The Scent of Lilacs

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Sorry, Zeb.” Jocie had hugged the wet dog.

  Now she ran her hand over the spots on his sides. Already, with just two feedings, his ribs were sinking back under his skin. “You know, those look a little like storm clouds. So you not only bark like thunder, you carry a storm along with you.”

  The dog sat up on his hind legs and put his front paws together. “No, no, Zeb. You’re supposed to say grace before you eat, not after.”

  The dog dropped back down on all fours and grinned at her.

  “ I can’t wait for Wes to see you. How about we go right now? Dad will be deep in the Scripture, and who knows when Aunt Love and Jezebel will come out of hiding.”

  Zeb cocked his head and stopped smiling.

  “Oh, don’t look so worried. We won’t get into trouble. We’ll be home before anybody even knows we’re gone. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll leave a note on the table. Nobody will see it, but I can still leave it there.”

  Jocie ran back inside, dropped the pan in the sink, scribbled out a note, and then went to get a piece of rope from the garage. When Zeb saw the rope, he scooted just out of her reach.

  “But something might happen to you in town,” she said.

  The dog stared warily at her and moved back a few more steps.

  “Okay, but you’ve got to promise not to get in trouble.” Jocie stuck the rope in her pocket, and Zeb stood up on his hind legs and did a circle. Jocie laughed. “You must have escaped from the circus.”

  Normally she didn’t pay the first bit of attention to cars when she was on her bike, but now she had Zeb. Dogs regularly got done in by cars. Her last dog had met that fate. Right in front of their house. She still sometimes cried when she thought about Stumpy even though he’d been gone for years. Now every time she heard a car coming, her heart jumped up in her throat, but Zeb seemed to be road smart and stayed out of the way when cars passed by.

  The big old motorcycle was in its usual spot behind the news office. That meant Wes was home in his apartment upstairs. Her dad was always telling her Wes might be busy or something and she shouldn’t just show up at his door, but Wes didn’t have a phone. So how else could she find out if he was home except to knock on his door? And he always looked glad to see her.

  Wes wasn’t your average Hollyhiller, maybe because he hadn’t been born there like most of the people in Hollyhill. He was what the locals called a “foreigner.” She didn’t know where he came from. Not really.

  When she asked, he always trotted out this crazy tall tale about being from Jupiter. His story was that he fell out of a spaceship as it was passing over Hollyhill, of all the rotten luck. Every time he told the story, he picked a different place to want to be dropped—a spewed-out volcano in Hawaii, the middle of a kangaroo herd in the Australian outback, Disneyland in California. But no, he got Hollyhill in the middle of nowhere. Somebody forgot to turn on the magnetic seal, and when they went over an air bump, he fell against the door, and here he was. He was just hanging around till his fellow Jupiterians found the way back to pick him up.

  “But what about the motorcycle?” Jocie sometimes asked when he told her his story, not because she believed him but because she liked hearing him embellish the tale. “Dad said you were riding it when you showed up at the paper that first morning looking for a job. Did you steal it from somebody?”

  “Oh, no. We can’t steal. Folks from Jupiter can’t even lie. If we try it, purple spots pop out on our faces. But Jupiterians who cruise the galaxy are supplied with a few buttons in our pockets that we can push to help us out when things go bad. We don’t have many. Usually just three—sort of like the wishes a genie might give you if you rubbed his lamp. Except with these buttons you can’t pick what you wish. Jackson Jupiter—he’s the one who runs the planet up there—he thinks he knows what you need better than you do, and he just sort of supplies. So I pushed a button, and violà, he put me in old blue jeans and a leather jacket and plopped me astride that old motorcycle. I haven’t ever needed to punch the other two buttons.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I liked the motorcycle, and I didn’t want to take the chance that Mr. Jupiter might take it away if he sent me something new.”

  When Jocie was younger, she used to pester him to show her the magic buttons, but he had told her it was too dangerous to have them lying around where somebody might touch them by accident. Mr. Jupiter might turn him into a cow just for the fun of it, and then he wouldn’t even be able to push the last button. Cows not only weren’t that smart, they didn’t have fingers.

