Miss Julia's Marvelous Makeover

by Ann B. Ross

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  “Well, Lillian,” I said, entering the kitchen and pulling out a chair from the table, “she’s gone. Unfortunately, though, not far or long enough. Oh, me,” I went on with a sigh, “I hate feeling that way, but Trixie’s been the most unsatisfactory houseguest we’ve ever had.”

  “She not so bad,” Lillian said, setting down two glasses of tea on the table, and taking a chair herself. “She jus’ don’t know all the ins and outs, an’ I tell you something else, she know she don’t know ’em. So she don’t know what she oughta be doin’, an’ that make her be a little on the snippy side.”

  “I declare, Lillian, you are the most compassionate and forgiving person I know. Trixie has been ruder to you than to anyone else, and she’s been plenty rude to the rest of us.”

  Lillian tasted her tea, then reached for the sugar bowl. “It don’t bother me none, ’cause if people don’t know any better, I know they can’t help theyselves.”

  “Well, let us hope that Hazel Marie can teach her something. But, I declare, I hope she hasn’t bitten off more than she can chew.” I paused, recalling Trixie’s sullen responses to any advice or correction by me. Then I thought of something else. “Oh, and let me tell you what else is going on.” And I proceeded to relate what Trixie had told me about Rodney’s plans for my property, his promise to hire the Binghams, and her intent by way of Hazel Marie’s ministrations to help Rodney make it all come about.

  “Sound like they countin’ they chickens ’fore they hatched,” Lillian said.

  “They certainly are—both in their own way, too. And when Trixie realizes that Hazel Marie can’t work miracles, she’ll be even harder to live with.”

  “I ’spect Miss Hazel Marie send her back if she can’t handle her, an’ if she don’t, Mr. Pickens will.”

  I laughed, as much as I could manage given the circumstances. “You’re right, for one thing he won’t put up with any rudeness to Hazel Marie. Law, Lillian,” I went on as I pictured what his reaction would be to some of Trixie’s more disagreeable moments. “Maybe Mr. Pickens ought to be the one to renovate Trixie. He’d have her straightened out in no time.”

  “I don’t know ’bout that,” Lillian said, a smile curling around her mouth as she thought about it. “He prob’bly not too handy with something like lipstick, ’cept when he smearin’ Miss Hazel Marie’s.”

  Chapter 31

  “Well, let me get up from here,” I said, rising and moving from the table. “I need to be doing something, now that Trixie’s gone. You know, Lillian, when you get down to it, she really didn’t demand a whole lot of time and attention, yet the very fact of her presence in the house weighed on me. I feel as if a burden’s been lifted. Although,” I went on with a wry smile, “there’s no telling when it’ll be right back upstairs hanging over my head again.”

  “You ought not be worryin’ ’bout what happen tomorrow or the next day,” Lillian said, picking up our glasses. “We jus’ got today, an’ we oughta ’preciate our enjoys when we get ’em.”

  “Truer words . . . ,” I started, then stopped at the sound of the front doorbell. “Who could that be? It’s too early for a visitor, even for a Jehovah’s Witness. Oh, my goodness,” I said, suddenly thinking of another possibility. “If it’s Rodney, I’m not at home. You know what he wants, don’t you? He wants me to sell him that property where Etta Mae lives, and I’m not going to do it. But I’m not ready to tell him so—that would really run him off from Trixie.”

  “Yes’m, you tole me. I find out who it is,” Lillian said, moving toward the door to the dining room.

  “If they’re collecting money for something,” I called after her, “we’ve already given, and if they’re selling something, we don’t want any.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lillian said as she left the kitchen.

  I sat back down at the table, waiting for Lillian to get rid of whoever it was. I wasn’t in the mood for company, actually not in the mood for anybody or anything that would disrupt the day that spread out, almost free and clear, before me.

  The only thing on my calendar was a meeting with Sam at campaign headquarters at four o’clock to preview his television ad. After that, I thought, if Lloyd was planning to eat at his mother’s, and if we had a mind to, Sam and I could go out for dinner. Trixie’s absence was proving beneficial in a number of ways.

