fairly covered with cobwebs. The toolshed was an area I had overlooked during my house renovation. You could tell Mr. Julius had intended to use it often: There was pegboard lining the walls with hooks still protruding, and a workbench with a powerful fluorescent light overhead had been added. He had also altered the doors, apparently: They were extra-wide doors that swung back completely. Now it held some boxes of tools Martin had apparently not opened since he had been transferred to Chicago and lived in an apartment instead of a house. The boxes were keeping company with a lawnmower whose pedigree I could not figure out; perhaps it had been Jane Engle's. Assorted rakes, hoes, shovels, a sledgehammer, and an ax filled out our tool repertoire. Everything was grimy.
So, as I say, when Angel and I emerged, we weren't at our best. "Look at you, Roe!" Susu said in some amazement. "What on earth have you been doing?"
"Rearranging the garage," I said, not untruthfully. We had done a certain amount of straightening since we were in there already. "Susu, this is Angel Youngblood, a new arrival to Lawrenceton."
Susu said warmly, "We're so glad to have you here! I hope you like our little town. And if you don't have a church home yet, we'd just love to have you at Calgary Baptist."
I wished I had a camera tucked in my pocket. Angel's face was a picture. But underneath the gritty life she'd led in the past few years, Angel Dunn Youngblood was a true daughter of the South. She rallied. "Thank you. We like it here very much so far. And thanks so much for inviting us to your church, but right now Shelby and I are very interested in Buddhism." I turned to Susu in anticipatory pleasure.
"How fascinating!" she exclaimed, without missing a beat. "If you ever have a free Wednesday noon, first Wednesday in the month, we'd love to have you come speak at the Welcome to Town Luncheon."
"Oh. Thanks so much. Excuse me now, I'm expecting Shelby to come home to eat in half an hour or so." And Angel retired gratefully, bounding up the stairs to their apartment. I was relieved to see a little smile - a nonmalevolent smile - on her thin lips as she shut the door behind her.
"What an interesting woman," Susu said with careful lack of emphasis.
"She really is," I said sincerely.
"How on earth did she come to be living in your garage apartment?" We began to stroll toward the house. Susu looked pretty, and a few pounds heavier than she'd been the year before.
She'd just had her hair done in a defiant blond, and she was wearing sky blue polka-dotted slacks with a white shirt.
"Oh, her husband is a friend of Martin's."
"Is he any bigger than her?"
"A little."
"No children, I guess?"
"No ..."
"Because I hate to think what size baby they'd have."
I laughed, and we began to talk about Susu's "babies," Little Jim and Bethany. Bethany was heavily involved in tap dancing, and Little Jim, the younger by a couple of years, was up to his brown belt in Tae Kwan Do. "And Jimmy?" I asked casually. "How's he doing?" "We're going to family therapy," Susu said in the voice of one determined not to be ashamed. "And though it's early to tell, Roe, I really think it's going to do us some good. We just went along for too long ignoring how we were really feeling, just scraping the surface to keep everything looking good for the people around us. We should have been more concerned about how things really were with us."
What an amazing speech for Susu Saxby Hunter to have made. I gave her a squeeze around the shoulders. "Good for you," I said inadequately and warmly. "I know if you both try, it'll work."
Susu gave me a shaky smile and then said briskly, "Come on! Show me this dream house of yours!"
Susu's dream house was the one her parents had left her, the one her grandparents had built. No house would ever measure up to it in her sight, and she was fond of dismissing our friends' new homes in new subdivisions as "houses, not homes!" But she pronounced this house a real home. "Does it ever give you the creeps?" she asked with the bluntness of old friends. "No," I said, not surprised she'd asked. Old friends or not, quite a lot of people had asked me that one way or another. "This is a