Miss Julia's Marvelous Makeover (17 page)

It was too late in the day to be visiting anybody, so I put off seeing Mildred until the morrow. Supper was a hurried affair that evening since Sam had a meeting to go to, and Lloyd seemed to have something on his mind, and Trixie was even more sullen than usual. Rodney must've been busy with an inconvenient funeral.

When both Sam and Lillian left, I sat alone in the library trying to plan my approach to Mildred. If she turned me down, I didn't know what I would do—decide that Sam and I didn't have a friend in the world, I guessed. All I could think of was
just wait until they want something from me.

“Miss Julia?” Lloyd came into the library, walked over to my chair, and said, “I need some advice.”

“Well,” I said with a smile, “you've come to the right place. What can I do for you?”

“It's like this,” he said, sitting on the ottoman next to my chair. He looked so serious that I regretted my first flippant response to him. “I don't think I'm ever going to grow. I'm just always going to be smaller and shorter and skinnier than everybody else, and I don't like it. It looks like I'm going to be like this for the rest of my life.”

“Oh, I hardly think that. You just haven't reached your growth yet. But don't worry—you will. Boys seem to lag behind girls in that respect, but about the time you're fifteen or sixteen, you're going to have a growth spurt. I've seen it happen a million times.”

“That's a long time to wait while everybody else is growing. You know what the tennis coach told me? He said my form was good, but I don't have enough power behind my strokes, and, Miss Julia, I hit that ball as hard as I can. And sometimes it just dinks across the net. It's pretty discouraging.”

“I expect it would be. But surely with all your practicing, you'll get better and better.” I stopped, almost patting his shoulder until I realized that would be patronizing his feelings. I thought of reminding him that his father had been a small man who had made some unfortunate compensations which Lloyd should avoid, then realized that bringing up hereditary characteristics would offer no comfort. He knew that his mother was a tiny woman, which had probably already convinced him that he had no hope of increasing his stature or his strength. “But, Lloyd,” I went on, “the people who do the best in life are those with great moral character and excellent minds, and you have an abundance of both. You don't need to take a backseat to any big, brawny specimens who tower over you.”

“I don't 'specially want to be big and brawny. I'd be happy with just half the muscles that Trixie has.”

“I expect she'd trade with you. But, seriously, Lloyd, she's in the fitness business, so she might be able to help you build up your muscles.”

He ducked his head and grinned. “I don't know about that. I'd be afraid she'd outdo me. But, Miss Julia, here's what I was thinking. I'm thinking of asking Miss Lillian to get me some of those protein drinks. See, they're supposed to build muscles, though I don't guess they'll add anything to my height. But do you think that'd be all right?”

I thought about it. I thought about all those growth hormones they give chickens and cows and bicycle racers, and shivered at the thought of Lloyd being pumped full of who-knew-what just to make over his physique. “I don't know, Lloyd. That could be dangerous to your health.”

“No, ma'am, they're not. They're just protein with nothing else added. I wouldn't drink any kind of drugs or anything.”

“Then I'll tell you what you should do. Talk to Mr. Pickens, I mean, your father.” I had to correct myself, for Mr. Pickens had adopted Lloyd, and it was to him that the child should look, without any reference to the scrawny excuse for a man who'd engendered him. “He's a big man and he was an athlete of some kind when he
was young. I expect he'll know exactly what's safe and healthy for you to do.”

“You know,” Lloyd said, looking up almost in surprise that he'd overlooked the fact that he now had a father to whom he could turn, “I think I will. Thanks, Miss Julia, that's what I'll do. I'm going over there right now. He's home, and all he's doing is reading the paper.”

And off he went, confident now that he had a source for masculine advice, and I, too, was confident of the same. If Mr. Pickens didn't know about manly matters, I didn't know who would.

—

After Lloyd left for his mother's house, I glanced at my watch wondering how late Sam would be. The afternoon had lengthened into twilight, one of those long, soft summer evenings that made me think I should be outside walking and enjoying it. Instead, I sat in the library and gave some thought to adding a back porch to the house, a place to be outside without really being out. Maybe a patio even, where we could eat occasionally, something that would engage Sam in its planning and construction in case he lost the election.

I shook myself for such negative thinking, but I knew I had to be realistic and be prepared for every contingency.

“Hey.”

The abrupt greeting startled me. I looked over my shoulder to see Trixie edging around the sofa as she slid into the room.

“Why, Trixie,” I said, hiding my surprise. “Come join me. I was getting lonesome down here by myself.”

“Me, too.”

“It's a lonely evening, isn't it, with everybody gone. Sit down and let's talk. Or would you rather watch television?”

“It's all reruns.” But she sat, surprising me again, for she had up to this point avoided my company whenever she could.

Wracking my brain for a comfortable subject on which to converse, I made a stab at one that I knew she was interested in. “Tell me about Rodney. How did you two meet?”

“We matched up.”

“Matched up? How did that happen?”

“Just . . . ,” she said, shrugging. “I don't know, just matched. You know, our profiles. Rodney said that was because it was meant to be.”

So, I thought, the match had been made in cyberspace just as Lloyd suspected.

“Well, that sounds serious,” I said lightly, not wanting to put her off since she was so easily put. Yet at the same time, I felt she was heading for a great disppointment and wanted to prepare her for it.

Trixie gave me a glowering look, and I feared she was about to walk out. Almost anything I said to her was taken in the wrong way—she kept me so on edge that I hardly wanted to open my mouth around her.

But she lifted her shoulders and said, “We're serious, all right.”

