At Home in Mossy Creek

by Deborah Smith

  About eleven-thirty I went to pick up lunch at Bubba’s for the circus folk. Turns out they still had not kissed and made up. And I still couldn’t figure out exactly why Mariska wouldn’t let Sergei throw knives at her anymore. Well, not any more than anybody with a lick of sense wouldn’t let their husband throw knives at them.

  Even though the cells in the jail house weren’t exactly five-star accommodations, I had thought that a night of privacy away from the rest of the troupe would give them a chance to talk things out. Evidently that hadn’t happened because they were just as out of sorts as they had been yesterday. But at least they liked the food. I consider myself a good Southern hostess, so it was nothing but the best for them as far as I was concerned.

  “Dis—how you say—burrito, ees very good,” Sergei said between bites. “It ees both crispy and spicy. Very different from food in old country.”

  “It is quite bodacious, isn’t it?” I drawled.

  I had gotten a burrito for myself as well, so I joined them for lunch. It seemed like the neighborly thing to do. “What do you eat in your country?” Moose and squirrel, I bet, I thought, and stifled a giggle and a burp.

  Mariska was busy sampling Bubba’s flan. “Porridge,” she said. “Much porridge.”

  “My wife is from poor family,” Sergei explained and immediately looked as if he wanted to take it back. Mariska gave him the old skunk eye. He’d obviously hit on a sore subject.

  “That’s too bad,” I said, and took a big swig of Bubba’s hand-squeezed cherry lemonade. I mean, he squeezed the lemons, not the cherries.

  A long and uncomfortable silence ensued in which Sergei squirmed and Mariska pouted. I waited patiently. It was a quiet weekend at the jail; they were the only tenants. Our jail is kind of like the jail in Mayberry, only we don’t have an Otis the drunk to come and go. So they had the place to themselves. When Sergei finished with his bodacious burrito, I gave him a fresh towel I’d brought from home and directed him to the shower down the hall.

  “Do you vish to join me, darlink?” he suggested hopefully to Mariska.

  “I vil vait,” she said coldly, and finished off the flan she had been picking at.

  Sergei sighed and entered the shower room alone. When the door closed behind him, I asked Mariska, “So, what’s the story with you and Sergei? Is he such a bad knife thrower? Do you really think he’ll skewer you?”

  “My husband is excellent knife thrower,” Mariska said. “But I still do not trust him.”

  Trust issues were quite a challenge in domestic conflicts, I noted. “What did he do to cause you not to trust him?”

  “It started weeth the broken promises,” Mariska said. “I was very young wheen I left my first troupe with heem. I grew up in tiny town in countryside. Was dismal place, so I was desperate to see outside world. So I run away to join the circus.”

  It made me kind of sad to hear her talk that way about the place she was born. I thought about our Mossy Creek slogan—“Ain’t going nowhere and don’t want to.” But I guess not everybody feels that way about the places where they were raised. Not every town is Mossy Creek, and I reckon there’re some towns young folks just can’t wait to get shed of. I just couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but here.

  It’s mostly the people I love, of course, but I think I’m just a mountain girl at heart. There’s just something about the mountains—the evergreens, the views, the rambling, babbling streams like Mossy Creek itself. The creek circles the whole town like a hug. We feel protected, here. Simply put, there was nothing not to love about my home town.

  “My first troupe was very small also,” Mariska continued, “but I was beegest star. So wheen Sergei came along with hees handsome looks and hees charm and fell in love weeth me, he promised I would be star in his much beeger troupe. I felt myself most lucky to be leaving old troupe with heem. But after we marry it turns out that his troupe does not have job for aerialist. So I have to start career over as lion tamer’s assistant. Theen the lions were taken away and now we have to start over again.”

  “You trusted him when he was a lion tamer, didn’t you?”

  Mariska made a little sound of disgust. “I trusted those old, toothless lions,” she said. “They were about as dangerous as your peeing Spanish rat-dog.”

  “Mexican,” I corrected.

