Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble: A Novel (23 page)

What was the man doing? Looking for another secluded parking lot? No wonder he was going right past the Winn-Dixie. If he pulled in there, he’d be seen by half the town.

I was finally able to get out into the lane of traffic, and my first impulse was to follow Mr. Pickens. But he was three or four cars ahead, and Hazel Marie was waiting. There was nothing to do but turn off and drive to Velma’s. And to pretend that I wasn’t outraged over a certain husband’s flagrant double life, which, I angrily reminded myself, he was making little or no effort to hide.

Hazel Marie was out the door of Velma’s salon before I’d come to a full stop. She hopped into the car, talking and asking questions nonstop.

“How did they do?” she asked. “Did they nap? Have they been fussy?”

“Everything went fine,” I said, after giving her a detailed account. “And yes, they napped and they haven’t been fussy. Hazel Marie, you look like a picture.” And she did. Her face had color and so did her hair. Velma had outdone herself in both venues. Hazel Marie was totally remade, except for that loose running suit she had on, which I hoped she’d replace with a form-fitting dress of some kind.

“I hated being away for so long,” Hazel Marie said, almost bouncing on the seat. “But, oh my, it was a wonderful day. I told Velma she should advertise Mother’s Day Out. I’d be tempted to sign up every week.” She turned to look at me. “You’re sure the babies are all right?”

“Absolutely sure,” I said, thinking that she should’ve been asking how Lillian, Granny, and I were. “And, furthermore, Lillian is cooking supper for us all, if you don’t mind our staying a little longer. We didn’t want you to have to come home and undo Velma’s work in one fell swoop.”

She laughed. “You’re all so good to me.”

I pulled into the Pickens driveway and drove on toward the garage, parking beside Granny’s rusty old pickup. Hazel Marie had the car door open before I turned off the ignition. “Run on in, Hazel Marie,” I said to her back. “I’ll bring in the groceries.”

She was up the back steps, across the porch, and into the kitchen while I was still climbing out of the car. Just as I punched the key to open the trunk, I heard the low growl of a motor. Turning to look, I saw Mr. Pickens’s car turn into the driveway. It rolled to a stop behind my car, the door opened, and Mr. Pickens stepped out, a welcoming smile on his face.

“Hey, Miss Julia,” he called as he walked over. “Need some help?”

“More than you know,” I said shortly, reaching for a plastic grocery bag. I couldn’t look at him, much less greet him with any warmth. I knew what he’d been doing.

“Here,” he said, “let me take those.”

“Get the other two,” I snapped, “if you haven’t worn yourself out today.”

He looked at me quizzically, then grinned. “I’ve still got a little life left in me.”

“If that’s so,” I said, glaring into those black eyes of his, “then get in there and tell your wife that you’re taking her out to dinner. I don’t care how you do it—you can sweet-talk her into it or you can lay down the law, but one way or another, you’re taking her out. And, while you’re at it, make sure you tell her how nice she looks—she’s been in the beauty shop all day and deserves a few compliments.” I stopped for breath, then went on. “I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon, Mr. Pickens, but obviously you were much too busy to answer your phone. My intent was to tell you that you have plenty of babysitters for tonight and that Hazel Marie needs some time with you. And you with her.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “She won’t go. I’ve tried.”

“Then try again.” I switched the grocery bag to my other hand—cans are heavy. “Those babies will be a year old in a couple of months, and today was the first time Hazel Marie has had to herself. She’s been nowhere and done nothing but take care of babies and everybody else. It’s high time you paid some attention to what’s going on in your own house. But no, you’re out shilly-shallying around while your wife works herself to the bone.”

“Shilly-shallying?” he said, his eyes beginning to dance as a smile lurked at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t believe that’s what I’ve been doing.”

I nodded, knowing exactly what he’d been doing, and it was worse than shilly-shallying. I wanted to smack him.

“Whatever,” I said, because his backyard was not the place to go into detail about his indecent activities. Besides it was too cold. “But attention must be paid, starting tonight. You should tell Hazel Marie to go upstairs and change clothes, and while she’s doing that, you can make reservations. And make them somewhere nice. Now go on in there and do it before her hair gets messed up.”

Frowning in spite of the smirk lingering at his mouth, he said, “Miss Julia, have I offended you in some way?”

