by Ann B. Ross
Well, sitting around thinking about it wasn’t getting it done. So I got my black canvas bag and a grocery sack out of the backseat, took a deep breath, and headed for the door.
I knocked as usual but, not as usual, waited for Emmett to come to the door. He knew the days I came, so he was always in the kitchen waiting for me, and I’d give a courtesy knock and go on in. But with that brushed gold Seville sitting out there, I waited this time till he came to the door.
“Hi, Emmett,” I said, bright and cheery, in spite of the agitation I felt.
He nodded, cut his eyes to the side like somebody was listening and taking notes, and said, “Mornin’, Miss Etta.”
Emmett had been with Mr. Howard for as long as anybody could remember, even before the first Mrs. Connard, Senior, passed. Black as a licorice stick and just as wiry, and as much of a gentleman as Mr. Howard himself. He wasn’t much bigger than me, but he was strong enough to get Mr. Howard in and out of bed, and do for him whatever needed to be done, like dressing and shaving and the like. On top of that, Emmett kept the house up, vacuuming, dusting, and so forth, doing the things that a maid had done years ago. He’d been hired as the cook and general handyman when he first came, but now with no woman around and Mr. Howard practically on his last legs, he did it all. He lived in a couple of rooms over the garage, but here lately he’d been sleeping in the house in case Mr. Howard needed help during the night. Like with getting up to relieve himself, which he couldn’t do by himself without the risk of falling and breaking a hip, which you always have to watch out for when it comes to senior citizens. He was weak on the left side, you know, from the strokes.
Since Mr. Howard had been laid up and needing the Handy Home Helpers, I’d offered to come over every now and again on my own time to give Emmett some time off, which, I liked to think, made him think kindly of me. I never pass up an opportunity to make a friend, since you never know when or where you might need one. Those were the times I’d bundle Mr. Howard up and take him for a drive for a change of scene. We’d drive around Delmont, then up on the Parkway, all the time talking about the views of the Smoky Mountains and the new people moving in who were bringing changes that neither of us liked. We’d almost always stop at the Dairy Queen and get a vanilla cone. It was the highlight of our time together.
That was when Mr. Howard and I got to know each other so well.
“How is he this morning?” I asked as usual, pretending I didn’t suspect that Junior was lurking and listening to every word.
Emmett stood in the doorway, not exactly blocking it but not so that I could breeze in like I usually did.
“Uh, Miss Etta,” he began, his old face lined with misery. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I got my ’structions. Mr. Junior, he say Mr. Howard don’t need no more nursin’, and I supposed to tell you don’t come here no more.”
Well, that just did it. Junior Connard didn’t have the nerve to tell me to my face. And a good thing, too, because it flew all over me. I might’ve slapped him cross-eyed if he’d been standing there.
“Well,” I said, trying hard to keep my professional aspect, in spite of the steam that was about to blow my top off. I knew Junior had to be nearby, listening to what he couldn’t bring himself to do. Maybe hoping I’d pitch a fit so he’d feel justified in firing me.
And it was all I could do to keep from pitching one that would stunt his growth and curl his hair. If he had any left to curl.
I hadn’t intended for Junior or anybody else to hear about our marital plans until they were a fate accomplished, but wouldn’t you know somebody would let the cat out of the bag. I had a pretty good idea who it was, too. I’d only told one person, which I did before I could help myself. Lord knows poor Mr. Howard couldn’t tell, since nobody but Emmett and me could understand him, the way his strokes had left him. But you can’t keep a secret in this town. Somebody, and I knew who, had called Junior and told him he’d better get out of Raleigh and take a hand here before that Wiggins woman took his daddy for all he was worth.
So you might know Junior’d come running as soon as he heard the news. A loving son, you might say, worried about his daddy and wanting to save him from a gold digger. Ha, is all I have to say. That overgrown boy, pushing fifty and then some if he was a day, hadn’t given one thought to his daddy for years. Sent him a crate of half-ripe pears at Christmas and a sorry-looking tie for his birthday. Didn’t come see him, didn’t write, didn’t do anything but play golf and live off his trust fund. Not that I much blamed him, though, if what I’d heard was true. Everybody said that Mr. Howard had been a hard man in his prime, not caring who he stepped on or whose feelings he hurt. A lot of rich, powerful men are like that, you know, until old age or sickness lays them low; then their attitude changes in a hurry.
But I’d never seen the other side of Mr. Howard, because by the time I came to know him, he was just a shadow of his former self and as sweet as he could be. That’s what a couple of strokes will do for you.
Now, what I thought Junior ought to’ve done was get on my good side. I’m not a greedy person nor a selfish one, and from all I’d heard, there was plenty to go around. He ought to’ve thanked his lucky stars that I’d come along—a trained and experienced home health care specialist to lighten his burden and make his daddy’s old age a happier time than the old man’d ever had, bar none.
But none of this meant a thing under the present urgent circumstances, and I had to come up with something to keep our plans on track. I tapped my foot and looked off in the distance for a minute, trying to maintain my temper and handle the situation to my best advantage.
I mean, I was Mr. Howard’s intended and that gave me a certain entry. On the other hand, I had a job to do and a contract that confirmed it.
