by Ann B. Ross
He ran down the back stairs to help with her luggage and soon they both came in, Lloyd with her battered suitcase and Etta Mae with a glowing smile on her face.
Hazel Marie and Binkie welcomed her with enthusiasm, while the children stood back and watched. Coleman and Mr. Pickens smiled at her, but restrained themselves from the hugs and kisses their wives were giving her. Surprisingly, LuAnne took it upon herself to lead Etta Mae up the stairs to the room they would share.
“We won’t be but a minute,” she said. “We’ll just wash our hands.” Etta Mae, I assumed, would want to do more than that after her long drive.
“Well, hurry up,” Mr. Pickens said with a smile. I assumed that he’d had the same thought as I had. “We’re about to starve.”
—
We had to wait only about fifteen minutes before being led to a table on a screened porch at the back of the seafood house. It was worth the wait because we looked right out over the inlet where the shrimp boats were coming in for the evening. The little girls were entranced and, to tell the truth, so were the rest of us.
I had arranged to sit next to Etta Mae, wanting to make her feel comfortable and part of the group. While waiting for our orders, I asked about her trip.
“Oh, it was fine,” she said, her eyes shining with the wonder of the late evening light on the water and the muscled men working on the boats. “I didn’t have any trouble at all, but there sure was a lot of traffic.”
“I think it’s that way on Fridays every week of the summer,” I said. “People coming down for the weekend. But how did the funeral go?”
“Well,” Etta Mae said, frowning, “I guess it was as good as funerals get. I mean, it made me sad like they always do. I’m really going to miss her. She’d been my patient for almost two years, you know.”
“Yes, I remember.” I decided not to bring up that particular patient’s promise to leave something in her will to Etta Mae. It was fairly obvious that the woman had not kept her promise and, even though Etta Mae was the least avaricious person I knew, I also knew that she couldn’t help but be disappointed. I mean, when somebody promises something, they ought to either follow through or else not bring up the subject at all.
After eating enough fried fish, shrimp, crab, and scallops to raise the cholesterol count of everybody at the table, we shuffled out to our cars and headed back to the big yellow house. Latisha was sound asleep in our backseat by the time we got there, so she had to be walked up the stairs and put to bed. Coleman had Little Gracie over his shoulder because she, too, was out like a light.
The twins were just as sleepy, but were fighting it for all they were worth. Mr. Pickens carried them both in, and I don’t know which of the three was the most grumpy. Hazel Marie was her usual serene self, following them into the bedrooms on the far side of the house and, I assume, putting the three of them to bed.
LuAnne, Etta Mae, and I sat up for an hour or so, letting our dinners settle. It was pleasant to just talk about nothing much between yawns, and especially pleasing to me that LuAnne had not objected to having a roommate. I’d fully expected to hear some complaints from her about sharing a room, especially with Etta Mae. LuAnne could on occasion feel just a little superior to those whom she considered beneath her in the social scheme of things. And ordinarily, Etta Mae would have qualified.
But perhaps, I mused, LuAnne was getting lonely. Granted, Leonard was not what I’d call good company, but she was probably used to having him around, even with his attachment to the television set. I expect, though, that LuAnne was at the point of considering poor company better than none at all. Whatever the reason, I was just glad that she seemed to be enjoying Etta Mae—as who wouldn’t, I’d like to know.
—
The next morning brought a beautiful clear day, except for the bank of clouds on the eastern horizon, but the sunshine and the lowered wind put us all in good moods. The children were ready for the beach, and Etta Mae could hardly wait to get out in the sun. She was wearing a short cover-up over an eyepoppingly skimpy bathing suit.
As I stood by the sink rinsing breakfast dishes, I saw Binkie push Coleman against a kitchen counter and cover his eyes with her hand. “Eyes front, Buster!” she whispered fiercely to him, laughing as she did so. Coleman laughed, too, then he leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. I kept rinsing cereal bowls.
Turning, I saw Mr. Pickens raise his eyebrows when Etta Mae’s little robe gaped open. Hazel Marie, walking past him, gave him a pinch as she went.