  When Jocie had laughed and said that could never happen, Wes had said, “What about that Bible guy Nebuchadnezzar? He was a king and then had to eat grass for a few years before the Lord decided he’d learned his lesson, took pity on him, and made him back into a king. But old Jackson Jupiter, he likes his jokes, and I might just end up eating grass from now on.”

  Wes could always make Jocie laugh even when he never cracked a smile. “That’s not really in the Bible,” Jocie had said. “You’re making that up.”

  “Ask your daddy if you don’t believe me. At any rate, those extra buttons are hid away good. So good I doubt if even I could find them.”

  She had asked her father, and he’d told her Nebuchadnezzar’s story, had even preached on it a few weeks later, but the story had sounded different when her father told it. More biblical and full of lessons to be learned. When she’d told Wes that, he’d said, “I ain’t never claimed to be a preacher. I just told the story the way I heard it.”

  “Who’d you hear it from up on Jupiter?”

  “I didn’t say I heard it up there. It was when I was on that flying saucer going over all the churches on Sunday mornings. Our supersensors would pick up the preaching, and that’s where I learned most of my Bible. That and your daddy practicing his sermons while we’re putting the paper to bed.”

  “Why don’t you come to church with us and listen to him there?” Jocie found a way to ask Wes to come to church two or three times a month. Her daddy was always telling people they needed to be in church, and she worried about Wes not going ever. She’d asked him again just a few weeks ago as they worked in the pressroom cleaning the type.

  He’d given her his usual excuse. “Now, what good Hollyhill Baptist would want a Jupiterian plopping down on the pew beside him? I think they have a rule against aliens. Especially one with black fingers.” Wes had held up his ink-stained hands.

  “Aunt Love says anybody can come up with an excuse not to go to church when they want to. It’s too hot. It’s too cold. It’s too windy. The pews are too hard. Whatever.”

  “Dirty fingernails ain’t an excuse. They’re a reason. I tell you what. If I wake up one Sunday morning and by some miracle the black is gone from under my fingernails, this old alien might just try the fit in a church pew.” Wes had grinned and added, “If it’s not too hot, that is.”

  “I don’t think it matters if you have inky hands or not.” Jocie had held up her own black-tinged hands.

  “Is that a fact?” Wes had laughed at her. “You’re probably right, but the truth is, I get enough religion listening to you and your daddy without having to involve too much soap and water.”

  “Me? I don’t preach.”

  “No, I reckon not. But you do seem to be full up with questions now and again.”

  “Daddy says you have to ask stuff if you want to find out anything,” Jocie had said. “And he says something the same about praying. He says the Bible tells us to ask and to keep asking, but sometimes it seems like the Lord would get tired of listening to the same thing every night and day. ‘Thank you for my food.’ ‘Let the folks at the Mt. Pleasant Church plant something besides cabbage.’ ‘Keep me from sinning.’ ‘Help me do good in school.’ ”

  “What about the sister prayer or the dog prayer? You still sending them up?”

  Jocie had nodded. “But sometimes I don’t think God is listening.” Jocie had slapped her hand over her mo
uth, leaving a smudge of ink on her cheek. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “You can’t say anything to shock an old alien like me, kiddo, and fact is, I figure God has heard just about everything before now too. And who knows? Maybe you’ll get an answer one of these days.”

  Jocie ran up the steps to the apartment with Zeb on her heels. She couldn’t wait to see Wes’s face when he saw how the Lord had answered her dog prayer. As she knocked on the door, she felt a flicker of guilt that this was the prayer God had answered instead of the sister prayer. But she’d asked for them both equally fervently. God had picked which one he wanted to answer first.

  Wes opened the door. The smell of hamburger grease spilled out from behind him. “Well if it ain’t Jocelyn come to see if I got any frenchy fried potatoes left over from my supper.”

  “Yum, and I bet Zebedee here would dance for a hamburger crumble.” Jocie moved aside so Wes could see the dog. Zeb stared at Wes with wary eyes and then suddenly sat up on his back legs and let out a howl.

  Wes peered out at the dog. “Holy moly, is that you, Harlan?”

