42. It's Georgia, Ya'll

After about 3 hours of the most restful sleep, I wake up from my nap. I am not a nap person, but being awake for 30 hours, including 26 hours on a Greyhound bus, and involuntary starvation, depletes my body of every last ounce of energy. I hear voices coming from the kitchen which means Tim is probably home from work. 

I walk into the kitchen in my pajamas, messy hair, circles under my eyes, all displayed in its pitiful glory. Silvia and Tim are about to have dinner but they both jump up from the table to greet me. 

“Bless your heart, Jarka! You are awake!” Silvia runs to me.

Tim is right behind her, his bear hug ready for me to welcome me home.

“I am so glad you made it. That must have been a long bus ride!” He envelopes me in his big arms and I relax.

“Come…come, sit down. Have dinner with us!” He pulls a chair out for me.

“What great timing,” Silvia is singing and practically dancing around both of us. She starts bringing food to the table. There is some fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and iced tea.

It’s the best meal I have ever had, I think, right after Hardee's burger earlier today. The cheese in the mac and cheese is all gooey and creamy and the chicken is crispy and nearly falling off the bone. I try not to shovel it all into my mouth, so I take a sip of my tea first. Oh my, oh my, what’s this? There must be something wrong with my tea. I must be making a silly face because both Tim and Silvia are now intently watching me. In a few seconds, their faces transform into smirks and they both start chuckling. 

“Hee, hee, Jarka, I gather you haven’t had sweet tea before,” Silvia cannot suppress her giggles again.

I shake my head and take another sip just to please them. Now it feels like sugat is coming out of my ears! How is this supposed to be good? 

“Uhm, do you have some lemon?” I ask, hoping that I could perhaps adjust the taste of it to a drinkable level. 

“Oh why, yea, of course, we have lemon,” Silvia jumps up again, produces a lemon somewhere from the depths of her kitchen, slices it up, and brings it to me on a little plate. I squeeze a wedge of lemon into my glass and taste my tea again. Still sweet, oh so sweet. I keep adding lemon into this sugary liquid until I practically drop all the lemon wedges into my glass. There. Now it may be drinkable. I fixed it.

“Timmy, do you have enough chicken, honey? I am fixing to get up, can I get you anything else?” Silvia is chattering around her husband, a chirpy, happy wife. 

“No, honey, I am good. How about Jarka may want some more?” Tim turns to me.

“No, thank you,” I respond with a smile. 

Silvia settles in her seat and focuses her eyes on me. “So, uhm….tell us, darling, why did you have to leave New Jersey? We have a few minutes before we have to run to church tonight. We have a little bit of time. What’s the story?”

I know that Tim and Silvia are very religious people. In fact, they even opened their own church in town where Tim is the pastor and Silvia is the organist. I’d better choose my words carefully about the reasons why I had to leave the family in New Jersey.

“Uhm, they felt that I wasn’t a good fit with their children. The kids didn’t listen to me and they even jumped on the hood of my car once.” I explain. I will not be able to tell them about Clark and there is no reason to.

Silvia is shaking her head. “And they just told you to leave?”

“Yes,” I confirm, looking down at my plate of chicken. I am afraid to meet her gaze because I don’t want her to see the truth in my eyes. 

“How about the agency? How could they just let you go? I am going to have to call them and talk to them about this! This is not right! I could never leave my students hanging like that. That is abhorrent!” Silvia is a foreign exchange student coordinator. This is how Peter ended up with this family too. She wasn’t able to place him and find him a family as a foreign exchange student so she took him in herself. But I don’t want her to call my agency. I am terrified. She may find out the real reasons they let me go and she may send me packing too! It’s clear that Silvia is also the boss of the family here when it comes to things like this. If she said I needed to go, then Tim would let it happen. I just know it! I hope she forgets to call them. I have to, just have to be on my best behavior.

Thankfully, both Tim and Silvia abandon the idea of calling the au pair agency in New Jersey. At least for now. 

I am scared to ask but I have been wondering why Peter is not here to welcome me to Georgia or making sure I have arrived ok. Tim must be reading my mind.

“I called Peter earlier to let him know you are here. He will be coming this weekend. He is busy with school. I hope  you are ok with that. You can keep Silvia company,” he gives me a big smile as Silvia is clearing the table.

