Like Sweet Potato Pie

by Spinola, Jennifer Rogers

  “I drew this on the way over here,” he said, bending across the table and pointing. “Didn’t know ya was comin’ or I’d’a brought my colored pencils, but I don’t have none in the truck. Sorry. Hope ya still like it.”

  “You did this?” Kyoko’s eyebrow ring jerked upward. “What … um … exactly is it?”

  “It’s a World War II tank. An M3 Lee. You know, like General Lee from the Confederacy. It’s kinda shaky though, ‘cause Adam’s truck needs better shocks.”

  Kyoko choked back a laugh. “So it’s for me?”

  “Yeah. There’s your name on the wheel well. See? I don’t know your last name, so I just made one up. Hope Suzuki’s okay. It’s Japanese, right?”

  I coughed on my ice water, but Todd didn’t hear. “Anyway, I figured ya come a long way an’ might be tired, so I’ll show ya my other drawings some other time. Miss Shiloh’s seen ‘em. I got some new ones for her, too.”

  “Miss Shiloh?” I saw Kyoko’s eyebrow flick with mirth. At least I hoped it was mirth. Kyoko’s wide arsenal of dark emotions never failed to intimidate.

  “Yeah. Since she’s an adult and all. But you don’t have to call me Mr. Todd. You can just call me Todd.” He shrugged. “Unless you wanna say Mr., ‘cause I don’t mind.”

  Kyoko stared down at the drawing and then at Adam, who put his palms up and shrugged. Then at me. And shut her mouth abruptly.

  Oh boy. Kyoko didn’t care for kids much, or long lungfuls of chatter about army tanks. Especially coming from superpacifist Japan.

  “Thirsty?” I interrupted, waving for Blake as he came by with the water pitcher. Half wishing Tim and Becky would use sign language or something so their Southern drawls didn’t prickle Kyoko’s sophisticated ears.

  “So, whatcha gonna order?” Tim plopped a menu in front of Kyoko before I could intervene. “It’s on the house, a course. Adam’s house.” Tim snickered and high-fived Becky. “Jest kiddin’, y’all. After Adam gets that fancy subdivision, though, then I reckon I won’t be jokin’.”

  “What subdivision?” I looked up from my menu. In fact, why was I reading the menu anyway? I knew everything on there by heart.

  “It’s not a big deal.” Adam shrugged. “I probably won’t get it. I put in a bid, but those jobs usually go to the big companies.”

  “Not a big deal?” Tim swung around in his chair to face Adam. “Every house on that lot’s worth half a million bucks, Carter! And whoever does their cotton-pickin’ shrubs is gonna be swimmin’ in it.” He pointed. “If ya get that deal, yer takin’ us all out for somethin’ fancier than The Green Tree. Got it?”

  “Sushi?” Adam rested the side of his head on his hand and hid a smile, flipping a menu page.

  “Naw. Somethin’ I can eat.” Tim grinned and turned to Kyoko. “As for this place, well, they don’t got no grits or nothin’. Kinda weird fancy stuff, I reckon, but I find somethin’ ev’ry now an’ then that don’t crawl off my plate!”

  He leaned closer to Kyoko and dropped his voice as if revealing a secret. “Speakin’ a weird stuff, you really eat raw fish like Shah-loh here? I snagged a catfish the other day, but if ya saw the inside a that’n, ya’d never eat raw fish again. I guarantee it.” He whipped out his cell phone. “Hold on. I got some pitchers in here somewhere! You ever eat spaghetti? It’s kinda like that, but—”

  “So, Todd,” Kyoko interrupted loudly. “Do you draw anything else? I mean, anything that’s not catfish?” She sent a look in Tim’s direction.

  “Why, ya don’t like ‘em?” asked Todd in surprise. “They’re real good eatin’. But then again, they are bottom dwellers. So go figure.”

  I saw Adam’s face redden with laughter behind his menu, shoulders shaking. Todd calmly produced a piece of paper from his sketch pad on the seat. “I dunno. I can draw a deer real good, an’ lots a other tanks. An’ Dale Earnhardt’s race car from NASCAR. My dog’s named after him, but he died. I mean, Dale died. Not my dog. Wanna see?”

  Part of the reason lunch went so smoothly is because Kyoko fell asleep halfway through it, right after Faye stopped by to say hi—slumping against the back of the booth, eyes sagging closed. I didn’t blame her. A twenty-four-hour flight and half the night spent yakking would turn anybody to toast.

