Spitball In My Veins

Ever wonder why you get that funky feeling someone’s watching you but you can’t pinpoint from where? It’s because they are, and welcome to my life…I sit at a café to sip on my latte, or run into Bugsy’s food mart to grab a couple of items for dinner or even breathe while making my way to my truck from who cares where and poof! The feeling erupts like a mini spitball into my veins and I just know it…someone is watching, critiquing and waiting for me to do anything noteworthy so it can be whispered about in dingy corners of way too out of the way watering holes or amongst bored housewives at overpopulated town square events, where there is usually much to do about nothing…I’m Sarah and boy am I an attraction in my little town for the most ridiculous of reasons…at least, it’s ridiculous to me and the one friend I can trust…my sister Praline, who has been my ride or die since birth…

               Apparently I’ve killed Old man Jacob. Jacob, who had worn what seemed to be, the same overalls everyday with rotating multicolored flannel shirts, who had driven an old Chevy pickup that kept running God knows how, who had barely communicated or even acknowledged anyone kindly, who had loved vintage items and chose vintage thrift as his lifelong business passion and also who everyone thought had been sitting on a pot of gold that I haven’t found yet. Never once did I imagine being here five years later and in this odd pseudo reality. It all began with my bright idea of picking up some odds and ends jobs to make ends meet once I moved back home. Pick up groceries here for Mrs. Schmitt, paint the playroom nursery for the local daycare, run an errand for Clint down at the warehouse etc. It was a nice change from being away for ten years in Kansas City. I had been missing my sister and needing a different view on life. Honestly, I came back to my roots to find whatever childlike spark I had lost along the way and I needed to understand why I was around and where to set myself to find peace. Two failed romances later and an office job that left me depressed with a sad little apartment wasn’t how I wanted to be remembered. “Go Home,” I thought…”it would be good and healing for you,” I thought…Boy was I in for a skew on that idea.

I moved into my sister’s cute country cottage five years ago, it’s two streets off of Main Street and adorable. She usually rented it out and it was perfect for what I needed. Fresh air, my own place, my incredibly supportive family and my life with my choices. No more crazy deadlines to make someone else’s dream come true. Every morning I could walk up to Cissy’s bakery which was a partly French themed café and get my latte just right. Took a few tries originally for them to get it perfect; apparently I had been spoiled by huge city coffee mills on every corner. Now it’s a daily ritual that I wake up looking forward to. Wake, freshen up, grab my favorite sweater with a few hidden holes and set out on my brisk walk to the café. Right next door, actually a couple of doors down was a super vintage looking two story building that looked a bit misplaced and semi western, which could be confusing if you didn’t see the vintage for sale sign out front. The weathered plank wood was ancient yet inviting and it always had a red rocker on the porch during opening hours. That was old man Jacob’s passion. Vintage wares, many with rusted edges and just the right amount of dust in corners that couldn’t be reached easily. Well-worn and loved in all its glory and what a delightful mess it was. I had wandered through a few times before when I had newly moved in and never saw a live person but always had a greeting of a gravelly voice behind one of the piles saying “Hey there! Help yo’self but not for free! Let me know if ya need anything y’here?”- Rough but welcoming enough. So many goodies with stories in this one spot that you could feel the history crowd you until you stepped outside for short breaks and then dove back in to see what you could discover next. It had become a bit of a pastime for me. Grab coffee, step in, wander around and wonder about and then my cell would ring with a new little project or errand someone needed help with would break the spell and I’d be off to earn a bit to hold me over.

I wasn’t earning much but my sister was the landlord so I didn’t need much until the porch on the cottage, where I loved to sit during dusk, needed a new foundation. My sister and I put our heads together on how to afford the repairs. I had already put a simple add for hire miscellaneous duties with my number on some pin boards in the library, post office and food mart that was providing some spending money but nothing was ever consistent. With this new repair needed I needed to get something a bit more substantial or at least consistent and I was full on dreading it. Once you feel like you’ve been released from a cage it can ignite such a panic at the mere notion of possibly returning to it. I felt so guilty even sharing this fear with my sister when she had already given so much and seriously thank God for her positive acceptance of it, her quick mind and endless suggestions, because after a heavy rainfall a week later, the cottage porch took a huge dip on the left front corner and things were looking bleak. I called Praline and I lamented over my sweet tranquil spot dipping into the shrubs. She said her husband, Garrett, who was a physician doing his residency at the local hospital, had treated Jacob from the vintage shop for a bruised ankle. He had rolled it while trying to chase a rodent with a shovel from the back storage unit. Garrett had suggested that Jacob get some help for the shop while he stayed off his ankle and healed up, so Praline thought that maybe I should offer my help. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I said to go ahead and see if Garrett could feel Jacob out to see if he was open to it. Of course when Garrett brought up any kind of help initially, Jacob refused profusely. That worn fabulous spot was his private space where no one encroached and he liked it that way. He like to be among his discoveries and such without unnecessary conversations, but on Jacob’s next checkup, a few days later, the ankle was still more swollen then it should have been, which meant he wasn’t staying off of it. Knowing that I loved the place and as we were needing that new foundation for the cottage porch, Praline asked Garrett to see if Jacob was comfortable with me specifically helping out at the shop. Being that I was Garrett’s sister in law, maybe it would make him less adverse to the possibility. He could then recover quicker and get back to his happily lonesome self in less time. Jacob reluctantly agreed. I reluctantly accepted and so there we were and here we are.

Apparently I killed old man Jacob, but I didn’t. It’s weird and preposterous and I’m now a bona fide attraction here and not in a good way. I guess some days it makes more sense for everyone to think I did it other than the actual sequence of bizarre events.