Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble: A Novel (11 page)

“Oh, they’re sleeping,” Hazel Marie said. “They still take a morning nap, but they’ll be up soon.”

“Well,” Granny Wiggins said, hopping up from the table and going to the sink where mixing bowls and spoons were haphazardly stacked. “I didn’t come to be comp’ny, so I’ll clean up this mess. You let dirty dishes set around long enough, you’ll be scrubbin’ on ’em all day.”

I refrained from glancing at LuAnne, who had been the one to leave the sink full and the counters unwashed. “My goodness, look at the time,” LuAnne said, standing, “I better be on my way. Leonard will be wanting his lunch. Hazel Marie, that cake should be done in about thirty more minutes. You can test it first, and if it’s done, pour about half the glaze over it while it’s still in the pan. Let it cool a few minutes before turning it out, then drizzle the rest of the glaze over the top.”

Hazel Marie got a blank look on her face, but followed LuAnne to the front door, thanking her for the lesson.

When she came back, she said, “Wonder how you test a cake?”

“I don’t know,” I said, a little put out that LuAnne had given such meager instructions. It’s the basics that a noncook needs to know—like, when she’s told to boil water, she also needs to be told how much, how long, in what, and what to do with it when it’s boiled. “Let’s call Lillian and ask her.”

Granny wrung out a sponge and started scrubbing the countertop. “You wanta test a cake, take out a broom straw an’ poke it in. If it comes out with batter on it, it ain’t done.”

Hazel Marie said, “A broom straw? From a broom?”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “Lillian uses a toothpick. I’ve seen her do it. If you have some toothpicks, Hazel Marie, use that instead. Although,” I went on diplomatically, “a straw from the top of a broom might do as well.”

Which was exactly what Granny Wiggins used, there not being a toothpick in the house. She showed Hazel Marie how to do it, declared the cake done, took it out of the oven, watched as Hazel Marie poured the glaze over it, then ran a knife around the edge of the tube pan and turned out the cake. It looked and smelled wonderful.

While Hazel Marie and I were admiring the cake, Granny Wiggins whirled around. “Where’s your vacuum? Might as well get the front rooms done while I can.”

“In the hall closet,” Hazel Marie answered. “But I try to keep things quiet while the babies are napping.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t want to do that,” Granny said. “Get ’em used to household noises early on an’ they’ll sleep through anything.” And before Hazel Marie could suggest otherwise, off Granny took to find the vacuum cleaner, assuming, I supposed, that she’d been hired.

So much for Hazel Marie’s interviewing skills.

Brother Vern showed up in the kitchen looking put out, but at least he was dressed for the day. “Hazel Marie, who’s that bossy ole woman in there running the vacuum? She told me to get up and get out so she could move the recliner. And,” he said, as if Granny had exhibited the height of arrogance, “she barged in right in the middle of a rerun of the Gaither show.”

“Well,” Hazel Marie said, stymied by having to referee another clash of egos, “she won’t be long. Maybe the Gaither show will still be on.”

Brother Vern didn’t like that one bit. “I never seen a house run so slipshod, Hazel Marie. If it’s not one thing, it’s two more. What with James layin’ in there wantin’ to be waited on hand and foot and comp’ny comin’ in and out all day long, and you droppin’ everything to take care of caterwaulin’ babies, there’s no peace anywhere. You got to take hold an’ get things on a even keel. I need my peace an’ quiet—the doctor said so. And ever time I turn around, somebody’s interruptin’ an’ disruptin’ whatever I’m doing.”

Under her uncle’s barrage of criticism, Hazel Marie looked ready to cry. But I didn’t. I looked—and
was
—ready to lay him low.

Just as I opened my mouth to tell him off, we heard James and Granny Wiggins going at each other.

By the time I reached the back bedroom, James, looking somewhat distressed, was sitting in a chair, watching as Granny stripped his bed.

“Why, James,” I said, “did you manage to get up by yourself? Your ankle must be a whole lot better.”

“No’m,” he said, shaking his head as if to clear it. “That lady, she got me up ’fore I knowed I was up.”

Before I could express amazement at such a feat, Granny Wiggins snapped a sheet over the bed and said, “They’s nothin’ to it. I got no use for layin’ up in bed all day long when you can be up and doin’. I’m gonna get him to the TV an’ keep that preacher man off his back for a change.”

I’d never seen such a grateful look as the one that James gave Granny Wiggins then. I helped her walk James to the family room, marveling as we went at how well James managed under her encouragement and with the walking stick.

Following Granny back to the kitchen—it was all I could do to keep up with her—I heard her ask Hazel Marie, “Who is that feller in yonder?”