  Jocie’s heart jumped up in her throat. “You know him?”

  “I believe I do. The old home ship must have been coming back for me and hit another air bump, because this is a Jupiter dog if I’ve ever seen one.”

  Jocie was able to breath again. “You had dogs in your spaceship?”

  “Oh, no. No dogs. The mission was much too dangerous for dogs, but I think this is Harlan.”

  “Harlan?”

  “One of my fellow Jupiterians. He must have fallen out of the spaceship just like me and punched one of his buttons, and Mr. Jupiter decided he could best hide out as a dog.” Wes stepped out onto the little porch at the top of the stairs. Wes was short, not much taller than Jocie, and bent in the shoulders from years of working on machinery in the pressroom. His thin gray hair was in its usual state of disarray, and he ran his hand through it as he gave the dog the once-over. “I have never felt so lucky in my life as I feel right this minute. Mr. Jupiter could have made me a dog instead of a beatnik on a motorcycle.”

  “You’re crazy, Wes,” Jocie said with a laugh. “This isn’t Harlan. It’s Zebedee.”

  “Harlan never much liked his name. He won’t mind that you changed it. Zebedee, you say.”

  “You should hear him bark. Sounds like thunder. He took on Jezebel the witch cat as soon as he came to the house, and he won.”

  “Beat up old Jezebel? It’s a wonder your Aunt Love didn’t shoot him.”

  “She’s not happy, but when the Lord answers a prayer, you can’t be chasing the answer off, now can you?”

  “Your father’s always saying the Lord works in mysterious ways.” Wes pointed at the dog’s back. “He hasn’t been rolling in cow piles, now has he?”

  “No, those spots are just him.”

  “Yep, Jupiterian dogs are all ugly as sin.” Wes laughed. “Poor old Harlan. Well as I remember, he never even liked dogs.”

  “Did you?”

  “Sure. I always thought the dogs on Jupiter were smarter than the people.” Wes stood up and motioned them inside. “Come on in, and you can tell me all about him, since it looks like Harlan ain’t talking.”

  “He hasn’t yet.” Jocie and Zeb followed Wes into the apartment. “Do dogs on Jupiter talk?”

  “Not often. Maybe once or twice in a lifetime.”

  “What do they say?”

  “It would surprise you. You’d think it would be something Jupiter shaking, but it’s usually something as common as ‘Where’s the nearest tree?’ or ‘Pardon me, but I think you’re standing on my tail.’” Wes grinned and touched Zeb’s head. “Jupiterian dogs are always polite. Unlike Jupiterian people, who are notoriously rude, so I don’t know what you’ll get with Harlan-turned-Zebedee here.”

  “He hasn’t bitten anyone. Just bonked old Jezebel.” Jocie moved a stack of books off one of the chairs in the apartment and sat them on the floor.

  Wes didn’t waste any more time on housekeeping than he did on scrubbing the black out from under his fingernails. He said dust bunnies just ran behind curtains and under shelves till you put the broom away and then scooted right back out again, and he had better things to do than play hide-and-seek with dust bunnies. He, being from Jupiter and all, was way behind on his Earth reading. He read anything and everything from cowboy novels to biographies to science fiction. He said the science fiction writers got mostly everything about spaceships and outer space totally wrong, and someday he might write an Earth book to let the people down here in on some secrets about the universe.

  Every once in a while when the books were on the verge of taking over all the space in the apartment, he’d cram them into boxes and carry them down to donate to the town library. Half the books in the Hollyhill Library had “Donated by Wesley Green” in the front of them.

  Jocie didn’t see any open books waiting for Wes, so she said, “Did we come at a bad time? Were you getting ready to go out?”

  “Out? Where’s there to go out to in Hollyhill?” Wes pulled a scrap of bread out of the trash can and rubbed it around the skillet still sitting on the hot plate that served as his stove. He offered it to Zeb, who politely took it between his teeth and then carefully held it in his mouth a moment before swallowing.

  “I swear, for a second there I thought he was going to do like that cartoon dog that floats up in the air with his toes twirling after he has a doggy treat,” Wes said.

  “I think he hadn’t found anything to eat for a while.”

