'Til Grits Do Us Part by Jennifer Rogers Spinola Page B

cow. What were you trying to do, push it over? If so, you were doin’ it all wrong.”
    I gripped my face in both hands.
    â€œIt’s more in the arms and upper body. Less wrists.” Clarence flexed his forearms. “And you need more leverage—like maybe brace your leg against a fence or something.”
    â€œGo!” I pushed Clarence’s mail cart away before I did or said anything that got me fired. “Just go. I’m sorry I asked, okay?”

    Clarence Toyer. I shut down my computer for the day and pushed open the exit door, wondering who on earth would ever hire a guy as weird as Clarence. He’d been at
The Leader
forever, so I heard, and spouted all these ridiculous conspiracy theories about Marilyn Monroe and the JFK shooting. He and his rumor-spreading ways creeped me out. As well as his rather robust appreciation of female beauty.
    Lucky for me, Clarence had settled on my eyes. Singing songs about “Bette Davis Eyes” and quoting wacko poetry about “thine orbs of spring.”
    Perhaps that’s why Japanese employees smoked so much—so they could get away from annoying coworkers like Clarence.
    I clopped down the stairs in my trendy Manolo Blahnik heels—an old leftover from my days in high-fashion, urban Japan when I actually had money. Back before I got fired and ignominiously booted out of my cushy job at the Associated Press. I opened the door to the street, dodging splattery raindrops, and unlocked my (formerly Mom’s) white Honda and headed toward home. Out of the narrow city streets and into meandering country roads painted silver with rainy mist.
    Mom had lived outside Staunton, in the rural reaches of a little hamlet of Churchville—a.k.a “the middle of nowhere,” as Adam had labeled it once in a crude, hand-drawn map. Sapphire curves of the Blue Ridge Mountains appeared over the rain-wet pines, dusky with heavy-hanging sky.
    And then I heard it: the telltale rev of the engine under the hood as I pressed the gas and my speed refused to budge. The distinctive burning odor of transmission fluid wafting from under the hood.
    Great. Great. Great
. I banged my head back against the spongy headrest, dreading another car-repair bill. Another chunk of my cash forked over forever, leaving me counting dimes and clipping more coupons. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even found a wedding dress yet! At this rate, for my wedding I’d wind up with tacky blue silk carnations from Wal-Mart and Twinkies on a paper plate.
    Hold on a second. I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, trying to remember what the last repair guy had said about Mom’s transmission. Something about it being pretty new and to hang on to the warranty.
    Right. As if I should know where a late parent I hadn’t seen in years had stored her transmission warranty.
    The engine revved again as I turned down the rural country road toward home. I slowed my speed then gently pushed the accelerator until the revving stopped—careful not to tax the transmission. If I found Mom’s warranty, maybe, just maybe, Adam wouldn’t have to spend his last pennies replacing another car part of mine. Or hot-water heater. Or whatever he chipped in last to have fixed.
    â€œCome on, house,” I murmured under my breath, turning down the short, winding road that led to my little redneck subdivision of Crawford Manor. “Just sell. Please. And then we’ll have all the money we need and then some.”
    I followed a dilapidated Chevy down the wet lane, turning left at an iconic green C RAWFORD D RIVE street sign. Trying hard not to gawk at the double-wide parked over in the lot to the right. A horse inside a gnarled pasture fence gnawed on something suspiciously like an old toilet plunger.
    Small, blocky country homes built just like mine lined the puddled streets—each with a different colored vinyl or wooden siding in various stages of wear and tear.