Miss Julia Meets Her Match (25 page)

“Have a seat, LuAnne. No, just tired. Getting ready for the reception, you know. Would you like some coffee?”

“I can’t think about coffee or anything else at a time like this. Let me get myself together.” She took a seat on the sofa, as well as a few deep breaths, and went on. “Well, first off, have you heard that Curtis Maxwell might invite Emma Sue and the pastor to his beach house? They’re going in his plane just as soon as the theme park is up and running. Is that not the most exciting thing you’ve ever heard? But, listen, that’s nothing compared to what else I have to tell you.”

“I do wish you’d stop going to Velma’s so much, LuAnne. It just swarms with gossip and, frankly, I don’t want to hear anymore about that woman.”

“What woman?”

“The
Mooney
woman, the one you’ve already told me about.”

“Oh,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “It’s nothing to do with her.”

“Oh, Lord, LuAnne,” I moaned, holding my head, “don’t tell me another of Wesley Lloyd’s ladyfriends has popped up. I don’t think I could stand it.”

“No, nothing like that. This is about you.”

“
Me?
What’ve I done?”

“Well, Julia, you know I don’t like to carry tales,” she said, as I did all I could to keep my eyes from rolling back in my head. “And I wouldn’t do it for anybody but you, even though Leonard made me promise not to tell anybody. But everybody’s going to know sooner or later, and I think you ought to know sooner than that.”

I couldn’t imagine what LuAnne’s husband would know that needed to be kept secret. Actually, I couldn’t imagine that Leonard would know anything, secret or not.

“What in the world is it? I’m doing nothing I haven’t been doing for years.”

“Well, but that’s it. People are talking about you and you wouldn’t believe the kind of speculation that’s going around. Some of it’s pretty funny, although you know I wouldn’t laugh, but it’s gotten so bad that the pastor and the session think something has to be done.” She began wringing her hands, her eyes darting around the room in her agitation. “That’s how I found out about it. Leonard’s on the session, you know, and they’ve agreed that Pastor Ledbetter should go ahead and do it.”

“Do what? Quit beating around the bush, LuAnne, and tell me what it is I’m supposed to be doing, and what the session has to do with it.”

“Now, you know I don’t really believe it. I know you, Julia, and I’m convinced everything is on the up and up. But you have to admit that it doesn’t look good. Appearances, you know.”

I could’ve strangled her by this time, but I took a deep breath and glared at her until she looked everywhere but at me. I put some grit in my voice and said, “I have not done one thing that I’m ashamed of. Whatever you’ve heard is slander, pure and simple.”

“Well, I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but it
looks
true, because it’s about you and Sam.”

I stiffened in my chair. “What about me and Sam?”

“Well, they’re saying that he’s over here early and late, and who knows when he goes home, and that what you’re doing is unbecoming to a big churchgoer like you. Now, far be it from me to sit in judgment, but it does look suspicious. For those whose minds work that way, that is. See, Julia, the session is concerned about how shameful it is for you to carry on that way, then come to church and Sunday school acting all innocent and everything.”

I came out of my chair like a shot. “I
am
innocent! And, furthermore, LuAnne Conover, I’ll have you know that what I do or don’t do is nobody’s business but my own. And Sam’s.” I paced back and forth, just so disturbed I could hardly stand it. “Everybody knows that Sam and I have been friends for years, and that’s
all
we are. Don’t people have anything better to do than meddle in the business of two honest and upright people like us? And discuss it in a session meeting! I tell you, LuAnne, Sam and I conduct ourselves in the most prudent manner possible. Why, we don’t even sit together in church. How do people come up with such ugly talk?”

“I believe you, Julia,” LuAnne said, somewhat tentatively. “I know you wouldn’t do anything you shouldn’t, but you have to admit that you and Sam have been awfully tight lately.”

I turned on her. “Can’t two respectable people keep company without the church getting in on it? I am just sick and tired of having to put up with gossip every time I turn around. And for no reason whatsoever.”

She cut her eyes up at me, then said, “Well, everybody thinks you’re all but married already, so why don’t you go ahead and do it. That’d stop the talk.”

