Broke: (6 page)

Chapter
Seven

When Immy walked
through
the door
of the single-wide
,
she was greeted by the familiar
feel
of the only home she'd ever lived in.
It felt
so
much different than her new house.
A delicious smell hung in the warm air
--
chicken and dumplings
, and was that apple pie
?
Her daughter was playing on the floor with, for once, not Barbies,
but a couple of stuffed pandas.

As Immy approached to give her a kiss,
Drew
held a panda out to her grandmother. "Geemaw, can you put a bow
o
n Pinny Panda?"

"What color would you like?" asked Hortense.

Immy bent to p
eck
Drew on the head. "Really, Mother, do you have to ask?"

"Pink," squealed Drew.
"That's Hoo
ty
's favorite color."

"Of course," said Immy.
"Are there other colors?"
She had thought Drew was over Hoo
ty
.
She hadn't mentioned him recently. Hooty had come into existence, in Drew's young mind
only
, a few months ago.
It was worrisome that Drew talked about her imaginary friend as if he were real.

Immy had
eaten so little at the sushi place with Vance that
her
hungry tummy
was
growling
. Hortense saw her head to
ward
the refrigerator. "Are you ravenous, dear?"

"Maybe not ravenous, but I could sure eat something."

"There
are
some chicken and dumplings left, and a slice of pie
."

That was more like it.

"Be sure you get
the sauce
. Would you like me to warm
the pie
up?"

"No, you get Drew her pink ribbons."

Later,
climbing
into
her own twin
bed,
with Drew
already
sound asleep in the
cot next to her
, she wondered if she really did want to leave home.
She had it good here. No living expenses, Mother cooked all her meals. But that was just it, dammit. She needed to learn to cook for herself and Drew. She was old enough to be taking care of herself.

The bright moon crept around the shade and laid a finger of light across her bed. It seemed to point toward her new house in Wymee Falls, twenty long miles away.

Early t
he next morning, when Hortense bounded into the bedroom--she was spry for such a large person--Immy
was convinced, more than ever,
that yes, she did want to move
out
.

"Rise and shine, my little buttercups. It is the Day of the Lord."

"I not a buttercup, Geemaw." Drew giggled, but shot out of bed to choose one of her fancy dresses for church. Hortense helped Drew pull three hangers down and spread the dresses on her bed.

Immy groaned and rolled over, pulling her pillow atop her head.

"Are you indisposed, dear? Again?"

Should she be indisposed?
Or should she think of something else?
It wasn't that she disliked going to church. She
enjoyed
basking in
and soaking
up
the serene
, unhurried
atmosphere,
hearing
the hymns, seeing all the townspeople, even
listening to
the sermons if they weren't too long or too convoluted. Old Rev. Skinner was getting
up
in years and sometimes his messages didn't make sense. But the times she could lie abed and let the other two leave her in peace for an hour were
rare and
heaven
ly. She loved having the whole place
to herself. And she hated that accusatory tone in her mother's voice
today
.

"It's a sign
of
indolence to
be truant from worship services. Your soul needs them. You never know when you might need an
'
in
'
with The Man Upstairs."

She threw the pillow off her head and sat up.
Indisposed it would be.
"My
tummy
doesn't feel too good." Surprisingly, that was true.
Her stomach was making gurgling noises.
"That sushi must have disagreed with me."

"
Sushi?
You didn't inform me you had ingested sushi! Where did you get
Asian cuisine
? On your long walk? I wasn't aware there was an establishment serving sushi in Saltlick."

"Um. Well. O
kay
, I went into Wymee Falls."

"With whom? Not with Ralph, since he was here in your absence and inquired as to your whereabouts."

Immy hated deceiving Ralph. "It was with the real estate agents. They wanted to celebrate."

"Could they not have taken you to a place where
you
could
also
celebrate?
Were you consulted about your gustatory preferences?
"

"
Not exactly
. It seems kinda hicky not to like sushi. It's so...so sophisticated."

"And it adversely affects your gastronomic system, evidently. Next time you celebrate, maybe you should speak up. It's not always good to be reticent."

Or untruthful.

After Hortense and Drew left, Immy mused that she should probably have gone to church to ask forgiveness for the lies and deception she was piling on.

