Miss Julia Lays Down the Law (4 page)

Saying that she would see me that evening at Sue’s for the ornament sewing group, LuAnne took herself off, leaving me unsure of whether she’d back out of the run beforehand, just not show up for it, or feel she’d have to give it a try. I hoped she wouldn’t do that. She wasn’t in any condition to survive the two blocks from Main Street to my house, much less keep at it for a mile. And to have a runner collapse after a couple of blocks would not speak well for rehabilitating anything, unless it was by way of physical therapy after breaking something. Nor would LuAnne sprawled out on the sidewalk with EMTs in attendance please Connie. And pleasing Connie seemed to be LuAnne’s sole motivation.

Thank goodness,
I congratulated myself,
I couldn’t care less what Connie thinks of me.
And with that, I decided that henceforth she and her multitudinous ideas would be of no concern to me. Let her have at it on her own. As long as, that is, she left that park alone.

 • • • 

As it happened, though, the crusade Connie had started toward civic participation popped back up that evening in an unexpected way.

Sam and I had just gotten up from the supper table on our way to the library when Lloyd came in to spend the night.

“They’ve all got colds,” he said, explaining his appearance at our house, “and I have a paper to write. I can’t concentrate with all the crying and sneezing and coughing going on.”

“Aren’t you about to freeze?” I asked as he came in with a blast of cold air from the open door. “Come in and get warm. Have you had supper?”

“Yes, ma’am. Soup for all the sick and ailing, but it was fine. I’ll just go on upstairs and get started on my paper.”

We kept Lloyd’s room as it had always been, complete with a computer, printer, books, and clothes, because he spent as many nights with us as he did with his mother, Mr. Pickens, and his twin half sisters. Which was fine with me. I liked having him around and always felt content when he was in the house.

Sam and I settled into our favorite places close to the fire in the library, with Sam looking through the paper and me picking up some needlework. Picking it up was as far as I got, though, because it was my first chance to tell Sam how I intended to regain the equilibrium I’d had before Connie Clayborn had thrown me for a loop.

And tell him, I did. But the more I expressed my good intentions, the more incensed I became all over again. Thinking that I’d vented enough to Mildred and Emma Sue to clear the air for good, I was surprised to realize how much fire was still simmering inside.

“And, Sam,” I summed up after recounting Connie’s lecture again, “Mildred and I are in perfect agreement—Connie has overstepped herself and ruined any possibility of her getting into the garden club or the book club or anything else in town.

“Emma Sue, though,” I went on, “I just don’t know about her. She takes everything to heart, then it goes straight to her head and down she comes with a migraine. To tell the truth, I’m a little worried about her.

“However,” I added, “I intend to put Connie’s ranting on a back burner and stay out of her way. I don’t want to hear another critical word about the women of Abbotsville or of the town itself. There’re too many other things to occupy my mind and my time. Sewing ornaments, for one, which I guess Hazel Marie can’t do tonight with everybody sick at her house. And you know, Sam, it takes a lot of energy to stay mad, and I don’t have any to spare on Connie. I’ll just put it all behind me so that whatever she thinks of us won’t matter a bit as far as I’m concerned. Live and let live, I always say.”

“I do, too,” Sam said, probably bored to death with the subject by this time. He folded the paper and laid it aside, then opened a book, as one was never far from him.

After a few minutes, I thought of something else I hadn’t told him. “Sam?”

He raised his eyebrows as he looked up from his book.

“Have you heard about Coleman?”

He closed the book and put it aside. “What’s going on with Coleman?”

“I’m not sure. Binkie thinks he’s lost his mind, but she doesn’t seem particularly concerned about it.” And I went on to tell Sam about Coleman’s effort to raise money by sitting on a sign and waving at passing cars. And to do it through rain, sleet, or snow, like a postal worker.

