Julia 03 - Miss Julia Throws a Wedding (18 page)

“Dixon Hightower?” Hazel Marie stared at me.

“That’s what Binkie said. She’s defending him in his new trial. If, that is, they can find him to even have one. She’s upset because Coleman thinks he ought to be in jail, and she thinks he ought to be in a hospital or a home for the helpless. And that’s what Mr. Pickens is doing, trying to find Dixon for Binkie before the deputies do.”

“That’s what he’s doing? Oh, I hope J.D. hasn’t made things worse for them by working for Binkie. You know how good he is, Miss Julia. Why, I don’t doubt that he’ll find Dixon first, and give Binkie a chance to keep him out of jail. That might make Coleman real mad.”

“I don’t think Coleman would get mad about that. He sure isn’t mad now, although Binkie seemed to think he was. She doesn’t know how to read people. Lawyers never do; they have their minds on the written page and that’s all. But Coleman is cut to the quick over her feeble excuse to call off the wedding. No, there’s something else going on with that girl, but I can’t figure out what.”

“Maybe they’ll work it out. I just hope they do before Saturday, so we can have the wedding. I was so looking forward to being a bridesmaid. Looks like . . .” She stopped and blinked her eyes. Then she cleared her throat. “Looks like that’s as close as I’m going to get to the real thing.”

“Oh, Hazel Marie, honey,” I said, reaching over to put my hand on her arm. “Don’t say that. Mr. Pickens will see the error of his ways sooner or later. Now, let that all go and let’s think about what we ought to do. We have two choices: we can go ahead and cancel or we can let things ride in hopes that they’ll want to get married by Saturday.”

Lillian said, “Why don’t y’all keep on with yo’ plans, an’ have either a weddin’ or a party, however it work out? That way, if it turn out to be jus’ a party, you be too busy to answer nosy people’s questions ’bout not havin’ no bride nor groom. An’ you cut down on the gossip time since nobody’ll know about it till the weddin’ day.”

“Why, Lillian!” I said. “That’s a brilliant idea. Let’s do that, Hazel Marie. Of course, none of us will be in a party mood if there’s no ceremony, but at least we won’t have to make dozens of phone calls to explain why there won’t be one.”

“That would be a relief,” Hazel Marie said. “And having a party would at least get the food eaten up. Maybe Miss Mattie Mae Morgan can play some dance music since the living room’s cleared out. But, Miss Julia, what’re we going to do about all their wedding gifts? They’re piled up high on your tea table.”

“Yes, and on my best cutwork linen cloth. I called Mary Alice yesterday to tell Binkie she’d better get over here and pick them up. She needs to get started on her thank-you notes right away. Six months is all a bride has to write them, you know, and even that’s too long, to my way of thinking.”

Hazel Marie frowned, and I remembered she’d been reading Amy Vanderbilt’s etiquette book, dreaming no doubt about her own wedding. If she ever had one.

“The correct thing, I believe,” she said, “is for Binkie to send them all back. If there’s no wedding at all, I mean. Maybe we ought to offer to help her. It’ll be a big job.”

“I’ll do no such thing,” I said. “What I aim to do is load them up in the car and dump them in her office. Let her suffer the embarrassment of returning every gift to every giver and try to explain herself to each one. Maybe that’ll give her a taste of her own medicine.” I don’t believe in taking vengeance into my own hands, but Binkie had to shoulder the consequences of
her failure to observe the accepted social customs. Like not getting married when you say you’re going to.

Hazel Marie nodded with some hesitation, then gazed off into the far corner of the room. After some little silence, she said, “You think Binkie and Coleman would want to come to the party, even if they’re not getting married?”

Chapter 18

That hardly warranted an answer, but I said, “We can at least let them know that we’ll be ready even if they’re not. Maybe they’ll decide to go through with it for appearances’ sake alone. There’re worse reasons for getting married, in my opinion. Now, Little Lloyd,” I went on, turning my attention to him, “if you’ve finished your supper, why don’t you run upstairs and get ready for bed?”

“But, Miss Julia,” he said, “it’s not bedtime yet. It’s still light outside.”

“So it is,” I said, taking note of the yellowish light in the yard as the wind picked up and a spatter of rain hit the windows. Thunder rolled in the distance. “Well, homework then, but if you’ve finished that, you can watch television if the lightning’s not too close. And speaking of that, if it rains Saturday, that’ll be the last straw. Run along now; your mother and I have some things to discuss.”

“Oh, I get it.” He folded his napkin and placed it beside his plate and grinned at me. “You don’t want me to hear what y’all say. Okay, I can take a hint.”

That got a smile from Hazel Marie and a laugh from Lillian. “You little rascal,” I said, smiling in spite of myself, “you can read me like a book. But this is talk for grown-ups. Your time’ll come soon enough.”

When he left, I turned to Hazel Marie and said, “This is
hard for me to talk about, but I’m going to do it anyway. Tell her, Lillian.”

“Why you want me to do it?” Lillian came to the table and I motioned for her to sit down.

“Because you’re the one who noticed it first. Although, sooner or later, I would have, too.”

“Sooner or later, ever’body will,” she said, drawing the chair close to the table. “Won’t be no surprise in that. Well, Miss Hazel Marie,” she went on, propping an arm on the table, “fact is, Miss Binkie, I think she pregnant.”

“What!” Hazel Marie reared back in her chair, as astounded as I had been.

“Wait a minute, Lillian,” I said. “You told me she
is,
not that you
think
she is. Now, which is it? We need to know for sure, since it’ll make all the difference in the world as to what we do.”