“Hey, folks,” Sam said, as they began gathering towels, suntan lotion, and all the other paraphernalia they usually took to the beach. “Listen up. Marty has stalled some way off the Florida coast and seems to be drifting out to sea. We’re going to have a beautiful day, so everybody enjoy it—just in case.”
“Oh, I can’t wait!” Etta Mae said, her eyes shining. “I’m going to lie out in the sun all day long. I’ve just been dreaming about this.”
Lloyd came clomping down the stairs from his room at the top of the house. His mother poured a glass of orange juice for him and put slices of bread in the toaster. “Come eat something, sugar,” she said.
“Okay, thanks, Mom. Where’s J.D.?”
“Right here, bub,” Mr. Pickens said as he came from the bedroom. “What’s up?”
As Lloyd slipped onto a stool at the island counter, he said, “You should’ve called me if you needed something from the car last night. I would’ve gotten it for you.”
Mr. Pickens frowned. “I didn’t go out to the car.”
“Well, somebody did.”
Chapter 19
“Here, honey,” Hazel Marie said as she put a plate of toast and bacon in front of Lloyd. “Eat your breakfast.” Cooking and serving breakfast hadn’t been the way I’d planned it, but nothing would do but that Hazel Marie and Binkie turn themselves into short-order cooks.
I’d planned to hire a cook so that they, as well as I, wouldn’t be stuck in the kitchen. I mean, what’s a vacation if you have to do the same things you do at home? And even worse if you’re into camping, doing those things in the open air on makeshift stoves, which was something I’d never understood. But both women insisted that they’d rather handle breakfast and lunch themselves, so I’d left it to them because I didn’t do it either at home or on vacation.
Mr. Pickens pulled out a stool next to Lloyd and said, “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Lloyd said, shrugging. “I thought it was you. I got up sometime real late to go to the bathroom and when I started back to bed, I glanced out the back window. Our car door was open and the interior lights were on. Somebody was in the front seat, but from the angle—I was looking straight down—I couldn’t see who it was. And, anyway, by the time I put my glasses on and got back to the window, everything was dark. So I just thought it was you.”
“Hold on a minute,” Mr. Pickens said. “Honey,” he said, stopping Hazel Marie as she was leaving the kitchen, “did you lock the car when we got home last night?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I wasn’t driving.”
“Oh, dang. I was, wasn’t I?” Mr. Pickens started toward the back door. “Coleman, come walk out to the car with me.”
Lloyd grabbed his toast. “I’m coming, too.”
And Sam put down his coffee cup and said, “I believe I’ll tag along, as well.”
—
I watched from the window over the sink as the men gathered around the Pickenses’ vehicle. Mr. Pickens had the door open and was sitting behind the wheel. Even though I was watching from an angle not quite as acute as Lloyd’s the night before, I could see his arm and hand reaching for the glove compartment, opening it, and rifling through the contents. Coleman, Sam, and Lloyd were leaning over to check out the interior.
Mr. Pickens turned on the engine and let the car run for a few minutes before switching it off. Sam and Lloyd walked
around the car, kicking the tires, which for the life of me I couldn’t see the purpose of. Coleman leaned on the open car door, talking with Mr. Pickens. Then he stepped back as Mr. Pickens exited the car. The four of them then stood around discussing the situation. I wished I could hear what they were saying and what conclusion they’d reached. The thought of someone wandering around the house and rummaging in the cars during the night was unsettling to say the least.
“What about the other cars?” I asked when they were back in the house, tempted to wring my hands. “Has anybody been in them?”
“They were all locked,” Sam said, as he and Coleman suppressed grins that Mr. Pickens’s car had been the only accessible one.
Lloyd, following Mr. Pickens in, asked, “Nothing was missing, was there? I mean, we hadn’t left anything that anybody would want, had we?”
Mr. Pickens, looking grim, said, “No, everything was there, even the extra package of diapers in the back. The only thing of interest is still there. . . .” He stopped as Hazel Marie came into the living room with both twins ready for the beach.