“Offended
me
? I should say not. I can’t imagine that you would ever do anything indecent enough to offend me.” I was laying on the sarcasm pretty thick, but every time I looked at him, with that innocent and bewildered look on his face, I wanted to smack him good. “Or have you, and I don’t know about it?”

“Well, no, not that I can think of, but you sure seem put out with me.”

Looking past him, I saw Sam, Lloyd, and Latisha coming down the sidewalk. I shoved my grocery bag into Mr. Pickens’s hand. “Get the rest of them, too,” I said and walked off to meet Sam.

Lloyd and Latisha raced across the front yard, waving to me as they leapt up onto the porch and into the house. I met Sam by the front steps, walking directly into his arms.

“Oh, Sam,” I said, feeling his arms around me.

“Long day, honey? Babies wear you out?”

I nodded my head against his chest, letting him think what he would. I hadn’t yet confided in him about Mr. Pickens’s two unknown, but distinctively female, passengers, and here, in the cold, darkening afternoon by Hazel Marie’s front porch, was neither the time nor place to do it.

I didn’t hear how Mr. Pickens talked her into it, but Hazel Marie came downstairs in a slinky black dress, dark stockings, and shoes with heels so high that she teetered when she walked. She was truly stunning, and I could see her husband’s eyes light up at the sight. I hoped that light would stay there, and he’d quit that comparison shopping he seemed to be doing.

As they left for dinner, I felt suffused with satisfaction. From the care that Mr. Pickens took in helping Hazel Marie down the steps and into the car, it was clear that my efforts were paying off. The glow didn’t continue, though, for I still had a few more hours of babysitting to get through.

“Mama really looked nice, didn’t she?” Lloyd said, watching as his parents left for the evening.

“She look just like a movie star,” Latisha said as she sat on the quilt, trying to entertain Lily Mae, who was beginning to signal that it was suppertime. “When I get grown, I’m gonna have me a black dress like that, but I’m not just gonna go get something to eat. That’s not gettin’ the good outta a nice dress like that. I’m gonna go dancin’ in mine.” She shook a rattle and made a sinuous move with her shoulders. “All night long, too.”

“Law, chile,” Lillian said, as she picked up Julie, “it’ll be a while ’fore you do any dancin’. Miss Granny, if you’ll get that other baby, I think they both need changin’.”

Granny had been noticeably quiet since we’d all come in. I thought the presence of Sam and Mr. Pickens had intimidated her, although she was quick to get Lily Mae and follow Lillian upstairs to the changing table. When they came back down, each with a squirming, unhappy baby, they headed straight for the kitchen and set them up to be fed.

“Let me do that, Mrs. Wiggins,” I said, reaching for the baby food jars that Hazel Marie had selected. “You’ve had a long day and probably want to be home before it gets too dark.”

She glanced out the window. “I guess I better, at that. I can’t see all that good in the dark. You sure you got enough hands to take care of these babies?”

“With Sam here, and the two children, I think we’ll be fine.”

“Well,” Granny said as she slid into her coat, “Mr. Sam looks like a fine man to have around, but I’ve yet to see a one that could take over baby tendin’. Seems like the Lord aimed that job for womenfolk.”

Before I could respond, the front door opened, then slammed closed hard enough to shake the walls. Both babies jumped and started crying.

“The workingman is home!” Brother Vern announced loudly. “Hope somebody ’round here’s got supper on the table.”

“He soundin’ too happy to suit me,” Lillian said, as the baby girls wailed from their high chairs. Lillian motioned to me to start feeding them as she patted hamburger patties into shape. “Wonder what he up to now.”

I didn’t respond because I was trying to get the lid off a jar of pureed carrots. Just then, Lloyd and Latisha eased quietly into the kitchen, apparently getting out of Brother Vern’s line of fire.

“Anything we can help with?” Lloyd asked over the din the babies were making.

“I can feed them babies,” Latisha said with an eager look at the jars and long spoons.

“Why don’t you two run up to the apartment,” I suggested, “and see if James wants to come down for supper? Lloyd, you and Sam can help him on the stairs if he does.”

The two children ran out just as Granny Wiggins changed her mind about leaving. “On second thought . . .” she said as Brother Vern loudly greeted Sam in the living room. She shed her coat, slung it over a chair at the table, took the jar of carrots from me, and, with a quick twist of her wrist, had the lid off. “I think I better stick around,” she said, “at least till we get these young’uns fed and in the bed. Miz Murdoch, you set down right here an’put something in that littl’un’s mouth. I’ll tend to this’un.”