The sound of urgent grunting came from the
backyard
. She'd bet Mother had le
f
t Marshmallow outside
on purpose when she
went to church
,
to make Immy get out of bed.
But when
Immy
padded to the back door and let the pig in
side
, she had to smile. Marshmallow was such a cutie
, purest white as befitted his namesake
. He'd easily become trained to a litter box when they got him
a little over
three months ago for Drew's fourth birthday.
It
had
to be emptied a lot. Pigs didn't smell good, no matter what you fed them.
Good thing he preferred to go outside. He was growing at an astounding rate, his size had doubled
in the last two months
.
At
five
months old, h
e came almost up to her knees now.

L
ook at that snout, those
intelligent
little
blue
eyes, that wagging tail
, she thought
, scratching his wiry head
. And those dainty little feet.
In fac
t
, he was so cute, they had
entered h
im
in an upcoming pig show.
The local Pot Belly Association raised funds every fall with a pre-Halloween affair. Several titles were handed out: Cutest, Most Congenial, Best Trained, and
Fattest
. Drew was convinced Marshmallow would win Cutest.
Especially if he were dressed up.
Envisioning the poor animal, the poor
male
animal, trailing yards of pink tulle and ribbon,
Immy talked
Drew
into entering him into another category, Best Trained, and Immy herself was working on this.

"O
kay
, Marsh." Immy held out a rice treat. "Beg."

The pig gave Immy an almost human sideways look. But after Immy repeated the command three times, he gave in, sat on his haunches and gave three plaintive grunts.

"Good boy!" She
leaned over to
stuf
f
the treat into his mouth and he crunched it eagerly.

She was working on Roll Over, but hadn't gotten any success
es
with that one. After getting the pig to Speak, which was remarkably like Beg, but performed while standing upright, Immy got out her textbook and turned to the chapter she was studying for the next test in her online PI course
, Missing Persons
.

Marshmallow curled up at her feet as
Immy
worked at the kitchen table.
She read avidly, look
ing
for ways she could find her missing cousin without a name, birth date, or any idea of location. There didn't seem to be a magic way of
finding
him.
She
got up and
went to her bedroom to take
a folder from the stash she'd pilfered from Mike Mallett's office
. She
labeled one: The Case of the Missing Cousin. She'd add hints to locating him if she could get any information out of anyone. Funny how Hortense had never mentioned her Uncle Dewey or her cousin, Junior.

Drew
interrupted
Immy's
concentration when she
burst into the living room and waved a
Sunday School
art project at her. "Look, Mommy! We made the Holy Ghost!"
Her small body vibrated with her eagerness and pride, bouncing her curls.

Immy
took the paper from Drew. She saw
her daughter's amorphous grayish blob,
with
large, round, black eyes near the top of it, and
shivered slightly. The word "ghost" did that to her.

"This ghost looks
a little bit
like Hoo
ty
, I think," said Drew.

Immy couldn't recall having
an imaginary friend. Though, w
hen she was about Drew's age, Mother
had
told her, she woke almost every night for several months saying she'd seen a ghost in her room. This was years before her father had been shot and killed, so it couldn't have been him. Immy had only vague recollections of seeing the ghost, but she'd retained an unshakable fascination with them.

She felt a connection with the apparition
she thought
she'd seen in her new house. Maybe she should be researching Mrs. Tompkins, the woman
that the ghost was supposed to have been when she was alive
. There had to be a story there.

After all, her Missing Persons course concentrated on dead people. That should be easy.

***

Ralph and
the
chief both
came
over for
Sunday
dinner.
This was getting to be a regular thing. Immy could never figure out if the entire police force of Saltlick
was
at dinner in her trailer because of Hortense's cooking, or if it was because of something else.
Immy
knew
Ralph was sweet on her
.
He had been ever since high school.
And the chief
cast
occasional
fond looks
in
Hortense
's direction
.

Chief Emmett Emersen was one of the few men who could come near to matching Hortense in weight. His beefy face was ruddy as usual tonight as he grinned at the women in the trailer. His thinning, gray-blond wispy lock
s
were a contrast to Ralph's head full of black hair.

B
oth
men
doted on Drew, to Drew's delight. She was learning how to use men, Immy though
t
, not sure how she felt about that.

"What did you brung me?"
Drew
asked Ralph after she jumped into his arms at the door. She seemed a little disappointed in the small plastic pony.

"I'll get something better next time," Ralph said, putting her down gently.

"Drew," Immy said, "You say thank you. It's
rude
to not like what people bring you."

"I can't help it." Her lower lip shot out.

Immy knelt in front of her and whispered. "You don't have to
like
it, but you have to act like you do. And you have to say thank you."

Drew turned her huge green eyes up to him. "I sorry, Unca Ralph. Thank you." Then she ran to her room to hide the offending toy and emerged with a Barbie doll.