  In fact, given my overloaded morning and wrinkled tissues post-Beulah, I could use a nap myself. But duty called. I glanced at my watch and waved for the check, grateful Kyoko couldn’t hear Becky’s whispers about her eyebrow ring or Tim’s, “What’s that psycho-lookin’ thing on her shirt?”

  “She’s got jet lag,” I explained, glancing down at Kyoko before digging out my wallet to pay. Adam ignored me, taking both Kyoko’s and my check. “And knowing Kyoko, she probably hasn’t slept in days anyway. She doesn’t know the meaning of bedtime before three a.m.”

  “Poor thing.” Becky shook her head, swallowing the last of her ice water and reaching over to pat Kyoko’s lifeless head. “She’s real sweet. Kinda funny, but I like her.”

  Kyoko stirred long enough to blearily watch Blake take our empty plates, walk to her car, and then fall asleep right there, seat belt halfway in its clip. Head nodding forward into the steering wheel.

  “That’s it.” I took the keys from her. “I’m driving you home before I head back to work. Get out.”

  To my surprise, Kyoko obeyed, barely opening her eyes. She stretched out in my passenger’s seat and yawned then dozed again as I moved her car and parallel parked in a legal spot. Then I took the long way home, meandering through the country.

  We drove through tiny Churchville, with its quaint fire station and jacked-up trucks, sans stoplight, and Kyoko’s eyes finally blinked open. She yawned and rubbed her face, slapping her cheeks.

  “What happened, Ro? Did you guys drug my salad or something?” She scrubbed a hand across her black eyeliner.

  “Jet lag.” I turned my head. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m waking up.” She grimaced at a wide horse pasture with a dumpy-looking donkey swishing its tail, gnawing on the dilapidated fence. A bumper-less car parked haphazardly in front with duct tape on the door handle. “Where in the … Are we in Staunton, Ro? GPS didn’t bring me this way.”

  “Churchville. Mom’s house is near here. They have a carnival in that field in the summer.” I pointed as the pasture morphed into a tangle of seedy-looking shops. “With a Ferris wheel and games and stuff. Stella sat up in the dunking booth one year and yelled insults at people.”

  Kyoko gaped out the window and then back at me. “For heaven’s sake! You’re in the Twilight Zone! What are you doing here?”

  “Paying off my bills,” I replied meekly. “Selling Mom’s house as soon as I can.”

  “Ro.” She turned to face me, face sobering. “You really aren’t planning to … like … live here, are you? I mean—”

  “Never.” I stopped at the intersection.

  “As in, never-never? Or—”

  “Never.” I raised my voice. “Got it?”

  “Just checking.” Kyoko grinned. “It’s my job, you know.”

  I made a face and smiled back, turning into the grocery store/gas station parking lot with the ancient Tastee Freez, conveniently located right next to the county landfill. “Want a sundae?”

  “Ice cream?” She perked up. “Actually, yeah. Maybe it’ll help me wake up. I’ll get some tea or something, too.”

  “You? Iced tea?”

  “No, green. What, are you nuts?” Kyoko groaned and smacked her forehead. “I’m outta luck in these parts, huh? How about Red Bull?”

  “Nope. Coffee?”

  She fiddled with her piercing. “I guess,” she grumbled. “The sundaes don’t have corn or something on them, do they?”

  “No. That’s Brazil.”

  “Corn? In ice cream?”

  “Yep. Pretty good, too.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Just how long did you stay in Rio anyway? I thought that little vacation trip of yours last year lasted just a few days.�
� She gave a wry look. “Back when you had money to burn. Or credit cards, rather. Associated Press doesn’t pay that much.”

  I winced, backing into a parking spot and turning off the ignition. “Three days.”

  “And you tried corn ice cream?”

  “And guava and passion fruit. I loved açai.” I shrugged. “Brazilians eat a lot of ice cream.”

  “Last time I checked you’re not Brazilian,” snapped Kyoko, glaring. “You still running every day?”

  Kyoko, who could gain weight just by looking at a dish of rice, sometimes hated me.

  “Pretty much. I see so many cows I’ve started giving them names.”

  “Hmmph. Well, you’d better keep it up, or you’ll look like that double-wide we passed back there.”

