by Ann B. Ross
“Whatever you need,” I said. “And speaking of that, who’s going to ride with whom?”
“Well, as soon as Lloyd learned that Latisha was going, he said he wanted to ride with you and Mr. Sam and her.” Hazel Marie laughed. “Apparently she entertains him better than the twins do.”
“That brings up a problem. I doubt that LuAnne will want to ride with anybody but us, and she may wear a sack over her head even then. She’s been hiding from Sam for the past twenty-four hours as it is. So I was thinking Latisha could go with us—there’s plenty of room in the backseat for the two of them, and LuAnne won’t have to hide her head. Latisha won’t know or care what’s going on with her husband.”
“Well, be prepared for a fuss about that,” Hazel Marie said. “I’m pretty sure she’ll want to ride with Lloyd. We can put them in the third seat back there.” She waved toward the back of the car, I mean bus. Or truck, or whatever it was. “So what about this: we’ll take both children plus the twins, and LuAnne can go with you and Mr. Sam. That way, if you don’t mind, we can fill up the rest of your backseat with baby stuff.”
“That’s fine with me, if it is with Mr. Pickens. He may not appreciate driving what amounts to a school bus.”
Hazel Marie laughed. “Don’t worry about J.D., Miss Julia. He’s pretty well domesticated by now. He can tune out crying, fussing, wet diapers, and you-name-it.”
She took the Abbotsville exit, as visions of an afternoon nap danced in my head. But Hazel Marie had other things on her mind. “I kinda hate to bring this up,” she said, “but is LuAnne going to be hiding from us the whole time we’re there? It could really put a damper on everything if we have to tiptoe around to avoid seeing her. Or her seeing us.”
“Believe me, I know it. But I think when we get down there, she can do whatever she wants and so can everybody else. Which, for me—if she keeps acting like that—will be to just leave her alone.”
“Okay,” she said as she turned onto Polk Street and approached my house. “I just wanted to know what and what not to do. I wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing and make matters worse. I’ll have to warn J.D., too, because the first thing he’d say to her would be, ‘What’s Leonard up to? Didn’t he want to come?’”
“Oh, Lord,” I said, “don’t let him do that! She’d probably tell him exactly what Leonard is up to, and tell it in great detail and we’d never hear the end of it. Believe me, he’d get sick and tired of hearing it. Which is just about where I am, but, Hazel Marie, I do sympathize with her. It’s such an upheaval, you know, of her whole life. As hard as we find it to believe, it’s even harder for her. I mean, she knows even better than we do that he’s not God’s gift to women, so it’s hard to get her head around the idea that somebody thinks he is.”
“I understand,” Hazel Marie said, nodding as she pulled to the curb in front of my house. “Well, here we are. I’ll help you carry things in, and I want to see every one of those outfits on you during the next two weeks.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, smiling, relieved to get off the subject of wandering husbands. Hazel Marie and I had a somewhat unnerving history in which such extramarital gamboling had changed our lives. For the better in the long run, I might add, but it was a subject that we generally stayed away from. So I changed it.
“Hazel Marie,” I said, stopping halfway out of the car, “would you mind calling Binkie and telling her about LuAnne? I mean, so neither she nor Coleman will ask about Leonard?”
“Oh, sure, I’ll do that,” Hazel Marie agreed. “But don’t forget, you have a pedicure appointment this afternoon. You want me to go with you?”
“Thank you, but no. I can manage on my own. No telling what color I’d come out with if you went with me.”
She laughed, gave me a hug, which she was often wont to do, and helped me carry the bags of beachwear and sandals into the house.
—
After crawling up into Janelle’s Spa-Pedicure chair, I was finally able to make up for some of the sleep I’d been missing since 3 a.m. The chair was like a recliner, only higher, more mechanized, and perfectly adjustable to one’s sleep-deprived body. I stretched out on it and gave in to the long, rolling massaging action that ran from the back of my neck to below my knees.