Sam chuckled, shaking his head. “Better him than me.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a wise thing to do. He could ruin his health.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Sam said. “I expect he knows what he’s doing. He and Binkie do a lot of camping.” He reached for his book again. “By the way, you remember I’m going to Raleigh at the end of the week? You want to go with me?”

“Oh, you’ll have old friends to catch up with. Lots of gossip about judges I don’t know. I think I’ll pass.” I smiled at him, for Sam knew how proud I was that he had been named to the governor’s Judicial Standards Commission—it had been announced in the newspaper and everything—and that I wanted him to enjoy his time as the governor’s representative.

“Mr. Sam?” Lloyd walked in, pen and paper in hand. “Could you help me with my paper?”

“Sure, if I can. What’s your topic?”

“Supposed to be on the rehabilitation of economically challenged communities, and I don’t even know what that means.”

Sam started laughing, and I got to my feet. “I think I’ve heard enough on that subject,” I said, smiling at Lloyd. “I’ll leave it with you two to hash out. Sam, Mildred’s picking me up in a few minutes, so I’m off to make Christmas ornaments—a far, far better thing I do for my blood pressure than to go through a civics lesson again.”

 • • • 

Seven of us sat around Sue Hargrove’s dining room table, covered now by a quilt to protect the finish from scratches. Piles of red, green, gold, and white felt squares; boxes of sequins, pearls, and buttons; pin cushions filled with pins and needles; thimbles; scissors of all sizes; hot glue guns; spools and skeins of thread, braid, and piping; and Santa Clauses, snowmen, angels, and stars in various stages of completion were scattered across the table. An urn of hot spiced tea and a plate of shortbread were on the sideboard, available to anyone who wanted a break. Our rule was to not get bogged down with entertaining as such, nor with visiting with one another, but to
work
. We’d started, as usual, in early September, and our goal was for each member to complete an ornament at each weekly meeting. Mildred was far behind, but she was good company.

Roberta Smith, who’d started out some years before with flowing red hair that was now a weekly tended coif of rust-colored waves and wisps, shifted her chair as Mildred and I took our places at the table. Roberta was an angular woman of a fairly young but uncertain age, one—well, two—prominent assets, and a generally quiet demeanor—so appropriate in a librarian. She looked up from her sewing, blinked several times, and asked, “Does anyone know where Mrs. Ledbetter is? I hope she’s not ill like Hazel Marie and her family.”

I, too, had wondered about Emma Sue’s absence. She rarely missed any kind of meeting. “I spoke to her on the phone yesterday, and she seemed fine.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I wasn’t about to repeat the conversation I’d had with Emma Sue. The less said about Connie Clayborn, the better. “Actually,” I went on, “we’re short several others tonight, so something may be going around.” I stopped and looked under the table. “Where’s that box of odds and ends? I need some fur for this Santa Claus.”

“Here it is,” Helen Stroud said, reaching behind her chair and sliding a box toward me. “There’s fur in there somewhere. I used some on that elf I made.”

“An elf!” LuAnne said. “Do elves wear fur?”

“Mine do,” Helen said complacently. “I put a knob of it on his cap and on the turned-up toes of his shoes.”

“Oh, I saw that,” Sue said, “and it’s darling. I think we should ask ten dollars for it.

“Which brings up another thing,” Sue went on. “We need to decide where our proceeds will go. We only have about five weeks before the county sale, and they’ll be after me to turn in our advertising copy. I need to be able to say who or what we’re supporting this year.”

“Well,” LuAnne said, “I still think Meals on Wheels is what we should support.”

“We did them year before last,” Callie Armstrong said, “and I thought we’d agreed to spread the wealth around.” Callie was a plump, pleasant woman with a houseful of children and a husband who’d agreed to put them to bed one night a week. Callie made the most of it, always being the last one to leave.

“What wealth?” Mildred said, laughing. “If anybody buys this snowman I’ll be surprised. Ida Lee said she can get bloodstains out, but I just put another one on it.”

