'Til Grits Do Us Part Read Online Free PDF Page B

cake. Please tell me that’s a figure of speech.”
    â€œOh, that.” I resisted the urge to scratch my bug bites and peeled off another label. “No, I mean coconut cake in the shape of a sushi roll, with a carved slice of watermelon for the raw fish. A green band around the whole thing and chopsticks on the side. You should have seen it.”
    â€œNo thanks.” Meg the Vegan looked suddenly pallid. “I’ll stick with my tofu and bean sprouts.”
    I stuck the last label on the stack of envelopes and pushed them aside. “So do you have the proof sheet from last night?” I held out my hand. “I need to write the captions before I leave.”
    â€œThe what?”
    â€œThe proof sheet. The photos from last night.” I raised an eyebrow. “That’s why you came over here. Remember?”
    Meg looked blank then jerked a shiny page from under her arm and gave it to me with a sheepish look. “Oh, these. I forgot. Sorry.”
    Meg, Meg
. I hid a smile. I sometimes wondered how she stayed employed, living as she did in a virtual utopia of “everybody’s-happy-don’t-rush-me.” Which is why our editor Kevin kept a bottle of Maalox in his desk.
    I studied Meg’s sheet of photos: Ray Floyd’s smashed wooden siding, neat boxwood hedges ripped in half, and the gaping hole crisscrossed with yellow police tape. Broken glass and uprooted clumps of sod. A shiny new Jeep Cherokee protruding from the mess of broken plaster and drywall, and the drunk driver being led away in handcuffs.
    â€œThat SUV stopped two feet over Ray’s bed.” Meg quit spinning my little Japanese lantern hanging in the corner of my cubicle and tilted the photo sheet toward the light. “Did you see the big piece of wallboard that could have skewered him like a bug?”
    â€œGross.” I tried not to think of it. “He’s a nice guy, you know? He gave me coffee, too—some of the best I’ve had in years.” I perked up slightly, remembering steam curling up from the white porcelain mug. “A really good Colombian roast, if I were to guess.”
    I pulled my crisp navy-blue jacket tighter in the over-air-conditioned office. “What I wouldn’t give for another cup of that right now.”
    â€œCoffee? He didn’t give me coffee!”
    â€œYou don’t sit in cushy chairs and do interviews.”
    â€œRight. I squat in broken hedges and get rained on while you drink coffee. Thanks for bringing that up, Jacobs.” She rolled her eyes. Meg squinted at me a second as if trying to remember something. “What am I forgetting?”
    â€œSomething related to the crash story?”
    â€œNo. Something else.”
    I flung out my arms. “How am I supposed to know?”
    I wondered if maybe Meg should get herself tested for ADD. When I needed her for a story, I usually had to hunt all over the building—eventually finding out that she’d gone across town to buy a new lens and come back instead with a mushroom farm.
    â€œOh, I remember. Hold on a second.” Before I could comment, Meg had ducked around the corner to her cubicle. I heard shuffling, a drawer opening, and then she headed back to my desk. Her baggy, bell-bottom-style pants dragged on the carpet. “Happy birthday. I almost forgot.”
    She dropped a pile of brown carob chips and a plastic spider ring in my inbox.
    â€œDon’t,” I said, separating the two and picturing cow patties. “If you put them together, that looks… Just don’t.”
    â€œWhat? Carob’s good for you. And it’s not carcinogenic.”
    â€œYou think dryer lint’s carcinogenic.”
    Meg didn’t answer, even to rib me back. She still stood there. Staring at something. I looked up and followed her eyes.
    â€œThat’s Mom.” I took the faded photo down off the cubicle wall and handed it to her. “Her high school graduation