“I’m pretty sure,” Lillian said, nodding her head. “I nearly always can tell. It come to me when I seen her eyes an’ hear her runnin’ to th’ow up like she done.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Hazel Marie said, properly disturbed, as I’d hoped she’d be. “Then she and Coleman
have
to get married. It is Coleman’s, isn’t it?”

“Hazel Marie!” I cried. “Don’t ask such a thing! Of course it’s Coleman’s. Let’s don’t make this any worse than it is. The question is, how’re we going to get them married?”

“Does Coleman know?” Hazel Marie asked.

“I’m figuring he doesn’t, or he’d be doing more than moving back here acting like a beaten child.”

“I don’t know, Miss Julia.” Hazel Marie was getting that far-off look in her eyes again. “Binkie’s got a mind of her own. But I’ll tell you this, she’s got a hard row to hoe if she tries to manage by herself. I know what I’m talking about, if you don’t mind me bringing it up.”

“That’s exactly what I hoped you’d do,” I said. “I think you
ought to talk to her, tell her what she’s letting herself in for, raising a child without a husband. Tell her about the looks and the stares and the whispers, all that you had to put up with. Maybe you can talk some sense into her.”

“You don’t think . . . ?” Hazel Marie started, then stopped as her eyes began to fill. “No, she wouldn’t do that. Surely she wouldn’t.”

“Do what?”

“You know, . . . not have the baby,” she whispered, as the tears overflowed.

“Oh, Lord!” I cried, jumping up from my chair. “I hadn’t thought of that! Oh, no, she wouldn’t! Would she? Lillian, we can’t let that happen. Hazel Marie, what’re we going to do? We have to get them married. There’s no two ways about it.”

I paced the floor, so agitated at the thought of what Binkie might do that I couldn’t get myself together. I certainly supported a woman’s right to choose, but to my mind the time to choose was before, not after the fact.

“I have to talk to her. And to him,” I said, although I didn’t know what I could say to either. “Something has to be done. I’ve a good mind to go over to Binkie’s right now and set her straight.”

“You better leave Miss Binkie alone,” Lillian declared. “What I say is you oughtta sleep on whatever you plannin’ to do, ’cause you might make it worse, jumpin’ in like you do sometimes.”

“I don’t see how it could get any worse.” I sighed, sinking into a chair. “But you’re right. Let’s all sleep on it. Although I doubt I’ll close my eyes all night long.” I went to the window and peered out at the pounding rain. “I hope they’ve covered that half-finished building over there. Not that I care if it washes away, but it’d be a lot of people’s money down the drain.”

I went upstairs feeling bruised and battered, so undone with what the day had wrought. Before getting in bed, though, I called Sam to lean a little on his shoulder and share the burden I carried. I don’t believe in passing on gossip, but Binkie’s condition was hardly gossip and Sam could be trusted with it. He was a lawyer after all, even though retired, and lawyers as a general rule know how to keep secrets.

“Help me, Sam,” I said. “We have to get them married before they ruin their lives.”

He sighed and said, “Julia, more lives have been ruined by getting married than by not getting married. You have to let them decide what’s best, then accept what they decide. Give them some time to work it out.”

“I don’t have the time to give!” I said. “Saturday’s almost here, Sam, and the wedding’s all set. If they miss that, they could just go on as they are forever. What I’m saying is, this is the perfect opportunity to make them go through with it.”

“No, Julia, you don’t want to do that. Making them get married is not the way to go.”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “A lot of marriages begin like that for a lot of different reasons. And some of them work out. At this point, I just want them married so that child will have some legitimacy. Don’t you think that’s enough reason for them to get married?”

“I’ll have to think about that. Times have changed, you know; it’s a different world today.”

“Not to me, it isn’t. Now, look, Sam, I want you to talk to Coleman. Tell him what’s at stake here. Between the two of us, we ought to be able to get them back together.”

“What if they don’t want to get back together? What if their differences over Dixon have uncovered something more basic in the way they feel toward each other?”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” I told him. “I agree that
there’s something more going on than disagreeing over Dixon, but with a child on the way, they’ll just have to overlook whatever it is and do the right thing.”

After cautioning me again about interfering in the lives of other people, Sam told me to get a good night’s sleep and he’d be over in the morning to talk about it again.

I tried to sleep, but even with the drumming of rain on the roof, I couldn’t get comfortable, tossing and turning until I had to get up and remake the bed. Instead of crawling back in, though, I sat by the window, watching the rain glittering in the light of the streetlamps, and studied the problem. Even though Coleman had moved back in, we’d seen neither hide nor hair of him, not even at mealtime, which he wasn’t prone to miss. So he was avoiding us by working long hours, then coming in after we were in bed, and leaving before we got up. I didn’t know how he was functioning on so little sleep, but it was a settled fact that he was doing all he could do to keep from facing any of us, namely me.

Well, I could fix that.

I wrapped my robe around me and crept down the stairs, so as not to wake anybody else. This was going to be between me and Coleman. I took a seat at the kitchen table right by the back door where Coleman always came in. I left the lights off, except for the outside light at the back door that always stayed on.

I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark, listening as the rain beat against the windows. I must’ve dozed off a few times, jerking awake at the least little sound until I had a crick in my neck. Finally, I heard his car turn into the drive and that brought me fully alert. I heard Coleman splash to the door and up onto the stoop, his key ring jingling softly. My eyes were adjusted to the filtered light that leaked in from the streetlamps, so when he pushed open the door, I could see his outline as he entered the kitchen. The creak of his duty belt
announced his arrival, as did his tired sigh as he carefully pushed the door closed. He’d always been considerate that way, not wanting to wake the whole house with his comings and goings.