  Mariska shrugged. “I do not like the rat-dogs of Mexico as much as their burritos.”

  “Me neither,” I agreed. “But there’s got to be something else. What was the straw that broke the camel’s back?”

  “Camels? I know nutting of camels. Only lions.”

  “I mean, what is it that Sergei did that makes you angry with him?”

  Mariska sighed and looked away. “It ees not really heem. It eez me. I have received offer from another circus. They are going to train me once again to be aerialist.” She looked back at me and smiled wistfully. “I could fly, you know? Fly like bird on wing. Now I tink my skeels are what you Americans call . . . rusty.”

  “Why couldn’t Sergei learn to be a trapeze artist like you? That way you could become an aerialist again and you could form a trapeze act.”

  Mariska shrugged. “He eez—how you say—afraid of heights.”

  He was afraid of heights but not afraid of lions. How do you like them apples? I could sympathize with Mariska wanting to reclaim her dream of being a trapeze artist. I mean, as soon as I knew I wanted to be a law officer, I made it my goal and gave the Mossy Creek Police Department one hundred percent until Amos hired me. I had worked my way from being dispatcher to being a full-fledged officer of the law. I achieved it. But Mariska’s thinking still bothered me. And I thought I was beginning to sense why.

  “So,” I said. “Are you picking a fight with Sergei so it’ll be easier to leave him?”

  “Eef I get fired from troupe, then eet will be easier to break away from Sergei. He can go back to old country and get more lions. Lion taming ees hees first love anyway.” She waved a dismissive hand as if Sergei losing his job because of her was of no consequence.

  I was beginning to think that Sergei would be better off if Mariska did leave him. “So he gave up his first love—lion taming—so that the two of you could be together. And now you want to leave him for a better job offer? Do you even love him?”

  Mariska had the decency to look taken aback. “Of course I luff Sergei,” she said and sniffed. “But all good tinks must come to end. There ess many other fish in sea. Besides, I catch him keesing acrobat beetch behind tent two veeks ago.”

  Ahah. All righty, then. Now we were getting down to brass tacks. “Did you confront him with what you saw?”

  “Yes, but he told me I was beink rideeculous.” Mariska said, “He vill see who ees rideeculous when I vill be leaving as soon as written offer arrives.”

  Before I had time to ponder this, Sergei came out of the shower room naked except for the towel I’d given him to wrap around his waist. His broad, straight shoulders seemed to go on for miles and his chest and biceps rippled with well-defined muscles. And he was hairy—my land, was he hairy. Now, I know some women are turned off by body hair, but to me, a nice mat of dark chest hair is my idea of real manliness. Yes, indeed, I love me a fuzzy man. My Jess has a hairy chest, and there’s nothing I like better than snuggling up to him at night and letting those little crispy curls tickle my cheek. Well, almost nothing.

  My lips puckered up for a long, appreciative whistle at Sergei, but I caught myself just in time. Mariska wouldn’t have appreciated that and I wouldn’t blame her. It was a sensitive enough situation already. Besides, I was starting to identify with her a little bit more—for obvious reasons.

  Mariska’s breath caught, and she looked away like she wasn’t affected by the sight of her gorgeous, half-naked husband, but her ruse didn’t fool me. There might be other fish in the sea, but the one
she’d already reeled in was a keeper and deep down, she knew it.

  “I will take shower now,” Mariska said tersely and brushed past her husband.

  Sergei looked very sad as he headed toward the cell to get dressed. I picked at the rest of my burrito and asked myself what Dr. Phil would do in my situation. Could this marriage be saved? Should it be saved?

  Sergei came back a few minutes later as I was clearing away the take-out containers from lunch. I like to keep the station as clean as a pin. Dressed in clean jeans and a checkered shirt, he sat down forlornly in one of the office chairs and stared at the floor. “I am losink her,” he said.

  “She said you kissed another woman,” I stated. No use beating around the babushka. Time was short and I had to get to the heart of the problem.

