Miss Julia Meets Her Match (20 page)

I threw up my hands and scurried up the stairs, having no desire to take on the rearing of another child. I could hear Little Lloyd’s admonitions, which would make a bigger impression than anything I could say, anyway.

When I reached the peace and quiet of my own room, I closed the door and tried to soothe my edgy nerves. My worries always came flooding back when I took myself out of Sam’s calming presence. When I was around him, the worst of my concerns just seemed to smooth out and stop agitating me. Sometimes, though, I could shake him because he was often
too
calming, always urging caution, saying “Let’s wait a while.” Wait, wait, wait and see what’ll happen. But I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to take the bull by the horns and
do
something. So I decided I would.

Determined to leave Pastor Ledbetter, Norma, and any and all trysts taking place in the church to Sam as much as I was able, I turned my mind to the problem of the Mooney woman. I didn’t know exactly what I could do, since I’d heard neither hide nor hair from Mr. Pickens, but anything would be better than sitting around, going out of my mind with worry. Mr. Pickens should’ve been keeping me abreast of developments, but he was bad to go his own way in his own time, which, in my opinion, was no way to treat the one he was working for.

I tried his office number and his home number, but all I got at both were recorded messages. His voice on the home machine said, “Leave a message if you want to.” On his office machine, he said, “J. D. Pickens Investigations. I’m out, you’re on, so go ahead.”

I’d never heard anything so unprofessional in my life, but that was Mr. Pickens for you. It all put me in a most unsettled state, wondering where he was, what he was doing, and how he expected to calm my fears by staying out of touch.

My continued indignation over Mr. Pickens’s silence was broken by the ringing of the phone. I picked it up before Lillian did, and then wished I hadn’t.

“Julia,” Helen Stroud said, when I answered, “I hate to be the one to tell you, but I’d want to know if it was me.”

“Know what?” But I thought I knew.

“Well, I had a board meeting for the garden club at my house last night, and Jackie Wright told us she heard at her bridge club that another one of Wesley Lloyd’s ladyfriends is back in town.”

At my silence, she hurriedly said, “I don’t expect it’s true. It’s probably all mixed up with Hazel Marie, don’t you think? Or if it is true, maybe Hazel Marie knows her.”

“I doubt that, Helen,” I was finally able to say. “Hazel Marie doesn’t indulge in gossip and I, for one, would never bring up the subject to her. I hope you won’t, either.”

After assuring me that she would not, and I had thanked her for her concern, Helen ended her call. I hung up the phone, wondering why I had felt obliged to express gratitude for hearing gossip that cut so close to the bone. And the nerve of her, wanting me to ask Hazel Marie if she knew the woman!

Sooner or later, somebody
would
ask her, or some ruffian would taunt Little Lloyd, and what could I do then? I wiped my eyes and tried to calm my rattled nerves. All I could do was stand firm between them and the disastrous revelation of the truth.

That evening, while we were gathered around the kitchen table, the phone rang. Lillian answered it, said, “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,” then held out the phone to me. “It for you,” she said, a worried frown on her face.

“Tell whoever it is that we’re having dinner,” I said, just so put out that people could be so rude as to call during the evening meal. Probably a telemarketer, who does it on purpose.

“No’m,” Lillian said, that anxious look still on her face, “you better take this’un now.”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” I said, laying my napkin on the table and rising from my chair. “I do hate to have a meal interrupted. Excuse me, Hazel Marie, children.”

I took the phone and said, “Yes?” in a tone that conveyed my annoyancce.

“Can you talk?” Mr. Pickens asked.

“Uh, no,” I said, glancing quickly at the others who had politely stopped talking while I took the call. Or they’d stopped so they could hear who had called and why it was important. I turned my back to them in a vain effort to prevent them from hearing.

“Then listen,” Mr. Pickens said. “I’m still out here, but we need to talk.”

“Let me call you back,” I said, being very careful not to say anything that would give anything away to those who shouldn’t be listening, but could hardly help it. “We’re at dinner.” Trying to tell him that I was surrounded by eager and open ears.

“No, you can’t reach me. You know how to get to Berea Church Road?”

