Julia 03 - Miss Julia Throws a Wedding (15 page)

After a light supper, during which Lillian and Little Lloyd discussed their burglarproofing strategies and Hazel Marie ate in the semi-dream state Mr. Pickens had left her in, I realized that I had had enough for the day. Dealing with both Emma Sue and Dixon in one day had left me as limp as a dishrag.

“I’m going to excuse myself and go to bed,” I said, laying my napkin by my plate and rising from the chair.

Hazel Marie looked at me sharply, and Lillian said, “It not even dark yet. You gettin’ sick or something?”

“Not at all. I’m just tired. This would’ve been a busy day even without having to put up with Emma Sue Ledbetter. That woman just saps my strength. And tomorrow’ll be busier, so I’m going to get a good night’s sleep.”

“You sure you’re all right?” Hazel Marie’s look of concern as she started out of her chair gave me a great deal of comfort. “You want me to get you some aspirin?”

“No, really. I’m not sick, just tired. Don’t worry about me; I’m just going to crawl in and put this day behind me.” It was all I could do to keep from yawning in their faces.

“If you’re sure then,” Hazel Marie said, sitting back down. “I’ll be sleeping upstairs with Little Lloyd so he won’t be scared, so if you need anything during the night, I’ll be right across the hall.”

“An’ I’ll be right next door to you,” Lillian said. “You ’ member I’m gonna spend the night.”

“Yes, thank you both, but I won’t need anything. I plan to
sleep at least ten hours and get up in the morning ready to get this wedding in high gear.”

And off I went, climbing the stairs slowly and stiffly. A good long night’s sleep every once in a while did me a world of good, and I looked forward to closing my door and my mind on all the things yet to do.

After preparing for bed and taking a last look at my lists, I drew the curtains and crawled under the covers. For a little while, I could hear the murmur of their voices downstairs and of the television turned down low. None of it bothered me; in fact, it was soothing to know that the people closest to me were safe inside my house, and there if I needed them.

Later, when the room was completely dark, I roused enough to hear the shuffle of feet in the hall outside my door and a few whispers as the three of them came upstairs to go to bed. I smiled to myself, knowing that they were trying to be quiet for my sake. Then, as the house settled into the quiet of sleep, I drifted off again.

Sometime way up in the morning, I sat straight up, a noise like the end of the world jerking me out of a sound sleep. With my heart thudding like a drum, I jumped out of bed, as a crashing and banging and yelling and cursing echoed throughout the house.

“My Lord!” I said, trembling so bad that I almost stumbled over my gown as I ran for the door.

Little Lloyd, his hair standing straight up and his eyes bulging out of his head, opened his door at the same time and we stared at each other across the dark hall.

“It’s Dixon!” he yelled. “Help! It’s Dixon!”

Hazel Marie grabbed him from behind and I turned, only to run smack into Lillian, who’d dashed into the hall from her room. I screamed and she screamed. Then Hazel Marie shrieked like a banshee, while Little Lloyd jittered around, yelling, “It’s Dixon! It’s Dixon!”

Lillian and I clasped each other, both of us trembling as more clashing and banging came from the stairwell.

“Do something, Lillian,” I gasped. “Somebody’s breaking in.”

“I got this here arn skillet,” she whispered hoarsely. “Le’s go get him.” She raised the heavy iron pan, which she’d apparently slept with, and we crept to the head of the stairs.

The racket Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd were making almost drowned out the blue streak of curses coming from the foot of the stairs. In between the fearsome swearwords, the clashing and banging continued unabated.

“The light,” I whispered, reaching for the switch.

“No!” Lillian whispered back, grabbing my arm. “Le’s sneak up on him.”

“Lord, Lillian, it’s dark down there.”

Across the hall, Little Lloyd was dancing up and down, his arms flailing, as he screamed, “Call the sheriff! Call the sheriff!”

“Wait! Wait a minute,” I heard Hazel Marie say. “Calm down, Lloyd, honey, calm down. It’s all right.”

And suddenly I knew it was all right. I flipped the light switch and looked down the stairwell at a man curled up at the bottom of the stairs, pots and pans and metal trays and an ironing board piled up, on and around him.

“Oh, Jesus!” Lillian bellowed. “We done kilt him!”

“Who!” Little Lloyd screamed, as he finally freed himself from his mother and came running to us. “Is it Dixon? Is it Dixon?”

An arm of the man rose from the pile, swiping away several pans that clanged away across the floor. Mr. Pickens pulled himself to his feet, looking somewhat stunned and disheveled. “What the hell!”

“J.D.!” Hazel Marie screamed, running past us in a thin nightgown. “Are you hurt?”

I raised my eyes to heaven, both relieved and done in to see
Mr. Pickens leaning against the wall, as pans clanked around his feet. “Well, Mr. Pickens,” I said. “I guess you’ve learned that your sins will find you out. What are you doing sneaking up my stairs in the middle of the night?”

“I was sneaking
down
the damned stairs,” he said, holding his head with the hand that wasn’t holding on to the wall. “What the hell did I run into?”

I stared at Lillian, then at Little Lloyd, both of them looking somewhat chastened. “We made a barricade,” Little Lloyd whispered to me. “So Dixon couldn’t get in.”

“Thay Lord,” I said, then turned to more important matters, as I watched Hazel Marie croon over Mr. Pickens, smoothing his hair and asking where he hurt. Her nightgown left little to the imagination, and I was tempted to either throw a sheet around her or turn off the lights.

“So,” I said, crossing my arms. “Tell me, Mr. Pickens, just what you were doing up here before you tried to go down?”