  “Miss Julia?” Lillian said as she came back into the kitchen. “Somebody callin’ on you.”

  “Somebody who?”

  “Somebody name of Miss Etta Mae,” she said, giving me a pleased smile. Lillian liked Etta Mae. “She in the livin’ room.”

  “Well, for goodness sakes, why didn’t she come on back here?”

  “She say she got business to talk about, so I tole her I get you.” Lillian was better than I when it came to deciding on what was appropriate and what was not. From her viewpoint, business should be conducted in a more formal setting than the kitchen.

  I smiled and went through to the living room. “Etta Mae,” I said, as she stopped pacing and turned toward me. She was wearing one of those modern nurse’s uniforms, consisting of a light blue V-necked tunic over a pair of drawstring pants, along with white sneakers. “It’s so nice to see you. How have you been?”

  “Miss Julia,” she started, her face drawn with anxiety, “I’m sorry for dropping in on you like this. I know it’s early, but I had to be over this way to see a new patient, and I thought, well, it might be the only chance I had to talk to you.” Etta Mae was a licensed practical nurse who worked for the Handy Home Helpers out of Delmont. Her work consisted of making home visits to the elderly and other shut-ins, assisting with baths, minor medical procedures, and light housekeeping.

  “Sit down, Etta Mae. I’m glad to see you. You know you’re welcome to come by anytime you want, no matter the time. Come sit on the sofa with me and tell me how you’ve been.”

  She hesitated, but sat when I did. “I hate to bother you with this, but you did say to let you know when that man came around again. And, Miss Julia, he’s there now, with two other men. I mean, they were there when I left, and I wouldn’t have left but I had to. I had patients I had to get to early this morning, and, well, I couldn’t just hang around all day just watching them.”

  “Of course you couldn’t,” I assured her.

  “I thought of just calling you, but when two of them got these long-handled instrument-looking thingys out of their van and took off through the woods, I thought it’d be better to come tell you directly. If that’s all right.”

  “It’s always all right, Etta Mae. But what’re they doing out there? Was one of them the same man you saw before?”

  She nodded. “He didn’t go with the others, just wandered around, looking at our trailers. I couldn’t see too much. I had to go from one window to the next to keep an eye on him. So when I had to leave, I just went up to him and asked him what he wanted.”

  “Good. You had every right to. What did he say?”

  “Said his name was Mr. Pace, and that he knew the owners, and they wouldn’t mind him looking things over.”

  “He was wrong about that,” I said, feeling more and more outraged at Rodney’s arrogance.

  She nodded again. “I told him I was the manager and that there was a NO SOLICITING sign at the entrance—pretending, you know, that I thought he was selling something door-to-door.”

  “What’d he say to that?”

  “He just sorta smiled and said he wasn’t soliciting, he was counting the trailers and figuring how long it’d take to move them. Then he said not to worry, that he’d give us thirty days’ notice when we had to move, but that’d be all we’d have, so we’d better be looking around for another park.”

  The slow burn that had been simmering below the surface suddenly burst into flame, and I almost blew my stack. “That beats all I’ve ever heard! He had no more right to say su
ch a thing to you than he’d have to say it to me in my own house. Who does he think he is, anyway!”

  “Well, I didn’t know what to think, especially when he said he knew who owned it. But then I didn’t much believe him because he said owners, and I knew there was only one owner. Unless,” she said, looking anxiously at me, “you’ve made some changes.”

  “No changes, Etta Mae—none that I’ve made or that he’s going to make. And,” I said, as the thought of Rodney’s nerve flared up again in my mind, “I am going to put a stop to this presumption. You know, he has not said one word to me about even being interested in that property. All that walking and looking and measuring, and whatever else he’s done, has all been on his own. If it hadn’t been for you and Trixie, I wouldn’t know anything about it.” So then I had to tell Etta Mae about Trixie and the problems I’d had with her, as well as the problems Trixie was having with Rodney.