“That’s James,” Hazel Marie said. “He works for us, but he had a bad fall and is out of commission for a while.”

“Well, I can’t do much for broke bones,” Granny said, “but if you got a footbath I can cure that sprained ankle. Or a deep pan’ll do. All he has to do is soak that foot in hot Epsom-salts water and it’ll be fit to walk on before you know it.”

“I don’t know what a footbath is,” Hazel Marie said, “so I guess I don’t have one.”

“That’s all right. I’ll bring whatever I can find and some Epsom salts tomorrow. We’ll have him right as rain in no time.” Granny stopped, cocked her head, and said, “Them babies is awake.”

And off she took, Hazel Marie, calling, “Wait, wait!” right behind her.

I stayed where I was, figuring that I was better off staying out of the struggle between them over baby care. I wasn’t that good at it anyway.

While they were upstairs, Brother Vern stuck his head in the door and said, “I’ve got to go out for a while if anybody needs me. If I find a parking place on Main Street, I might take a walk. Doctor’s orders, you know.”

“Good idea,” I said, hoping he’d take a long one. “I’ll let Hazel Marie know.”

As he went out the front door, Hazel Marie and Granny came back, each with a fussy baby in arm.

“Now, Miz Pickens,” Granny said as she sat at the table, holding one of the twins, “you jus’ give me what you want this young’un to eat and I’ll feed it right here.”

“Well,” Hazel Marie said, looking slightly bulldozed, “I usually put them in the high chairs and feed them there.”

“That’s what you have to do when there’s two of them and one of you, but since there’s two of us, it’s better to hold ’em in your lap. That way, they get the lovin’ along with the feedin’.”

So that’s what they did, but I declare, it looked as if only half the strained food got in the babies’ mouths. The rest was spread all over the front of the feeders. The babies did not eat well, both fussing and waving their arms and carrying on. I would’ve thought that the baby who Granny held was unhappy about being in a strange lap, but the other one was just as bad and maybe worse.

“They’re teething,” Hazel Marie said, “so they don’t feel good.”

“What they need,” Granny said, “is a sugar tit. Get me two little squares of clean cloth, some sugar, and a little bourbon, and I’ll fix ’em up.”

“Bourbon!” Hazel Marie was shocked. So was I.

“It won’t be enough to hurt a fly, just enough to give ’em some relief. And if you’re worried about the sugar, you can just take a little bourbon on your finger and run it over and ’round their gums. That’ll do just as well.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Hazel Marie said with more spirit than she usually displayed, “but we don’t have any bourbon. And even if we did, I wouldn’t give it to my babies.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Granny said, not at all cowed by the rejection of her prescription. “Who knows? That little bit of spirits could start ’em off on the road to destruction. Or so the preachers say. I ’spect you can find something at the drugstore that’ll do as well or better. A teething ring wouldn’t hurt, either. Well,” she said, taking her baby to the sink to repair some of the damage, “I think this one’s through. Why don’t I take ’em both into one of them livin’ rooms you got in yonder and play with ’em for a while? That way, you can visit with Miz Murdoch.”

Hazel Marie got Granny and the babies situated on the floor of the main living room, then arranged her chair in the kitchen so she could watch them.

“Oh, me,” she said tiredly, “I don’t know if this is going to work or not. What do you think, Miss Julia?”

“I think she’s good-hearted and capable, but I doubt she can keep up this level of activity. She’s cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the entire downstairs, changed James’s bed and got him up, fed one of the babies, and she’s still going strong. But you’ll have to be firm with her, Hazel Marie, because she does seem a little headstrong.”

“She sure does.” Hazel Marie leaned back to look across the dining room table so she could see what was going on in the room beyond. We could hear the babies laughing and cooing at whatever Granny was saying to them. “I’m not sure she’ll be much help if I have to watch her every minute. I mean, what if she hadn’t mentioned bourbon, just went ahead and gave it to them? Of course, she couldn’t have because we don’t have any, but what else could she come up with that I might not know about?”

“I think,” I said, attempting to put her mind at ease, “you should keep a close eye on her for the first few days and see how she does. You noticed, didn’t you, how quickly she backed down when you said no to the bourbon? That says a lot about her right there. And remember this: She’s not going to do anything that you won’t know about. She talks too much for that.”

“I hope you’re right.” Hazel Marie sighed deeply, glanced again at her babies, then said, “I’ll talk to J.D. tonight and see what he thinks.”

“Now
there’s
the answer to your worries,” I said. “You have to have Granny here when he’s home. See how they get along, and let her realize that he’s watching everything she does. Hazel Marie,” I went on as I put my hand on her arm, “I am convinced that the presence of a strong father keeps children safer than anything else you could name. Nobody’s going to be careless with those babies once they’ve met Mr. Pickens.”

