Johnny Cakes (The Rachael O'Brien Chronicles) Read online

  The bus’s plastic seal unsuctioned and opened. There was no mistaking the driver. Her spiky short gray hair stood up on the top of her head. From her bucket driver’s seat, Betsy McMurtie, a.k.a Betts’ eyes met mine and I watched the wry corners of her lips curl. “You who,” she waved.

  My eyes scanned the two tiers of windows for signs of my mother. A new paint job read, “In Touch Cemetery Tours.” In smaller print, the ad read, “Finding closure with spouses and pets.”

  Brain synapses sputtered in such a rapid-fire fury that I was lucky to maintain control of my basic facilities.

  A woman in a flouncy embroidered tunic and silk headband with fabric tails that trailed down her arm stepped off the bus with open arms.

  Moving toward the street, I was speechless.

  “Rachael, it’s been awhile. Do I get a hug?”

  I gave Mom a one-arm squeeze.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  “Yes, fine.” A sigh rolled out. “You?”

  She nodded. “Fine.”

  Since we determined we all were fine, she could be on her way. “Passing through?”

  “How’d you guess?”

  My shoulders shrugged. I saw some movement on the bus, but couldn’t see faces. “A Valentine’s Day exploration of past loves tragically lost?”

  Mom’s fingers touched her lips. “Is today February fourteen?”

  I looked behind me. The boys had stopped their pushing and shoving. Hugh and Clay had yielded ground to Stone, and I could see from the body language that if they wanted to start something, he would be happy to finish it.

  “You remember Stone. Not sure if you met Hugh and Clay.”

  “Of course.” Leaning to my ear, she said, “You’re a busy girl.”

  I stepped back. “I’m in the middle of something.”

  Betts and the stout Hawaiian I recognized from the Halloween party exited the bus and moved toward us.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Mom said.

  I didn’t care how psychic my mom and her friends pretended to be. There was no way they could have picked up a signal that Hugh had slept with Sheila.

  “Rachael,” Betts said.

  “Betsy,” I replied in as civil a tone as I could muster.

  “You remember Hiwalani,” Mom said.

  How could I forget? Despite the chill outside, he wore a short sleeve hibiscus flower button down and a pair of knee length cut off khakis. Lifting his thumb and pinkie, he shook his wrist. “Aloha makamaka. How’s it hanging?”

  “Your missing pet is inside.”

  He nodded. “I know. Onyx’s work here is done.”

  This had to be a conspiracy. Work? “Did you purposely let a snake loose in my house?”

  “Of course not,” Mom said.

  Hiwalani glided into a woo-woo zone. “All creatures on this planet have gifts, and if we let them, they can guide us on our journey.”

  A car beeped as it tried to pass the bus that had taken over the street.

  Mom hammed up the animal love propaganda. “Snakes are a powerful sign of an awakening.”

  “The sight of one in the house certainly evoked a reaction,” Stone said.

  I wasn’t poised for delving into a debate on the likelihood of hocus pocus, apparitions, and the spirit world beyond. I just wanted the thing out of the house, then I’d deal with Stone, and fit Hugh in sometime before my ten o’clock class. With an open arm I gestured to the door. “Be my guest. I last spotted her…”

  “In the kitchen,” Hiwalani winked.

  A lucky guess?

  “Snakes get thirsty. Kitchen sinks and toilet bowls are her usual hangouts.”

  I didn’t need to know that. I’d never nonchalantly sit on an uninspected toilet seat again.

  The snake lover led the way. I followed behind Mom and Betts with Stone, Hugh, and Clay bringing up the rear. Stopping in the entryway, Hiwalani removed a small gold bell from his pocket. “Too much static coming in the doorway. I need clean energy and a bit of space.”

  Betts turned. “You all need to take a deep breath.”

  “He needs to hear it. With me on the count of three,” Mom said.

  While everyone huffed and puffed, pretending to be the big bad wolf, I closed my eyes. This day needed to be tomorrow.

