At Home in Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

  The door opened. I scared Jayne half-to-death but she still managed to throw her bag of trash in my face and slam the door. Then a quiet voice said, “Chief?”

  “Yeah. Unless I didn’t get the memo about my move to Sanitation.”

  She laughed. The door opened again, grimaced as I lifted a banana peel off my shoulder and brushed what I sincerely hoped was coffee grounds off my trousers. Jayne covered her mouth. “Sorry, Amos. I just got home from the church. Want to meet my Swedish dancers?” She grabbed some tissues off a credenza beside the door and shoved them at me.

  “I give you an ‘A’ for self-defense but your instincts need work. Come down to the station sometime and Sandy’ll give you some moves you can use when you don’t have garbage handy.”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll feel safer when I travel with the baby. Matthew’s not old enough to protect his mother from much of anything except boredom. What can I do for you? Besides pay your cleaning bill?” She left the door to swing wide and backed up into the apartment. “The dancers are eating dinner downstairs. Leave all that. I’ll get it later. You just come in.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on. I have a baby. My carpet has seen way worse than a little garbage. I feel bad.”

  “Bad enough to do me a favor?”

  “Sure.” She flicked her hair back and I realized it was wet. The woman didn’t have a shred of makeup on. Her t-shirt was worn thin, oversized and said, “It takes balls to play golf the way I do.” That wasn’t Jayne’s t-shirt. She still got ready for bed and wrapped herself in memories of her dead husband at night. Amos wondered how long Ida had done the very same thing. Or if she still did.

  “Amos?” she prodded. “In or out.”

  “Out. And I’ll be quick. Two friends. Dinner. Saturday night.”

  Jayne snorted. “You’re tired of the will they or won’t they speculation. You’re tired of Katie Bell’s incessant questions, and you’re using me to annoy Ida.”

  “What’s your point?”

  Surprised, she thought for a minute. “I don’t have one.” She smiled. “I just liked saying it.”

  “Jayne. You threw garbage on me. I can ticket you for littering the Chief. Don’t mess with me. Will you help me out or not?”

  “I can’t abandon my guests.” She sucked in some air through clenched teeth. “Plus Ida’s hosting that circus family and she’s going out with—“We both knew who Ida would be out with. “Well, I’m supposed to go be her hostess while she’s out Saturday night.”

  One of those conversational lulls dropped with a thud into the room. I filled it by saying, “Maybe another time.”

  “No.” Jayne closed the distance between us, hatching a scheme with each step. “Come to Ida’s with me. That’ll be perfect.”

  “Not if the hounds of hell were chasing me and Ida’s porch meant everlasting life. No.”

  “What do you mean, no? Seriously, Amos. I know what I’m doing. Who do you think got Harry to take that last step toward Josie? I’m good at this.”

  “I’m good at avoiding trouble. You know how those young girls wear jogging pants with precious and hot stuff written on their butts? Well, trust me, there’s a sweet young thing among that juggling family at Ida’s who thinks I’m the second-coming of Rhett Butler, and she has trouble written all over her. In four languages. So, no. Thank you.”

  “Coward.”

  “Where crazy romantic young things are concerned? You betcha. I prefer my women aged long enough to have some sense.”

  Quinn James

  I SUPERVISED AS the last of the performers met their weekend hosts. When everyone was safely parceled out, Erik escorted me to Mrs. Finch’s van. He helped strap me into the seat like I was a child. I tried not to resent it. He sat next to me, so that he could care for me, which I also shouldn’t resent. He was being sweet and kind. All I wanted to do was hit him. My bad.

  As Mrs. Finch put the van in motion I braced myself for another surge of vertigo. It didn’t look dignified for the manager of the circus to wobble drunkenly all the time. I held tight as the parking lot of Mount Gilead Methodist receded behind us. Her little boy leaned forward in his seat behind me and yelled in my ear. “Hey, lady, are you sure you aren’t a clown? Why else would you walk so funny?”

