The Goddess of Fried Okra Read online

  And there it was, tiny and trembling and weak. Not to pick it up would have taken a harder heart than mine. The kitten was a puffball, a faint and furry tickle against my skin. “Oh.” My eyes began to water, but I couldn’t put it back. That little creature was as alone as I was. I could have been quaking just like that if I let myself.

  “You come out of there. It is not allowed,” my colleague shouted. “My finger is on the button. Do not make me use it.”

  His threat snapped off my shiver at the stem. The Skymart stores are flush with automatic systems to monitor everything imaginable, but our Old Faithful kind of real-people stores relies on a video camera at the register and one button under the counter that will summon the cops.

  “Oh, baby, it’s okay,” I crooned to the shivering black-with-orange-spots creature in my hand. “All right, all right, I’m coming,” I hollered.

  The kitten blinked and quivered until I thought its little body was going to shake apart. “Where’s your mama?” I asked softly. I took one last look around but saw no other living being. With a hesitant finger, I stroked the tiny, spindly back. The cat arched under my hand, and I fell instantly in love.

  But I couldn’t have it. I walked out, cradling precious cargo. “Here, see? It’s just a little bitty thing.”

  “You must take it away from here,” he insisted. “No pets allowed inside.”

  Well, of course I knew that. Any idiot would, much less a professional of my stature. “I can’t have a cat, and it needs a home.”

  “Put it in the alley. It must not stay here.”

  My clutch was instant and too tight. The kitten yelped. “Don’t you have a friend who could take it?”

  The black dude was still at the door and laughed, robust and deep. “Anwar? A friend? Get out.” The skin around his eyes crinkled in that way I like so much.

  “How about you? Look—” I extended my arms. The kitten, who had just begun to purr, screeched. “Did you ever see such a love?”

  “Looks to me like it’s already got a home.”

  “I don’t even have a home myself.” Both of them frowned. Anwar glanced out toward my car. “I mean, I’m not homeless—well, not exactly. It’s just that I don’t have a place to live right now or a job—”

  Anwar’s eyes lit. “We need someone to work the late shift here. You, I believe, know something of this work.”

  Late shift. My favorite. The time of night when the odd, sad and fascinating come out to play. Besides, I got lots of time to read on the late shift, and I could read my way into a coma and die happy.

  Oh my . . . it was tempting. I didn’t exactly have a bundle of cash, after all. Six hundred seven and change plus smoking-hot plastic were all I had in the world, and I was on a mission.

  I glanced at Black Dude, who urged me with a nod. I shifted to Anwar, whose eyes gleamed.

  But Sister was waiting, and I was pretty sure she wasn’t inside either of these guys, or they wouldn’t have been telling me to keep a cat who’d make me sneeze. “No.” I shook my head with true regret. “I’m sorry. I wish I could.”

  Black Dude shrugged. “It was worth a shot. You woulda jazzed up the joint.” He looked me over once, long and down and up, with a slow smile and a wink. Of course I knew that he might just be really hard up, but still . . . a good, long, slow down-and-up can cure a multitude of ills.

  “Then you must remove that animal from my store,” Anwar said, yanking me out of slow-melt mode.

  “I can’t have a cat. I’m allergic.”

  Black Dude smiled. “Then why ain’t you sneezin’?”

  Frowning, I looked down at the dandelion puff in my hand. “I don’t know.”

  “I heard about some kind of cats allergic people can tolerate, I think.” He wrinkled his brow. “Don’t know where I heard it, though.”

  “Really?” I always, always wanted a cat. But how fair would it be to take that baby and then find out Black Dude was wrong and have to leave it somewhere else? At least there, it would be close to home.

  “Really. Besides, she looks pretty happy to me.”

  “How do you know it’s a she?”

  “Calico coloring—see those orange spots and that little white patch beneath her chin? Black, white and orange makes a calico, which only happens to girls. My Granny told me that once, and she’s the only woman never lied to me.”

  A girl. Not having a boatload of good experiences with the male gender, it seemed fated.