Lowering my voice, because I knew that he never wanted to worry Hazel Marie, I asked, “What’s the only thing?”
Lloyd edged in close to hear the answer.
“The car registration,” Mr. Pickens said. “Which has Hazel Marie’s name and our address. But,” he went on more strongly, “what good would that do a local vandal? Which is who it probably was—just somebody going along the street, looking for something easy to steal.” He grinned then. “They could’ve had the diapers if they were that hard up.”
—
We made a ragtag line trooping across the dunes to the beach with towels dragging and little girls stumbling in the deep sand. But the beach was magnificent, and I was glad I’d decided to accompany them. No telling how many more sunny days we’d have with Marty unable to make up his or her mind which way to go.
We set up camp under the two large beach umbrellas that the homeowners had been thoughtful enough to make available to renters. We had two coolers filled with ice and drinks and snacks, innumerable towels, boxes of wipes, bottles of suntan lotion, sun hats, and toys that one child or another apparently couldn’t go an hour or so without.
Etta Mae and Lloyd immediately splashed into the waves, diving into them and emerging beyond the breakers, which worried me no end. But Coleman and Mr. Pickens were close by, and soon Etta Mae had ventured out as far as she dared. She screamed and laughed, bobbing up and down with the rolling waves, calling to Lloyd, and enjoying herself immensely. She was like a child in giving herself totally to the delight of the moment.
After a while, she came out of the water, stooped down to talk to Latisha, then took her hand. Slowly and very gingerly, she and Latisha walked toward the water, Latisha cringing and yelling each time water foamed over her feet. Etta Mae kept encouraging her, and finally Latisha was in the ocean up to her waist. Clinging to Etta Mae, she experienced the up and down rocking motion of the waves for the first time.
By the time they came back to shore, Latisha had a glow of accomplishment on her face. “I did it, Miss Lady!” she called as she ran up to me. “I been in the ocean and nothing got me!”
“I’m proud of you, Latisha,” I said, shifting away from the spray. “You’re a brave girl, but remember, you must not ever go in alone.”
“Oh, I won’t. Now that I got Etta Mae to take me, they’s no need to go by myself. But now,” she said, looking around, “I’m gonna get me a suntan like she’s doin’.” And, snatching up an errant towel, she spread it beside Etta Mae and stretched out on it.
Well, well, I thought, smiling to myself. It looked as if Etta Mae now had a new friend and possibly a little shadow, as well. My hope had been that Etta Mae would attract a nice, polite, and prosperous young man for a brief romance that could possibly blossom into something else, but the beach wasn’t as crowded as usual, and no males meeting my criteria sauntered past. So maybe Latisha qualified as a temporarily acceptable substitute; at least she was somebody to talk to or, more likely, to listen to.
We had called Lillian the evening before, and she had sounded much more like herself, assuring me that she was well on the way to full recovery. She had then told me the latest Abbotsville news which I’d not yet recovered from.
“Miss Julia,” she’d said, “you know that ole Mr. Thurlow Jones? Well, he fall off the roof an’ break his leg on one side an’ his hip on the other. They say he stove up good.”
“The roof! What was he doing up there?”
“Fixin’ the TV antenna ’cause his picture was flippin’ past an’ he couldn’t watch it. He still in the hospital, an’ nobody know when he get back home.”
“Oh, my goodness, that foolish old man.” I myself had had numerous run-ins with Thurlow Jones—he was the most aggravating man I’d ever known. He lived in a large two-story—three-story if you count the attic—brick house a few blocks from ours, and it was just like him to want to save money by fixing something himself. The fact of the matter, though, was that everything needed fixing and, in spite of being as rich as Croesus, he and Ronnie, his huge Great Dane, lived in absolute squalor. And to think that at one time he’d presented himself as a suitor for my hand, having the gall to think that I would be flattered by his interest.
