'Til Grits Do Us Part (5 page)

“Gross.” I tried not to think of it. “He's a nice guy, you know? He gave me coffee, too—some of the best I've had in years.” I perked up slightly, remembering steam curling up from the white porcelain mug. “A really good Colombian roast, if I were to guess.”

I pulled my crisp navy-blue jacket tighter in the over-air-conditioned office. “What I wouldn't give for another cup of that right now.”

“Coffee? He didn't give me coffee!”

“You don't sit in cushy chairs and do interviews.”

“Right. I squat in broken hedges and get rained on while you drink coffee. Thanks for bringing that up, Jacobs.” She rolled her eyes. Meg squinted at me a second as if trying to remember something. “What am I forgetting?”

“Something related to the crash story?”

“No. Something else.”

I flung out my arms. “How am I supposed to know?”

I wondered if maybe Meg should get herself tested for ADD. When I needed her for a story, I usually had to hunt all over the building—eventually finding out that she'd gone across town to buy a new lens and come back instead with a mushroom farm.

“Oh, I remember. Hold on a second.” Before I could comment, Meg had ducked around the corner to her cubicle. I heard shuffling, a drawer opening, and then she headed back to my desk. Her baggy, bell-bottom-style pants dragged on the carpet. “Happy birthday. I almost forgot.”

She dropped a pile of brown carob chips and a plastic spider ring in my inbox.

“Don't,” I said, separating the two and picturing cow patties. “If you put them together, that looks… Just don't.”

“What? Carob's good for you. And it's not carcinogenic.”

“You think dryer lint's carcinogenic.”

Meg didn't answer, even to rib me back. She still stood there. Staring at something. I looked up and followed her eyes.

“That's Mom.” I took the faded photo down off the cubicle wall and handed it to her. “Her high school graduation picture.”

Meg froze. Mug at her lips. I saw her eyes slip down from Mom's picture to the blue Amanda Cummings folder splayed partially open on my desk—Amanda's high school senior picture sticking out, her wheat-colored hair glowing.

And Meg promptly choked on her tea, spattering it all over the carpet.

“Oh my word!” Meg fumbled for the tissue box, and I jumped up to help her sponge the mess. “I just…wow. They look alike. Your mom and…Amanda.”

I kept my eyes down, mopping up chunky bits from the tea-soaked carpet. I sniffed. “What is this? Garlic?” I drew back, holding my squashed tissue a good distance away.

“Of course. I used like eleven or twelve cloves this time,” she replied proudly. “I smash them with a spoon, add some ginger, and just enough alcohol to clean out the old ticker. Whatever's in the cabinet.”

Her long strings of beads jingled as she bent over to wipe something off the back of my chair. “Once my maple syrup fermented, and it made some pretty good stuff. I mean, I didn't know maple syrup could ferment, Shiloh, but when I took the top off,
boof
! It hit the ceiling.”

My hand holding the tissue halted partway to the trash can. “You mean you drink…” I dropped my voice to a horrified whisper. “At work? Are you crazy?”

Meg jiggled the grayish liquid. “What? I've got enough antioxidants in here to fertilize an entire cornfield. Want some? I never get sick.”

Sickness sounded strangely welcome compared to whatever brew Meg had in that mug. I scooted back a few more inches and pointed to my Japanese teacup. “No thanks. I've got my antioxidants covered right here.”

“Well, the next time you get the flu, don't come crying to me.”

“Believe me, I won't.” I shook the folder and photos to make sure they were tea-free. “Sorry.” Meg sponged the side of her mug. “I just didn't expect… I mean, they look like sisters. I can see why you might not want this story, huh?”

“Yeah.” I smoothed the corner of Mom's photo on the cubicle wall. “It's silly, but the resemblance is a little overwhelming.”

“I don't blame you. They're not related, are they?” She held the two photos side by side.

“No way. Mom only had a younger brother—and died at age forty-nine. Amanda was what, twenty when she disappeared?”

“I think so. Maybe twenty-one.”

“Besides, Amanda disappeared five years before Mom even moved here.” I swiveled back and forth in my chair. “There's no correlation. Period.”

“Does your mom have relatives around here? Cousins? Something?”

“Don't even.” I put my hand on my hip. “No relative of mine has ever been south of the Mason-Dixon line. I'm descended from a bunch of drunk French trappers who got permanently stuck in New York.”

“So your family tree forks.” Meg snickered.

“In all directions. I'll never be a Southerner, no matter what Becky says.”

Meg flipped open the top of the blue folder and thumbed through some pages. “What about Amanda then? Where's she from?”

“Deerfield, from what I read.” I glanced uneasily at the folder. “There's not much else about her, and absolutely nothing in common with my mom. Amanda was a die-hard vegetarian though.” I poked her. “You're not Amanda, are you?”

“You never know.” Meg bobbed her eyebrows.

“She worked at a place in town called The Red Barn when she disappeared.” I flipped a page in the folder. “Ever heard of it?”

“Nope.”

Like I said. Nothing in common. Except our birthdays—Amanda's and mine. Both June twelfth. I tipped her bio sheet toward me, raising my eyebrows.

“So Amanda grew up in Deerfield,” Meg repeated, tipping her head thoughtfully. “That little place south of…” She bent over my cubicle wall and hunted on the Augusta County map. “It's around here somewhere. Just a double-wide trailer or two away from Craigsville.”

I stuck Amanda's bio sheet back in the folder and pushed it away. “That's the place.”

“Do they have enough jacked-up trucks in Deerfield to constitute an actual town?”

“So says City Hall.” My smirk faded, and I rubbed my arms as if cold. “Anyway, it just feels funny to do a story on a missing woman—who reminds me of another woman who… Well, you get it.”