  “Breath in, breath out. That’s it,” Betts said.

  “I feel dizzy,” Hugh said.

  “Focus,” Mom said.

  I couldn’t believe my mom and Betts corralled this bunch with their trippy do-as-I-say tactics.

  Most everyone kept breathing like they’d returned from a quick lap while Hiwalani bent down on all fours and dinged his chime. A noise that sounded like a series of grunts and sighs bubbled out of his mouth.

  He was no MC Hammer prodigy.

  “Snakes don’t have ears,” Clay said.

  “They have inner ears,” Stone said. “Loud noises or vibrations from a potential predator kick them into survival mode and they freeze.”

  We could hear cabinets opening and closing and the cookie jar lid scraping against the glass. Francine would never bake again if she knew the snake had snacked on her moon pies. It went all quiet with the bell and foot thumping, so I asked, “Everything okay in there?”

  Hiwalani peeked around the corner with a baked good between his teeth and a black snake coiled around his wrists, he garbled, “Hope you don’t mind, I helped myself to a moon pie.”

  “Well I’ll be,” Hugh croaked.

  Hiwalani walked down the hall, toward the front door, and I scurried back a few steps with Clay at my heels.

  “Where was she?” Stone asked.

  “Behind the cereal boxes. Peeked her head out when I opened the cookie jar. Don’t you want to give hear a goodbye stroke?” he asked.

  “No,” Clay and I both said.

  “Her heated aquarium is on the bus,” Hiwalani said as his backside disappeared out the front door. “She doesn’t like the cold.”

  Motoring cars crept around the double-parked bus. Lingering on the porch, a safe distance from the unwelcome visitor, I asked, “Are you in town long?”

  “No dear, we’re headed to Tybee Island.”

  “For a cemetery tour?”

  “For the warmth,” Betts said. “We have some friends down there.”

  It didn’t seem right, Mom stopping by for just ten minutes. “This isn’t much of a visit. I mean we didn’t get to spend any time together. What if I need you for something? I don’t even have your phone number.”

  Soft creases formed around her eyes. “You seem well. Besides, it’s Valentine’s Day. I’m sure you have better things to do than hang out with Mom. I can give you the number on Tybee.”

  “You’re staying somewhere with running water and phone service?”

  “Yes. It’s gonna be a real treat.”

  Hiwalani and Onyx were out of sight. Betts climbed aboard and started the bus engine. After a couple of cranks there was a sudden whoomph that brought the beast to life and filled the street with a belch of oily smoke.

  We both spoke and interrupted one other.

  “You first,” Mom said.

  “Don’t do anything illegal.”

  She pushed a piece of hair away from my cheek. “I have a new crystal ball and I’ve been practicing scrying.”

  “Mom!”

  “I know you don’t want to believe, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you what I’ve seen.”

  “Is that why you came? To warn me again?”

  “There are hurdles in life, one is to come.”

  “Is that it?”

  She gazed into my eyes.”

  “Any more details?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t change your journey, but I can forewarn you of danger.” She hugged me one more time and moved toward the bus. “Just a minute. I’ll get the Georgia phone number.”

  “I started to wonder if my mother’s sole purpose was to relay unverified bad news. Every time I saw her,
she had some dire premonition she couldn’t exactly explain. Did psychics ever divulge good news? Bad news probably generated steadier income.

  Stone waited in the open doorframe as though he had marked his territory. I guessed he wasn’t in a rush. Without saying goodbye, Clay walked down the street toward Hugh’s car.

  “Clay has a class, but I want to talk to you later. Today,” Hugh said then quickly glanced at Stone’s hardened face.

  I shrugged my shoulder in a ‘whatever’ response.

  Mom came down the bus steps and I met her half way. She handed me a scrap of paper with a 912 area code. “When will you be there?”

  “Three days.” She said. Turning to leave, she waved.

  The bus pulled away and I walked toward Stone.

  “Can I take you out tonight?” he asked.

  I glanced at his car. It was full of stuff. “Short notice.”