  “Eet vas nutting,” Sergei said with a wave of his hand. “LuLu-san is like seester to me. I kiss on her cheek. Mariska knows thees. She is being reediculous.”

  “Is that what you told her? That’s she’s being ridiculous for objecting to you kissin’ someone else?”

  “Of course! I would not let her speak to me of such foolishness.”

  “There’s your problem, Serg,” I said. “You should never ignore a woman’s feelings, especially when she has you dead to rights. Besides, Mariska is what we call a high-maintenance woman.”

  Sergei’s dark brows arched upwards. “What ees these ‘high mainteenance?’”

  I could tell I had his attention. Good. “That’s a woman who needs you to tell her—and show her—how you feel about her. Every single day.”

  “Show her?”

  “Yes. Words are not enough. And sex is not enough either, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Sergei tried to keep a poker face at this news, but he was a man. Of course that’s what he was thinking.

  “I am curious,” he said with the hint of a smile. “Are you a high-mainteenance woman?”

  “Me?” I thought about all the nights I went to bed alone, nobody to tickle my cheek or any other part of me for that matter, while Jess sat at his computer tapping away at his latest novel. And then there were these last couple of weekends when he left me home alone while he went camping. All this I have endured without complaint with nothing but Bubba’s Bodacious Burritos to comfort myself with.

  “Of course I’m not a high-maintenance woman,” I declared. “Don’t be rideeculous.”

  Quinn

  I WOKE SATURDAY morning feeling the breeze from a heating vent beside the bed but not hearing the white noise it must be creating. Phase two of vertigo was in full swing.

  Imagine, if you will, that beyond the world tilting and a low ringing in your ears, you now are proceeding with minimal hearing like right before your ears pop when you’re on a plane.

  For a moment, I wondered where I was because it smelled like home, then I recalled. In the suburbs of Mossy Creek, Georgia—the Yonder community, to be exact—at the Finch household, and even though I might have lost some of my hearing, my sense of smell was still keen. What smelled like biscuits and sausage urged me to get my butt out of bed and sate my growling stomach.

  Being lower to the ground on this lounge bed was going to make getting out of bed more tricky than usual. I rolled to the side and placed my feet on the cool floor. I had nothing nearby to hold onto, so I attempted rising by pushing up from the low mattress. The next thing I knew my face was meeting that cold, hardwood floor.

  Heavy footsteps hurried upstairs and down the hall. “Quinn?” Erik called out. The door opened, and I saw bare feet and masculine legs with well-defined calves. February is not shorts season. Was he standing in my room naked? Maybe I was dreaming.

  “I’m fine,” I said, my voice sounding feeble and unconvincing.

  He lifted me up, and he smelled good and clean, like Zest soap and shaving cream. I tilted my head to the side, and he came into full view. Half-shaved face. Bare chest. Washboard abs. And towel firmly tucked around his waist.

  “Do you need some help getting dressed?” he asked.

  Heat flooded my face. He didn’t even think me enough of a girl to realize helping me get dressed was inappropriate? Indignant, I pulled up the loose waistband of my oversized flannel pajamas decorated with flying monkeys. “I can manage.”

  “Like you managed to get out of bed?” he challenged.

  “Look. I can dress myself, and I need to do my vertigo exercises before I go downstairs. So if you’ll leave . . .”

  “Excellent,” he said, “I’ll be back to help in a couple of minutes. I need to put some clothes on.”

  I couldn’t help but think it might be more interesting if he didn’t.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I called to his muscular back. Heat flooded my face again when he poked his head back in the doorway. “I didn’t mean don’t get dressed. I meant I can do the exercises myself. It’s not like I’m lifting weights or anything. You go ahead and do whatever.”

  What if I reacted to his touch, and he noticed and he got embarrassed? If there was anything more pathetic than liking someone who didn’t like me in that way, I didn’t know what it was.

  He didn’t listen to my protests and returned fully clothed. Not that clothes helped. He had on that sandalwood aftershave I liked, and he was wearing those low slung Levis worn nearly white in all the right places. Plus I had that picture of him in just a towel in my spinning head.

