Jeremy Flynn was 7 miles from the Tennessee State line when he remembered the livermush and Cheerwine. He immediately took his foot off the gas, but it was too late: the sign for exit 7 was already swishing past him. He accelerated again and started looking for another road sign. Karen wanted the livermush for something she was making for the wedding. Jeremy didn’t know why she insisted on doing all the food preparations for her own wedding–her parents were more than willing to contribute whatever was necessary. But some strange manifestation of Southern pride had convinced her that she was the only cook for the job. He sincerely hoped the Cheerwine wouldn’t end up in the punch.
The snow on the trees was just beginning to melt, and the sky peaking through was a bright, clear blue. He could barely see the sky for the trees and the snow and the mountain in front of him. Just a thin strip of blue above the road. Karen’s eyes were blue like that. Karen was like that: tall and lovely, and she was going to marry him. Out of the blue. There was a tunnel through the mountain now, and then a few minutes later, a sign for Exit 3—probably the last exit in the state of North Carolina.
Jeremy pulled to a stop at the sign at the bottom of the ramp and looked hopefully to the right, and then to the left, as if he expected to see a Harris Teeter just within sight in the middle of the Appalachian backwoods. There wasn’t one. He randomly chose left and started driving. Just beyond the underpass was a little, green, official looking sign that said, “Bed and Breakfast,” and under it, “4 mi.” The arrow pointed left, back onto the highway, away from Tennessee.
He slowed down, stopped in front of the sign and looked down the road he was on. It was a single lane each way with no outer lines and a grassy shoulder. The single yellow line down the middle was freshly painted. It was a good road—it had obviously been repaved recently—but there was nothing on it except bare winter trees. About two miles down, he could see the road bending to the left, and out of sight. Jeremy looked back up at the sign. A Bed and Breakfast means tourists. And tourists means business. And business means groceries.
It wasn’t like he had many options. He had to at least say he had looked for Cheerwine.
“Livermush,” he said, as he put the car back in gear and started up the onramp back onto the highway, away from Tennessee. “Who would ever want to eat a thing called ‘livermush’?”
Jeremy looked to his left at the westbound lane of I-40 stretching twenty feet above him, and sighed as he saw it run through the tunnel. He wanted to go through the tunnel again. He liked tunnels. They didn’t have tunnels in Memphis. They didn’t have much snow either. There was a lot of stuff they didn’t have in Memphis. There was the river, and the Pyramid, and lots of jazz—but no tunnels.
Soon there was another sign for the Bed and Breakfast and Jeremy slowed down to pull off onto exit 7. The sign at the bottom of the off ramp was almost identical to the first one. It was green. It was official looking. And it pointed left, but it didn’t say how far. Dutifully, he pulled left, drove back under the highway, and headed up into the hills. Out of the blue. He hadn’t meant to propose, it had just sort of—happened. Like those eyes. Out of the blue. And then, once you were started in a direction, it’s just easier sometimes to keep going than to turn around, or stop.
Fifteen minutes later, he was still driving. The road was gravel now, and he was just passing a grain elevator. The dairy farm was a few miles back. The Bed and Breakfast signs were store bought jobs now. Little white pieces of plastic with the letters “B & B,” and an arrow. “Keep going,” they said. Keep going. This was getting ridiculous. Jeremy had considered turning around several times now, but every time he wanted to, he realized that there really wasn’t any room. Then when there was room, he already had made the commitment to drive on just a little farther.
Jeremy came to a fence across the road, only where a gate would have been, there was a ditch, and a set of parallel poles laid across it.
“Cow gate,” Jeremy said. “Wonder why the things never learn to jump across.” As he inched across, he looked to his left and saw another “B & B” sign. The arrow pointed straight up. He looked up. The road stopped just a quarter of a mile in front of him, and there it was. A two story log cabin on the side of a hill, great big bay windows in the front, overlooking an almost completely enclosed valley full of… “Sheep?” he asked. “What, are we in England? I didn’t know we even had sheep in this country.” Settled around the main cabin were three little cottages, a rusting tractor, and a gravel parking lot, bordered by railroad ties, and completely devoid of cars.
