Miss Julia Hits the Road

by Ann B. Ross

  Chapter 37

  Well, there’s not much more to tell, which is just as well as it’s never pleasant or edifying to have your ill-advised choices opened up for public viewing. Still, everything I did was for the good of others, and it all worked out in the long run. Even though I did have to endure a prolonged state of apprehension for dealing with the likes of Clarence Gibbs, who everybody knew looked after number one, first and foremost. Getting in bed with him, as we businesspeople are wont to say, was an unwise choice, to say the least.

  Another dicey decision I’d made was agreeing to get as many “quality ladies,” as Thurlow called us, as I could to participate in the Poker Run. If my friends had known they were asked mainly because they met the age requirement, my name would’ve been stricken from any number of invitation lists.

  Still, it worked out, in spite of Thurlow’s having the nerve to ask Emma Sue, Helen, and LuAnne right to their faces if they were over fifty; I almost had to shake them to get them to admit to it. Not a one of them would ever see sixty again. Well, maybe fifty-eight.

  And agreeing to make that run on a motorcycle? Have you ever heard of anything so untypical of a mature and cautious woman? Even though I came through unmarked and unscathed, my reputation as commentator on all things correct and proper suffered damage from which it still hasn’t recovered. Take the Sunday morning after the Poker Run, while I was still reveling in my triumph, when LuAnne showed up for services in a pair of trousers. When I indicated to her that they were hardly appropriate for formal church services, she’d just gaped at me. Then she said, “You don’t have a whole lot of room to talk, Julia, considering what you showed up in at Red’s yesterday.”

  And you wouldn’t believe the whispers, rumors, and flat-out gossip that have been bouncing around town about me and Thurlow Jones. Ever since the amount of his checks became common knowledge, people have wondered aloud at what I’d been willing to do to get it. It wasn’t enough that I’d risked my neck on two motorcycles, with all the near-misses attendant on each one. Oh, no, there must’ve been something more going on between us. Why else would he hand over that much money?

  I declare, people always have to assign some ulterior motive to every good deed. Believe me, I had not sold Thurlow Jones one thing but, come to think of it, maybe it was a compliment of sorts that people had no trouble believing that my attentions were worth that amount of money.

  So, see, it wasn’t all fun and games, regardless of how Mr. Pickens viewed it, and, yes, I suffered some repercussions from my decision to help others. And if I benefited from it, as did Lillian and her neighbors, who among you would hold it against me?

  After the high point of claiming Thurlow’s checks and of getting into my own clothing that Saturday night, I existed in a state of agitated turmoil until Monday morning rolled around, when I could finally conclude my business with Clarence Gibbs. I was at Binkie’s office thirty minutes early to make sure that Mary Alice had deposited the funds in the bank. Then I had to suffer an untold amount of anxiety waiting for Binkie to show up. All I could think of was that she might be lying in at the hospital, and wouldn’t be able to come to work.

  “If that’s the case,” I told Mary Alice McKinnon, as I paced the floor in Binkie’s reception area, “I’ll just drag Mr. Gibbs up to the delivery floor, and Binkie can arrange my deliverance from him, as well as her own.” I stopped short, coming up against another scary thought. “And where is Mr. Gibbs, anyway? What if he doesn’t come, Mary Alice? What if neither of them gets here? I declare, I’m so nervous, I’m about to jump out of my skin.”

  But then Binkie waddled in, looking tired and overburdened. And who wouldn’t in that condition? As far as I was concerned, that baby could make its appearance just as soon as Binkie completed my transaction.

  “Binkie, honey,” I said, immediately concerned for her well-being. “Get in your office and rest yourself. You don’t look well at all, which isn’t a nice thing to say, I know. But I’m worried about you.”

  “Thanks, Miss Julia,” she said, taking off her coat and going into her office. Mary Alice bustled around with files and folders, ready to help her get set up for the business at hand. “I’m not feeling so well, either. But I want to get this sale closed for you as soon as we can. Is Clarence here yet?”