“Oh, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie said. “I told him he could use Coleman’s room. That was all right, wasn’t it? You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you. J.D. had to come in late and leave early on Binkie’s case, and I hated for him to have to drive back and forth from Asheville. He’d hardly’ve gotten any sleep at all. Oh, honey,” she said, running her hand over his face, “why didn’t you use the back stairs?”

“Wouldna done no good,” Lillian mumbled. “We got them barry-caded, too.”

Little Lloyd stood beside me and I could feel him trembling as he gazed down the stairs at what he and Lillian had wrought. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, half under his breath. “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.”

I put my arm around his shoulders. “It’s all right now. No harm’s been done.”

“Hell and damnation,” Mr. Pickens mumbled, but loud
enough for me to cover Little Lloyd’s ears. “I was checking the house before I left, be sure everything was locked. And, by God, it nearly killed me.”

“Mr. Pickens,” I said, and right sharply, too. “I’d watch the way I talked, if I’d nearly met my end like you did.”

“Jesus, woman,” he said, flashing those dark eyes at me as he felt for sore places. “I
did
meet my end. Rolled ass over elbow all the way down.”

Chapter 15

There was no more sleeping after that frightful awakening, so some of us pitched in and helped pick up the pots and pans. Lillian and Little Lloyd had denuded the kitchen cabinets to put up their barricades, so it took a while to gather what we needed to prepare breakfast.

Mr. Pickens wasn’t a bit of help, nor was Hazel Marie, since she had to soothe and baby him. There he sat at the kitchen table, holding his head and moaning every once in a while, looking pitifully at her as she petted him. Then when he’d had enough of it, he got to his feet, fully recovered and ready to undertake whatever investigation he was conducting for Binkie. He gave Hazel Marie a quick kiss and took himself off, while she was still begging him to go to the hospital.

“Hazel Marie,” I said, shoving a Dutch oven in a cabinet, “don’t worry about him. The only thing hurt about that man is his pride.”

“But he hit on his head.” She wrung her hands worse than Lillian could do.

“Well, see? With as hard a head as he has, he couldn’t be hurt much.” And I started laughing at the thought of Mr. Pickens going head over teakettle down the stairs. Lillian held on to the sink as she laughed with me, and finally Hazel Marie joined in.

Little Lloyd came in, already dressed for school, and looked
from one to the other of us as we wiped tears and doubled over with more spasms of laughter.

He gradually began to smile as we began to get our breath and tell him what we were laughing about. “I hope Mr. Pickens won’t be mad at me,” he said, worry overtaking any humor he was able to see in the situation.

“Of course, he won’t,” Hazel Marie said, straightening his collar. “In fact, he told me that you and Lillian had put up the best burglar alarm he’d ever run into.”

“He mortally run into it, didn’t he?” Lillian said, and that started us off again.

We hardly stopped the rest of the morning, although it seemed that all I did was make more lists. I left a loud, slow message on my yardman’s answering machine asking him to cut the grass first thing Friday morning. Raymond never answered his phone, since he couldn’t speak much English and I certainly didn’t speak Spanish. Then I double-checked with the rental place so that the chairs and piano would be delivered on time, and changed my order from a three-tiered to a four-tiered wedding cake.

“You think that’ll be big enough?” I asked Lillian as I hung up after talking with the caterer.

“Prob’bly so,” she said. “I’m gonna save two slices for the freezer, so it be ready for they first anniversary. Even if somebody don’t get any.”

Hazel Marie fixed sandwiches for our lunch, then went out into the backyard to get some sun so she wouldn’t look so naked in her bridesmaid’s dress. I doubted the efficacy of that kind of covering, but I kept it to myself.

After an hour or so, she came into the kitchen looking flushed and sweaty from all that baking.

“Miss Julia,” she said, “I’ve been trying to think of what to give Binkie and Coleman for a wedding gift. Have you thought what you’re going to give them?”

“You need something to drink, Hazel Marie,” I said, going to the refrigerator to pour her some lemonade. “And, yes, I’ve given it some thought. The groom’s parents, which I guess I’m the stand-in for, are supposed to give a silver service. But, I declare, I can’t see Binkie ever using one. She’s not the formal entertaining type.”

“No’m, she’s not.” Hazel Marie took the glass I handed her. “She might use a gas barbeque grill, though.”

“Well, I’m not going to give that. No, what I’ve decided to do is give them the silver pitcher my aunt gave me when I married. You know, that ornate one in there on the sideboard. It’s quite old and, since it’s sterling, which they hardly make anymore, very valuable. I know Binkie won’t use it as a serving piece, but she can put flowers in it and enjoy it that way. And they both can enjoy the check I plan to put in it, too. What’re you going to give them?”

“I don’t have anything as nice as your pitcher,” she said, sipping the lemonade and cooling off. “But I think I’m going to give them a set of sheets. I know they’ll need them, since Binkie said they’re going to buy a king-size bed and they don’t have any sheets to fit. In fact, I’d planned to get them two sets until I priced them. They’re awfully high, so I think I’d rather get them one really good set, instead of two ordinary ones.”

It pleased me that Hazel Marie had learned that quality was better than quantity. Now that Sam had made sure she had an income from Little Lloyd’s trust fund, Hazel Marie managed it with a pleasing amount of frugality, taking lessons from me.

“What about you, Lillian?” Hazel Marie asked. “Have you thought what you’re going to do?”

“Yessum, I have,” Lillian said. “I already started making up a bunch of things for they freezer, so they have something to eat for a while. Miss Binkie don’t do much cookin’, an’ Coleman, he a hungry man.”

We all laughed at that, and I told her that they’d probably appreciate her gift more than all the sheets and silver pitchers they might get.