I did as directed and the noise level immediately went down. “I’m worried about you getting home before dark,” I said, carefully aiming a loaded spoon toward an open mouth.

“Oh, don’t worry about me. My ole truck been down that road so many times, it can find its own way home. But Miss Lillian’s got all these folks to cook for an’ she can’t do two things at once. I never yet left anybody in need, an’ it sure looks like that’s where you are. Just shovel it on in, Miz Murdoch—it don’t need no chewin’.”

Lloyd and Latisha came rushing back into the kitchen, bringing with them a gust of cold air. “James can’t come down,” Lloyd said. “He’s not feeling good, but I’ll take him a tray just in case he can eat something. He’s acting pretty sick.”

Mopping carrots off Julie’s arm, I said, “Ask Sam, if you will, to go check on him. We might need to run to the drugstore before it closes.”

It didn’t come to that, however, for Sam said that James was able to force himself to eat two hamburgers, a helping of baked beans, and a salad. “But,” Sam told me, “he’s down in the mouth about something. I tried to find out what was wrong, but all he’d say was that he didn’t feel worth shooting. Then hold his head and moan. I’ll look in on him tomorrow, be sure he’s all right.”

Granny faked out a little grasping hand as she fed Lilly Mae. “Well,” she said, “I ’bout cured his foot with Epsom salts, but I got my doubts about working on his head.”

I won’t give a detailed account of the rest of the evening. Anyone who’s had a houseful of children, including infants who needed to be fed, changed, and put to bed, plus someone like James, too wobbly on his feet to come to the table, and a loud, unwanted guest at the table, every one of them hungry for supper, will pretty well know how it went.

By eight-thirty, though, the house was quiet, and Sam and I had a few minutes alone in Hazel Marie’s living room. Actually, we’d had more than a few minutes alone in her kitchen washing dishes. After we’d all eaten, I insisted that Lillian go home. Latisha needed to be in bed—both she and Lloyd had school the next day—and Lillian had put in a long, full day. Granny Wiggins left at the same time, with Brother Vern walking her out—an uncommon and surprising courtesy on his part. I could hear her talking until her voice was drowned out by the racket her truck made when she cranked it.

Lloyd went upstairs to his room, which Hazel Marie had restored to its original state after Brother Vern’s occupancy. And Brother Vern? Well, he was ensconced in the recliner in the family room—Sam’s erstwhile office when he lived in the house—with his eyes glued to the television set.

“It behooves a preacher of the Gospel,” he said with a pompous tug of his jacket, “to keep up with the shows they run just like the folks that set in the pews do. That way, a preacher gets to know what kinda vile goings-on is runnin’ around spreadin’ their influence in their minds. And I tell you, the worst for family watchin’ is them housewife shows in all them cities across the country. They’re a indication and a
indictment
of which way this nation is headed.” And, with that pronouncement, he left Sam and me in the living room while he settled himself in front of the television set to gather sermon material.

“I don’t know how Hazel Marie does it day after day,” Sam said, leaning his head back on the sofa. “One afternoon of it is enough for me.”

I patted his thigh. “It was good of you to walk Julie like you did. She did not want to be put down.” I smiled, remembering that baby on Sam’s shoulder as he paced up and down the hall, patting her back until she fell asleep.

“It was nice,” he said, smothering a yawn, “but thirty minutes of it was long enough.” His head came off the sofa at the sound of a growling motor. “I think they’re home.”

Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens came through the front door, she with a glow of happiness on her face and he with a self-satisfied smile on his. So, I thought, he’s charmed another member of his harem, which would probably free him up for the next one in line.

It was all I could do to be civil to him, but Hazel Marie asked one question after another about the babies so I was never put on the spot. She hurried up the stairs to the nursery to be sure they were unharmed and still breathing, while I hoped to goodness she wouldn’t wake them.

Sam turned from speaking with Mr. Pickens and said, “Julia, we better be going so these folks can get to bed.”

It was not too soon for me, but as I started for the hall closet to get my coat, Brother Vern—loud and expansive—abandoned the housewives and came into the living room.

