Miss Julia Hits the Road

by Ann B. Ross

  I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, so I searched my pocketbook for a Kleenex. I felt so foolish and bereft and, well, homeless.

  “It’s all right, Miss Julia,” Little Lloyd said, coming over to stand beside me. “We’ll take care of you, won’t we, Mama?”

  “You bet we will,” Hazel Marie said with such fierceness that we all turned and stared at her. “And the first thing we’re going to do is get Miss Julia across the finish line. And I mean on time, too.”

  She turned to Mr. Pickens. “J. D., you’re going to take her in. Sam, you and Lloyd’ll stay here with me while we wait for Red. It won’t matter if we don’t finish. Well, J. D.,” she said, her hands on her hips. “What’re you waiting for? Put a fire under it, and get Miss Julia on the road.”

  “Oh,” I gasped, trying to take in her meaning. “But he doesn’t have a sidecar. Can we switch this one?”

  “No time for that,” Mr. Pickens said, springing to his feet, now that a plan was afoot. “Hop on, and let’s ride.”

  I wasn’t able to do much hopping, even in the best of circumstances, and these certainly didn’t apply. “Hazel Marie?” I said, tremulously. “I don’t think I can ride on the back of that thing.”

  “Yes, you can, and yes, you will. Now, come on.” My word, but she was bent on getting that check in my hands.

  “But I’ve got on a dress,” I reminded her. “It’ll be flying up over my head the way Mr. Pickens drives.”

  “Yes,” she said, giving it some thought for a change. “And you’ll freeze to death. Come on, let’s go to the ladies’ room. J. D., you have that thing fired up by the time we get back.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, giving her a little salute. Then he went to look over his motorcycle, belatedly realizing that it might’ve fallen into criminal hands, too.

  Hazel Marie practically dragged me into the convenience store and through the aisles to the ladies’ room. The man behind the counter called after us, “Y’all got trouble?”

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” Hazel Marie answered without stopping.

  She shoved me into the tiny room and mashed herself in behind me. When she closed the door, I thought I’d suffocate in the cramped space.

  “Come out of that dress,” she ordered as she threw her leather jacket on the toilet seat. Which was closed, thank goodness. Then she peeled out of her turtleneck sweater.

  “Hurry, Miss Julia,” she urged, unzipping her leather pants. “Get your dress off.”

  “Hazel Marie,” I said as she bounced on one foot and stripped one leg of her pants off. Her elbow jabbed me as I mindlessly began unbuttoning my dress. “What are we doing?”

  “We’re changing clothes,” she said, pulling off the other pants leg. “Or ex-changing them. Gimme that dress. Hurry.”

  “You know I can’t wear your clothes,” I said as she pulled my dress down my shoulders. “I’m two sizes bigger than you.”

  “They’ll fit,” she said through clenched teeth. “We’ll make ’em fit. Step out of this thing.”

  I did, one foot at a time, as she jerked my dress out from under me. I stood there in my slip, stunned at the thought of inserting myself in those leather trousers.

  Hazel Marie wasn’t quite in a state of nakedness, having worn thermal underwear, but she was close enough. She threw my dress over her head and began buttoning it up. Then she tied on the belt and looked down to where her motorcycle boots peeked out under the hem of my dress.

  “Let me have your slip,” she said, reaching down and jerking it over my head, leaving me embarrassingly exposed. She wadded up the slip and stuffed it into my pocketbook. “I’ll keep your purse for you. You can’t hold onto it and J. D., too. Oh, but first, where’s your card? You need to keep that with you. Now, get this sweater on.” She pulled the sweater over my head. “Now, the pants.”

  Well, I’d put myself in her hands thus far, so I sat on the commode, removed my oxfords, and worked the pants over my feet. I never in this world thought I’d see the day I would, willingly and with aforethought, put on such a garment.

  “Pull ’em up,” she commanded. “They’ll stretch a little.” So I commenced pulling, while she knelt on the filthy floor and smoothed the leather up over my calves. We managed to get the material over my knees, where it bunched up and stopped. We’d hit a snag.

  “Hazel Marie,” I groaned. “It’s no use. They’ll never go over my hips.”