  With her foot still on the gas pedal, Mrs. Finch whipped her head around from the front seat captain’s chair; she shook her finger. “Charles Albert Finch! Where are your good manners?”

  “I’m using them, Mom. My teacher says it’s good to ask questions when you don’t know the answer.” He snuffled his nose. “I’m in the first grade.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t mind explaining,” I said, earning a sympathetic pat on the hand from Erik. His touch brought back that tingly feeling. Best to ignore it. Answer the kid. “Sometimes my brain doesn’t work right, Charles, so it looks like the ground is tilting up at me when it isn’t. If I hold my head to the side, I don’t get as dizzy.”

  “Oh. So it’s like the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Bigelow County Fair.”

  “Yup. But no one else is riding,” I said.

  “Sweet.”

  “Not exactly. You wouldn’t want to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl for two days straight all the while going to school, doing your homework, and feeding your dog.” I felt Erik looking at me and Charles.

  “We don’t have a dog,” Charles said, sadness infusing each syllable. “Mom won’t let me have one. We have a cat.”

  “But you understand what Miss James is saying, don’t you Charles?” Mrs. Finch asked, taking a left at a traffic light onto a darkening two lane road.

  “Yes, ma’am. I guess I wouldn’t feel good either, if I wanted to get off the Tilt-a-Whirl, and no one’d let me.”

  After that we were all quiet. Charles began singing John Jacob Jingleheimerschmidt over and over, so much so that I burst out laughing. Charles stopped singing to join in the laughter, as did Mrs. Finch. Erik didn’t laugh, but his lips curved in a smile. I contemplated how they’d feel curved to mine until Mrs. Finch pulled into a subdivision of McMansions with landscape lighting. She must have sensed my surprise at such a suburban scene in the middle of forests, fields and Appalachian mountains.

  We were greeted by a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair, who I presumed was Mr. Finch, and a little girl, Mary Alice, older than Charles, who wore her dark hair in a braid. She rushed to the van.

  “Mama!” Mary Alice pointed at a gangly teenage boy I hadn’t noticed before. He was standing by the hedge between the Finches’ yard and the Cliftons’, where he had an excellent view of Magdalene and her ABC posse stretching their legs over their heads in the driveway. “Randy had his binoculars out. He was looking at the circus girls across the way.”

  “Na-uh,” Randy said, eyes glued to the sight before him minus the binoculars. I suspected the show was for Erik’s benefit. Magdalene had hoped to lure him, not the Finch’s teenage son.

  Cherie and Brigitta might have been fishing for Mr. Finch or Randy. But seeing as how Randy was under the limit and Mr. Finch was a protected species, I figured the ABC posse would soon realize their bait was no good in McMansionville.

  “My oldest son is incorrigible,” Mr. Finch said. “Randy! Come help with the bags.”

  Mrs. Finch gave her husband a peck on the cheek. “He’s a teenager. And you were probably just as . . . hor . . . bad when you were his age. We have a special mission to discuss later.”

  I wondered if the mission involved hanging a blackout curtain over the neighbors’ windows. If I weren’t so swimmy-headed, I’d offer to help.

  Randy sulked his way over to the van, while Erik helped me out of my seat and along the driveway.

  There was a minor skirmish involving my luggage between Randy and Charles. Something about the wheels on my bag. Charles won.

 
I entered the Finchs’ brightly lit foyer and stopped for a moment to get my bearings where the wooden floor ended and the carpet began. A beige cat lying across the back of a brown sofa meowed at me.

  Randy saw this as his opportunity to embarrass his parents further. “So, like, are those girls naked under their costumes when they perform, or do they wear thongs?”

  Mr. Finch’s face turned purple. Mrs. Finch said the boy’s name like an expletive, and Charles sang, “Randy’s getting in trouble, Randy’s getting in trouble.”

  Their imperfection reminded me of my own family.

  “I am so sorry,” Mrs. Finch said.

  “No need to apologize, my brother John asks me similar questions every Christmas.”