  “So it’s all tangled together,” I summed up. “Which is the reason I’ve not come down on Rodney before this. I’ve been waiting to see how he’d approach me, thinking for one thing that he wouldn’t have the money to make an offer, and thinking for another that he’d lose interest and find another piece of property. Instead, it’s Trixie that he’s lost interest in, and he’s still after the trailer park.” I sat for a few seconds, thinking over what I should do. “Listen, Etta Mae, here’s the thing. I put off confronting Rodney when I first heard about his interest in the property, hoping, as I said, that he’d get over it, and I didn’t want to create any friction between him and Trixie. But the friction is already there, and it no longer matters if I create a little more. Which is what I aim to do.

  “Etta Mae,” I said, standing up, “when do you get off work today?”

  “I don’t know. It’ll probably take another hour for this patient I have to see. Then I’m supposed to go to the office and do some paperwork.”

  “Can you put off the paperwork?”

  “Sure, I can go in later and do it.”

  “Then,” I said, consulting my watch, “you go on and see your patient. Then, if you’re up for it, I’ll meet you at your trailer in an hour and a half, give or take.”

  “Okay,” she said, standing with an eager look on her face. “What’re we going to do?”

  “What I should’ve done already. I’m going to the hardware store and get some NO TRESPASSING signs. Then you and I are going to put them up all over that property. And the next time Mr. Pace sets foot out there, you’re going to call the sheriff.”

  A familiar, ready-for-action grin spread across her face. “Don’t forget the nails. I’ve got a hammer.”

  Chapter 32

  As soon as Etta Mae left, I headed for our new library and began pulling out the built-in file drawers. With a vague memory of having seen some copies of the plats of several properties that had come to me upon Wesley Lloyd Springer’s demise, I hoped to find the one I was looking for.

  Of course they were all in the lowest drawer, so I got on my knees—knowing full well I’d have trouble getting up—to flip through the folders. Finally finding the one showing the Springer Road property, I struggled to my feet and began to study it. Most useful for my purpose was the drawn outline of the property—I could understand it. It was shaped like a lopsided rectangle, which probably had a specific mathematical name unknown to me, and was bordered by Springer Road on the east and Longview Road on the west. As for the north and the south boundaries, I suspected we’d find nothing but undeveloped, thickly wooded areas which I feared we’d have to traverse on foot. Except, from marks made by the surveyor across both Springer Road and Longview and pretty much following the south border of my property, there had at one time been a railroad track.

  That was interesting, because I knew there were no railroad crossings on those roads. Maybe, I thought, we’d find an old railroad bed once used by loggers, but now abandoned.

  Peering closely at the plat, I tried to interpret the numerous jottings on it, wishing for Sam, who would know in a minute what each one meant. I mean, there were latitudes and longitudes, and apostrophes and commas indicating I-knew-not-what, but most likely had something to do with the size and location of the area. Then I saw 29.9 acres written in blurred ink, apparently by the surveyor, in the upper-right-hand corner of the page. I looked up and smiled. Ha! Not big enough, Rodney.

  His plans for the Hillandale Trailer Park had just been put permanently on hold, and I couldn’t wait to tell him.

  Then I looked closer, trying to make out what looked like a smudge. But, no, it was a faint ink mark that the copying machine had barely picked up. Then it became clear: +/-.

  Plus or minus, that’s what it was, meaning that there could be a little less or—have mercy—a little more than thirty acres. No wonder Rodney had people out there looking around, but with what? They couldn’t have had surveying equipment. No licensed professional surveyor would do so much as set up a tripod without the owner’s permission. So what kind of long-handled instrument-looking thingys could they have had?

  I shrugged it off because it didn’t matter what they were lugging around or whether the acreage was plus or minus thirty, the title was staying right where it was. But I had wanted the property to prove unsuitable, thereby avoiding an uproar when I had to tell Trixie’s beau that I wouldn’t sell if it’d been a hundred acres. I could just see her start sulling up, a slow burn flaming her face, at my selfishly standing between Rodney and his dream of a scattering garden, even though by now it seemed he’d fired her before he’d fully hired her.

