'Til Grits Do Us Part Read Free Page A

nothing big happens in Staunton. Nothing.”
    â€œWhat do ya mean nothin’ happens? We go squirrel huntin’ sometimes. That’s pretty excitin’.” Becky stifled a smile.
    â€œDon’t start.” I glared. “The most that happens out where I live is people squealing their jacked-up trucks and that petty theft I had to write up a while back. People stealing lawn ornaments, Becky! There’s no theater here. No subways. No…anything. Please don’t be offended. It’s just a lot different from Tokyo, where the city whirls all night long.”
    My fingers tightened in an almost palpable ache at the memory of steaming noodle shops and street crossings jammed with fashionable urbanites chirping into high-tech cell phones. Cities crisscrossed with whirring subways and sleek JR trains, all going somewhere. Pushing higher. Reaching into a future gleaming with concrete and glass—while I tromped through cow-bitten grass.
    â€œShoot, we got theater! Ol’ Clive Clevenger gets drunker than a skunk every Friday night, shore as sunrise. We can git ya a front-row seat! Why, sometimes he shoots at ol’ hubcaps, thinkin’ they’re space aliens.”
    I hopped an unexpected cow pie, righting myself with difficulty. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It’s just the same old boring life here, day after day. I’ve never lived in a small town like this, and all these memories of Mom…. Her town. Her house. Her car. Her…” I kicked a grass clump, unable to form the word
grave
. “I love Adam, but sometimes I think I’m crazy to stay here.”
    â€œAw, you’d be crazy anywhere ya went, Yankee.”
    â€œYeah. Maybe.” I laughed, feeling an unexpected rush of affection at Becky’s slightly bucktoothed smile. Her harebrained ideas. Even her silly nicknames, which should be offensive but somehow weren’t.
    â€œWell, anyways, family ain’t just blood, Shah-loh. Macy proved that to us. We’re your family now.” She patted my shoulder. “Don’t ya forget it.”
    Becky untwisted the leash as Christie wrapped around her leg and trotted away, bending her over sideways. “Doggone it, Christie! Quit pullin’! Your gonna…” She let out a shriek. “Hey! Hey! Git back here!”
    She sprinted off, waving her arms. “She got loose, y’all! Tim! Help!”
    â€œDon’t let her go!” I hollered, taking off after them. “I told you this was a bad idea!”
    â€œYou outta train your dog better!” Becky flailed an arm at me.
    â€œIt’s your fault! You gave her to me!”
    â€œChristie, you ol’ hound!” Tim lunged for her leash, and I watched in horror as the slippery soles of his cowboy boots slid on the grass, sending him careening between two cow pies like a skater on ice. He turned sideways, whooping, and missed them both—then leaped and tumbled after her leash with outstretched arms. Catching the loop between two fingers.
    Just as she dashed off again, happily licking Tim’s face.
    Tim and Becky bounded after her, flashlight bobbing—leaving me in a dome of starlit darkness. And utterly alone.
    I stood there for a moment, motionless, and then waited for the moonlight to illuminate slight dips, hills, and spades of silvery grass around my feet. A misty cloud bank had come up over the hills, damp and cool, and the sound of my own breath startled me. Weeds crunched softly under my tennis shoes. An owl hooted from the edge of the forest, a desolate sound. I took a few hesitant steps back, wondering if I could find my way back to the truck in the dark without soiling my shoes with cow manure.
    Something snorted behind me, thumping the ground.
    I spun around and found myself staring into the nostrils of the biggest cow I’d ever seen—close enough for a blast of its hot, stinky-sweet breath to puff my sideswept bangs