“I think so,” I said, becoming more and more aware of the pregnant silence behind me. I had to do something to lessen their interest. “Oh, yes,
LuAnne,
I do,” I went on, coming up with the first name I could think of.

“What?”

“Never mind,
LuAnne.
Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“There’s a pull-off a couple of miles along Berea Church Road on the right. That’s on the north side of the property out here. Park in there with your lights off, and I’ll meet you about nine-thirty. Can you make it?”

“Why, yes,
LuAnne,
” I said, thinking as fast as I could. “I believe I can. And you want me to bring Lillian with me?”

“Whatever,” Mr. Pickens said. “Nine-thirty.” And he hung up.

I kept talking to a dial tone. “Well, I don’t know why it has to be done tonight, but I guess we can. All right. Then we’ll see you in a little while.” I hung up, took a deep breath, and prepared myself to carry off a little white lie that was absolutely necessary.

Taking my seat at the table while avoiding Lillian’s eye, I said, “That was LuAnne. When that woman gets something in her head, nothing will do but everybody has to hop to.”

“What did she want?” Hazel Marie asked. “Lloyd, pass Miss Julia the butter.”

“She wants Lillian and me to help her hem up the dress she’s wearing to our reception. And she has to have it done tonight, of all times.”

“Oh, I’ll help you do that,” Hazel Marie said, perfectly aware that I didn’t know one end of a needle from another. Besides, Hazel Marie was forever altering the length of her clothes and was an expert in the art of hemming.

I knew right then that I’d come up with the wrong excuse for getting out of the house. I had to think fast.

“Frankly, Hazel Marie, I’m surprised she didn’t ask you in the first place, but I think she really wants Lillian to show her how to iron those linen curtains she’s been having a time with. Lillian,” I said, turning to her and trying to convey my need through my eyes, “you don’t mind going, do you? And I certainly don’t mean for you to iron them, just maybe show her how damp they need to be.”

“No’m,” she said, somewhat tentatively, “I don’t mind.”

“Good. Then, Hazel Marie, we’ll leave the children with you, while we get LuAnne ready for our party.” And I went on chattering about the coming reception, trying to distract Hazel Marie, while pretending that Mr. Pickens’s phone call hadn’t strung out my nerves. If he’d had news about Monique’s imminent departure, surely he’d have told me then and there. His silence on the subject didn’t bode well for our coming discussion.

Lillian and I piled into the car about eight-thirty, on our way to LuAnne Conover’s for all Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd knew. We were leaving an hour before Mr. Pickens’s designated time, but if it’d been up to me I’d have left even earlier, before the sun went down and I had to negotiate in the dark. As it was, I knew I’d need all the extra time I could get to find the meeting place Mr. Pickens had specified. Besides, I believe in being punctual.

As soon as I closed my door and turned the key in the ignition, Lillian said, “Why you say it Miz Conover on the phone when you know it that Mr. Pickens?”

“Well, I certainly couldn’t say it was him with Hazel Marie sitting right there.”

“Yessum, first thing he say to me was ‘Don’t say my name,’ an’ I didn’t.”

“He understands that this whole expedition has to be kept under wraps, Lillian, and you know why. Of course, I hated to tell an out-and-out story about it, but if Hazel Marie’d known who it was, she’d’ve wanted to talk to him, and I tell you, I think he was calling in secret. He was very abrupt and quite specific about what he wanted us to do.”

I turned the car in the direction of LuAnne’s house, in case anybody was watching our departure. After a couple of blocks, though, I took a cross street and got us going in the opposite direction.

“It ’bout time you tell
me
what us gonna do,” Lillian said. “Here you be drivin’ all ’round, not goin’ nowhere near Miz Conover’s house.”

“We’re not going to LuAnne’s house, Lillian. You know that wasn’t her on the phone. I just made that up, and half the time I was talking to a dial tone, because Mr. Pickens gave me my instructions and hung up in my face.”

I drove across town, then took the old highway south, knowing it would be a few more miles before we’d need to turn left on Berea Church Road. If I could find it.