She smiled as a dreamy look spread over her face. “He’s so good, isn’t he?”

Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far in assessing Mr. Pickens’s virtues, but I took myself home more determined than ever to do what I could to settle that household down. It might mean putting a bed in my own living room for James and shaking Brother Vern until his teeth rattled, but something had to be done.

Just as I pulled the car into our driveway it occurred to me that I might have more to worry about than either James or Brother Vern. Now, everybody knows that it’s not my custom to meddle in other people’s business, but I was unnerved as I realized just how unaware Hazel Marie seemed to be of her husband’s discomfort.

I sat there for a few minutes thinking over the day—something in the back of my mind was bothering me. Well, a lot of things had been bothering me throughout the day—LuAnne’s carelessly given cooking lesson, the fussy, unhappy babies, Brother Vern’s castigation of Hazel Marie, James’s drawn-out recovery, not to mention Granny Wiggins’s medical advice of Epsom salts and bourbon. But there was something else.

As I went back over the events of the day that might have created the underlying fretful feeling I was having, I suddenly leaned my head against the steering wheel in despair. Mr. Pickens’s tight-lipped silence, his curt response to my greeting, his early departure from home that morning, his active dislike of Brother Vern, and my sure knowledge of his habit of picking up and moving on—all of this flashed through my mind. What in the world would he do when he learned that that little dust devil Granny Wiggins had been added to the mix? I recalled wondering the day before how Mr. Pickens was adjusting to a settled married life, and here I was wondering how long he would tolerate such an
un
settled married life as he now had. I happened to know that men like pleasant and comfortable routines in their homes. They want to come home to order, especially if their working hours are hectic and disorderly, as Mr. Pickens’s assuredly were.

Maybe, I thought as I raised my head and gazed unseeingly out the windshield, this was not the time to worry about Hazel Marie’s ability to put meals on the table. Maybe I ought to discard my idea of providing recipe books and cooking lessons, which only added to the tumult, the number of people underfoot, and the general discord of the household.

Maybe, instead of concerning myself with improving Hazel Marie’s cooking skills, I ought to turn my attention to improving Mr. Pickens’s surroundings so he’d stay happy and in place.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when there was a sharp rap on the car window. I turned with a gasp, and the face looking back at me startled me even more.

“Thurlow!”
I said, opening the car door. “What do you mean sneaking up on people and scaring them half to death?”

He stepped back as I got out of the car. “Well, what’re you doing sitting out here in the car? Murdoch run you out of the house?”

“Oh, for goodness sakes, no, he did not run me out of the house. I was just . . . It’s none of your business what I was doing.” I closed the car door and tried the best I could to compose myself. Feeling a nudge against my knee, I glanced down and saw Ronnie, Thurlow’s huge spotted Great Dane, looking expectantly, I assumed, for a handout. “Anyway,” I went on, heading for the front door, “since you’re here, it’s too chilly to stay outside. But you might as well tell me now: Is this a social visit or have you come to complain about something?”

“I’ve come to complain, which I have every right to do,” Thurlow said, lifting his head in that arrogant way of his as he followed me to the door. Ronnie walked right beside him, as if he’d been issued an invitation as well. His tail, wagging fiercely, flapped against the door frame.

Thurlow himself was in his usual getup—baggy trousers, plaid shirt half in and half out, work boots, and a greasy-looking canvas coat. I had heard several reports that Helen Stroud had taken him in hand, cleaned him up, and demanded he buy new and decent clothes. She’d even gotten him to church, but I didn’t know how long that had lasted. Everyone kept expecting news of a wedding, even though the two of them were so ill suited that few of us could fathom such an outcome.

“Well, come on in and let’s hear it.” I held the door open, hoping to get it closed before Ronnie romped in. I didn’t make it, for he barreled his way into my house as if he owned it and sprawled out on the Oriental in my living room.

Now, if you should think that I was being less than welcoming, you’d be correct. And if you’re inclined to think that Thurlow was to be pitied, dressed as he was like a Main Street bum, I assure you that he could buy and sell more than half the residents of Abbotsville. In addition, Thurlow was no gentleman, and he had a way of getting under my skin like no other. He didn’t care what he said or how he said it, belittling women in general and, seemingly, me in particular. I always tried to avoid him, but here he was with another grievance, which would be merely one more out of many.

After he was seated on my Duncan Phyfe sofa and I in a Victorian chair across the room from him, he proceeded to tell me the purpose of his visit.

“Well, Madam Murdoch,” he began, “I hear you’re preparing a cookbook and I’ve been waiting for you to ask for my recipes. So far, you haven’t, and I want to know why not.”