  Which is how I came to be on the road again, but not alone. With cat food for her, peanuts and a Dr. Pepper for me. As it turned out, I didn’t sneeze once that first day, so I took another big step and named her.

  Isis, the Egyptian goddess of rebirth. A very clever high priestess, she tricked her brother—the sun god Ra, who cared nothing about his people—into revealing his secret name and thereby captured his powers over life and death, becoming the most powerful of all the gods and goddesses. She used those powers to help out the common people, among whom she liked to walk. I learned about her in a book I read to Sister when she could no longer leave the house.

  A woman with power was something I could sure stand to be, and cleverness was always an asset. Plus in the event that Sister’s soul turned out to be wily, I figured the ability to find out secret names just might come in handy.

  As the miles rolled by, I wished for a friend to touch base with, someone who’d care if I was safe or happy, but I had lost the knack of making friends long ago. When you moved all the time, you went one of two ways: you never made real friends because it hurt too much to leave them, or you made them and never let go, no matter how unlikely it was that you’d ever see them again.

  After I had to move away from Becky Marie when I was nine, books became my friends. You could keep them or, if you didn’t have room to pack all of them or money to buy replacements, you could go to the library—even if you didn’t dare get a card—and visit. And some of them could be with you forever. Some of my dearest friends were in the trunk of the car at that very moment: A Wrinkle in Time, Where the Redfern Grows. A Prayer for Owen Meany. The Secret Life of Bees and the poetry of Mary Oliver.

  Sometimes I imagined a bookshelf filled with my friends, sitting in the same spot for two—heck, let’s be ambitious—five Christmases in a row. A luxury I could barely imagine.

  Every new town, each new school, I would be up sick all night before the first day, worrying over not knowing what clothes would look right or if anybody would talk to me, never mind the incomprehensible mystery of how to be popular. That was beyond my wildest dream.

  Sweetpea, Sister used to counsel me on those long nights, You have got to stop caring so much about what other people think. If people love you, they love you. If they don’t, you can’t make them. It’s their loss.

  I wanted to care as little as Sister did, but I couldn’t. Maybe it was being an afterthought with no daddy. Maybe it was being five foot nine in sixth grade. Whatever it was, as I drove down the highway that July afternoon, I just knew that I desperately wanted to belong again the way I had with Sister.

  But at least now I had Isis curled up on my lap, purring like an outboard motor. For a little speck of a thing, she could purr like there was no tomorrow. Even though the A/C still wasn’t working, I didn’t mind the extra heat. She needed someone. I wanted it to be me.

  I even skipped a marker just to let her sleep. You’ll be sorry five minutes from now and have to turn around, Mama would have chided, but I would just have to live with it. Isis felt perfect, snuggled in that way, like she belonged with me.

  Then I remembered what I’d read about souls being reincarnated in animals. Cats are pretty mysterious, after all, and more than a little spacey. Maybe they’d make the perfect home for a soul. Whoever it was wouldn’t have to think all that much, simply relax that go-round. Eat and sleep in the closest patch of sun. Claw when you were Maggie-ish, swirl around ankles when life was good.

  And cats get run over all the time, so a person
wouldn’t be stuck there all that long if she got to feeling rested and ready to battle the human mess again.

  Struck by the notion, I pulled over and shut off the engine, then lifted her up and stared like my life depended on it. “Sister?” I whispered. “You there?” I heard my heart going ga-lump, ga-lump, air swishing real loud through my nostrils. I rolled up my windows to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. “Sister, I swear I’ll take as good a care of you as you did of me—better, even. I’ll do it all right this time, every last thing, and I’ll make you happy you decided to come back. I’m so sorry I failed you, Sister,” I said. “I need you to know that.”

  But Isis only stood up and started pawing at my hair, so I understood that Sister wasn’t there but I just couldn’t crank the car up yet. I realized I could be on the wrong road. It could be the wrong time of day. I could miss Sister by seconds and never get the chance—

  Staring down at the skirt I had made from scraps, tier upon tier of bright colors, the patterns wavered in the blur. Isis glanced up after a drop plopped on her head, then started climbing up my halter top.