  “Do you have plans?”

  “No.”

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  Pushing past, I said, “You could’ve asked me two weeks ago, when you were on campus.”

  “You’re upset about that? It was a day trip. I had a meeting with the Biology Chairman. We went over the lecture series agenda I’ve been preparing. It starts next week.”

  My heart leapt, but after the early morning altercation with Hugh, I decided to release my pent up insecurities figuring it was better to know than not to know. “Are you seeing someone else?”

  “Where is this coming from?”

  “You were spotted on campus. Is she the same girl that was in your apartment last year?”

  “No, er, I mean yes, but that’s just a coincidence,” he said and attempted to hug me.

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s a department aide who gave me the keys to my campus apartment and office so I can get settled.”

  We stood there for a moment and I relaxed. “I thought you came by to break up with me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “People in my life have a habit of changing their minds. I thought you met someone else.”

  “I have a feeling I’m never going to meet anyone quite like you.”

  Even though the sun shone, cold bit through the air. Stone closed the front door and followed me into the kitchen. I poured milk in a pan and stirred in powdered chocolate. He began kissing the back of my neck. We treaded into full make-out mode when car doors slammed beyond the back deck. I pulled away for a moment. Through the slatted blinds I spotted Sheila’s car and next to it was Big Blue. Reluctantly, I moved to the slider door. Katie Lee was unloading a duffle and Sheila lingered. I realized I wasn’t going to have to get involved in the love triangle, and while I should’ve been elated, my heart sank down toward my stomach. The envy I sometimes felt toward Katie Lee for having a boyfriend on campus evaporated and was replaced with mourning for the emotional drain her life was about to whirl into.

  I filled our mugs and led Stone by the hand to my room.

  He looked at me quizzically.

  “Do you mind if we stay home today?”

  NOTE TO SELF

  My mother never just drops in without a reason. Although grateful for getting rid of the snake, which was her fault in the first place, I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing something. Wary that Betts replaced snake with something worse.

  Stone is in town for the lecture series. Yeah for me.

  MARCH 1989

  CHAPTER 23

  Creamed Yo’ Corn

  The aroma of peanut oil and crispy flour breading wafted through the entire house. Looking forward to a made-from-scratch meal put extra pep into my step, not that I needed it. Since Valentine’s Day, things had been going right for me. Stone had temporarily moved on campus, which elevated my personal relationship status to sextraordinary. Despite Stone as a distraction, I was on top of my reading and paper assignments, and the big scary snake in the house, the reptilian one, had been removed, and for the moment I was off the Schleckster slave-driving radar. Her personal agenda with boyfriend Baron von Dufus cut into our Friday afternoon sessions and she resorted to bailing early and leaving me multi-page grunt work ‘to do’ instructions. Her new delegating style suited me. Where the professor was concerned, less was most definitely more—as in the less I saw of her, the greater the tolerance I acquired.

  The only imbalance in my immediate galaxy was Katie Lee. Ever since she found out about Hugh and Sheila, from Sheila, she’d been acting blasé. Even told Sheila, and this is a direct quote, “It not like you factor into our equation. Hugh and I are a couple until one of us, not you, ends it.” Her words took Sheila and myself aback.

  It was a live soap opera in the house, complete with overacting and pretense that sent a low-lying undercurrent of tension between Katie Lee and Sheila, and by default, the rest of us. Even though Francine was lukewarm on them both, I suspected that she secretly worried about Sheila pulling the same maneuver on Roger, and empathized with camp Katie Lee. An unspoken avoidance held the key to survival and the three of us kept to the upstairs, barely saying boo to Sheila.

  As for Jet, she’d taken to living in greasy zip-front coveralls, when we saw her, which was rare. The girl had gone off the grid. When I’d given her the message to call home, she mumbled some blah, blah about annoying mothers, and that she’d be getting around to it. Since then the two had played professional phone tag. My take was that Jet purposely called home during the day when no one was there, and left short phone messages to pacify her mom’s checking-in anxiety vibes.