“What’re some of the other groups supporting?” Helen asked, referring to the several groups around the county that contributed handmade items every year to the County Christmas Sale. Some groups were making Christmas placemats and napkins, others were making stuffed toys, topiary trees using artificial greenery, wreaths using real greenery, and, of course, Christmas cookies, cakes, and candy. And this year we’d heard that some retired men had decided to join us by making birdhouses to sell. The County Christmas Sale was always well attended because so many people throughout the county were involved in making sale items. We counted on their families and friends, at least, to feel obligated to support us.

“Oh, I have an idea!” I said, suddenly remembering Binkie’s concerns. “What about playground equipment for the elementary school?” And I went on to tell them about Coleman’s cold weather sign-sitting project. “We must all go out on the boulevard and wave at him. That may be the only way he keeps warm.”

“He’s crazy,” Mildred pronounced.

“That’s what Binkie thinks, too,” I said. “But we do have some mild days in November, so the weather’s on my prayer list.”

“You better pray hard,” Callie said, always seeing the gloomy side. “We usually have at least one snow in November.”

“Oh,” Roberta said, almost moaning, “I hope he won’t get cold. But what a heroic thing to do! He’s such a fine man. Officer of the law, I mean. ‘Protect and serve’—that’s what
hero
means, you know, and that’s their motto. He came to the library and spoke to the children’s reading group. They were simply fascinated with him and all his accouterments.”

Accouterments?
I had to give full attention to my Santa ornament so I wouldn’t laugh. Miss Roberta Smith was given to sudden emotional outbursts, usually announced in a decidedly loud voice when she wasn’t in the library. She was, of course, quite well read and often referred in rapturous tones to any number of her favorite characters, most especially Mr. Darcy.

“Well,” Sue said, bringing us back to the subject at hand since she wasn’t quite so fascinated by Coleman. “I say we choose playground equipment to sponsor this year. It’s certainly a worthwhile cause, and we’d be helping Coleman out, too. Maybe he won’t have to sit up there so long.”

That proposal was met with general approval, but I hoped Coleman would have long been off that sign and back in his warm house by the time of the Christmas sale. If he had to stay up there in the weather until the second week of December, the poor man would be frozen solid.

 • • • 

On our way home that evening, Mildred said, “I’ve about decided that Roberta has had a breast enhancement.”

“What? Mildred, she’s a librarian. She wouldn’t do that, although I will admit that she’s somewhat out of proportion.”

Mildred laughed. “More than somewhat, I’d say. She’s as skinny as a rail except up top, and the only way you get that kind of figure is surgically. But who knows? I guess they could be genetic.”

“I think they are,” I said. “Haven’t you noticed that she always wears open jackets or cardigans, sort of like she wants to make them less, well, outstanding?”

“You may be right. You’d think if she paid out good money, she wouldn’t want to hide them.

“But listen,” Mildred went on, glancing at me, “do you realize that Connie wasn’t brought up even once tonight? I thought she’d be the main topic.”

“I did notice, and I, for one, am glad she wasn’t. To tell the truth, I was afraid somebody had invited her to join us. Thank goodness they didn’t.”

“I wasn’t worried about it.”

“You weren’t?”

“No,” Mildred said, squinching in the dark car as bright headlights flashed across the windshield. “Because I called Sue this afternoon and told her that if Connie was coming, I wasn’t.”

“Oh, Mildred,” I said, laughing, “you didn’t.”

“I certainly did. I know I didn’t exactly exhibit the proper Christmas spirit, but neither did Sue. She said she hadn’t even thought of inviting Connie because she wanted us to enjoy the evening, not be castigated again for our shortcomings. And speaking of that, wasn’t that shortbread good?”

True to my intentions of discounting Connie and the black marks she’d given us, as well as keeping other, more uplifting things foremost in my mind, I was able to put aside the whole miserable mess she’d created. Several days of peaceful routine calmed me down considerably, although I admit that every passing thought of Connie brought out my ill feelings again. It was her arrogance in presuming to lecture us—
me
—that rankled. Who was she to set herself up as our instructor in civic responsibility? We volunteered, we voted, we contributed, we pitched in when need was apparent. And what had she done? Criticized and debased all our efforts, and that was it.

