Southern Fried Sushi by Jennifer Rogers Spinola

Now I’d have to go to a gas station and get directions, wasting more time, because I sure wasn’t talking to Bobbie again in my frame of mind.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone brushing mulch around a small tree, baseball cap pulled low. Gardener or something. He looked up at the same time, and I grabbed my map and stalked over.
    “Excuse me. Can you help me?” I pulled off my sunglasses.
    “Sure. You seemed a little frustrated over there. Lost?”
    “Yeah. I need to get to … here.” I poked my finger at the funeral home.
    His stood up and studied the map, and his eyes met mine. They were bluish-colored, or grayish, nondescript—but kind.
    “I’m sorry.”
    I guess my black dress did make me look like a mourner, and my mood festered by the moment. “Thanks. Do you know the street address? I could use the GPS system.”
    “Sorry, I don’t. But I can tell you how to get to the funeral home. It’s out in Churchville.”
    “Churchville?” I started. “You’ve been there?”
    “Sure. Lots of times.” He squinted at me strangely. “You’re not from here, are you?”
    “I get that all the time.” I made a face. “No. But I needed togo to Churchville anyway, so now I can kill two birds with one stone.”
    “Well, as long as you’re killing birds, make them starlings.”
    “Sorry?”
    “Starlings. They’re little black birds.”
    “Like crows?”
    “Smaller.”
    “Why? Do they dig in the trash here, too?”
    “No, they bully the native birds out and take over. Sometimes they sit there and watch them build a whole nest before kicking them out of the tree. Or steeple. Or whatever it is they want. And they flock in the thousands—imagine the mess.”
    I raised an eyebrow. “You sure study your birds.” I made a mental note to write
starlings
in my “Southern Speak” notebook. I’d already started the second page, thanks to Faye and Bobbie.
    One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “I try. So, Churchville. Let me see the map.”
    I followed his directions, asking questions, until he drew a big circle around the funeral home. “That’s it right there, just off 42. Or Buffalo Gap Highway. But you might not see any road signs. Out there things are a little … well, less posted. People just sort of know where they are. So look for these things.” He drew in some more notes and—I’m not making this up—something like bugs with stick legs.
    “What are those?” I asked, not intending to sound rude. “Roaches?”
    “Those are cows. There’s a pasture here.”
    “Oh.” I covered my mouth. “Okay. I’ll look for them.”
    “I never promised artwork. Only directions.” He gave that slight smile again.
    “No, really. I appreciate it. Thanks.”
    “Sure.” He straightened his baseball cap and looked at the map again. “Just in case you get lost, though, here’s my cell phone number. I can try to talk you through wherever you are.”
    He wrote it on the corner of the map.
    “Thanks.” I took the map back, a spurt of honest-to-goodness gratitude springing up. I had no idea people here were so helpful, and despite my sarcasm and grumpiness, he’d just done me an enormous service. “You’ve really helped me.”
    “No problem. Hope things get better for you.”
    I sighed and put my sunglasses on. Now back to the funeral. Half of me wanted to go, and the other half wanted to skip the whole thing and pretend it never happened.
    He called something after me.
    “Huh?”
    “You okay?”
    I paused, fiddling with my purse strap. “I’m fine. Just have a long day ahead of me.”
    He gave a sympathetic smile and turned back to his mulch. And I got in my car and headed for the last place in the world I wanted to go.

Chapter 10
    I half-hoped I’d need to call the gardener just so I could thank him, or even just get my mind off the funeral, but he’d written perfect directions. Even the pasture, just as he’d drawn, scattered with loafing cows. At first I breezed through