Janelle Woods, who’d been doing my nails for years, was her usual soothing self. “Just lie back and enjoy it, Miss Julia,” she said. And when she lifted one foot after the other and lowered each one into a pan of perfectly heated water, tension oozed out of me from one end to the other.
As my feet soaked, I vaguely heard Janelle ask, “Do you know what color you want?”
“Oh, anything suitable for sandals,” I murmured without opening my eyes. “Something colorful, maybe, that I wouldn’t wear on my fingernails.” And I was out like a light for the following thirty minutes or so.
Take my advice: don’t ever fall asleep while a pedicurist is working on you. I couldn’t believe what I saw when Janelle woke me.
“Purple!” I exclaimed, aghast at the sight.
“Well, not exactly, but kinda,” she said. “Don’t you like it? It’s a favorite OPI color. It’s called Do You Think I’m Tex-y.”
My eyes rolled back in my head, but I didn’t have time to have it changed. At least, I thought as I looked down at my purple-tipped toes, one pair of sandals will cover them, and maybe, very likely in fact, Sam will appreciate the name if not the color.
Chapter 10
After two days of packing, repacking, loading cars, telephoning to check on the other travelers, deciding who was riding where, making sure that Lillian would be cared for, and constantly reassuring and encouraging LuAnne, Sunday morning arrived. With all the planning and preparing we’d been doing, I was more than ready for that good, long rest that Sam had promised if and when we ever got to the beach.
It was, however, somewhat strange and disorienting to be missing Sunday school and church, which is where we could ordinarily be found on most Sundays of the year. Cars of faithful churchgoers were turning in to the parking lot across the street, and I had an urge to run out to explain why we weren’t among them. Still, we so seldom missed being in our usual pew that I felt justified in taking one Sunday off to begin a well-deserved vacation.
Mr. Pickens had come over the evening before and loaded half of our backseat with two suitcases stacked on top of each other, a huge package of diapers on top of them, and a shopping bag full of toys on the floorboard. I had assumed we’d have room in the trunk, but LuAnne seemed to be taking everything she owned.
“I might decide to stay,” she told me. “I might get down there and decide that I can do just fine without Leonard.”
I just nodded, declining to argue or to point out that she was leaving her car in our driveway, as well as what it would cost to stay on even though the season was almost over. She would have no friends nearby, no job, and, if Sam had been correct, little or no money to support herself. But LuAnne was not in any emotional condition to listen to reason, so I nodded again and asked if she wanted to take a pillow with her.
“What do I need a pillow for?” she asked with a sniff. “Half the backseat is taken up with somebody else’s things. I’m going to be cramped up the whole way as it is.”
“No more than anybody else, LuAnne,” I reminded her, refraining from pointing out that she was getting a free vacation even though the ride would be shared with a one-hundred-forty-count package of Huggies that kept sliding off the suitcases.
I declare, between comforting and reassuring both LuAnne and Lillian, I had a good mind to take a Greyhound all by myself. Lillian had come to the house the evening before planning to fry up several chickens for us to take with us. It had been all I could do to talk her out of it.
“We’ll be stopping for lunch in Columbia for barbeque, Lillian. Everybody’s looking forward to it. And really,” I went on, “there’s no room in the cars for
a Styrofoam container full of ice and fried chicken.”
“You might wish you had that chicken when you get to the beach,” she said. “You goin’ to a house that don’t have nothin’ to eat in it.”
“Well, that’s Mr. Pickens’s and Coleman’s problem. They’re in charge of the food.”
“They Lord!” Lillian said, laughing as she threw up her hands. “You depend on them two, you likely be eatin’ b’loney sam’iches.”
I laughed. “You may be right, but they’ll have a mutiny on their hands. Now look, Lillian, I’m going to call you Monday afternoon to see how the surgery went, so if you need anything I want you to tell me. We’ll have three cars among us, so I can be back here in about four hours. And,” I went on, “you have a key to the house, so feel free to use it if you’d be more comfortable here.”