No one, to my knowledge, had ever moved to Abbotsville and immediately set themselves up as judge and jury of everyone in the entire town. And, I mean, doing so before she even
knew
us. It was her assumption of our ignorance while being utterly ignorant of us that irritated me more than anything. What insolence!

“Just ignore it,” Sam counseled as we sat at the table finishing breakfast. “And her. If she wants to organize volunteers, let her. Maybe she’ll do some good. And if she wants to whip the councilmen into shape, let her do that, too. You don’t have to participate. More coffee?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said, holding out my cup. “I know I don’t, and I won’t. But it just galls me that she’s acting as if she’s not a newcomer. Newcomers are supposed to allow us to get to know them gradually, standing back and letting us come to them. Of course, joining a church doesn’t hurt in becoming known around town. But has Connie done that? No, she hasn’t. She believes in
reason,
or maybe
in
energy or something.
But there’s not one thing rational in her behavior. Any normal person would not have done what she did, and, worst of all, I have no doubt that she’s proud of herself for having given us the benefit of her superior knowledge.”

“Just stay out of her way, honey. If she upsets you this much, you should avoid her. From what you say about the reaction of the other ladies, it’s unlikely she’ll be invited to anything you normally attend, so it’ll be easy to do.”

“Yes, probably so. Except it’s so tacky to ask a hostess beforehand who else she’s inviting, then to decline when a particular name is mentioned.” I stirred my coffee absentmindedly. “Of course, do that often enough and hostesses will get the message—it’s either Connie or me, take your pick.”

Sam laughed. “From what you say, not many hostesses will be eager to entertain her.”

“You’re right, and maybe I should set the example. I’ll just not invite her to my annual Christmas tea. Everybody will know that I owe her because I accepted her invitation, and they’ll know I’m deliberately not returning the compliment. And if anybody has the nerve to ask why, I’ll tell them that I’m not in the habit of turning my home into a lecture hall, as some people have done. And hope it gets back to her.”

Sam grinned. “That’ll fix her.”

 • • • 

“On second thought,” I said later that evening, as Sam and I sat in the library in companionable silence with the television turned low and a fire flickering in the fireplace.

“On second thought, what?” Sam asked, lowering the
Abbotsville Times.

“On second thought, I
am
going to invite Connie. I’m going to give her some instructions for a change. Let her see how things should be done, and if she’s as smart as Emma Sue thinks she is, she might learn something.”

“Sounds like a good idea. I think you should. At least,” Sam said with a smile, “you’ll have paid her back for inviting you, and you’ll have no further obligation to her.”

“Exactly. And furthermore, she’s so intent on teaching us how to be ecologically correct, I’ll just teach her how to be
socially
correct.”

“And she couldn’t have a better instructor.”

“That’s right,” I agreed with some complacency, for I knew my way around Abbotsville’s social scene. “I just hope she has the sense to learn from it.”

 • • • 

To that end, quite early the following morning I began making out my invitation list. It wasn’t too soon to make plans—the hectic Christmas season began earlier every year, and the wise hostess had her invitations in the mail a good two weeks or more before the designated date.

Of course, no one ever declined my invitations other than for the direst reasons, like a sudden illness or a scheduled surgery they couldn’t change. Simply having accepted another invitation on the same date never stopped a soul from attending my affairs—if something had to give, it wouldn’t be my invitation. I was justifiably proud of that and made every effort to make my guests happy that they’d chosen correctly.

But this year I was determined that my Christmas party would exceed all previous ones—even as satisfying as they had been in the past. As my list grew longer, I began to think of dividing the guest list into two sections. The first group could be invited from two to three
P.M
., and the second group from three till four. Some overlap could be expected—there always were some who overstayed their time and others who would come early. And some who would simply come early and stay late. Still, it was a way to attempt to accommodate a large crowd.