The road he drove up was at a pretty stiff angle, and the gravel crunched as it slid under the weight of the car. Outside the hum of the engine and the crunch of the gravel, the valley was completely silent. A morning dove cooed in the distance. Jeremy parked in the lot, which would have held probably four other cars, and stepped out. Now the air was completely silent, and his sense of solitude increased. The sun shown down directly overhead from that crystal blue sky, but it was still a little bit chilly. Not twenty feet from him, a creek trickled beside the road, crossing under it at the bottom of the valley. It was beautiful. Finally, He stepped across to the front of the main cabin and rang the bell.
Nothing happened. He pressed it harder, and listened. At the very back of the house, he could hear an almost silent ring. He waited.
He waited again. He looked at the door and noticed an old fashioned knocker. He reached to open the glass door to knock it, which is when he noticed that the glass door was locked. He banged on the doorpost.
He waited again. Pacing the front porch, he noticed a hanging swing and considered sitting in it, but decided not to. Having fully convinced himself that nobody was going to answer, he headed for the bay window to the left of the door. Looking both ways first, he cupped his hands around his eyes and leaned into the window.
Everything was dark. But from the daylight streaming in, he could see a large hardwood floor and a sofa in front of a massive fireplace. The kitchen light was on, and he could see the outline of a counter between the main room and the kitchen. To the right of the kitchen was a staircase leading up, and on the other side of the staircase, he could just make out a door opening onto what seemed to be a roomful of books. Nodding in approval and convinced now that there was absolutely no one at home, he smiled at his very pleasant waste of half an hour’s driving time. After all, they didn’t have picturesque mountainsides in Memphis, or valleys full of sheep.
He was just lifting the door handle when “Can I help you?” rang out across the valley. Jeremy quickly spun around on the wrong foot, lifting up his right before his left had finished its trip down. Vainly, he grabbed for the side mirror, and would probably have broken it off, if he had actually reached it. Instead he only had time to spin around a little more, so as to land flatly on his back, instead of with his face in the gravel.
He hopped up as fast as he could and adjusted his clothes.
“Well, that’s never happened before!” he said. He glanced up at the girl, not ten feet in front of him. “I was uh… that is, I was looking for… why don’t I start over again?” She was very small, and had dark brown hair and dark eyes. She was kind of hunched over and had both hands over her mouth, covering a smile.
“Would you happen to know where the nearest grocery store is?” She put her hands on her hips now and leaned her head to one side. Her lips were thin and quivering at the edges, as if she couldn’t tell whether to laugh or scowl.
“What?” She asked
“I uh… it’s a long story. But I’m looking for a grocery store. Do you know where one is?”
“You’re looking for a grocery store?”
“Yes.”
“Up here?”
“Um. Yes?”
“Where are you from?”
“Memphis. Uh, Charlotte. Charlotte.”
“You’re not making a lot of sense. Let me get this straight. You drove all the way here from either Memphis or Charlotte to find a grocery store?”
“Yes, er… Oh that doesn’t sound right at all. I’m coming from Charlotte. I’m originally from Memphis. I’m on my way home. I’m looking for a grocery store. Does that make sense?”
“Maybe. You drove eight miles up a dirt road in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains to ask about a grocery store.”
“Well, basically… yeah.”
“Got any reason why you chose this particular dirt road?”
“Not really. It was the first one I saw, and, well, there was a sign—“
“Oh! A sign! ‘Bed and Breakfast! They’ll have a grocery store!’”
“Is that okay?”
She scratched her head and made a face. “Maybe,” she said. “I’m Amber Willis, by the way.” She stuck out her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, stepping toward her. “I’m—Oh Crap!” Jeremy’s ankle twisted under him and he fell to one knee. “Jeremy Flynn, nice to meet you,” he said, reaching a hand up to her as she rushed over to him. She shook his hand and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Ah, no. I think I twisted my ankle. Sorry.”
“Hmm. Well, I don’t think you did it on purpose. Here, let me help you up. You can lean on me and hop over to the house. You can rest a minute and maybe explain why you’re looking for a grocery store in the middle of the woods.”
Jeremy stood up on his right leg, and she stood on his left side and put her arm around him. Her nose came up just past his shoulder. As he hopped toward the house, he noticed how neatly she fit into his side. Her shoulder fit exactly under his arm.
When they got onto the porch, she pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the glass door.
“I was out riding,” she explained. “Nobody was scheduled to come up here yet. Usually people make appointments before coming, but every once in a while somebody just randomly drives up and tries to make themselves at home.” Jeremy avoided making eye contact.