  “The house smells amazing. It’s really sweet of you to go to all this trouble for Katie Lee.”

  “I consider it charity work.”

  “What’s in the crock pot?”

  “Creamed corn.”

  I reached for the lid of another covered pot and Francine slapped my wrist with the flat of a large wooden spoon. “The black eyed peas and rice are steaming. Leave them to their privacy.”

  It had taken major convincing on my part, but Francine had outdone herself. Fried chicken, slow cooker creamed corn, and black eyed peas and rice. She hadn’t stepped foot in her favorite room in the house for two weeks. The snake retrieval spooked everyone out, and she’d mumbled some superstitious crap about the kitchen being Satan’s den. Francine considered a serpent living in her culinary territory bad juju that could land your soul into the arms of Lucifer. She was so freaking dramatic.

  “This is an intervention. First, get Katie Lee fed. Let her see dessert, but before you serve the sinful chocolate pie, wham, we get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s going on. She’s possessed. I consider this evening an exorcism. She’d better show up?”

  “She’ll be here. I told her it was girls’ night. Just the three of us to eat, drink, and be merry.”

  “What about Jet?”

  “Working at the shop again, said she’ll be late.”

  “My cooking doesn’t do late. Does her mama know that she spends more time with her head under the hood than in books?”

  “I’m not getting involved.”

  “Then why does Mrs. J always ask for you when Jet’s not around?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re involved. You just don’t know it.”

  “That’s not true. I go to great lengths to stay uninvolved.”

  “Uh-hmm.” She said, with squinty eyes.

  Francine had added some creative touches to the dining room table. The centerpiece was a wooden cross with votive candles lit all around it, a vial of some clear liquid under a stopper, a red ribbon, nail polish, and a bottle of Eternity perfume.

  How did she get into Sheila’s locked room?

  “It’s not Holy Thursday. What’s all that clutter on the table?”

  She placed some breaded chicken breasts into the bubbling oil of her cast iron skillet. Beneath the hot oil, the breading sputtered and crackled. “I told you, this is an exorcism. We’re removing the dem
ons that cause Katie Lee to date stupid boys.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We agreed. Tonight is about helping Katie Lee. We’re not giving her a lecture, we just need to find out what’s going on in her personal storage tank. Make sure she’s not planning anything unconventional. If you go on a rant about demons in her soul, she’s not going to tell us why she’s being so …” I paused.

  “Stupid about men.”

  “Francine, do not use insulting words around her.” I knew this was a lot to ask. “We just need to find out why she’s being so tolerant of Hugh.”

  “And Nash.”

  Francine had a point. Why Katie Lee kept him in her life was beyond me.

  She flipped the chicken over with a wide, wire-slatted spatula. “Katie Lee is only half the problem around here. We need to take precautions with Beelzebub’s sidekick.”

  “Sheila?”

  Lately, after everything that happened in the love triangle, Francine didn’t like to say her name. She acknowledged my deduction with a raised kitchen utensil and a nod.

  “You were right. She is a She-Devil.” Francine lifted a corner of the chicken out of the oil and checked the color of the underside of the breading. “I should’ve never agreed to live under her roof.”

  “That’s what I told everybody last year!”

  Francine spoke over me, like I wasn’t standing next to her. “We need a cleanse. I’ve acquired a few of her personal items, some holy water, and a cross blessed by the preacher.”

  “Jesus.”

  “No, just the preacher.”

  She removed a chicken breast and placed it on a paper towel. Drinking in the steam that rose from the deep fried breast she said, “Amen.”

  “How can you perform a cleanse when you won’t even say her name?”

  “I can say it if I want, but I’m not the type to mingle with trollops, and I certainly don’t want to be summoning her. Why you think I spend so much time at Roger’s.”

  “Because he’s your boyfriend and you like to do things together.”

  Francine’s head bobbed. “Girl, get your mind outta the gutter or I’ll have to gather some of your used cigarette butts and purify your sorry ass.”