  “Yes, they will,” she said, biting her lip, as determined as I’d ever seen her. “I’ll pull the front and you pull from the back.”

  And so we did. I squirmed and wiggled, while Hazel Marie wheezed and grunted with the effort of getting the things to a fitting place.

  “Good enough,” she said, taking the one step back that there was room for. “Whew, it’s hot in here. Hurry, and let’s go.”

  “I can’t go like this!” I wailed. “Look, they won’t zip up, much less button at the waist. Hazel Marie, they’re not even up to my hipbone.”

  “Put your coat on,” she said, as she shrugged into her leather jacket. “And button it up. Nobody’ll know the difference. We’ll meet back at Red’s and change again.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I moaned, feeling wrapped and bound. “This is just awful. I can hardly move, they’re so tight and so . . . so unfitting.”

  She ignored me and knelt on the floor again. “Lift up your foot so I can get your shoes on.”

  “Thank you, Hazel Marie,” I said, holding onto the sink with one hand and her shoulder with the other to keep from falling. “I couldn’t bend over if my life depended on it.”

  She opened the bathroom door and stepped out. I clasped my coat together and began the mincing steps that were all I was capable of making.

  “Wait, Hazel Marie,” I said in a loud whisper. “Where can I put my card? I’m afraid it’ll fall out of my coat pocket.”

  “In your bra. Here, let me help.” She unbuttoned my coat and pulled up the sweater right there beside the Quaker State motor oil. “Slide it in. It’ll be safe.”

  We started through the store again—one of us in a leather jacket and a dress that practically scraped the floor, and the other in a winter coat, leather leggings, and lace-up oxfords. If we weren’t a sight, I didn’t know what would be.

  Hazel Marie banged through the door, yelling, “J. D., you better be ready, we’re coming!”

  I sidled out after her, coming to a stop at the top of the three steps to the ground. Lord, I was so bound at the place where my limbs needed freedom of movement that I didn’t see how I could get down them.

  “Hazel Marie,” I quavered.

  She came back and took my arm. “Step down sideways, Miss Julia. You can make it.” I did, but it was hardly the most graceful descent I’d ever made.

  I leaned over and whispered, “They’re sliding off, Hazel Marie. They’re inching down every time I move.”

  She motioned for Mr. Pickens to bring his bike closer and, as he did, she crammed my helmet on and pulled my coat closer. “You’ll be fine. Once you’re on the seat, they’ll stay put.”

  Sam was yelling something to Mr. Pickens over the noise of the motor, telling him we’d meet up at Red’s and not to endanger anything on his way. “Julia,” Sam said, coming around to my side, “let me help you on.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I said, turning away. “Hazel Marie, don’t let him see me in this get-up.”

  “He can’t see a thing,” she said. “Put your foot on this peg, then hold onto J. D. and swing on up.”

  I tried, but the bunched-up leather wouldn’t let my lower limbs separate enough to do any swinging. To my everlasting embarrassment, it took Sam, Hazel Marie, and Little Lloyd to lift me up and set me down on the seat behind Mr. Pickens. Mr. Pickens’s eyebrows had arisen when I first appeared at the top of the steps, and by now they seemed to be stuck permanently in that position.

  Sam stepped back and surveyed the way I was perched on the backseat. They’d plopped me on the seat so that I en
ded up sitting as prim as you please with my knees together, poking Mr. Pickens in the back. I knew my inflexibility concerned Sam, but I hoped he wouldn’t mention it. I wasn’t in the mood for explanations of a delicate nature.

  Little Lloyd wasn’t as tactful. He said, “You need to straddle it, Miss Julia.”

  I looked helplessly at Hazel Marie and she came to the rescue. “Give me your army knife, J. D.” He didn’t argue, just scrambled around in a storage compartment and pulled out a wicked-looking blade.

  He handed it to her, saying, “Careful. It’s sharp.”

  “That’s why I want it,” she said as he nearly twisted his head off, holding the handlebars steady, while turning to see what she aimed to do. She reached under my coat and came at me with the knife.

  “Hazel Marie!” I gasped, my eyes on the knife as it approached a dangerous intersection.

  “Mama!” Little Lloyd cried. “Don’t cut Miss Julia!”

