling through her tears. “You heard the man. Git.”

I slipped behind the register counter and dug through stacks of neatly ordered receipts and register tapes. Accounting ledgers and vouchers. Not finding anything resembling a paycheck. I bent down and dug through the cabinets, coming up with nothing but extra menus and a stray peppermint.

“Hey, Shiloh. You lookin' for yer check?” Flash the cook leaned over the counter, the white apron tied around his scrawny middle, wet and stained with grease. “It's back in Jer's office. Jest g'won in and git it.”

“You're sure?” I stood up.

“Yep. Jer's awful forgetful these days. Lot on his mind, I reckon.” He clapped my shoulder affectionately, his sideways grin showing a missing tooth. “And worried sick about ya. We all are.”

Becky waited at the register, checking her watch and trying to call Adam while I followed Flash back through the kitchen doors. From across the kitchen I saw Jerry on his back in a puddle of water, reaching up with a wrench and twisting at a copper pipe, grunting with effort. Reaching into a bucket piled with plumbing supplies.

“G'won. I'll go he'p Jer.” Flash cracked open the office door—a glorified closet, really—and I ducked inside. I flipped on the bare overhead bulb and gingerly moved some papers around on his desk, feeling like a crook as I sorted through somebody else's things.

The desk bulged with books—recipe and cooking books—and under them
Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet
, and a collection of classical Japanese poems. I smiled, lifting them to look through the stacks of documents underneath.

And out of one of the books fell a crumpled note.

“I love you, my dearest,”
it read in scratchy red ink.
“How can I count the ways? I think of you over and over, throughout my longest days, and watch the minutes to see you again.”

I
snatched up my paycheck and fled out of the office, finding the dining room empty. Becky'd probably gone to the bathroom or something. But I didn't wait. I threw open the glass doors to the street, stumbling against the side of the building as I fled headlong away from The Green Tree.

“Becky!” I gasped into my cell phone as her voice mail picked up. “Where are you? You've got to get out of there! Now!”

I scrambled between two crumbly brick buildings and bent over in the back alley, my stomach churning. Crouching to my knees and trying not to heave.

Thinking of Jerry. Of those beautiful trees and noodle plates, and his hand on my arm.

My cell phone rang, and I snatched it up.

“Shah-loh? Where the blazes are ya?” Becky chirped, her words high-pitched in irritation.

“I'm a block behind The Green Tree. Come get me, Becky. Please.”

In the background I heard Jerry's anxious voice, but I snapped the cell phone off and waited, shaking, until Becky's sedan screeched around the corner.

“Yankee, I outta clobber you good!” she shouted angrily from the car, flinging open the passenger door. “Why, you up an' ran outta there Like…”

She stopped short when she saw my tear-streaked cheeks. “What happened?” Becky rolled her head into her hand and muttered under her breath. “Lands, woman, yer gonna give me a heart attack!”

She pulled back into the street, hazard lights blinking, while I clumsily shut the door and choked back a sob.

Becky shook me till my teeth rattled. “Speak, woman, or I'm goin' to the police!” She glared. “An' ain't gonna be no Shane Pendergrass there ta he'p ya out.”

“Not the police!” I choked. “Not yet! I just can't. Go to the bank. Please. And then I'll figure out what to do.”

“What to do about what?”

“About Jerry.”

Becky ran over a curb and careened back into the street with a screech. “You think…you think Jerry's… ?”

“Odysseus. Yes.”

To my surprise, Becky's face glowed with furious color. “Now, hold on one cotton-pickin' minute!” she shouted, her eyes flashing. “You done gone too far this time, Shah-loh Jacobs! Jerry ain't been nothin' but nice ta any of us! You're jest stressed is all. Not that I blame ya. But you gotta cut out all this Jerry nonsense before ya—”

“Pull over.”

“What? I ain't gonna pull over for no—”

“Pull over!” I shouted, and Becky jerked the car into a gas station. She threw it into P
ARK,
seething.

And I shoved my cell phone at her.

I watched as she flipped through the photos I'd snapped, one by startling one: red card envelopes and red ribbons. A Japanese kanji writing guide for foreigners. A glossy volume on Japanese culture.

“Your eyes are like stars,”
he'd written on a scrap of notebook paper in red, several words scratched out.
“Shining their beautiful warmth to my soul. I can't wait for the day when we can be together….”

Some little abstract doodles of hearts, Japanese kanji, a piece of sushi—and…an eye. A
woman's
eye, with long lashes.

And a thick, brown, leather-bound volume labeled
Paradise Lost
in block script.

Like a sick Dali painting, Becky's angry face morphed into disbelief, then hurt, then a puddle of tears. Her hands shook on the cell phone.

“Copper shavings.” I could barely speak. “Jerry was fixing copper pipes just now.”

“I don't believe it,” Becky said, wiping her face. “I don't care what ya say! Somebody planted everything. Cain't be Jerry! No way under the sun he'd—”

“He collects stamps. And there's one missing on the page of the year Amanda was born.” I pointed to an empty yellowish square in a dark blue album. “The double-heart stamp. It's gone.”

Even Becky startled into silence.

“But…that Odysseus fella kept talkin' about broken hearts,” she finally said, fumbling for a tissue. “What's that hafta do with Jerry?”