“Well,” Lillian continued, long after I’d thought the matter should’ve been over and done with, “if we not goin’ to Miz Conover’s, where are we goin’?”

“We’re going out in the country on the north edge of the property where those theme park people are. Mr. Pickens is going to meet us there.”

“Why we have to go in the dark? Seem like daytime be better, then we see where we goin’.”

“Lillian, I declare, I don’t know. I’m just doing what he told me to do, and I assume he knows what he’s doing.” I stopped for a minute, not at all certain about what I’d just said. “And I wanted you with me, because I’m not any happier about fooling around after dark than you are. Now help me look for Berea Church Road. It ought to be coming up pretty soon.”

Lillian continued to mumble and I continued to reassure her. Although I wished I’d had somebody to reassure me. Turning off the highway onto the two-lane road took us away from streetlights and traffic into an area of farmhouses and empty fields. The occasional safety light high up on a pole spread a glow around clusters of house, barns, and sheds. But the farther in we got, the more densely the trees lined up on the sides of the road. It’d been years since I’d been out that way, and even then I’d gone in on County Line Road some way to the south of where we were. On this stretch of road I wasn’t sure where my property line began or ended.

“Watch on the right side, Lillian,” I said, slowing the car and peering through the windshield.

“What we watchin’ for?”

“Mr. Pickens said there’s a turn-off where we can pull in and park. He should’ve told me what a turn-off looks like, but I could hardly ask him.”

I slowed the car even more, looking for a break in the trees and watching to see if any cars were coming up behind us. At least for the while, we were the only ones on the road, so I didn’t mind creeping along to look for a place to turn in.

“Is this all yo’ prop’ity ’long here?” Lillian asked.

“I don’t know. It’s somewhere around here. All I know to do is find a place to get off the road and park and wait. If he doesn’t show, we’ll know we’re in the wrong place.”

“Don’t sound to me like anybody know what they doin’.”

“Lillian, please. Don’t remind me. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Well, law, it seem to me you get better ’structions than what you got. I don’t like this empty ole road. It real lonesome to me.”

“Look,” I said, relinquishing the wheel with one hand and pointing ahead of us. “See there, Lillian. See how the trees kind of dip in? That may be the place.”

“Well, it look like
a
place, but whether it
the
place, I don’t know.”

“Let’s try it,” I said. “Open your door and see if there’s a ditch on your side. I sure don’t want to drive into one.”

“Hol’ this car still then,” she said, as she unlocked and opened the door. “Lemme step out an’ see can we turn in.”

“Wait, Lillian!” I cried, grabbing her arm. Headlights were in my rearview mirror. “A car’s coming. We’ve got to drive on.”

“Law!” Lillian said, slamming the door. “I almost all the way outta the car. Halfway in an’ halfway out, an’ now I got to crawl back in.”

I sped up, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves by being seen parked on a rural road at night. If a Good Samaritan was in the car behind us, he’d stop and offer help. And what would I have said our reason was for idling along, searching the side of the road?

So I drove on, trying to fix some landmarks in my mind for our return visit. I finally came to a crossroads and turned off, while the car behind us continued on. With my heart in my throat, I backed and forthed, and finally managed to turn the car around, ever fearful of dropping off into a ditch.

“Start watching again, Lillian,” I said, as we retraced our steps. Or, rather, our tracks.

She mumbled something about it being on the wrong side of the road this time, and she couldn’t see it so good.

We found it, though, and also found that others had been there before us. As my headlights lit up the semicircular clearing, I could see tire tracks, beer cans, McDonald’s wrappers and I don’t know what all strewn all over the place.

I pulled in and stopped the car. “Why don’t you get out, Lillian, and guide me while I back over there behind those straggly pines? That way we’ll be halfway hidden from the road.”

“Lemme unlock this door, then, an’ don’t you run over me.”

About half exasperated, I said, “I’m not going to run over you. Just look behind us, and be sure I don’t hit a log or a stump.”

She didn’t like it, but she got out and directed the parking process. As I backed the car into a sheltered place, I could hear things crunch under the tires. Lord, if we had a puncture, we’d have to limp all the way home.