  “What the hell are you doing?” Mr. Pickens said, amazement in his voice at the sight of mild-mannered Hazel Marie wielding a knife.

  Sam was too awestruck to protest, which was just as well, for Hazel Marie paid no attention to any of us.

  She grabbed a handful of leather where it’d slid down and bunched around my lower hips, then she sawed and sliced until I experienced a loosening of the bonds. “There,” she said, reaching around and jerking the pants up so that they stayed up and might have even buttoned, if I’d had a mind to try.

  Hazel Marie finished by tucking the sides of my coat under each leg, where I hoped it would stay, else everybody was going to get a glimpse of Christmas from the new opening she’d cut in her prized leather pants.

  I was as settled as I’d ever be then, so I tapped Mr. Pickens on the shoulder, and called out, “What time is it?”

  “It’s after four,” Mr. Pickens shouted, revving and rocking the motorcycle so that I had to clutch at him. “We gotta roll. You ready?”

  “Ready!” I yelled back, thinking, Lord, I hope so.

  I had every intention of waving as we left, but Mr. Pickens’s machine took off with such a surge of power that I had to clasp my arms around his chest and bury my helmeted head against his back. We roared out onto the highway, slicing through wisps of fog in the diminishing light, the ends of my coat flapping in the breeze, and began eating up the miles.

  Chapter 34

  There was no talking en route on Mr. Pickens’s cycle, since his helmet wasn’t wired for sound, but that was all right with me. We were going so fast and my perch was so precarious that I had no heart for engaging in conversation. Believe me, this ride was considerably different than the one in Sam’s sidecar. For one thing, Mr. Pickens was hunched over the handlebars, and I had my arms around him so tight that I was all but riding on his back. And for another thing, we were mortally flying—trees, fences, side roads, and the occasional barn flipping past in a blur.

  The two-lane highway that we continued on took us down and around one mountain after another. We’d go into steep, curving declines, Mr. Pickens leaning into the curve—me along with him—with the sound of the motor whining and echoing from both sides. My breath caught in my throat so many times, I thought I was going to strangle myself.

  Once or twice we passed some high country pastures opening out from the roadsides, so that I could see a few scudding clouds across the lowering sky. There was still some daylight when we weren’t enclosed by thick stands of trees, but there wouldn’t be for long. Lord, it’d be five o’clock any minute. One part of me wanted to urge Mr. Pickens to hurry, but another part already had the living daylights scared out of it. As we leaned into an s-curve, the motor screaming between the mountainsides and me screaming inside my helmet, I caught sight of a lone headlight behind us.

  When we hit a short, straight stretch, I risked patting Mr. Pickens’s shoulder, then pointed with my thumb up beside his face toward the rear. I didn’t want to distract him from holding us on the road, but he needed to know that someone was following us. He nodded his head and put on more speed, which I hadn’t thought possible. Lord, the man could drive, or ride, or whatever he was doing.

  Other than the one movement to warn him of impending danger, I don’t think I moved an inch the whole twelve miles to the next stop. I feared I’d unbalance the vehicle, and we’d go flipping and skidding across the pavement, down an embankment to mire up at the bottom of a ravine, where not even the Mountain Rescue Squad could find us. Hazel Marie would never forgive me.

  Mr. Pickens began nodding his head, so I lifted mine to peek over his shoulder. There, some little distance in front of us, I could see the cloud cover reflecting the lights of Abbotsville. We were almost there, thank the Lord. Recalling the map that Little Lloyd had shown me, I knew we’d be entering from the south side and would make a stop at Harold’s Full-Service Esso Station for our final card drawing. Then we’d have to motor through Abbotsville, down Main Street, and out onto the Delmont Highway for about eight more miles to Red’s Stop, Shop and Eat.

  Maybe, just maybe, we would make it in time.

  As we got closer to Abbotsville, traffic began to pick up, which would only get worse since it was Saturday evening, when everybody came to town. I wish somebody would tell me what kind of pleasure people take in cruising up and down Main Street, but I knew the high-schoolers would be out, cars would be stacked up out into the street by the drive-ins, and pedestrians would take their time ambling from one sidewalk to another. At the thought of the impediments to come, I just about lost all heart.