  Erik seemed surprised that I’d mentioned my family. I guess I didn’t speak about them often, not like he talked about his. It wasn’t that I didn’t miss seeing Mom, Dad, and John; it was that I’d feel homesick if I talked about them, so I didn’t. I might be living my dream of running away to the circus, but I missed my family.

  “Is there anything we can do, other than get you to bed?” Mrs. Finch asked. “A cup of tea or warm milk? I made some peanut butter cookies . . .”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “That’s good ‘cause there aren’t any left,” Randy added.

  “That’s not fair,” Mary Alice whined. “Mom, he eats everything good in this whole stinking house. You have to make him stop.”

  “That’s enough,” Mr. Finch said in a scary voice that was close to a growl. The fat beige cat scooted across the top of the couch, thudded onto the carpet, and ran into the kitchen in a furry blur.

  “I get to take the luggage up the stairs!” Charles shouted, as if he needed to call dibs.

  Erik took me as far as the hand rail. As I waited for the spinning in my head to slow, Mrs. Finch showed him the study. She figured I should be closer to the full bath upstairs.

  “I’ll bring down a blanket and some pillows for the couch,” she told Erik. “There’s a powder room next door, but you’ll have to go upstairs for a shower.”

  I tried not to think about Erik showering. I had enough to do to get up the stairs. I could hear Charles wheeling my case back and forth on the floor above.

  Once I arrived in Randy’s room, which fortunately didn’t smell as much like dirty socks as my brother John’s did, I tilted my head to the side to take in my Hawaii-meets-skateboard surroundings. If I had a smile on my face, I’m sure it faded when I saw that Randy had one of those low lounge beds. What I needed to soothe my dizziness was a high four-poster.

  Charles rolled my bag into what would be my room for the next day or so. He grinned, exposing half-grown-in front teeth with pronounced saw points.

  Mrs. Finch smiled. “The bathroom is the first door on your left.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, I was wondering,” Charles said, still grinning. “What’s that guy downstairs name again?”

  “Erik.”

  “Yeah, Erik.” Charles smirked and said Erik’s name in a singsong manner that let me know more mischief was coming. “You like Erik, don’t you? Quinn and Erik sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

  “Shh!” I said. Maybe Erik hadn’t heard the schoolyard ditty.

  So Charles sang even louder. “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Quinn in the baby carriage.”

  Heat rose up my neck. I decided leveling might be my best option for keeping him quiet. “He doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

  “Why?” Charles asked.

  “Now, Charles, you’re asking too many personal questions,” Mrs. Finch at long last piped up. “She doesn’t have to answer them if she doesn’t want to.” But Mrs. Finch didn’t cut him off completely. I suspected she wanted to know the answer, too.

  “Because Erik likes someone else.”

  “Is that because you tilt your head to the side?”

  “No. You know the girls your brother had his eye on next door? Well, the redhead is Erik’s girlfriend.”

  Charles snuffled his nose. “She’s kinda scary looking.”

  I knew there was something likeable about Charles. “Well, you and I might think so, but not everyone agrees.”

  Mrs. Finch tried to scoot Charles out the door. “Good night, Quinn. Sleep well. Charles, Quinn is exhausted, and you sound like you’re getting a cold. Let me check your temperature. Do you have a fever? And will you please stop snuffling your nose? There’s tissue in the bathroom.”

  He put his hand out, and I shook it. “So Charles, you and I are friends, now. After all, I did explain vertigo to you and I let you wheel around my luggage.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Let’s keep my crush on you-know-who on the down low, okay?”

  Charles giggled, which was better than a maniacal laugh, but I wasn’t exactly reassured. Especially when his mom didn’t chime in with “of course we will.”

  Sagan

  I WASN’T EXPECTING to see smoke coming from the chimney. No one lived in my house but me. I had no animals to be fed so no one had a key, and I had not invited guests, unless raccoons and field mice knew how to build a fire. I wheeled my cycle into the shed, slung my backpack over my shoulder and picked up a section of tree limb from the wood pile. I could have called Amos, but this was my house to defend. I did glance over at Emily’s place. No smoke. No lights. Apparently she was either working late or out of town.