  Pure torture. That was what this therapy was going to be.

  He helped me down onto the lounge bed, and I turned to my side so I wouldn’t smell his minty fresh breath. I probably had morning breath. “I can do this on my own,” I mumbled. “All I have to do is turn my head to a forty-five degree angle.”

  His hand gently guided my jaw until the back of my head rested against the futon-like mattress, and I imagined him guiding my jaw to better plant a kiss on me. My lips burned just thinking about it. I hadn’t felt like this since seventh grade when Michael Tolliver sat next to me at lunch.

  Focus, Quinn. The exercises. “Has it been thirty seconds?”

  “Mmmm, hmmm.”

  “Okay, help me sit up. Now, we do the same thing to the left side.”

  How was I going to make it through five repetitions?

  My phone rang. I knew it was Mr. Polaski, so I ignored it. I also ignored it the second and third time it rang.

  We’d made it nearly to the end of the session, when Erik said words that made my palms sweat.

  “Quinn,” he said. “I have something I need to talk to you about.”

  Please no. He couldn’t be sharing his feelings about Magdalene with me. I’d have to lie and say she was great. I wiped my sweaty hands on my pajamas.

  He helped me sit up and turned me back to the right. “There’s someone I care for deeply.”

  My gut clenched. They were getting married. I couldn’t let him see my pain, so I forced my mouth into a brittle grin. “She’s a lucky girl. I wish you all the happiness in the world. I’m sure she’ll say yes.”

  “Yes to what?”

  “To whatever it is you want to ask her.”

  I noticed he was scratching his head like he was confused. I guess he’d expected me to react differently.

  “How’s the dizziness now?” he asked.

  “Not bad,” I lied, tilting my head more to look directly into those troubled hazel eyes that Magdalene would spend the rest of her life gazing into. “You’re lucky it’s Valentine’s Day eve. Magdalene’s the kind of girl who’ll appreciate the drama of a proposal on such a romantic holiday.”

  His brows drew together. “Proposal? Magdalene?”

  Unable to look at him, I attempted to stand. I had to act like I didn’t care, just as I’d acted like it was no big deal to give up performing. Pride alone enabled me to hold my wavering ground. “I
don’t know about you, but I’m starving. You going for your run?”

  After I said it, I realized he must have gone running earlier. Why would he shower and shave before a run? He must know I was in love with him, and he wanted to break the news of his upcoming proposal to Magdalene gently. But I didn’t want to know any more about it, and I wasn’t helping him plan their romantic evening.

  “Quinn, I think you misunderstand me,” he said.

  I threw a robe around my shoulders and hobbled down the stairs, desperate to get away. “Is that biscuits I smell? There’s nothing I love more than a good, flakey biscuit.”

  “Quinn!” He called out. “I must say what is in my heart.”

  “Later. We’ll talk about it all later,” I snapped back. If he could see that the news was going to be difficult for me to take, he could also see that I was in no mood to hear it right now. And if he wanted my opinion on an engagement ring, I’d scream.

  I found my way to the kitchen as Erik slammed the front door. He muttered in his native tongue all the way outside. Maybe he was heading over to see Magdalene. I didn’t care.

  Since I didn’t care, the Finches’ sunny yellow kitchen should have brightened my mood, but it didn’t. I sat down at the table with the rest of the clan, who were eyeing me suspiciously.

  Mrs. Finch placed a plate with fried eggs, biscuits and sausage in front of me. Amazed that she knew how I liked my eggs, I could only form the word “How?”

  She winked at me. “I asked Erik.”

  I took a bite of the biscuit; the soft insides melted in my mouth as Mrs. Finch took her place in the chair next to me.

  Charles sniffled. “When can we tell her?”

  “I guess now’s as good a time as any,” Mrs. Finch said, smiling like we were in an episode of the Brady Bunch. “We took a vote this morning and decided we’re going to help you.”

  “Help me with what?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. It was a little scary when five faces beamed at you.