  “Probably too slow to catch mice and too squeamish to eat possums squashed on the side of the road.” Wes passed her a paper plate with some soggy french fries. Jocie covered the fries with a generous layer of salt and ate them with her fingers. She fed three of them to Zeb.

  “Daddy says I shouldn’t just pop in on you. He says you might have a date or something.”

  “A date with destiny? I already had that years ago.”

  “No, silly. With a girl.”

  “Your dad’s the one who needs to be having a date with a girl. All my girls are up on Jupiter, but your dad could snap his fingers and have five running after him.”

  Jocie let Zeb lick the grease off her fingers. She used to wonder what it might be like having a mother in the house instead of just Aunt Love. Her friends’ mothers were always making cookies or cleaning something or fussing about somebody making a mess. Jocie couldn’t remember her own mother ever doing anything like that. She had tried once to remember her mother wearing an apron or telling her to pick up her toys, but if it had ever happened she couldn’t recall it. What she could remember was her mother putting on makeup and getting dressed up. She could still call up the exotic smell of her mother’s perfume and the cool touch of her mother’s fingers when she’d dab a touch of it behind Jocie’s ears if Jocie pestered her enough. She had always seemed to be going somewhere.

  “I have a hard enough time getting along with Aunt Love,” Jocie told Wes. “Now here you are pushing stepmothers at me.”

  “You’ve read too many fairy tales. A stepmother might be the very thing to keep you straight.”

  “Dad keeps me straight already.” Jocie shifted in her chair. She liked Wes talking to her as if she was a grown-up most of the time, but sometimes he made her think about things she’d rather forget.

  “Your father don’t know where you are half the time. I’ll bet he don’t know where you are right now.”

  “I left him a note, but he won’t read it. He’s holed up in his room trying to come up with the sermon of the year.”

  “Oh yeah, the good people out there are voting tomorrow,” Wes said. “But that’s where a stepmother would come in handy. And I think we’ve got a candidate.”

  “A candidate? Who?” Jocie asked.

  “That Leigh Jacobson who works down at the courthouse. Ain’t you noticed how she keeps dropping by the paper to bring this or that notice for publication? I figure she’s coming b
y to get a glimpse of a certain somebody.”

  “Maybe it’s you she’s stuck on.”

  “Well, I thought so too at first, but I asked her to take a spin on my bike, and she turned white as blank newsprint. But I’ve noticed she always gets a nice rosy hue when your daddy’s around.”

  “Leigh Jacobson at the clerk’s office?” Jocie made a face. “She’s sort of fat, isn’t she?”

  “I heard her telling Zella that she’s dieting. Already lost ten pounds. Besides, a woman with a little weight on her might be a good cook.”

  “I don’t think we should pick out a girlfriend for Dad by how she can cook. He might have other ideas of what to look for.”

  “Cooking is a big plus.” Wes waved his hand at his hot plate. “A man gets tired of beans and burgers after a while. And besides, Leigh’s a nice girl. That’s what your daddy needs. Somebody nice who can take care of him and make him happy.”

  “And keep me straight,” Jocie said.

  “Well, that might be too much to expect. Especially now that you got this Jupiterian dog. No telling the scrapes he’ll get you into.”

  Jocie laughed. Then her smile disappeared as she said, “You were here before my mother left. Tell me about her.”

  Wes got up and took the skillet over to the sink. He ran some water in it and then let it set. Jocie waited. Wes always answered her sooner or later. Zebedee put his head down on top of her feet.

  Wes got a soft drink out of his little refrigerator and popped off the top. He poured half of it into a glass and handed it to Jocie, then took a drink out of the bottle. He rubbed the palm of his hand over the top and sat back down in his easy chair next to the window. He stared out at the fading sunlight, and Jocie began to think she might have to leave for home before he answered her. Finally he said, “I didn’t know her all that well. She hardly ever came to the office, and I didn’t go to your house much then. If I wanted free food, I went to your Mama Mae’s house. Now, she could cook.”

  “I loved her tomatoes and macaroni.”

  “Mmm, and those chocolate pies. She should have opened a restaurant and gotten rich. She had a gift.”