  I took my keys out of the ignition and leaned back in my seat, trying to gather my courage to explain about church.

  “You know, Kyoko,” I began, banging Mom’s keychain against my knee. “I wanted to tell you where I went this morning. I know it might sound weird, but …”

  Her cell phone buzzed in her purse, and my words faltered. Kyoko waved it away. “Go on. Were you saying something?” She swallowed a yawn, eyes watery.

  “Yeah.” My gaze flickered out to the battered-looking parking lot. “About this morning. No, about more than this morning. About me and my life.”

  I tightened my fingers on the steering wheel. “You’ll probably think it’s weird, but …”

  Her cell phone buzzed again. Loudly. I waited politely with my chin in my hand while Kyoko dug it out of her purse, her stoic expression turning angry as she tapped through lines of an incoming text message.

  “Not again!” She groaned, mashing her cell phone closed. “Doggone it, Nora! Don’t you know I’m in the US? Incommunicado! Go away! Do your own work!” She rolled her head in frustration against the seat back. “How on earth did she get hired at a place like AP?”

  All my planned speech fizzled.

  “So what was that about corn ice cream?” Kyoko turned glazed eyes to me and tried to smile. Jet lag again. I felt sorry for her.

  “They sell chicken-wing ice cream in Nagoya. Tokyo’s close enough. You could get some.”

  “Tell me you’re kidding.”

  “And eel, too.”

  Kyoko rubbed her face in her hands. “Maybe a sundae isn’t such a good idea.”

  “Trust me. You’ll like this.” I opened the car door before she could change her mind. “And you’ll miss the opportunity to make fun of me when I move away.”

  “Oh no I won’t. You always give me an opportunity for that no matter where you live. I just won’t have such good props.” She nodded to a discarded Skoal snuff can littering the asphalt.

  Kyoko reluctantly got out of the car, giving the dumpy fast-food joint and “Riverside Grocery” the once-over. Then glowered at a guy with a shaggy mullet who parked his battered Ford pickup next to us, blasting country music. Confederate flag covering his rear window and two rifles in the gun rack.

  “You’re sure about this.” She didn’t move.

  “Positive.”

  “In there.”

  “Yep.”

  I dragged Kyoko away from the Ford before she said anything rude.

  “So what kind of ice cream sundaes does Tastee Freez have?” Kyoko snapped on her sunglasses in irritation as we stepped up to the door. Country music twanged from inside, and through the glass windows a hanging ad with a cowboy hat twirled from the ceiling.

  “My favorite’s black raspberry.”

  Kyoko suddenly paused to shield her eyes, hand on the glass door. So fast I banged into her. “Wait a minute, Ro. I can’t be seeing this! Tell me I’m still asleep!”

  “What?” I put my hands on my hips. “Hurry up!”

  “Is that the town dump?”

  I pushed her inside before she could ask any more questions.

  Chapter 8

  Finally a quiet moment. I wiped my hands on the green Starbucks apron and brushed my sweaty hair back into its clip with sticky fingers, grateful the line of customers had disappeared. Outside glowed a gorgeous fall afternoon, all gold and brilliant blue, while my friend/workmate Jamie Rivera and I were stuck inside Barnes & Noble making espresso with Chloe and High-School Travis.

  I worked with two Travises, since in the South one in approximately every five men is named Travis; the others usually falling under the category of “two-syllable-short-form-of-William-shouted-from-a-truck-window”: Billy, Willy, or Bubba.

  High-School Travis was personable, if not a little goofy, although our conversations mainly consisted of (1) him trying to indoctrinate me with Garth Brooks, and (2) me pretending to heave into a trash can. But dyed-black-haired Chloe scowled and kept her iPod buds in her ears against regulation when Boss Travis (the late thirty-ish one who wore ugly polyester pants and flirted with customers) left for a smoke.

  At least working at Starbucks in the fall offered one benefit: Pumpkin Spice Lattes. I made them by the dozen and now knew the secret balance of milk to espresso and how many pumps of spicy syrup for the perfect cup. I could make them at home without having to wear this silly apron.

  “So where’s Kyoko today?” asked Jamie, stacking teacups and lids and pushing another strand of dark hair behind her ear. “I was surprised to see her at The Green Tree Sunday when I went in to get my check.”

  “I was even more surprised she behaved herself.”