“Creepy.” Meg's voice came out soft and mournful. “But you know, Shiloh, it's probably our eyes playing tricks on us. Look. Amanda's got glasses and too much eyeliner. Yikes.” She leaned closer. “Blond hair, too. Maybe the look-alike thing is only our impression.”

Meg cradled Mom's picture in her hands, not making a joke or snarky comment. “Ellen Jacobs,” she read off the back. “She's really pretty, Shiloh. You look like her a little.” She squinted at me. “Not a whole lot, but…something. I can't figure out what it is. Your hair color?”

“Not really. My hair's just plain dark brown, not reddish like hers.” I ran a hand through my sleek just-below-the-shoulder cut, a little longer than I used to wear it back in Japan. “But our eyes look pretty similar.”

Mine were multicolored hazel like Mom's, but brighter, with very clear bursts of green and gold. I never knew how to answer “eye color” on forms.

I looked down at the proof sheet in my lap. “And our eyes are the
only
thing we had in common. Exactly like in life.”

“I'm really sorry to hear about her…uh…passing.” Meg's voice fell surprisingly sober. “How long has it been now?”

The office congealed like ice, everyone moving in slow motion. A repetitive beep of the department phone. Secretary Chastity's preppy-sounding, “
News Leader
?” echoing through the office. The shuffle of the copier.

“A year.” I dropped my stack of press kits in my outbox as if it didn't bother me. “To the month.”

“Wow. Sorry.”

I cleared my throat, fumbling for words. “I think Stella made my sushi birthday cake for that reason, too. To give me something good to remember instead. Her brother, Jerry, my old restaurant boss, put her up to it.”

“That's really sweet.”

“Yeah.” I gazed at Mom's slight smile, as if she held a secret. In fact, she did. I'd just stumbled on it a few years late.

Meg pursed her lips as if unsure whether or not to continue. “Was she…sick?”

“Nope. Brain aneurysm. Virtually instant.” I could still see myself standing there in my minimalist Tokyo apartment, phone in hand. The shock of unexpected news ringing in my ears.

My voice must have come out a bit snappish because Meg raised her hands and backed away. “Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you.”

“Me? I'm not upset.” My hands shook as I put Mom's photo back on my cubicle wall. “I mean, I never knew Mom when she was…normal. We didn't have a good past. We weren't even speaking when she died.”

I reached for the mouse and opened up a new page on my computer to write the captions, trying to blot out memories of my seven-year-old self standing in front of the locked apartment door, begging Mom to open. Hoping she hadn't overdosed on her medication.

The way I'd stood in front of her casket, knowing it was too late to save her.

“But there are things I wish I could tell her.” I hesitated, hand still on the mouse. “It would take too long to explain though.”

Meg stayed quiet. “Karma,” she finally said, playing with my spider ring. “Maybe you can.”

“Can what?”

“Have another chance.” She shook the ring for emphasis.

“As a spider?” I yelped.

Meg's mouth gaped in horror. “I didn't mean that.” She dropped the ring. “I meant reincarnation. To tell her what you wish you could.”

“Ha.” I shook my head. “I heard enough about reincarnation from Mom's slew of gurus. And I believe a little differently now.” I glanced up at the Bible verse I'd pegged on my cubicle wall, adorned with a simple cross. “No, a
lot
differently.”

“Bible-thumper.” Meg smirked and poked me in the shoulder blades, and it tickled. I laughed.

“Hippie.” I tried to poke her back with my pen, but she moved faster. “And don't you dare spill any more of that stuff in your mug. My carpet will reek for months.”

“I don't know why I put up with you, Jacobs.” Meg sighed, making a pained face and gazing upward. “You're all right though, I guess. So long as you don't go offering me Gideon Bibles.”

Pretty funny coming from Meg, née Mary Margaret—whose staunch Irish-Catholic parents intended her for the church.

I pretended to think about her Gideon Bible comment, tapping my chin. “I think I've got an extra one in my car.”

Meg ignored me. “Or those horrible Japanese snacks you stash in your drawer. Jellyfish or something?”

“You mean my dried squid?” I pulled my drawer open. “I love that stuff! Kyoko just sent me a fresh bag.”

“Keep that up and I'll take back all my compliments.”

“One bite and you'd recant your vegan ways.”

Meg snorted into her mug. “I doubt it. Offer some to Chastity though.” I shuffled through my stack of press kits, chuckling. “I'd pay to see that.”

“Chastity.” I rolled my eyes. “That girl gets more flowers than the queen of the Rose Parade.”

Meg dropped her voice to a smug whisper. “Too bad they're not from Amanda's killer. Then Chastity would be next.” She snickered into her hand.

“Meg.” I smacked her arm. “I don't like Chastity any more than you do, but I wouldn't wish her dead. Come on.” I stacked my press kits up in a neat pile. “Or stalked either. Some crazy guy in New York stalked me for months when I was sixteen, convinced I was a Norse queen from his former life.”

She studied me, sipping in silence. “You sure you're not?”

I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, Chastity's got to be better than that hateful old receptionist. Good riddance.”

“Lee Ann?” Meg smiled. “Yep. She retired.” She leaned her head close to my ear. “If you ask me, she whacked off Amanda. The old bat. Rumor has it she's hiding a boatload of secrets that most of us will probably never know.”

“Right. She and Clarence Toyer, the mail guy,” I whispered, peeking over my shoulder. “They'd make a good couple, wouldn't they?”

Meg smirked. “Maybe you're right, Jacobs.” She checked her watch and drained the rest of her tea. “Well, anyway, so long as you don't start getting weird flowers and messages, or spray paint outside your house, I guess you're safe.”