“You have horses?” he asked.
“Yeah, there’s a stable just behind the cabin. Sometimes we even let visitors ride—if they’re nice.” She led him over to the sofa in front of the fireplace, which was out, then went to the door and turned on the lights. “Care for some lemonade?”
“Uh, sure.”
He watched her as she went to the kitchen and pulled a pitcher out of the refrigerator and two glasses out of the cupboard. Every part of her body was in miniature. Even her fingers were thin, tapering into little points, emphasized by her long, perfectly filed nails. Her movements were extremely precise: she filled one glass to the brim, drank it, filled it again, then filled the other one. She let out a loud, theatric sigh as she pranced back toward the sofa, placing his glass on the coffee table exactly three inches away from the edge.
“I always love a glass right after I ride,” she said. He didn’t like short women, with their “I’m a little girl” attitudes and the way they always had to move their bodies in huge gestures to make up for their diminutive size. Karen wasn’t little like that. She was in control of herself.
The table was made up of black marble tiles. She centered her own glass directly across the place where four tiles joined at one end of the table before throwing herself haphazardly into a recliner at right angles to the sofa. She immediately seemed to realize how awkward her position was and sat up straight, placing a hand on each knee, and asked, “So, Mr. Flynn, What’s so important to you that you’d stop in the middle of nowhere to look for a grocery store? What’s a grocery store got here that you can’t get in Memphis or in Charlotte?”
“Well,” he said, “I could probably have got it in Charlotte if I had just… Ok, look. This is gonna be ridiculous. Do you want the short version, or the long version?”
“You’re wounded. Tell any version you like.” Her straight brown hair covered her ears and fell about four inches below her shoulders in a straight line, perfectly framing her pale face. Her eyes were exactly the same shade as her hair. Jeremy never had liked brunettes. He’d always liked blondes. Karen was blonde.
“Okay. I was in Charlotte interviewing for a job. My uh… friend has been reading some local North Carolina author, and it seems that all anybody ever eats or drinks in his stories is livermush and Cheerwine—“
“Livermush? What the heck is livermush?”
“I do not know. But it sounds disgusting.”
“You’re telling me!”
“So anyway, she has got it into her head that she has just absolutely got to try some of this ‘local flavor.’ I’m already there, so she asked me to bring some when I came back. I’m coming home and it’s been probably 30 minutes now since I remembered.”
“So you immediately took the next exit and drove on up.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“And you just assumed that the Bed and Breakfast at the top of the hill would automatically have some livermush and Cheerwine for sale.”
“Um, no. It’s just that, well, once you get started in a direction, sometimes its pretty hard to stop, and, well—“
“You’re a goofball, you know that?”
“Hey now, wait. At least I don’t have a herd of sheep in my front yard.”
She jumped back in her chair, put both hands over her mouth and doubled over, silently shaking. Her eyes twinkled. Jeremy seized this opportunity to take a sip of his lemonade. It was tart and only a little bit sweet. A few pieces of pulp floated in the water.
“That’s my dad’s idea,” she said. He wondered what she would look like with blue eyes. “He actually wants to use them to make cheese, but we haven’t started yet.”
Jeremy started and forced himself to swallow. “Sheep…cheese?”
“Yep. That’s what he wanted.” Brown eyes. They matched her hair. Dark brown was definitely best.
“And the goofball award goes to—“
“My dad! My dad! I’m completely normal!” She jumped up and headed to the window. “I think they’re kinda cute, though. Plus they keep the grass trimmed. Oh! Sorry. Forgot you couldn’t walk.” She headed back toward the fireplace.
He couldn’t resist. “Um, I hope you don’t mind, but…how old are you?”
“20. Oh!” she blushed as she was sitting down. She moved way too fast. “I know. I can still pull a mean 14 year old. It’s the lack of breasts. They get me into more trouble. I still get carded at the movies. Half the time they think I’ve got a fake I.D. But anyway.”
“Yeah, anyway. I think my original question was if you knew where a grocery store was.”
“And I think my original answer was ‘You’re a goofball.’ You really are stuck. We really don’t buy many groceries out here. Most of ‘em we make ourselves. What isn’t grown locally, dad picks up in bulk every month in Asheville. And darned if he didn’t plum forget to pick up the livermush and Cheerwine this month.”