I threw up my hands. “Of all the foolish reasons to get married, that one takes the cake.” Then I leaned down and looked her straight in the eye. “I will get married
when,
and
if,
I want to, and not one minute before. And that minute is not here by a long shot, and I certainly don’t aim to do it to please a bunch of gossiping busybodies on the session or anywhere else, none of whom can bear inspection, themselves. And you can tell all those people who have nothing more to do than talk about other people who live spotless,
spotless,
lives, that I said so!”

“I didn’t mean to set you off, Julia,” LuAnne said as she pushed back in her seat, getting as far away from me as she could. “I just thought you ought to know about it before Pastor Ledbetter censures you. In front of the whole congregation, which he said he might have to do.”

I stared at her, my mouth falling open, so stunned that my mind went blank for a few seconds. Then it came back full force.

“Censure me! For
what?
LuAnne, do you mean to tell me that he intends to denounce Sam and me in front of the whole congregation? For being
friends!
”

“Oh, Julia, I know,” she wailed. “It is just awful, and I am sick about it. But it’s not Sam and you. It’s just you.”

I whirled around, nearly stumbling in my agitation. “Just
me?
You mean Sam and I are supposed to be engaging in sinful acts, but I’m the one who’s going to be blamed for it!”

“Well, you know the pastor takes the position that it’s the woman who has to hold the line, and he doesn’t think you have.”

“That is pure defamation of character! How could he!” I turned back to her, my whole body quivering with the insult to my good name and the offense to every living woman. “What is he going on? Rumor? Gossip? How can he blame just me if what I’m supposed to be doing is being done with Sam! How can he do this!”

“Don’t get so upset, Julia,” LuAnne said, although she had begun crying in sympathy for the public exposure I was about to undergo. “You’ll do yourself some damage if you keep on that way.” She wiped her face and collected herself. “All I can tell you is what Leonard told me. Pastor Ledbetter says that when a member is involved in an immorality that becomes public knowledge—like the talk about you—then a formal reproof has to be issued. You know, like a court martial in church. I guess it’s a reprimand, kind of, and a warning to be more circumspect in the future.”

“Circumspect! That’s what I already am!”

“I know you are, Julia. It’s just that so much talk has come to the pastor’s attention that he feels it necessary to deal with the scandal so that it won’t become flagrant and of a continuing nature. That’s what Leonard said the Book of Church Order says. He says you’re supposed to cease and desist.”

“And how,” I demanded, “am I supposed to cease and desist when I haven’t done anything to cease and desist
from?
What am I supposed to do? Get married for the sake of some old biddies? Or tell Sam to keep his distance so nobody’ll get any salacious ideas? Am I supposed to cut myself off from the best friend I’ve ever had just to keep the preacher happy? Is that it?”

“That kind of hurts my feelings, Julia,” she said. “I thought I was your best friend, but I know you’re upset and I probably shouldn’t’ve said anything, except I’d want to be warned, if it was me, so I could either stay home that Sunday or be sure to wear something nice. But you have to understand that the pastor can’t ignore all those stories about how you’re living in sin, and all the while looking down your nose at other people. Well, halfway in sin, since Sam’s not actually living here.” She paused. “Is he?”

By that time, I was so outraged that it was all I could do to hold myself together, I was shaking so. “No, he is not!
But Pastor Ledbetter?
” I shrieked. “That man dares to judge me? After what he’s done?” Suddenly, Emma Sue’s threat to report the pastor to the presbytery seemed an apt and fitting solution. It had, in fact, a certain retributive appeal. After all, he was in the process of condemning me for doing the exact same thing that Emma Sue thought he was doing. Only I hadn’t, and he probably had.

My anger at the nerve of the man settled down to a smoldering fire, as my eyes squinched together and my fists tightened up so hard I thought they’d never come undone.

LuAnne sat up, her eyes lighting up. “What, Julia? What’s he done? You can tell me. I won’t tell anybody.”

I glanced down at her, paying little mind to her eagerness to know. “Let’s just say he has no room to talk. Especially when it comes to the kind of thing he’s accusing me of.”

