Author: Lynda McDaniel
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someone and leave a message, but they’d never call back. Sometimes I’d check to see if there’d been an electrical storm that’d turned off my answering machine. Or I’d think maybe the tape had run out. Most times, it hadn’t even started.

Other times, I’d see all these folks with big groups of friends, laughing and carrying on, piling into a car to go to the movies or a music gig. They’d wave at me, and I’d wave back, acting like I was real happy for them, heading off to have fun. And I guess I was. I just couldn’t figure out why I was only good enough to wave at.

I always saw friendship—like me and Della had—as about the finest thing in the world, and I wanted as much of that as I could get. Maybe I was trying too hard, I’d tell myself when things didn’t work out. Or, maybe I said something wrong.

No wonder, then, I was tickled that Clarice had taken a liking to me. After that first time, I saw her a bunch more at school. We hung out sometimes and had meals together, especially when her brother, Clayne, weren’t round. They took turns taking care of their mama back at the cottage and, like Clarice had told me, cooked their own meals, most times. Later on, Clarice worked out some kind of deal doing odd jobs for the school in trade for some meals. “I just have to get out of that cottage, sometimes,” she whispered oncet when we was sitting next to each other at dinner.

Even though Alex had warned me that Lurline and Eva weren’t as good cooks as Mama, I loved those meals. Chicken and dumplings. Macaroni and cheese. Pork chops that weren’t cooked to shoe leather. And with Clarice sitting with me, I felt like somebody. Out of all them guys, she chose me. Not that the competition was that stiff. Some of the guys were kinda scruffy and some were too shy to even look at her. But for a while, I felt like the luckiest guy at the school.

“Well, Mister, I hate to break up this lovefest, but it’s getting late,” Della said, carrying in a tray of cold chicken sandwiches, potato salad, and coconut cake. She set it on the coffee table.

Jake and I had been tussling on the floor on an oval braided rug she’d added since I was there last. Whenever I came home from The Hicks for a weekend, I tried to spend plenty of time with Jake. I’d trained him to dance on his hind legs and speak for treats, and we’d go for long walks into the woods. Whenever I’d see him after a spell of being away, I noticed how my heart felt fuller when we were together. It felt good, and I found myself wondering what happened to all them feelings when I wasn’t with Jake. Were they in there, kinda dormant, like them noisy cicadas that wait seventeen years before they come back? Did the feelings build up between visits and come roaring out when we were reunited? I didn’t know the answer, but I wanted them to come out more, even when Jake weren’t round.

I sat up, tucked my legs under the coffee table, and started chowing down. I could’ve eaten every one of them sandwiches, I was so hungry. Della kinda nibbled on one, but she’d probably had her dinner earlier. She let me eat for a while before asking more about what’d happened at the school. I thought for a minute about how to answer her. There were things I wanted to share, and some I just couldn’t tell her. Not yet, anyways.

“It started when some people came to the school—a mother, son, and daughter,” I said with my mouth full, but Della didn’t seem to mind. “The mother was dying, and the two kids were looking after her. They’d moved to the school because they were evicted from somewhere in Virginia ‘cause she was too sick to work, and what her son earned wasn’t enough to live on.” I stopped to eat for a minute, and then added, “She’d growed up nearby our school and wanted to die as close to her family’s home place as she could. I remember how tore up we all were listening to her story. A bunch of us had gathered on the front porch of Gate House, where she sat, talking and taking in that heavenly mountain view. It was like she was looking into her future.”

While she listened to my story, Della didn’t look all that sad. “Let me guess,” she said after a while. “They got you to part with some of your hard-earned savings.”

“Aw, come on, Della. It wasn’t that obvious. You had to be there.”

“Okay, you’re right. It just pisses me off that they took advantage of you.”

“It wasn’t just me,” I said through another mouthful—this time her homemade coconut cake. “A bunch of us were taken in. But that wasn’t the half of it. Most people at the school don’t even know what else happened. At least not about them stealing so much money. We all lost some, but old man Henson, the director of the school, lost a lot, and the money wasn’t just his. It was the school’s, too. At least that’s the story goin’ round. When someone said we should call the cops, he piped up that it wasn’t worth it—crooks like them are next to impossible to catch. Besides, he said he didn’t want to shame the school. I think he just didn’t want people to know how stupid he’d been with the school’s money.”

“So, why are you in trouble, Abit?”

“Because before they left, they put $2,000 into my savings account! I know that sounds even weirder, but it’s a long story.” I don’t know if it was because of the food or the time of night or the fact that I was unloading this burden on my best friend, but I suddenly felt so tired I could hardly finish my cake. I yawned real big, and Della noticed.

“You can tell me more tomorrow. For now, hop into bed in the guest room. It’s all made up for you.” She hugged me and said goodnight. She closed her bedroom door but then came right back out. “You’ll need to clear out by noon tomorrow. I don’t want to be sneaking behind Mildred and Vester’s backs. You can go home and make it look as though you just walked from the bus station.”

“What will I tell them?”

“We’ll figure that out in the morning.”

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Della woke me up with breakfast in bed. I had no idea what that was like, though I’d seen it on TV. (And I sure was glad she’d left off the rose in a vase.) At first I felt like a fool with a tray in my lap, but I had to admit, I got accustomed real fast. She helped me get the pillows right behind my back and arranged the tray just so before pulling up a chair nearby. “I called Alex, and he wants to see you.”

“OK, when’s he coming back? I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“He can’t get away. He wants you to come to D.C.”

I couldn’t speak, and not because I’d just taken a big bite of one of Mrs. Parker’s cinnamon rolls. I gulped it down, took a swallow of coffee, but I still couldn’t get a word out. I’d never been out of North Carolina, let alone to the nation’s capital.

Della chuckled. “Jake and I were already heading up that way in a couple of weeks. I checked with Billie, and she can keep the store sooner, rather than later. We can leave Monday.”

“How will we go?”

“I’ll drive us up there. Now that I traded in my truck for a bigger vehicle, we can all fit. You can have your lovefest with Jake the whole way up.”

I nearabout started crying. Having friends help you out and a trip to Washington, D.C. bordered on a miracle. But then I thought about what a sight that would be—me with this tray in my lap and flowerdy pillowcases behind me, bawling my eyes out. That made me start chuckling. Della looked puzzled as she stood up to leave. Then she turned and added, “I don’t feel good about tricking your mother. Can you tell her what’s going on?”

“No!” I said, nearly upending the tray. “Really, let me have a couple of weeks or so. They won’t miss me. I need to figure more of this out before I tell them anything. They’d be so ashamed of me.” She nodded and let me be.

I went back to eating my breakfast. Damn, Della was a good cook. Mama worried about germs and such, so she cooked her eggs dry, but Della’s were creamy and her bacon weren’t burnt to a crisp. (Mama had a thing about pork and needing to cook it so she didn’t give us ptomaine poisoning or something like that beginning with a T.) Just as I was thinking about that, Della stuck her head back round the door.

“They will—do—miss you, but I see what you mean. You’ve been gone a month before. But you have to go home now and spend a weekend with them. And kiss them goodbye!”

I was dreading that weekend with the folks, so I ate real slow (something I never did). I dawdled over getting dressed, too. It was well after noon when Della practically pushed me out the door.

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The Roads to Damascus and other books

in the Appalachian Mountain Mysteries series are available at book retailers.

Books by Lynda McDaniel

FICTION

Waiting for You (free Prequel)

A Life for a Life

The Roads to Damascus

Welcome the Little Children

Murder Ballad Blues

NONFICTION

Words at Work