“You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?” he said
“Sure am. Next town up the road with a grocery store is probably going to be Hartford, about ten miles down. But if it’s a North Carolina product you’re looking for, then you probably won’t find it in Tennessee.”
Jeremy took a long sip from his lemonade. “Yeah, well. That’s kind of why I stopped before I got out of the state.” He said.
“Well, unfortunately, the next grocery store the other way is going to be in Asheville.”
Jeremy winced. “Ooh. That’s not so bad. That’s only about 45 minutes in the wrong direction.” He finished off his lemonade with a gulp. “Well,” he said, “I appreciate your hospitality, but I’m going have to move on, livermush or no.” He stood up and gingerly tested his foot. It seemed all right. She stood up with him.
“Here,” she said, and promptly left the room. She came back a few seconds later with a business card. She held it out to him. “Give us a call sometime. If you ever get married, we make a great honeymoon suite.”
Jeremy stepped toward her and ran his shin into the coffee table. “Oh crap!” he said as he knelt to rub it. “I’m really not this clumsy normally.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you need some Tylenol?” She asked.
Jeremy stood back up and gave her a half smile. “I think I’ll be fine,” He said. He took the card from her and stuffed it in his wallet.
She looked out the window and sighed as the little car ran down the hill. Why did she do that? The man said he had a girlfriend. She had a boyfriend. But he was just so funny the way everything kept distracting him. That man paid attention to everything. Greg paid attention to his work. Greg would even have been here now if it hadn’t been for that stupid school trip he was taking. Where was he now? Italy. Italy? What was in Italy that wasn’t in North Carolina?
Jeremy inched across the Cow gate and sped up to 30 as he passed the grain elevator. He figured it would be about 5 minutes before he hit pavement. He never had liked country girls. They get claustrophobic with too many people. Tall pointy buildings, that was what he liked. But it was a pleasant waste of an hour. He tried to remember her name, but couldn’t think of it.
In Knoxville he stopped for gas and a burger. It had been a beautiful view from that house, though, with the sheep in the yard. The sheep were a nice touch. He suddenly had an urge to tell somebody about his discovery. He walked over to the payphone and pulled out his calling card.
“Hello?”
“Hey Karen”
“Jeremy! Where are you calling from?”
“Oh, just a little payphone in Knoxville. I was getting gas and just felt like calling you.”
“Oh how romantic! That is so sweet. How has your trip been?”
“Pretty good. I was seven miles from the state line when I remembered the livermush and Cheerwine.”
“Oh no! Have you found any, then?”
“Yeah, well here’s the funny thing. I tried to make one last-ditch effort to find a grocery store before I left the state and I kind of took a little detour up into the mountains.”
“Well that sounds neat. Did you find the grocery store?”
“Um, no.” He started fingering around in his wallet for the card. “But at the end of the road I was on, I found this really beautiful little Bed and Breakfast. It was called the uh…” He pulled out the card and looked at it. “The uh… Countryside.” He flipped the card over. On the back was written ‘Amber Willis’ in neat, angular letters. Karen always wrote in big round loops.
“How neat! You know how I always love…wait a minute. What was the name of that place again?”
“Countryside. Why?”
There was a squeal from the phone. “Jeremy! You’ll never believe! That’s the name of the Bed and Breakfast I booked for our honeymoon!”
Jeremy glanced back at the card. Amber Willis. “That’s uh. That’s great,” he said. Amber Willis.
“Well, sweetie, I know it’s a long trip, and I know you’ve still got a lot of driving ahead of you, but could you please make at least one more attempt to find that livermush?”
“Uh, Sure. Yeah. Of course. Next grocery store I see.”
“I love you, sweetie.”
“I, uh, love you too.” Amber Willis.
No breasts indeed! Jeremy got back into his car. He pulled out of the gas station and onto the road. As he came to the highway, he saw a store just on the other side of the road. A grocery store. Why was a grocery store important? What did he need at a grocery store? It probably didn’t matter. Anything he could get in Knoxville, he could probably get in Memphis. Besides, it was always so difficult to turn around in traffic, and he was running late.
Five hours later, as Jeremy was turning onto I-240 in Memphis, 5 miles from home, he remembered the livermush, and the Cheerwine.
neumatikos 