“No’m, Miss Bessie an’ me, we already got our plans, an’ she say she gonna keep me so busy I won’t even miss Latisha.”
“Well, I’ll put Latisha on the phone several times as we check on you. And, Lillian, we’ll take care of her, don’t you worry about that. How’s she doing, anyway, now that we’re almost ready to go?” My fear was that Latisha, once it really sank in that Lillian wouldn’t be going, would back out at the last minute.
“Oh, she so excited, she want to know why you can’t go tonight ’stead of tomorrow. She already over at Miss Hazel Marie’s, ’cause when Mr. Pickens come by an’ say it easier to pack the car tonight, an’ he say why don’t Latisha spend the night at their house, she jump in his car without hardly sayin’ ‘’Bye, Granny, see you later.’”
In an effort to distract her from missing Latisha before Latisha was even gone, I changed the subject. “Now, Lillian, remember that all you have to do is present your insurance card at the hospital when you get there. It will cover everything, including your surgeon and so forth. There should be no extra charges at all, and if there are, I’ll speak to the insurance company myself.”
Actually I was pleased that she was finally getting to use her insurance. I’d been paying the premiums for years, so it was high time she got some good out of it.
—
Sam, eager to start the vacation that he’d arranged, swung out of bed at five o’clock Sunday morning. I moaned and turned over, dreading the long drive before us. Of course I couldn’t go back to sleep—Sam was too excited for me to dawdle in bed. He wanted me to be up and just as thrilled as he was, so I crawled out of bed and began to try.
To my amazement, LuAnne was already up, dressed, and sitting at the table drinking coffee when I got to the kitchen.
“Goodness,” I said, as she was not known to be an early riser. “What are you doing up so early?”
“I have something to do before we leave.” She turned her cup around in the saucer without looking at me.
Oh, me, I thought, what’s she up to now? Deciding not to ask for specifics, I poured coffee for myself, took a seat at the table, and waited for LuAnne to tell me. Because she would, sooner or later.
Sam came bustling in, stopped at the sight of us sitting silently at the table. “Anybody cooking anything?”
“Not yet,” I said, putting off the effort to get up and do it. “I will in a minute, but it’s still early.”
“Well, don’t. I’ll get us some sausage biscuits. Then we won’t have to clean the kitchen.”
“Oh, that’s good. Thank you, Sam. I’ll try to be awake by the time you get back.”
He laughed, gave me a quick kiss, and left for McDonald’s.
As we heard the car crank up, LuAnne looked at me with tear-filled eyes. “You’re so lucky, Julia.”
“Believe me, I know it. I sometimes wonder how I’m so fortunate as to have both Lloyd and Sam.”
“And a few million dollars, too,” LuAnne said with an edge of sharpness. “Don’t leave that out.”
LuAnne was not basically an envious woman, but every once in a while she couldn’t help herself. I figured most of her resentment was aimed at Leonard for being a poor provider rather than at those of us in better financial situations. But I couldn’t let her remark pass unnoticed.
“I do leave that out, because I didn’t get it through luck. I earned every cent of it, LuAnne. You think you have it bad with Leonard, well, if you’d lived for forty-some-odd years with a man like Wesley Lloyd Springer, you’d know what bad is.” Actually, I’d gotten hotter about it than I’d intended, but the idea that I’d sat complacently by while good luck in the form of financial assets drifted down around me just irked me no end.
LuAnne quickly backtracked as she always did when she overstepped. “I didn’t mean it that way, Julia. I guess I should be glad that Leonard hasn’t fathered a child. At least,” she amended, jerking upright, “not that I know of. Surely he hasn’t. You don’t think he has, do you, Julia?”
“No,” I said, comforting her with a pat on the arm. “I think the woman who called you would’ve told you. And, by the way, LuAnne, what did she sound like? Old? Young? Could you tell?”