  Did I care what Trixie thought? Not really, but on further thought, maybe I did.

  So absorbed in interpreting the surveyor’s marks on the plat, I jumped when Lillian called me to lunch. “Be there in a minute,” I called back. Quickly folding the plat, I put it in my pocketbook and hurried not to the kitchen, but upstairs.

  Not having strolled through any woods recently, I wasn’t sure of the appropriate attire and didn’t have time to give it much thought. I quickly exchanged my Ferragamos for a pair of clunky rubber-soled walking shoes, then grabbed a hat to ward off sunburn.

  Hurrying back down to the kitchen where Lillian was waiting with a ham and tomato sandwich, I started to eat standing up.

  “You better set down an’ eat right,” she scolded. “You make yourself sick, eatin’ like that.”

  “I know, but I’ve got to get to the hardware store, then out to Delmont. Etta Mae will be waiting for me.” Then I had to tell her what we were planning to do.

  She just shook her head. “Why don’t you hire somebody to do that? You and Miss Etta Mae don’t need to be trompin’ through no woods. You gonna get eat up with chiggers an’ redbugs.”

  “I don’t have time to find somebody else. I have to get the signs up before Sam thinks he has to do it, and he certainly doesn’t need to be tromping through the woods. And I want them up so Rodney will take his business elsewhere and stop scaring the residents half to death. For all I know, some of them may already be planning to move.” I swallowed the last bite of sandwich, washed it down with iced tea, then said, “My garden gloves are out in the garage, aren’t they? And didn’t Sam have some nails left over?”

  Rolling her eyes because I was blatantly ignoring her advice, she went to the pantry. “Nails in here where Mr. Sam left ’em after puttin’ up his signs. An’ where you left them gloves las’ time you cut some roses.”

  She handed me a pair of green gardening gloves and a box of nails, shaking her head as she did so. Picking up my sun hat and pocketbook, ready to leave, I said, “Lillian, don’t worry. It won’t take us thirty minutes to get those things up, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Frowning, she put her hands on her hips. “Uh-huh, but I don’t know why ever’body ’round here got to be puttin’ up signs all over the place. Ever’time I turn around somebody pickin’ up a hammer an’ nailin’ something.�
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  I drove as fast as I dared to the Ace Hardware store, not even considering Walmart’s, which would’ve taken me half an hour just to walk to the entrance and another half hour to find what I wanted, much less anybody to help me.

  As soon as I walked into the hardware store, I was met by a clerk who took me straight to the counter where all kinds of signs—FOR LEASE, FOR RENT, FOR SALE, and, finally, NO TRESPASSING and POSTED KEEP OUT—were stacked waiting to be purchased.

  “I’ll take eight of those,” I said, pointing at the last named. “No, let’s do ten—five each of these two. On second thought, maybe I’d better have six of each.” Actually, I had no idea how many signs we’d need. A couple nailed up at the entrance, I thought, then certainly one at each corner of the property, if we could find the stakes. At the thought of searching for stakes on twenty-nine-point-nine acres, plus or minus, I had a sneaking suspicion that keeping Rodney out might take longer and more effort than I’d originally counted on.

  —

  As soon as I pulled up beside Etta Mae’s single-wide, out she came, hammer in hand. She’d changed from her uniform and was now wearing a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, a baseball cap, and, of course, her pointy-toed cowboy boots.

  “Hey, Miss Julia,” she said cheerily, as she crawled onto the front seat beside me. “This is a great idea. He’ll think twice from now on when he sees our signs.”

  Putting the car in reverse, I backed out onto the drive that ran through the park and headed toward the entrance. “I hope so. Is he still wandering around? What about the men who walked off into the woods?”

  “Haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of ’em since I got home. They’re either way back in the woods or they’ve left.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “These signs are going up, and they’d better pay attention to them.”

  I parked where the entrance drive to the park fed onto Springer Road, put on my hat, gathered a couple of signs, the box of nails, and stepped out. “I’ll hold the sign, if you’ll nail it in. We can take turns with the hammer.”