  But not Mr. Pickens, for he began weaving in and out between slow-moving cars, passing on the left when he could, and on the right when he couldn’t. Then he turned so fast and so sharply into Harold’s Full-Service Esso that the edge of his foot pedal scraped against the pavement, scaring me to death. Mr. Pickens skidded us to a stop between the gas pumps and the door of the station, and let the motor idle.

  He lifted his visor as I turned loose of him and straightened up. “You doing all right?” And without waiting for an answer, blew his horn and called out, “Harold, get your sorry self out here!”

  Lord, I’d forgotten what we’d have to put up with in Harold, the slowest human under the sun. The only reason he was still in business was because his was the last station in town where you could have your gas pumped and your windshield cleaned without getting out of the car. He said he didn’t believe in self-service, but it took him half an hour to tell you why. I’d never lingered to hear it all. The only customers he had left were old ladies who didn’t know how to pump their own, and didn’t want to learn.

  Harold came strolling out the door, dressed in his usual grease-covered coveralls, his hair hanging down over his glasses and a welcoming smile on his face. He was just as pleasant and helpful as he could be, if you could put up with him.

  “Where’s the deck, man?” Mr. Pickens said, both of us taking note of Harold’s empty hands. “Give us a card, so we can get out of here.”

  Harold stopped, looked us over, and finally drawled, “Thought there wouldn’t be any more of you. Everybody else’s been and gone.”

  “Yeah,” Mr. Pickens said. “That’s why we’re in a hurry. How ’bout that deck of cards?”

  Harold lifted a hand, nodded his head, and finally turned to go back inside. “Got ’em under the cash register.”

  “Oh, me, Mr. Pickens,” I said, having opened my helmet for a little air. “He’s so slow I can hardly stand it.”

  “Hold on. He’s coming.”

  Anxious to see him moving, I leaned down to peer through the station’s window. My heart thumped as I saw the large clock hung up on the wall. Almost twenty of five, and even as I watched, the big hand ticked off another minute. Harold had barely rounded the counter. It was all I could do to hold myself in check.

  Finally he ambled out to us, smiling as he held out the deck but, as I reached for a card, he pulled back. “Better shuffle ’em.”

  He awkwardly shuffled the cards,
while my hand was left hanging in midair. “Hurry up, Harold,” I urged, wondering why in the world the Poker Run’s organizers had made his station one of our stops. I intended to lodge a protest, if I ever got back to Red’s.

  “Here you go,” Harold said in his unhurried way. He tried to fan the deck out, but the cards were all bunched together.

  I reached for a card again, but he pulled them back. “Whoops,” he said. “Better fix ’em better’n that.”

  “Just give me a card, Harold, any card,” I said, so agitated by this time that I could’ve snatched the whole deck from him. Watching him as he continued to fumble around just about sent me over the edge. “If you don’t let me have a card right now, Harold Cox, I’m coming off this thing and thrashing you to within an inch of your life!”

  “It’s all right,” he said, not at all offended by my threat. “I got it this time. Here you go.” He fanned the deck with a flourish. And dropped every last one of them.

  It was all I could do not to shriek in despair, and even Mr. Pickens had had enough. He revved the motor and rocked the cycle on its brakes, then leaned down and picked up a card from the ground.

  “The three of spades, Miss Julia,” he said and dropped it. “Get him to initial your scorecard, and let’s get out of here.”

  I’d already surreptiously recovered my card from my secret hiding place, so I grabbed Harold’s arm and in no uncertain terms said, “Sign here.”

  “Sure thing. Just let me get a pencil.” And unbelievably, he turned to go back into the station.

  Mr. Pickens nearly came off the cycle reaching for him. He snagged Harold’s coveralls and dragged him beside us. “Use this,” he ordered, and stuck a ballpoint pen from somewhere in his jacket into Harold’s hand. With his tongue stuck out, Harold laboriously wrote in the three of spades and his full name. I snatched the scorecard from him and, in my anxiety, stuck it back in my brassiere without giving a thought to the public exposure.

  Mr. Pickens put one foot on a pedal and prepared to take us out of there, for which I was so thankful I could’ve cried.