  Jamie waited tables at The Green Tree, too, and she could thank me—or hate me—for the job.

  She looked up with a smile, her skin the color of the fragrant latte I just made. “Kyoko came all the way from Japan just for you, Shiloh. That’s pretty cool. I have relatives back in Puerto Rico I haven’t seen since I was five.”

  “She’s great.” I sponged the counter halfheartedly with a wet rag, rubbing at a sticky spot. My last few days with Kyoko had spun by in such a blur. “She brought me gobs of stuff from Japan—cream puffs, dried squid, ceramic dolls. I don’t know how she got it all through customs.” My throat tightened. “Now she’s packing up to leave.”

  “Already? When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Wow. Time sure flies, huh?”

  “Tell me about it.” I sighed. “But Kyoko has a real job to get back to.”

  “I know what you mean.” Jamie rolled her eyes.

  Making coffee for middle schoolers had to be one of the most humbling jobs ever. Too-shiny preteens with giggly laughs—who complained in shrill, annoying voices about wanting more whipped cream or insisting “something’s wrong with my coffee”—all while yakking on their pink cell phones. I wanted to dump the cup right over their prissy, highlighted heads.

  Beulah said God had plans for me here in Staunton, but I was fairly certain they didn’t include making espresso for the rest of my life. Or carrying plates at The Green Tree.

  “So did you get to do everything you wanted to with Kyoko?”

  “Sort of. Some museums, Luray Caverns. But I think she really liked filming Stella throwing horseshoes at pegs in the ground. Did you know people really do that?” I guffawed.

  “My relatives do sometimes.”

  I covered my mouth. “Oops. Sorry.” Then wrinkled my brow. “Wait, your family? You’re Puerto Rican!”

  “Sure. But my dad was born here. We’ve been in the South for years. Too many years.” We laughed together. “My uncle also spits into a cup, but I thought I’d spare you the indignity.”

  I shook my head, imagining the fusion foods that must show up on the Rivera dinner table: Deer fritters instead of fish? Sopón de pollo con hominy?

  The front door glistened open in late afternoon sun rays, and a teenager wandered through, laughing into her cell phone. She hesitated at the smell of pumpkin spice and, to my relief, turned toward a magazine rack and began browsing.

  “Is Trinity okay?” Jamie asked abruptly, picking up a stray plastic lid and plopping it back on the pile. “I mean, she just seems …”


  “I know. Did she snap at you this week, too?”

  “Sort of, but it’s more … I don’t know.”

  “Her eyes.”

  “Yeah.” Jamie met my gaze. “Like something’s really bothering her. I tried to talk to her, and she seemed like she might, but …”

  I shrugged. “I can’t figure her out, Jamie. She used to be pretty open about her life, but lately anytime I delve into personal territory she zips her lips. Where’s the bright and spunky Trinity we know?”

  “Good question. She didn’t even try to insult Blake like she usually does.” Jamie shook her head. “Poor kid. What is he now, nineteen?”

  “I think so. He’s been mooning over her for months. Maybe years.” I picked at my nail polish, which definitely needed a touch-up. “Kyoko thinks Trinity’s hiding something. She said her body language shows signs of ‘repressed anxiety’ and went on for ten minutes about the way Trinity shredded a straw paper.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course Kyoko’s come up with some pretty … um … colorful theories about what she’s supposedly hiding. Involving illicit spy organizations or insider stock trading.”

  “Isn’t Carlos a stockbroker?”

  “Bingo! You’ve figured out the missing link!” I laughed, glad for once that Carlos’s name didn’t hurt quite so badly. “But you know something about Kyoko? She had a good time this week, but that’s not why she came.”

  “Why, she wants to take you back to Japan?” Jamie looked up, her brown eyes reflecting that same gentle understanding that had taken me by surprise when I first started at Barnes & Noble, which seemed a century ago with all the twists and turns in my crazy life.

  “No. To make sure I’m not off my rocker or something.” I shook the rag into the trash.

  Jamie started to laugh then apparently thought better of it. “Seriously?”

  “Think about it. In the space of a few months I’ve lost my mom, lost my job, lost my fiancé, and on top of that, she knows I considered becoming … you know. A Christian.” I swallowed, the last word sticking in my throat like a dry crumb of rice cracker. It still felt new to me and strange to hold it in reverence instead of making a joke or brushing it off with the rest of the world’s nutsos.