“I’m here to tell you,” he said, as if we’d all been waiting to hear from him, “my soup kitchen is comin’ along like a house afire. Y’all ought to come see it. I had them two workers scrubbin’ and moppin’ and cleanin’ every nook and cranny all day long. It don’t look like the same place, an’ you gotta come see that apartment. I tell you, when Miz Allen decides to do something, she goes whole hog. No halfway measures for her, no sirree.”

“So when’re you moving?” This from Mr. Pickens in a tone that would’ve brought the conversation to an end if it’d been addressed to anyone but Brother Vern.

“Oh, we got loads to do yet, Brother Pickens. Tables an’ chairs’ll be delivered tomorrow, an’ the ’lectrician’s comin’ to hook up the sound system. Got to have a good sound system, you know. I’m tryin’ to decide what I want—a handheld microphone or one of them little ones that hooks over your ear an’ runs around to your mouth. Pro’bly just get both—be cheaper in the long run.

“Anyway,” he went on when no one offered an opinion, “I been thinkin’ I ought to have like a Gratitude Dinner for all the folks that’s helped get me started. You know, to honor Miz Allen, first and foremost, but you, too, Miz Murdoch, an’ you, Brother Pickens, for puttin’ me up in my hour of need, an’ anybody else I can think of who might like to contribute to the Lord’s work.” He suddenly turned to me. “I’d sure like a list of the finer people in an’ around town, Miz Murdoch, soon as you can get it to me. I want to invite ’em to come see what we got goin’, an’ give ’em the opportunity to be sponsors, which would help me an’ them both.”

“So,” I said, thinking to myself that he’d never get such a list from me, “you mean to have a fund-raiser.”

“Oh, that’s all part of it,” he said knowingly. “How to raise funds is the first thing you learn whenever you strike out for the Lord. Else you wouldn’t get nowhere. They ought to teach it in the seminaries, but they don’t.”

I wondered how he knew, since he had never darkened the door of a seminary. I knew that some churches didn’t require formal training for their preachers—whoever felt a call to preach could preach, if a congregation could be found that would have them.

“Anyway,” Brother Vern went on, having silenced me, “I’m thinkin’ we’ll be ready pretty soon, so I’ll be invitin’ you all over for barbecue, some good gospel music, an’ a short program. You won’t want to miss it.”

Mr. Pickens had been listening to all this, his dark eyes never leaving Brother Vern. “I may be working,” he said.

“Well, I hope not, Brother Pickens, but if you are, we’ll miss you. Now that cook I hired is good, but she’s a little tetchy. I’m countin’ on Hazel Marie to help her out. With all her cookin’ lessons, she can finally be of some use.”

My top was just about to blow, but Sam quickly put his arm around me and changed the subject. “What’re you calling your soup kitchen, Vern? You thought of a good name for it?”

Turning to Sam, Brother Vern said, “I’m glad you asked, Brother Sam. I been goin’ back an’ forth on this for days. My first thought was to call it Mary an’ Martha’s Place. You know, ’cause we’ll be servin’ up real food an’ spiritual food, just like they did at their house in the Book of Luke, Chapter Ten. But I got to thinkin’ that people might think it was for women only, an’ that won’t do.”

“With a name like that,” Mr. Pickens interrupted, a hard smile on his face, “you’d get more men than you wanted.”

Brother Vern ignored him, something that I’d be hesitant to do. “Anyway, I’ve about decided on the Soup Spoon Mission, but I’m on the lookout for something better. ’Cause, see, I told Miz Allen that we need a nice neon sign with a catchy name so the down-an’-out can see us from afar and come on in. You can’t have a soup kitchen without nobody to eat in it, can you?”

No one answered, for Hazel Marie came down the stairs, her high heels exchanged for bedroom slippers. She came right up to me and threw her arms around me, something that I am usually quick enough to avoid, not being a hugging kind of person. But not this time. She hugged me and hugged me.

“Oh, Miss Julia, thank you for this wonderful day! I feel like a new woman, and it’s all because of you. And the babies, you’ve taken such good care of them. They look like little angels, all tucked in and asleep.”

I patted her shoulder and untangled myself, telling her that I was happy to do it, then looked at Sam to indicate I was ready to leave. So was he, and we soon left for home.

Almost too tired to talk as Sam drove my car toward the house, I wasn’t too tired to think. And what I was thinking was how much I hoped that the night was not yet over for Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens. And how bereft I would feel if I learned later that all my efforts to set his sights firmly on his wife had been for naught.