Her mouth fell open and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “No!
Really,
Julia? Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe this. Wait till I tell Leonard.” She was all a-twitter with the juiciness of it. “But isn’t that the way it always is? The ones who claim the high moral ground are bad to fall themselves, and hard, too.”

“LuAnne, you’ve never said a truer word. That’s exactly what’s going to happen to Pastor Ledbetter. He’s going to be exposed for everybody to see what he is—a hypocrite mired up to his neck in the sins of the flesh. He’ll think twice about holding me up for public condemnation by the time I’m through with him.”

I finally got LuAnne on her way, in spite of the fact that she wanted to stay and discuss, dissect, and dig into every aspect of what she’d told me and of what I’d told her. I admit to having a few qualms for spilling the beans about my suspicion that the pastor had fallen from grace with Norma within the confines of his office and possibly during the previous night, but there come times when you have to fight fire with fire. And, in my opinion, this was one of them.

My head was spinning, and it was all I could do to hold myself together as I stomped back and forth across the living room floor. The electrifying news that I might be publicly excoriated shook me so bad that I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Even Mr. Pickens and Monique Mooney and the check I would have to write slipped to second place for a while.

I took another turn around the living room. It wasn’t
my
fault that Sam couldn’t keep his hands to himself, although how anyone could know about that was a mystery to me.

I rubbed my hands down my face, not caring if it loosened the skin, as Hazel Marie’s magazines said it would. I was itching to get my hands on Pastor Larry Ledbetter and tell him that for his information I was the one who’d drawn the line and kept Sam on the other side of it. But do you think I was getting credit for managing my affairs in such an honorable way? No, I was not.

I leaned against the back of my chair, thinking of how I’d led my life in the most commendable manner, yet here I was being laughed at and whispered about. But what made me so mad I could hardly see straight was that I was being accused of something I’d not even had the benefit of. I mean, if you have to suffer the consequences of an imputed act, it seems to me that you ought to at least have had the enjoyment of it.

The phone rang just as I’d taken myself upstairs. I snatched it up, hoping it was Mr. Pickens, but expecting to hear another report about my assumed misbehavior, and answered it sharply.

“Did I get you at a bad time?” It was Emma Sue, so I calmed myself down and assured her that she had not. “Did you see the newspaper today?”

“Just the headlines. Why, what’s in it?” I asked, almost dreading to hear the answer.

“What we did,” she whispered. “It was in the Police Notes.”

“Our
names!
”

“No, just that they answered an alarm at Norma’s address. And that no entry had been made, and no suspects were apprehended. It didn’t say a thing about looking for fingerprints. I think we may be safe, Julia.”

I let the
we
pass, for I hadn’t touched a thing that belonged to Norma and had felt fairly safe all along.

“Now, Julia,” she went on, “I want to ask you not to tell anybody what we did. Larry was at the hospital all that time, praying in the chapel. Which was why I couldn’t reach him. I was wrong to suspect him, and I’ve asked God to forgive me.”

“I’m glad, Emma Sue,” I said, all too willing to forget that perilous night. “Life is so much easier without the burden of suspicion weighing you down.” Emma Sue lived by platitudes.

“Yes, and I feel so much better now that I’ve given that burden to the Lord. I want to please him and my husband, so since neither of them approve of cosmetics, I’ve given them up for good. As you might have noticed.”

“Whatever you think, Emma Sue,” I said, although I was sorry to hear it, for properly applied cosmetics had done her a world of good.

“Yes, I’ve turned it all over to the Lord, though I think I ought to keep an eye on Larry, just in case. Don’t you?”

After getting away from Emma Sue, the problem I was having with the pastor made me even more indignant. He might have authority over his wife, telling her what she could do and not do, but he had none over me. So I took myself off to Sam’s house, intent on pouring out my troubles and seeing what he could do about them.

I found him in the yard along the side of his house, raking up winter debris and spreading mulch. He stopped and smiled his great, welcoming smile when I walked up.

“Julia!” he said, as if I were just the one he’d been hoping to see. He wiped his sweating face with a handkerchief and took my arm. “Let’s go up on the porch. I can’t think of a better reason to quit work than to talk with you.”