“I left him.”

“You never dated him, Shah-loh! Ya only worked there.” She raised an eyebrow. “ 'Less I was mistaken about them long hours.”

“Of course not, Becky!” I smacked her. “But maybe…in his mind it meant something else.”

I slumped back in the seat. “I mean, taste-testing recipes in a kitchen full of servers and cooks hardly seems like a romantic tryst, but…” I wiped my eyes on the back of my arm. “Jerry lied to me just now.”

“Jest now? Shoot, he ain't even here!”

“No. In the restaurant,” I snapped. “He said he'd never met Amanda Cummings.”

“Well, maybe he didn't!”

“Amanda worked at The Green Tree as a waitress before it was The Green Tree. I researched.” I blew my nose. “It was called The Red Barn back then, and it sold country-style fare. Macaroni and cheese. Salty country ham. Green beans. That sort of thing.”

Becky slapped her own cheek in disbelief. “No, Shah-loh. Please tell me yer kiddin'. Jerry owned The Red Barn? I mean…”

“Jerry Farmer in the flesh. And his first restaurant venture.”

“Mebbe he got too busy to remember all the names?” She started to tear up again. “I mean, I bet he had lotsa servers, an'…”

“Three. It was a small place.”

Becky sank back in her seat, speechless. “But…but wasn't the anonymous painter left-handed? And bald, yer mama said?”

“Jerry's left-handed, Becky. And he's whacked his hair off to the skin more than once—enough to be confused with a bald guy. So either my purse snatcher's unrelated, or Jerry set him up. And one more thing.” I clicked the phone off, sniffling back tears. “Jerry's related to Shane Pendergrass. Which is why Mom was afraid to go to the police. And probably why Shane called in sick just now—to help Jerry out.”

“Lands, if this world ain't one gigantic mess.” Becky pulled jerkily back into the street, swerving around a rogue squirrel. Her driving wasn't great on a normal day, but now I hugged the armrest as if my life depended on it. “I better git ya to the bank and the courthouse first before Adam tans my hide.”

Tan my hide
. Another one of those Southern expressions I needed to write down. The only hide, in fact, about to be tanned was probably Jerry's. And maybe Shane's, too.

But instead of feeling satisfaction, I felt awful all the way through. Responsible, even. Guilty. Sick.

“Hold on. Somebody's calling.” I reached for my phone then narrowed my eyes at the voice. “Well, well. Shane Pendergrass. Hope you're feeling better,” I minced, my words cold.

“Yeah, kinda, but…listen. Can ya come by the station?” His sober tone held a mix of nerves and dread that unsettled me.

“Come by the station? Think again, buddy.”

Becky pulled into the bank parking lot and parked. Badly. Half in a parking space and tire rammed into the curb, her eyes round as Japanese teacups.

“It's Adam, Shiloh,” Shane said in almost a whisper. “We…uh…found his truck on the side of the road. Seems like he was headin' out to your place in Churchville from Stuarts Draft.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “I don't believe you. This is one of your tricks, isn't it?” My voice rose. “To make me come out to some empty parking lot again? Well, forget it. He already texted me saying he was fine.”

Shane paused, speechless. Just as Becky's phone buzzed with a text message. She jerked her keys out of the ignition and answered, gasping back a scream.

“It's from Adam's parents!” she managed, clapping a hand over her mouth. Turning to me with horrified eyes. “They're all worked up and tryin' to reach ya.”

“Shane?” I gasped into the phone. “What did you say about Adam? Where is he?”

“We…dunno,” Shane replied, sounding shaken. “That's what I was trying to tell ya. He's gone. Nobody knows where he went.”

I squeezed into a ball on the seat in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. Becky jerked open my car door and wedged herself onto the edge of the seat. She held me tight, sobbing into my hair.

I clung to her arm, wishing I'd never gotten up this morning. Never seen a red rose. And never set foot in stupid Staunton, Virginia, where all my dreams died like flies stuck to fly paper. One by horrible one.

“C'mon, Shah-loh,” Becky sniffled, obviously trying to pull us together. “Think with me. We gotta cash that check so you can have some money on ya, 'cause you need ta leave town pronto.” She wiped her face and steadied her breath.

“But the courthouse!” I bawled, not moving. “I promised!”

Becky's eyes spilled over. “Pray, Shah-loh. Pray hard. And come with me. Ain't no time to argue.”

My watch read six minutes after eight when I pushed open the glass doors to Planters Bank. The teller waved me up to the counter, and I stood there in blank stupefaction until Becky pushed me ahead. “Cash it,” Becky finally said for me.

The teller took my check and raised an eyebrow at the amount. “All of it?”

What did she mean, “All of it?” I pulled the check back and felt my heart leap into my throat at the amount:
five thousand dollars
.

My mouth turned to cotton, and I just stood there, staring down at the check. “Why did Jerry give me so much?” I faltered. “Generosity? Or…or some kind of sick bribe?”

“Ask questions later. Jest cash a thousand and put the rest in the bank,” said Becky. “Here. Gimme a deposit slip.” She reached over my shoulder and helped me fill it out.

I signed, and the teller counted out some bills into my hand. Becky finally took them for me and stuffed them into my purse then guided me toward the exit.

A hand brushed mine, reaching for the door handle at the same time I did.