“Jarka, darling…..” I hear her voice coming from the kitchen. “We are fixing to go to church. I take it you don’t have any nice clothes or dresses, do you?”

I shake my head again. I barely have any clothes with me, honestly. 

“Uhm hmm, I thought so. You can stay home tonight. I will take you shopping tomorrow and we’ll get this situation fixed. We need to get you some church clothes, mmmkay?”

“Yes, thank you,” I answer even though I only have $20 left and literally cannot buy anything. I do need some toiletries, however, so maybe Silvia can take me to the store to get those. It’s Wednesday evening and I am looking forward to a quiet evening by myself, if Tim and Silvia are in fact leaving me alone.

***************

I am still tired but the silence of the house is soothing. I sit on the couch in the living room and stare into nothing for a few minutes. Then I turn the TV on and I am glad to see the old reruns of Friends. Something familiar. I used to watch the show back home and it was dubbed into Slovak language. I am surprised to hear the actors’ real voices, they are fascinating. I do understand some of what they are saying, although I do not comprehend all of their jokes just yet. Suddenly, there is a knock on the door. Oh no, I don’t want to answer this. I don’t know anyone! But I remember what happened in New Jersey when I didn’t answer Julie’s phone calls. I come up to the front door and open it but I keep the see -through screen door closed. There is a man standing there dressed in dirty clothes. He looks sweaty and tired. He looks like he could be a worker of some kind, but I am not sure.

“Hey,” he says.” … you doin’ mmk?” This is pretty much all I can understand.

He starts talking again through the closed screen door, his eyes checking me out curiously.

“Your folks home?”

“Hi,” I manage. “No,” I say because my folks are actually at church. I am about to close the door but he continues.

“We fixin’ to be done. Lord willing, we be done t’moro. Fixin’ to go home,” It seems like he is pronouncing only every other word of what he means to tell me. He keeps saying he is fixing something but I don’t know what that is. I let out an involuntary sigh. What language is this? It sounds like English but is it? Georgia comes with all kinds of surprises for me. It’s like I just arrived into a whole new country again.

The man looks over to the side and yells at someone in the distance. “Yaaaa’ll, wait up! I ain’t gonna be long”

He then looks back at me. “ We done today. Tell Tim.”

I nod as he rushes away to catch up with his worker friends.

I watch Friends for another hour or so and I am still watching it when Silvia and Tim return home from church.

“Jarka, oh no! What are you watching?” Silvia’s hand flies up to her mouth. “Is it Friends? Ugh, you can’t watch that. Turn the TV off or change the channel! Quick!”

I don’t hesitate and turn the TV off in a rush, almost dropping the remote down on the floor. I don’t understand what I have done wrong now.

Both Tim and Silvia sit down on the couch next to me.

“Friends is no good. It has lots of evil in it. We don’t want you to watch it under our roof. Satan comes in different forms. He sneaks in before you even know it.” Tim is calm as he explains Silvia’s panicked reaction to me. I am listening to Tim, trying to comprehend why Friends show is so bad.

My tears suddenly emerge, glistening in my eyes, about to spill out. This is the first time I cry in weeks, in months. I have had to put on a strong face for so long now, and out of nowhere, when I least expect it, I come up to a wall. I am so tired, just so tired about doing everything wrong and unknowingly getting myself into trouble with people who want to help me. I didn’t come here to upset anyone! That is not my intention at all. I am here to find a new home. I am here to be on my own and become free from my father and from the piano. But maybe this country is just too different. Maybe I will never be able to adjust. I feel like I am about to fall apart right now and I want to cry for hours. To pour all my struggles of the past few weeks out and purge them along with my tears. 

I used to watch Friends in Slovakia every single day and no one ever mentioned anything about evil. I am so lost. 

“Awww, baby, come here! It’s ok! It’s ok, darling. Don’t you cry!”

 Silvia runs to me with her arms open. She hugs me and pats my back to calm me down. “It’s ok, baby! You didn’t know!

After a few minutes, I calm down and give her a grateful smile. 

“Darling,” Silvia looks at me again, still holding my shoulders. 

“I do need to ask you something serious though.” 

I am still wiping my tears but I meet her intense gaze and don’t let go. 

I only see love in her expression. She has clearly forgiven me for inviting Satan into their house. She takes a deep breath and asks….“Jarka, do you know Jesus?”