LuAnne shook her head. “No, she whispered like she was making herself sound hoarse. But you’re right, Julia. I think she would’ve told me just to throw it in my face. But I’ll tell you one thing, I could never do what you did about Lloyd. However,” she said, standing, “that’s neither here nor there. I have to run home before we leave. I won’t be long.”
“You’re going back? Why?”
“There’re a few things I forgot. And, who knows? It might be my last time ever.” She set her cup and saucer in the sink, picked up her purse, and started out the door.
“Well, hurry back,” I said, refraining from arguing with her. “Sam wants to be on the road no later than ten.”
—
It was nine forty-nine Sunday morning, and we’d eaten sausage biscuits; Sam had checked all the windows and doors of the house, reset the thermostat, made sure everything was turned off, packed last-minute odds and ends into the car; and instead of being in our pew in the church across the street, we were waiting on the front porch for LuAnne to get back. Coleman had called thirty minutes before, saying that they were leaving and would see us at lunch in Columbia. Hazel Marie had called right after that to say they were heading out as well. And still no sign of LuAnne.
Turning to Sam, I asked, “What if they all get to the beach before we do? Will they have to wait on us?”
“I figured we might get separated, so I called the rental office. They’ll give Pickens and Coleman keys if they get there before we do. Which looks highly likely.”
“Well, I don’t know what to do, Sam,” I said, feeling that I had to apologize for my tardy friend. “I’ve called and called, and nobody answers. I hope she hasn’t had an accident. You think we should drive up there?”
“No, we might miss her coming or going. Don’t worry about it, honey. She’ll show up and we’ll be on our way.”
“Well, I’m going to have to go to the bathroom again if she doesn’t soon get here.”
My kindhearted, easygoing husband laughed, even though I knew he was anxious to get on the road. He checked his fancy latest release in cell phones and said, “Here’s a text from Lloyd. He says they’re almost down the mountain and looking forward to barbeque for lunch.”
“Text him back, if you will, and ask how Latisha’s doing.”
He did, then read me the response. “He says, ‘Latisha bouncing, twins throwing up, Mama mopping up, J.D. laughing.’” Sam stopped, then said, “Uh-oh, didn’t know he knew that.”
“What? What does he say?”
“He ends it with ‘snafu.’” Sam laughed. “I guess that sums it up fairly well.” Then he told me what snafu meant, somewhat freely translated, I suspected.
Before I could react to Lloyd’s shocking knowledge of army code, LuAnne drove up and parked in the drive. “Here she is,” I said, rising. “At last.”
I rolled my eyes just a little, although by this time I wasn’t averse to another trip. Sam unlocked the front door for us, and we hurried to the hall bathroom.
“Wait, Julia,” LuAnne said, holding me back. “I’m not in that much of a hurry. It took me a while, but I want you to see what I found.”
“Leonard wasn’t there?” I stared at her, picturing her rummaging through everything in their house for the past two hours, looking, I supposed, for evidence. As if she needed further proof after Leonard’s admission.
“No, he’s probably in church, the old hypocrite. But look at this.”
LuAnne reached into the grocery bag, pulled out a handful of black mesh, and held it out for me to see.
“A hairnet?” I asked, frowning.
“That’s what I thought! You can’t imagine what went through my mind at finding a hairnet. But look.”
“Oh, my word!” I gasped, as LuAnne, with thumb and one finger, gingerly shook out, then dangled in front of my face a familiar shape made of black net and lace. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It most certainly is. A pair of black lace step-ins and it was in Leonard’s shaving kit, would you believe? It’s the one place in the whole house that I never clean or replenish. I mean, why would I? He never goes anywhere. But there this thing was, all wadded up next to his razor and his Mennen’s shaving cream.”
“I don’t suppose they’re yours, are they?”
“Absolutely not! In the first place, I don’t wear black underwear, and I certainly don’t wear that size!”
They were spacious, all right, and I found myself marveling at Leonard’s taste in women.