  And in he walked. Or rather, stormed. Clarence Gibbs was not in a good mood, and he made no effort to hide his unhappy state.

  “You sure that check will clear?” he asked, as he sat hunched over in a client’s chair in front of Binkie’s desk. The bags under his eyes were darker than usual, indicating to me that I’d not been the only one to have a few restless nights.

  “Absolutely sure,” I snapped. “You can call the bank if you need peace of mind. But I tell you right now, Mr. Gibbs, I am not in the habit of bouncing checks, and I resent your implication.”

  “Bid’ness is bid’ness,” he said, so mad that he could hardly bring himself to look at me.

  “Exactly. And if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

  Binkie suppressed a smile as she pushed the forms in front of us for our signatures. He scrawled his name, each time breathing out between his teeth to make sure we knew how much he hated doing it.

  Throughout the signing and notarizing and passing of money, he was not in the least gracious about relinquishing any and all claims to my house or about selling me, as the treasurer of the Willow Lane Fund, the Willow Lane property.

  But the way I looked at it, he’d gambled on the chance of getting both, and he lost both. That’s just the way the cards fell and, if I’d had a mind to question him on the subject of those fat boys, who I was convinced he’d hired, something more than cards might’ve fallen.

  Even though I couldn’t prove a thing, he should’ve counted himself fortunate to walk out unhindered and unharmed, with a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in hand. He had nothing at all to complain about, but of course he didn’t see it that way.

  When our business reached its conclusion to my satisfaction, if not his, I thought to try to lift his spirits. “Mr. Gibbs,” I said, as he prepared to leave. “You should thank your lucky stars that things have worked out this way. What if you’d put an untold amount of money into that water-bottling scheme of yours, and every man in the country came down or blew up or was otherwise incapacitated with the affliction that hit Thurlow Jones? Why, just think of the lawsuits you’d be embroiled in. You should be grateful that we came along and saved you from such a fate.”

  But he couldn’t see it that way, and wouldn’t even shake my hand. I decided I’d never do business with him again.

  “Miss Julia,” Binkie said as soon as Clarence Gibbs took his grudging self off, “would you mind running me over to the hospital? I’m not feeling so good.”

  “My land, Binkie!” I looked at her, seeing the strain around her eyes and the way she held her hands around herself, bending over every now and then. “Is it time? This is not another false alarm, is it? Oh, my goodness. Mary Alice, call Coleman! Tell him we need another escort.”

  I was scrambling around to get our coats and help Binkie out of her chair. “And the doctor. Call him, too,” I called as Mary Alice, looking as scared as I felt, hurried to the phone. “Oh, Binkie, honey, where’re your keys? I walked over here, so I don’t have my car. Oh, I hope I can drive your car. Mary Alice, we need some help in here.” Binkie couldn’t straighten up. I put my arm around her as she shuffled down the hall, all bent over with the pangs of imminent birth.

  “Oh, Lord,” I moaned, thinking how ill-prepared I was to face the facts of life in such a graphic manner. I’d lived this long without becoming intimately acquainted with the details of giving birth, and I didn’t want my ignorance rectified in an attorney’s reception area. “Hold on, Binkie. We’ll get there. Just whatever you do, please, please, don’t have this baby on me.”

  She didn’t. Her little girl was born some eight hours after we got to the hospital. Typical fi
rst baby, which of course I’d known all along. I’d made myself comfortable in the waiting room, but Coleman saw his baby daughter come into the world. They were gracious enough to invite me in to view the proceedings, but I declined. Better that they have the moment to themselves, don’t you know.

  It’s been some days now since the birth, and they still haven’t agreed on a name for that child. Well, Coleman would agree to anything Binkie wanted—that’s the kind of man he is—but it’s Binkie who can’t make up her mind. She had even considered Colleen or Colleena, after Coleman you see, but Hazel Marie said those names reminded her of a country-western song, and I reminded Binkie that a child had to live with its mother’s choice all its life.