  Needle-sharp claws pricked one breast. I jerked out of my slump, grabbed the cat and rescued my flesh from Isis’s love. Or maybe just her sense of adventure, of what’s-over-the-next-hill. Whatever it was, that little scrap of life yanked me back from the swamp in which I was about to put one size-ten foot.

  Did I think this would be easy? Had Madame Eva promised such? And what about faith? What about the-universe-will-bring-you-what-you-need? Open your mind to the highest good, she had counseled. Sister had put it a little differently, Worry don’t change nuthin’.

  Fate didn’t always speak up when called. “All right,” I said to Isis, who was wiggling in my grasp. “So you’re not Sister. She would never stand for eating cat food, anyway—what was I thinking?” I pulled her close under my chin and rubbed her against my throat and stared ahead for a bit.

  “It’s too dang hot in here.” It was nice to have someone to talk to again, even if she was a little light on answers.

  Isis raced across the seat, batting at my tissue box. I turned on the engine and discovered that the A/C was back to frigid.

  Sign enough for me. “Hang on, sugar. Here we go.”

  Site of Community of Nameless

  First surveyed in the 1850s, this area attracted numerous settlers by 1868. A community grew up, and in 1880 townspeople applied for a post office. After postal authorities rejected six names, the citizens replied in disgust, “Let the post office be Nameless and be d----d.” The implied “name” was accepted.

  SISTER’S MOJO

  “Heaven in Texas is as close as I’ll get—” I sang my heart out with Tanya Tucker, while Isis chose to remove herself to the back seat. Not that I blamed her; though I gave a song my all, no one would ever delude themselves that I had talent.

  But I needed a little distraction. Night was creeping in and with it, that shadowy sadness that hits you when you’re far from the familiar. The countryside seemed huge and menacing all of a sudden, and I wondered if Mama ever got scared those nights we would leave in the wee hours to escape the landlord or the bill collectors. She never said she was, but sometimes when I was supposed to be asleep in the back seat, I’d catch an odd expression on her face in the green glow from the dashboard. There were times you just knew to leave Mama alone, and night was one of them. Maybe that was why she brought home men even a child could tell were losers.

  At that moment, I wished I could go back and give Mama a hug. I did the math I’d never bothered with before and realized that when I was born, Mama was years younger than me, only twenty-four and had two kids depending on her for everything. She worked as a waitress most of the time; she never finished high school, having gotten knocked up with Sister when she was fifteen. She ran off with Alvin, but that marriage didn’t last five years. Casper was never her husband, only one in a series of stopgap boyfriends. God knows Mama never met a worthless man she didn’t like.

  That first night out on my journey, I only had a little kitten to care for, and I was scared spitless. I kept nodding off, though, getting too tired to be safe. I wanted a motel or a truck stop, any sign of civilization, but there seemed to be nothing around for miles, not even the distant glow that indicated a town on the horizon. What I needed to do was to find a place to pull over and nap a little for the sake of that kitten, but I was never real good at dealing with the dark, and that had only gotten worse once Sister was gone.

  Finally I spotted an old gas station that looked left over from the Forties, and I pulled under the canopy, right beside two rusty pumps with the old rounded contours. The windows were coated with grime, and through them I could see a beat-up metal desk and empty shelves on the wall behind it, one of them hanging off its bracket.

  Tell Me would have come in real handy right then, but my mind seemed as dried-up as my spit. The whole place reeked of hard times and sorrow.

  I decided it would be foolish to be sleeping out here in plain sight, so I moved the car around back, keeping carefully to the concrete, dodging the odd fifty-five gallon drum leaking heaven knows what. “It’s only a nap,” I told Isis. “A catnap, pardon the pun.” And smiled so she wouldn’t be nervous.

  I couldn’t get comfortable, but I was afraid to climb in the back seat in case I needed to make a quick getaway. I told myself Isis would be my alarm system; animals sense things we don’t, after all.

