Unexpected Dismounts by Nancy Rue Page B

place.
    My life had become the people who reached out to me in this house.
    The people you virtually dropped one by one on my doorstep , I said to God . So—is it too much to ask for a little help with what to do for them now that I’ve let them in?
    I shifted uneasily in the chair, feeling like I was in Vice Principal Foo-Foo’s office. I didn’t expect ask-the-question-get-an-answer-move-on. God may have worked that way with some people, but clearly not with me. I’d learned to search the Nudges and whispers given to prophets long before me, guys who were clearly better choices for the job than I was. And I knew to center myself and leave space where I could be moved. I had even figured out that some healthy venting about the situation God had plopped me into could leave me more willing to hear his side.
    I did all of it that and still nothing. Nada. I remained Nudge-less. Which usually meant to keep going with the last Nudge. But wasn’t I doing that? Wasn’t I helping the Sisters move toward their baptisms? And Desmond toward his, though he was admittedly several miles behind them, due to the side trips he made along the way. That was the last thing I’d clearly heard from God.
    Unless you counted Wash their feet.
    I didn’t. That one had to be the result of sleep deprivation. Maybe early menopause. Or the insanity I always suspected was lurking just around the next bend.
    Yeah. I woke up Thursday morning, an hour late, with a crick in my neck.
    I’d left the van with Mercedes so she could take Zelda to the dentist, which meant I had to cart Desmond to school on the Harley, not the most comfortable ride with a behind bruised by last night’s dismount. I made Desmond cling to me like a koala bear because Chief had removed the bent sissy bar. Another thing I had to take care of in an already crowded day.
    I checked for voice mail as I watched Desmond stroll toward the school building. Our one-sided talk the night before seemed to have soothed his fears about the adoption. I could have sworn I heard him cry out once in his sleep, but when I’d peeked in on him in his room off the kitchen, he was in hibernation. Maybe it was just the Oreos he ate before I discovered he’d consumed half the package.
    There was a message from India: “Honey, call me as soon as you get this,” which I did before I pulled away from the school. She picked up with “Darlin’, you are not gon’ believe this.”
    “There’s not much I wouldn’t believe,” I said. “Try me.”
    “Willa Livengood wants to meet with you again.”
    “That I don’t believe.”
    “She called me yesterday evening, and now, I’m not saying she wasn’t on her second glass of sherry, but she was lucid.”
    “How lucid?”
    “Enough to say she liked your spunk.”
    “Then she must have been on her third glass. Last time I saw her she was about to throw a piece of Yardbird at me.”
    “Yardbird?”
    “Whatever that stuff is in the china cabinet.”
    “My soul, we have a lot of work to do.” I could picture India re­arranging her expression. “Now, listen. Ms. Willa told me she started thinking about it and she decided that you couldn’t possibly be that much like your parents, and maybe she ought to give you another chance.”
    I shifted my helmet to my other hip. “What does that mean?”
    “I guess we’ll find out. But we definitely gon’ find a different venue for it. We’ve got to get her off her throne. So, what if I set up a luncheon-slash-fund-raiser and have her as the guest of honor?”
    “Tell me some more,” I said. Any time lunch became a luncheon, I immediately had visions of my late mother serving up crustless cucumber sandwiches in the dining room on Palm Row. Not my favorite memory. Or menu.
    “We’ll need a program to draw people in,” India said. “I could do a fashion show, maybe find us a nice string quartet.”
    What about a footwashing?
    The Harley wobbled on its stand, and for a second I thought I’d said