So I smiled at Emmett, like it didn’t matter to me one way or the other. It did, but one thing I’d learned was if you can’t get what you want one way, there’s always another. If you’re smart enough to find it, and not let anybody know you’re looking for it. So while my brain went into overdrive, figuring out what I could do next, I smiled some more.
“That’s fine, Emmett,” I said, just as businesslike and professional as I could be. Let Junior chew on that awhile. “I must’ve missed your message at the office, so I’ll just go on to the next shut-in on my list. But I did pick up Mr. Howard’s Metamucil and I brought him a bottle of prune juice. You might try him with a little of that and see what happens. Tell him I stopped by, and say hey to Junior for me. I heard he was trying to lose some of that weight, but the way I heard it, he’s losing more hair than pounds.”
And knowing that Junior was listening, I added, “Don’t tell him I said that. See you later, Emmett, have a good one.”
I went back to my car, fuming inside, but not giving away a thing to anybody who might’ve been watching. Needing time to get myself together before trying to drive, what with my trembling hands and boiling insides, I took out my record book and propped it on the steering wheel. I pretended to jot down notes of my visit, as Lurline makes us do, so Junior and Emmett wouldn’t wonder why I was just sitting there.
What I wanted to do, though, was put my head back and howl. Every time, every time, I thought things were about to go my way, some awful thing rose up and put me back down. This time it was Junior trying to ruin the best chance I’d ever had.
But what he didn’t know, I told myself as I scribbled damn, damn, damn on my record book, was that I was through being put down, shoved around, fired without cause, and treated like trash. What he didn’t know was that he was tangling with a woman who wasn’t going to be stopped this time.
Chapter 2
But first things first, and the first thing I was going to do was cook Lurline Corn’s goose. So I put away my record book, cranked the car, and drove down the driveway, looking straight ahead with my nose in the air like I didn’t have a worry in the world, in spite of the rumblin
g muffler and the cloud of black smoke trailing behind me.
Junior Connard might think he could get rid of me as easy as that, but he didn’t know Etta Mae Wiggins.
As soon as I got to the end of the driveway, I turned up the country music station I kept my radio on, stomped the gas pedal, and shot out into the street—so mad I could’ve spit. Scraped the tailpipe on the curb, too. I didn’t care. I hunched over the wheel, getting madder and madder. Lurline was going to regret the day she tried to cross me.
I’d thought she was my friend. I’d worked hard for her, always taking on the worst of our clients, the ones that the other girls couldn’t or wouldn’t handle. I’d increased her business and made money for her, and what did I get? A piddling twenty-five-cents-an-hour raise and a twenty-five-dollar bonus last Christmas. And she’d bought a new Mercury Cougar for herself, all the time moaning about the cost of overhead and how she didn’t know how she was able to stay in business. Well, I could tell her that. She was able to stay in business because she had people like me doing the dirty work while she sat in an office making out deposit slips.
The thought of it made me grip the wheel harder and stomp on the gas, billboards and speed limit signs flashing by. All I could think of was Lurline’s prissy self trying to run my personal business as well as her own.
And that hair! A woman in her fifties, which she’d never admit to being, just oughtn’t use anything darker than Clairol number 120, Natural Dark Brown. But you couldn’t tell her anything. Except, today, she was going to hear it from me.
I’d confided in her, thinking she’d wish me well. But no, she couldn’t stand for anybody to better themselves. I should’ve had my head examined for telling her about me and Mr. Howard. I should’ve known she’d go behind my back and try to do me in. Why, I just bet she’d been on the phone to Junior as soon as I got out of her office, my heart singing with the joy of a future as the second Mrs. Howard Connard, Senior.
Oh, dang and double-dang!
Blue lights flashing in my rearview mirror. My foot came off the gas—instinct, you know—and I turned the radio down, hoping the cop car would swing past me on its way to somewhere else. But no, it slowed down with me and I saw an arm motioning out the window for me to pull over. This had to be my worst bad-luck day.
Slowing, I brought the car to rest on the shoulder. I held on to the steering wheel with both hands, my head hanging down between my arms. Other cars passed by, the drivers slowing down to crane their necks at my misfortune. I sat there avoiding their eyes and wondering what else could go wrong on this awful day. I couldn’t afford a speeding ticket. I couldn’t take time off from work to go to court, and it wouldn’t do any good if I did. Lord, I was about to cry until I raised my head and looked in the side-view mirror.
He was climbing out of the patrol car, all six foot two inches and one hundred ninety pounds of him fitting into that dark blue deputy’s uniform like it’d been handmade for him. I’d never been sure of what sauntering meant exactly, until I saw Bobby Lee Moser do some of it. I watched him fit his hat carefully on his head, worried about messing up that thick head of hair he was so proud of. Vain as a peacock. He reached back into his car and brought out a ticket book, then he sauntered over to my window, grinning like he was God’s gift to every woman in the world.
Well, at one time I’d thought he was.
By the time he got to my car and leaned down to look in my window, the grin was gone. I couldn’t see his eyes because of those black aviator shades that made him look hard as nails and just as cold.