“Why, Thurlow,” I said, taken aback at his demand, “I didn’t know you wanted to be included. In fact, I didn’t know you cooked.”

“How do you think me and Ronnie eat? Of course I cook, though probably not the fancy dishes you require. But that don’t mean I want to be left out when you’re running all over town getting recipes from every Tom, Dick, and Harry you can find.”

“I hardly think . . .”

“Yeah, and half the women you’re getting recipes from don’t even know how to boil water. They all have cooks to do it for them.”

“Maybe so, but . . .”

“No maybe about it. I keep up with what’s going on, don’t think I don’t, and you ought not to leave me out just because I don’t waste my money on kitchen help.”

“Oh, I’d never think you wasted money on anything,” I assured him, for he certainly didn’t. In fact, a lot of us wished that he would. “But I didn’t intend to offend you by not asking for yours. I merely thought you wouldn’t be interested.”

“Let me decide when I’m interested and when I’m not. Now, I know you’re trying to help that woman you took in when nobody else would. Not everybody would welcome a husband’s discards like you did, even if he was dead, and you may not think it, but I always admired you for that.”

“Well, ah, thank you,” I murmured and added, “I guess,” under my breath. But I was on guard, because I didn’t want Thurlow to go off any more than he already had about Hazel Marie’s less than appropriate relationship with Wesley Lloyd Springer. That was in the past, and I powerfully resented the subject being brought forth again by anybody.

“Yeah,” he said, unable to leave well enough alone, “everybody still wonders how you and that woman can get along like you do. Considering everything.”

“My
friend,
Hazel Marie,” I said as firmly as I could, “is a properly married woman with a decent, hardworking husband and small children. Anything I do to help her is my business and not open to discussion or criticism.”

“Oh,” Thurlow said with a wave of his hand, “don’t get your back up. You’re too sensitive on the subject. All I want to do is give you one of my recipes, and that woman can use it or not—it don’t matter to me.”

“For the last time, Thurlow, she is not
that woman.
Her name is Hazel Marie Puckett Pickens or, better still, Mrs. J. D. Pickens, and you’d better not let her husband hear you run her down. He is not a man to take something like that lightly.”

“Well, I guess I ought to be quaking in my boots, but I don’t quake so easy. Now, do you want my recipe or not?” He pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket and leaned over to give it to me.

I had no conception of what his recipe would be. For all I knew anything made from it would be inedible. I thanked him, determining at the same time that before recommending it to Hazel Marie, I’d have Lillian look it over, if she could read the handwritten scribbles.

“Now, that one,” Thurlow said, all business now, “is for homemade soup, and I got plenty more if you need ’em. But I call this one Throw-Everything-In Soup—whatever you got can go in it. It’ll make enough for two family meals at least. Three or four for me. I make it on a Sunday afternoon and have almost a week’s worth of suppers from then on, if I don’t give too much to Ronnie. He likes it, too. And the next one . . .” He stopped and looked at Ronnie, whose stomach growled with an imminent threat. “Ronnie!” Thurlow yelled as he sprang off the sofa. “Get up from there and get outside!”

Ronnie hopped to his feet, then spraddled out his front legs with his head bent between them. He started coughing deep in his throat.

“My word,” I yelped, springing up, too. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s throwin’ up, that’s what. Get out here, Ronnie.” Thurlow had the front door open, but Ronnie was in the throes of powerful stomach spasms and couldn’t move. Thurlow ran back to him, lifted him with a mighty effort, and dragged him out on the porch, where Ronnie emptied his stomach all over my front steps.

“Well,” Thurlow said, surveying the scene, “at least he got outside. But don’t worry about him. He does this off and on whenever he eats something he shouldn’t. He’s all right now. Just take a hose to this, Madam Murdoch, and nobody’ll know the difference. Tell that woman I hope she enjoys the soup.”

I stood there, outraged at being left with Ronnie’s mess, as the two of them walked away, unconcerned and unapologetic.

“Well, I never,” I said, but of course I was speaking to myself and went right on doing it, employing some choice epithets for sick dogs and their owners.

But what was I to do with Thurlow’s recipe? If Hazel Marie tried it, would everybody in the house come down with Ronnie’s ailment? That’s all Mr. Pickens would need to make him look for greener fields. Of course I could conveniently overlook Thurlow’s recipe, but he’d be sure to know it wasn’t in the book. I’d never hear the end of his complaining. But if Ronnie’s stomach upset was the result of Thurlow’s cooking—and what else could it have been?—I needed to make sure the Pickens family never suffered a similar affliction. A caution, a warning of some kind, would have to be included with anything that had Thurlow’s name attached.