  The door was closed but unlocked. I pushed it open. The most horrendous squeal I ever heard split the silence as something hit my shoulder, knocking me to the floor with a thud. An Australian boomerang with feathers? Then it was gone. I didn’t know what it was but I could surmise that Amos’s missing bird thief was occupying my quarters.

  I got to my feet, turned on the light and groaned. Apparently my house guest had been there for several days and was unfamiliar with a dishwasher or a garbage can. The place was a mess. I slung my backpack into the washroom, opened the blinds and shook my head. Had I not returned, nobody would ever have thought to check here for the runaway. I reached in my pocket for my cell phone and started to punch the numbers.

  Then the boomerang with feathers shrieked again and a huge feather floated gently down and settled on my arm. I looked around. A cool breeze snaked through an open window. Okay, a Russian kid with a giant attack parrot was hiding in the shed or barn, and I’d catch both of them eventually.

  Maybe I’d just wait and see what happened. If the kid came back, I’d deal with him. If he didn’t, he was on his own. But that was easier said than done. It was cold in the mountains of north Georgia in February. People in Mossy Creek were known to quietly call the month ‘Uglywary.’ But they said it with pride, particularly if it came with a bit of snow. Even the hint of white brought the tourists, which were a nuisance and a blessing. I laid my phone on the table and went to the door.

  “Okay, Nikoli, if you can hear me, you’d better come back inside. This isn’t as cold as Russia but you can still freeze your . . .” I hushed. He probably couldn’t understand me, anyway.

  I waited a while then turned back to the kitchen. By the time I’d restored it to its normal state of order, a cold, dark winter night had settled in fully. That’s when the knock came on the door.

  “Come in. It’s not locked.”

  There was a hesitation then a blast of wind pushed the door open. “Sagan?”

  It was Emily, not the kid.

  “Yes.” My heart leapt. I had missed her so much. “Who’d you think it was?”

  “Eh, nobody. I mean, I’ve been in Atlanta for the last few days. Did you see those circus performers in town?”

  “Yep.”

  She was still standing in the doorway as if she was waiting for an invitation to come inside. “Did you
have a good trip?” she asked but I could tell she really didn’t want to know.

  “Well, motorcycle travel in the dead of winter isn’t the best way to go. But yes, I suppose you could say I had a good trip.”

  “Did you . . . Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “What makes you think I’m looking for something?”

  “I’ve watched you, Sagan. You go up into the mountains and stay for days at a time. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know you’re waiting.”

  I didn’t answer. She was right.

  “Do come inside, Emily,” I said.

  “No, let me get it said. I have something to tell you and I might as well get it off my mind right now.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “Yes, and I think you know what it is. I care about you, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for you to know what you want, so I’m selling Granny’s house and moving back to Atlanta. If you change your mind about us, do it soon.”

  I don’t know what I thought she was going to say, but that wasn’t it. My first reaction was dismay but not such distress that I could say what she wanted to hear. She was waiting for my reply and I had none.

  “I never wanted to hurt you, Emily. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You already have, Sagan.” She came inside, kissed my cheek, then turned and left the house.

  I let her go.

  I morosely stoked the fire while pausing periodically to check out the window. The darkness was no longer solid. It was like gray watercolor, running from the sky down the thick growth of trees making a surrealistic painting that surrounded me. Through the gray I could see that Emily’s car was gone. I didn’t know how I felt about that. Solitude was what I’d wanted but now I was alone, me and my white feather. The boy knew I was here and that Emily was gone. If he was smart, he’d get into her house and stay warm.

  If I were smart, I’d call Amos and tell him I’d found the runaway. Or maybe not.

  That’s when I understood that I’d come back home to see the vision I’d searched for in vain elsewhere. Now I had to wait for it to direct me. I leaned back in a chair by the fireplace and closed my eyes.