“Ma’am,” he said, just as serious and impersonal as he could get, overlooking the fact, I guess, that I knew how he looked with his pants off. “Do you know you were doing sixty in a forty-five zone? I could have your license for that. Now, where you going in such a hurry?”
“Bobby Lee,” I said, “I don’t have time to mess with you. Just give me a ticket and let me go. Or, better yet,” I said, cocking my head and giving him a sweet smile, reminding him of times past, “why don’t you just give me a warning? I promise to slow down, and besides, I’ve never gotten a speeding ticket before and you wouldn’t want to ruin my record, would you?”
“Etta Mae,” he said, dropping his voice in that bedroomy way he had, “I thought I’d already ruined your record, but seems to me you might need another session. I think we ought to get together sometime soon, don’t you?”
“In your dreams, Bobby Lee,” I snapped. “Now, I’ve got business to tend to, and I don’t have time to fiddle with you. So just give me whatever kind of ticket you’re going to give me and let me get on with it.”
“Well,” he said, squatting down beside my car so that his face was right next to mine. He rested one arm on the car door so that the short sleeve of his uniform hiked up enough for me to see part of the Airborne tattoo on his huge bicep. He knew that turned me on. “What I usually do in cases like this is take the suspect back to my car and give her a good talking-to. I don’t know that I can just turn you loose so easy. Have to make sure you’re not going to go off and be speeding again.”
I could tell, in spite of not being able to see his eyes, that they were sparkling the way they used to do when he’d try to make me mad. He’d rather tease me than eat, and that was just one of the things that kept breaking us up over the years, the last and final time being just a few months back. I’m too serious a person to put up with that kind of foolishness for long. Having fun was all he could think about, and having fun was way down on my list of life’s little necessities.
“Bobby Lee, I promise. I won’t speed again, not even if you’re lying somewhere bleeding to death and I’m the only one who can get to you. I’ll observe the speed limit every step of the way. Now, please, I’ve got to go. My whole life depends on what I do today, and I’ve got to get on with it.”
He ran his finger across my arm and frowned. “You in trouble, Etta Mae?”
“No, I’m not in trouble. I just have business to take care of. So just do what you have to, and let me go.”
He took off his shades, giving me the full benefit of his dark eyes, and said, “Give me time. I’m thinking. So, tell me, how’s Granny these days?”
“Granny’s fine, thanks for asking, but she’s not on my mind right this minute.”
He grinned. “Want to know what’s on my mind right this minute?”
“No, I do not, and don’t tell me.”
“Come on now, girl, I was just thinking about seeing Granny walking along the side of the road the other day. I offered her a ride, but she said she’d see me in hell first.”
I had to laugh, though I hated giving in to it. “She’s a pistol, all right.”
“I ride by there a coupla times when I’m on night patrol in that sector. Watch out for her a little. She still keep that shotgun by her bed?”
“Oh, yeah, and I wouldn’t shine the spotlight on her house, if I were you. She’ll shoot it out for you.” It made me weak to think of him taking special care of Granny. He used to do that for me, too, until I reported him. “Thanks for watching out for her.”
“Glad to do it, but don’t tell her it’s me. She’d fill me with buckshot some night. That lady can sure carry a grudge.” Then he leaned his head in close and said, “Just like you, darlin’. When’re you gonna get over being mad at me?”
“Never, and I don’t want to talk about it. Now, do what you have to do. I have to go.”
He studied me for a long minute, while I pretended it didn’t bother me. Him being so close, and all. Then he said, “Okay, it’ll be a warning this time, but remember, I’m keeping my eye on you from here on out. Just think of me as Big Brother, watching over you all the time.”
“Big boob is more like it.”
“You always did have a mouth on you,” he said, smiling with his eyes half closed as they traveled from my face to my waist. “Not that I’m complaining. I
like a woman who can give as good as she takes.”
“You just like a woman, period, Bobby Lee Moser.” Darla Davis came to mind, and it took an effort of will to keep my professional cool. “But I thank you for the warning. Now, if you’ll stop hanging on my car, I’ll be on my way.”
He stood up, tipped his hat at me, and said, “Give me a call sometime. I been missing you.”
I looked back in the rearview mirror as I pulled onto the road. I saw him laugh and shake his head, then walk back to his car. While I was still watching him, Trisha Yearwood came on the radio singing “There Goes My Baby.” I almost sprained my wrist switching her off. That man could get to me like nobody else, keeping me on edge and about half excited every time I was around him. The problem was, he did it to every woman he met. Bobby Lee and I had been off and on more times than I could count, and it’d usually been his flirty ways that’d turned me off. I’m the jealous type, and I couldn’t put up with all the women he drew like flies to honey. I swear, the man would hit on a holly bush if he thought it was female.
Thank the Lord I wouldn’t have to worry about Mr. Howard in that regard. When you’ve got a man in a wheelchair or stumbling around on a walker, you pretty much know where he is and what he’s doing every minute of the day.
Chapter 3
I pulled into the back lot of the square white house that Lurline rented for her business. It was just a four-room, one-bath milltown house like all the others on a side street in downtown Delmont.