  Binkie swore up and down that if it’d been a boy she would’ve named it Harley, in honor of the Poker Run. I didn’t believe her for a minute, but you never know with her.

  Little Lloyd was deeply disappointed at first that it wasn’t a boy. For some reason, he’d gotten into his head that they would’ve named a boy after him. They didn’t disabuse him of the notion, for which I was grateful. But to tell the truth, there were a gracious plenty Wesley Lloyds already around. One dead and buried, of course, and the other, my heart’s delight. I didn’t need any more of them.

  Little Lloyd was still thrilled over my exploits on those motorcycles, especially on Mr. Pickens’s, and he couldn’t stop talking about it. The idea of our riding through the darkening day, racing against time and being escorted by Abbotsville’s finest to turn up just in time to claim the prize and save Willow Lane became the stuff of song for him. He wandered around the house for days reciting “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” except he kept changing it to “The Twilight Ride of Miss Julia,” which, to my ear, lost something in the translation. But then, I’d been putting up with Sam’s painful attempts at poetic utterances, so maybe I was tone deaf by that time.

  While a group of volunteers made plans to refurbish many of the houses on Willow Lane, Lillian and I entertained ourselves by discussing the remodeling of her house, drawing and redrawing floor plans. But it took me forever to get her to that point. At first she wouldn’t have anything to do with it, saying she couldn’t afford to remodel anything. I had to sit her down and explain in no uncertain terms that I had purchased her house from the Willow Lane Fund, and I could do anything I wanted with it. And since she was too proud and high-minded to accept a gift, my plan was to rent it to her at the same rate she’d been paying Clarence Gibbs.

  “But Lillian,” I went on, being as reasonable and businesslike as I knew how, “the thing is, I want to fix it to your specifications. I’ve never lived in a rental house, so I don’t know what needs to go in one. One of these days you may decide to move, and I’ll have to lease it to somebody else. I have to make it rentable, don’t you see?”

  “Yessum, I see what you sayin’. An’ one of these days, I might pass over, an’ that house be for rent again without me movin’.”

  “Exactly. Now, tell me what ought to go in the kitchen.”

  In that way, I was able to find out what she wanted in a place to live. Then I added a few conveniences on my own. I didn’t tell her about those, nor did I tell her that the house would be hers free and clear on the day that I do my own passing over. I just regret that I won’t be around to see how surprised she’ll be.

  Well, Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens—I just don’t know what I’m going to do with those two. Hazel Marie is more and more like a daughter to me but, even so, I am well aware of my limitations as far as expressing opinions or offering advice are concerned. So far, she and Little Lloyd remain with me in my house, although Mr. Pickens is a frequent and well-received visitor. I enjoy him, myself, if only he’d curb that tendency to tease people beyond endurance.

  It was only a day or so ago that he’d sidled up to me and whispered, “Miss Julia, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  “Why, whatever for, Mr. Pickens?”

  “For getting Tammi off my back for good. She’s dropped me like a hot potato and, as I guess you’ve noticed, Hazel Marie is a happier woman for it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have noticed that you two seem to be on much better terms here lately. I’m glad to see it, and I hope that you’ll not jeopardize anything again.” I frowned then, wondering what he was getting at, since I could never tell what was on his mind. “But you can thank Hazel Marie’s sweet nature for overlooking the machinations of such a determined former wife. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Yeah, you did.” He grinned that devilish grin and put his arm around my shoulders. He leaned in close and said, “When you lifted your visor down at Harold’s Esso, and Tammi saw the kind of woman I was consorting with, she knew in a minute that she was outclassed. I think she’s gone into hiding.”

  “Oh, Mr. Pickens, you are so bad about teasing people.”

  “Just you, Miss Julia,” he said, laughing so that his black eyes sparkled, “just you.”

  There’s no telling what will happen between him and Hazel Marie. She says she’s not anxious to move back in with him, although he wants her to and tells her so every chance he gets. But she tells him that she’s waiting to see if any more discarded wives show up on the horizon. It gets away with him something awful, but I’m glad to see that she can hold her own with him. Lord knows, that’s what he needs.