“Well, Trixie, I don't want to throw cold water, but it's awfully fast to be that serious. I'm thinking of your grandmother now, and I know she'd remind you that you and Rodney barely know each other.”

“I know all I need to know, and Meemaw would tell me the same thing. We're going into business together just as soon as Rodney builds his funeral home. And he's already found the land he wants, so it won't be long now. And Rodney said he'd hire Meemaw to keep the casket room stocked and Pawpaw to look after the grounds, so we'd all be together.”

I was struck dumb, almost. “Here? In Abbotsville?”

She nodded as if having Elsie and Troy Bingham in the same town in which I lived was the most normal thing in the world. But not for me, it wasn't.

“Rodney said,” Trixie went on, quoting the oracle again, “that the land he wants is not on the market yet, but he knows how to make a deal. You just offer enough money and you can buy anything you want.

“Anyway,” Trixie went on, as she sat slumped over, not looking
at me even as she spoke, “none of it can come about 'til he gets that property. That's all that's holdin' him up.”

“I imagine so,” I said indifferently, because that wasn't all that was holding him up—there was the matter of getting investors willing to risk their money. “People are generally leery about committing financially to an enterprise that's only in the dreaming stage.”

“It's more'n just dreamin',” Trixie assured me. “Rodney's already lined up somebody to back him. All he has to do now is go out there and walk the property. You know, measure it and such to make sure it's big enough for what he wants.”

“Oh, really?” I asked, raising my eyebrows as I wondered who in the world could be Rodney's silent partner. “All that and it's not even for sale?”

“He'll get it. One way or the other, 'cause he says if you want something bad enough, you'll get it.”

“Well,” I said, my mouth tightening, “just wanting is not always enough. And you might remind Rodney that taking such liberties with someone else's property could be misinterpreted.”

She cut her eyes quickly at me, then just as quickly looked away. Then she suddenly stood up. “I got to go to bed.” And off she went without a good night or a kiss my foot.

What was that all about?
I wondered, unless it was to let me know that Rodney intended to present me with an offer to purchase. Yet neither she nor Rodney seemed to know who owned the property, and maybe, I suddenly realized, Rodney was looking at an entirely different plot of land—one that had nothing to do with me.

But regardless of where the property was located or who owned it, the thought of the Binghams moving to Abbotsville was enough to make me ill. If they were a part of Rodney's plans, I wouldn't sell even if my property was on the market, which it wasn't.

Maybe, I thought, sitting up straight, I should find out exactly which property Rodney was interested in and, if it wasn't mine, buy it out from under him just to keep the Binghams in Florida.
Of course, he'd just look for another location, so I'd have to keep going behind him, which meant I'd be buying up property piecemeal all over the county.

Maybe I'd eventually run him—and them—out of the state.

The telephone rang then, loud enough in the quiet house to jangle my nerves. Hoping that it wasn't Sam saying he'd be later than expected, I answered it.

“Miss Julia? It's Etta Mae,” Etta Mae Wiggins said, her voice stretched tight and thin.

“Why, Etta Mae, how are you?”

“Not so good. Miss Julia, I didn't know you were going to sell the trailer park, and we're all worried sick about where we'll go.”

“Sell the trailer park?” My hand tightened on the receiver as I held it. “No, Etta Mae, no, I'm not selling it. Where did you hear such a thing?”

“Well, there was a man out here today with a tape measure. He drove up in a fancy black SUV and walked all over the place, looking at everything and measuring it, and he told us we ought to be looking for a new place for our trailers because he was buying it to put a cemetery on it. Or in it.”

That confirmation just flew all over me, and it was all I could do to hold myself together. “I know exactly who that was, Etta Mae, and he has no right to even be on the property, much less to tell you you'll have to move. That land is not for sale, and I have no plans to put it up for sale—not as long as you are there, anyway.”

And I meant that. Etta Mae Wiggins had proved over and over to be a stalwart friend. We were nowhere near the same age, nor were we of the same background, yet we thought alike and we were both willing to risk life and limb for the other. She had demonstrated that over and over in our several escapades of the past—often, I admit, at my urging, but still, she was always willing. She and I had gotten off to a poor start, mainly because she had a reputation for a certain amount of looseness in her dealings with men, some of whom she'd married and some she hadn't. I'd had little use for her at the time, especially because she seemed
to have eyes for Sam, but that had been before I'd gotten to know her kind and needy heart. All she wanted from life was to be somebody, somebody respected for her innate decency and intrepid spirit—and she had found it in me. Why, what would I have done without her help in chasing jewel thieves or detaching the statue from the courthouse dome or rescuing Mr. Pickens from the clutches of a misinformed sheriff?

I could count on Etta Mae Wiggins, and had, in fact, made her the manager of the trailer park, reducing her rent, and paying her a minimal wage to keep the place up, and she was doing an excellent job. She'd gotten rid of the riffraff, kept the area free of litter, and markedly cut down on the number of domestic complaint calls to the Abbot County Sheriff's Department. As long as Etta Mae wanted to live at the Hillandale Trailer Park, it was going to be there for her.

So, if Rodney Pace expected to buy that land just because he wanted it, he was going to have to lower his expectations. And deal with me while doing so.

“Etta Mae,” I said, picking up our conversation, “you don't have anything to worry about, and you can tell all the other residents out there that
I
said so. Just go on about your business, and let me handle this. I'll put a stop to it in short order, but if you see that man out there again, let me know. I'll have him arrested for trespassing.”