And with that, I put down my pen and began to think of building a new house, one that would comfortably contain as many guests as Sam and I wanted to entertain. Maybe a house with our bedroom on the first floor. Bedroom
suite,
I mentally corrected myself, and thought of how nice it would be as the years went on to have no stairs to climb.

A small, well-appointed two-bedroom house, I thought as I began to visualize how it would look. Then changed my mind. We’d need three bedrooms—the second one for Lloyd, of course, and the third for guests. No, why not a guesthouse for guests, with Lloyd’s in the main house with ours? And we’d have to have a library, modeled on the one we already had. And a working office for Sam. And an up-to-date, thoroughly modernized kitchen. And, oh, another bedroom for Lillian and Latisha for the nights they spent with us. And, of course, a bathroom for each bedroom.

Then there were what I would call the public rooms—maybe a double living room with facing fireplaces and a dining room large enough for my table to be fully extended, both with plenty of room to receive any number of guests. And a foyer and halls—there would have to be space for that. I just hate dark, narrow hallways, so they should be at least five or so feet wide upstairs and down-, wherever we needed hallways.

How many square feet, I wondered, would a house have to be to accommodate all the rooms I would want? I had no idea. I knew only that if we were to build something, it should be exactly what we wanted. No need to go to the trouble and the expense to end up with anything less.

I sighed, put aside my daydreaming, and picked up my pen. I had a party to give. As I looked at the lengthening guest list, I had an inspiration—not a party but a soiree! Put them on notice right at the beginning that it would be special. Now, of course, I knew that, strictly speaking, a soiree is an evening affair, but I also knew that people in New Orleans called almost everything—morning, noon, or night—a soiree. So what I could do was to change the times to, say, from four to five for the first group and from five to six for the second, which would be close enough to qualify as an evening affair. And if anybody wanted to stay the whole two hours, why, that would be fine, too.

Music,
I thought. A soiree would require background music, and something more than the FM radio or the Christmas tape Lloyd had put together. Then I thought of Sara O’Neill—she played the harp when the Episcopal church had special musical programs, and I’m talking about one of those huge instruments, which required her to wear a long dress so she could straddle it, not one of those mouth organs. Or was I mixing it up with a cello, which I was sure required an unladylike position?

Sara would know how she was to sit, and with her name, she was undoubtedly of Irish descent, and weren’t they great harp players? Or was I stereotyping her? Another thing Connie accused us of doing.

Well, whatever.

The music would be beautiful, all in the background, of course. I wasn’t looking for a recital, where people would have to sit and listen instead of talk and mingle.

But where to put her? Those harps were quite large, and just one of them with Sara next to it would take up a fourth of my living room. The back hall? Maybe close off the kitchen door and stick Sara and her harp back there under the stairs. People would see her as they moved from the living room to the library, where I would put a red felt floor-length cloth over the mahogany desk with another punch bowl on it along with a couple of trays of finger food.

Of course, putting Sara and her harp in the back hall might interfere with access to the downstairs bathroom, which could be a problem with so many ladies in the house. They’d have to go upstairs, which would be fine for everybody except Miss Mattie Freeman, who’d never make the climb in time. I sighed, knowing I couldn’t make it perfect for everyone. Another reason, I thought, with some justifiable pleasure, to consider building a new house.

With a sudden intake of breath it came to me that I might be in the process of falling in with what Connie had recommended—doing away with the old and building the new.

That decided it, right then and there, my old house suited me just fine. I wasn’t in the mood to rehabilitate anything and daydreaming wasn’t getting my soiree planned.

So to get myself back into a party mood, I wrote out “A Christmas Soiree” to see how it would look on an invitation. I liked it, and if Connie Clayborn wasn’t impressed with the way we did things in Abbotsville, she could go back to Boston. Or to Switzerland, which would be even better.