  Chapter 38

  And the man in the Burberry raincoat? I declare, I’d been so leery of him, avoiding him and refusing to speak to him and doing everything I could to keep my distance. I’d thought, well, there’s no telling what I thought, but I’d wanted nothing to do with him, fearing an additional pile of problems. As it turned out, all he was doing was waiting to see who would end up with the Willow Lane property.

  I’d come home from the hospital that Monday, absolutely spent with exhaustion after waiting for Binkie’s baby to arrive, and there he was, sitting in my living room.

  He stood as I walked in, offered his hand, and said, “Mrs. Springer, Jack Nolan’s the name. I hope you don’t mind that your housekeeper let me wait for you here. I told her it was important, even urgent, that I speak with you.”

  Well, I did mind, and I was surprised that Lillian hadn’t sent him packing. Still, he was well-mannered enough, and I had to admit by this time my curiousity had gotten the best of me so I was anxious to hear him out.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Nolan,” I said, right sharply. “And explain what it is that you want from me. But before you go any further, you should know that I have personal friends in the Abbot County Sheriff’s Department, and they won’t take kindly to anyone who gives me any aggravation.”

  He sat somewhat near the edge of my Duncan Phyfe sofa and smiled. Then he handed me a business card. “I represent the Tarheel Fertilizer Company, and our research department is interested in that spring on the Willow Lake property. I take it that you’re the owner of record now?”

  “Why, no, I’m not the owner of record. I am on the Committee to Save Willow Lane, and the treasurer of the fund. As such, I have no authority to discuss that property with you. And even if I were, it’s not for sale.”

  It just flew all over me that everybody and his brother, it seemed like, were all of a sudden wanting that property. It had set there going to wrack and ruin all these years, and nobody cared. And now, just look.

  “Hear me out, Mrs. Springer,” Mr. Nolan said, looking ever so earnest. “We’re not interested in the property itself, just the water from the spring.”

  “Why in the world would you want that, Mr. Nolan? You may not be aware of its pernicious qualities.”

  He hunched forward on the sofa and began to tell me more than I ever wanted to know about fertilizer. “It’s like this, Mrs. Springer: we’ve been experimenting to improve our root-growth products. We already have a dandy fertilizer on the market. Well, that’s what it’s called, Dandy-Gro, and when we heard about that spring, well, I must say it was cause for rejoicing at Tarheel headquarters.”

/>   “Just how did you hear about it? The first victim has barely gotten out of the hospital.”

  “I stay in touch with a lot of local growers and farm supply stores, so I’ve been hearing rumors about that spring for a long time. To tell you the truth, I didn’t give them much credit, but after what happened to Mr. Jones, well, let’s say it’s got our attention now.”

  I certainly didn’t intend to discuss Thurlow Jones’s mishap with a perfect stranger, or with anybody else for that matter. But after witnessing the unseasonable spurt of growth in Lillian’s snowball bush, I thought to myself that the water could be of benefit to the farming community.

  “You realize, don’t you,” I began, “that the water has to be handled carefully. Why, Mr. Nolan, if you overused it, you might have corn and, well, snowball bushes growing like kudzu, just taking over the cities. You couldn’t make it available over the counter, so to speak.”

  “No intention of doing that. Our research department would figure out the right proportions and mix it with our Dandy-Gro Root Enhancement. It could change the way we farm.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a minute,” I said, a number of startling visions springing to mind.

  “So, Mrs. Springer,” he went on, “all we want to do is hook up a pipe, run it through the woods back there, and locate a holding tank where it’d be out of sight. Our trucks would draw it off as we need it, and we’d pay the owners by the gallon.”

  I looked up at the ceiling, considering. “How much?”

  “That, I don’t know. Your people would have to talk with my people but, believe me, Mrs. Springer, if that water’ll do what we think it will, you’ve got a gold mine back there.”

  “All the water would be in a closed system?”