  But I kept checking the locks. Picturing Freddy Kruger or that hockey mask guy. Wondering if I heard a coyote. I turned on the key and listened to old country, the twangy guitar and fiddle kind, that’s how desperate I was to forget that an axe murderer could be giggling right then and sharpening his blade.

  Then I thought about my great-great-grandmother’s brother, Bob. He just walked away one day and no one ever knew where. That was well over a hundred years ago, and Brother Bob didn’t have a key to turn or a flashlight to switch on. He couldn’t play a radio or make a quick escape. He walked off into the world all by his lonesome and probably spent a lot of nights sleeping under the stars, complete with scorpions and snakes and guys with six-shooters.

  Of course, since no one ever knew what happened, he might not have made it through that first night. But I was not going to think about that. Not right that minute.

  I got a snooze or two in somewhere along there, to my surprise. But by the time morning arrived, I had discovered something about cats that made me almost wish I was allergic. For all that Isis slept so soundly during our drive and was next to no trouble, night seemed to be her time to prowl. While I lay sweating, unwilling to roll down the windows even a crack, she held an all-hours kegger. She even knocked Sister’s picture out of the ashtray and scared me to death it was damaged. I scolded her and put it in my billfold for safekeeping, but she didn’t seem one bit sorry. We had ourselves a Maggie moment or two.

  At first light, I was back on the road with her once again curled up innocently in my lap, a Halloween-colored little dab of fur, and I could almost forget what a hellion she’d been.

  But to be fair, I had never slept all that well. I wanted to, never assume I didn’t. I used to stare at Sister and wish I could be her, dropping like a rock into slumber as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  But me, I go down hard and wake up easy. The slightest noise. The faintest worry. Sister used to tell me if I didn’t lighten up, I was going to burn out early. That no child should be so serious.

  But Mama never worried at all, just drifted from one man to the other. Sister was forever focused on the path ahead, on charging through the swamp of Mama’s mistakes, only looking back to be sure I was still in her wake.

  It was up to me to be the rear guard. Neither of them ever seemed to see all the demons lying in wait along the path, blowing on their fresh-manicured nails and whistling until we got past, fixing to leap up and chomp us the second I relaxed.

  So I didn’t blame Isis, really. I wouldn’t have slept soundly even if she
were conked out.

  But I sure needed a shower. Bad.

  I kept my eyes peeled, and sure enough, a half hour later, salvation popped into sight.

  “You’re not our usual customer,” said the guardian of the truck stop showers outside San Saba. Above his shirt pocket was stitched his name, Vernon. “Truckers only back there.” The tattooed fireplug of a man was probably used to juggling guys on the jagged edge of enough, loner guys, lords of the highway. A skinny Viking girl wasn’t going to impress him.

  So I tried being a girly-girl, something I was never very good at, but I had learned a thing or two watching other women while serving drinks at Fat Elvis. “I know,” I said. Sweep my lashes up and down real slow. Utter a breathy sigh. “And I wouldn’t want to be any trouble. It’s just that—” Down sweep. Pinch my nostrils together as if to stem tears. “He hit me, and I was so scared that I took off running and—” Little hitch of breath. “I spent last night in my car on the side of the road, terrified every second that someone would murder me in my sleep and I just—” Pin him with an earnest look. “I have to keep going, but I just can’t bear being like this. I don’t have much money, though, ‘cause he always took what I earned—” Soft sob. Mouth covered with hand, eyelashes batting like there was no tomorrow.

  “Hey, there . . . ” Dubious brown eyes turned nervous. “Aw, don’t—come on,” he said, pointing behind him. “We’re not that busy right now. But make it quick, hear?”

  “Oh, I will!” Genuine tears of gratitude filled my eyes then. I zipped ‘round the counter and blew him a smooch. “Thank you, Vernon. You’ll have stars in your crown for this, I am sure of it.”

  Down the corridor I spotted a lanky cowboy, straw hat drawn down low over his forehead, slowly clapping, smirk on his lips. “Good job, honey. Vern ain’t usually such a soft touch.”

  I sailed on past him. My tips had shot right up at Fat Elvis once I learned to ignore the cynics.