Wondering how in the world Thurlow would manage when he was released from the hospital, I had handed the phone to Latisha who had given Lillian a burst of information as to what she’d done during the day in great detail. Then with that done, she’d taken to responding with “Yes’m” and “No’m” several times before thrusting the phone back to me. After each phone call, I noticed that Latisha became quieter and quieter, and those quiet times were becoming longer as the week wore on. She was missing her great-granny and probably her own room and her own bed—home, in other words.
To forestall that aching feeling, after we’d returned from dinner that evening, I went out to the living room, holding up a deck of cards that I’d found in a drawer.
“Who wants to play Old Maid with me?” I sang out.
“I do!” Etta Mae said.
“Me, too,” Lloyd chimed in.
I looked around. “We need one more. Four is the perfect number. Come on, Latisha, let’s see who’s the Old Maid.”
“Well, it’s not gonna be me,” she said, frowning. “Besides, I don’t know how to play.”
“Oh, it’s easy,” Etta Mae said. “We’ll teach you.”
And so we did and had a good time doing it, although the first time Latisha was left with the Old Maid card, I thought she was going to cry. Etta Mae jollied her out of it, telling her that being an old maid had its compensations and that she ought to know because she was one for real.
The next round left Lloyd with the Old Maid, and Latisha thought it was so funny that she forgot all about missing her great-granny.
—
The next morning was Sunday, and as I dithered around thinking of going to church, then thinking of not going, and feeling badly about that, Thurlow Jones was still on my mind.
“Sam,” I said, “I’m worried about Thurlow. How will he manage if he’s as bad off as Lillian said.”
“No need to worry about him, honey. He has enough money to buy all the help he needs.”
“I know, but will he spend any of it? You know how tight he is.” I sighed at the strangeness of some people, then asked, “You think we should go to church?”
“Well, it is Sunday,” Sam said as if I didn’t know it, “and that’s what we usually do on the Lord’s day. However,” he went on in a deliberately ponderous way, “it is my considered opinion that the day promises to be a good one for swimming and sunning and maybe a little fishing. So, Julia, I think the Lord will forgive us if we take advantage of it, because that hurricane is beginning to edge up toward the coast of Georgia. This might be the last good beachified da
y we’ll have.”
“Then by all means,” I said, smiling as my feeling of obligation melted away, “let’s make the most of it.”
Chapter 20
So we made our daily trek over the dunes to the beach, although to tell the truth, I was about to have had enough of it. Never a sun worshipper, I had nonetheless enjoyed being at water’s edge while watching the children play, talking now and then with Hazel Marie and Binkie, and being astounded by the lack of sufficient clothing on other beachgoers. But enough is enough, especially since that Sunday morning was not bright and beautiful, but dull and hazy. Maybe we should’ve gone to church.
The overcast sky and ominously rolling waves, however, did not daunt our crew. Etta Mae slathered on suntan lotion and stretched out on a towel, convinced that the rays of the sun would do their work in spite of the cloud cover. The little girls continued to enjoy digging in the sand and splashing in the foam as the waves lapped at the shore. Latisha entertained herself by making what she called toad frog houses. She patted and smoothed wet sand over one foot, then carefully withdrew it to form a door and an empty interior. Using shells to outline a walkway to the door, she told me that during the night a toad frog would visit and leave his footprints at the entry. I didn’t mention that the tide was coming in.
The men, including Lloyd, on whom I had kept my eye, went out much farther than I liked, but they didn’t stay long.
Coleman was first out, striding up to the umbrellas and accepting a towel from Binkie. “Thanks, sweetie.” Then to the rest of us, he said, “We’re going over to Charleston. Anybody want to go with us?”
Binkie looked at Hazel Marie. “I’ll watch the children, if you want to go.”
Hazel Marie seemed tempted, but she said, “No, I don’t think so. I’d like to do some shopping sometime, but not with three men standing around waiting for me to finish.”
Mr. Pickens and Sam, with Lloyd trailing along, walked up in time to hear the last of that, and Mr. Pickens said, “Tell you what. This may be the last good beach day for a while. So if you girls want to wait and go shopping tomorrow when it might be raining, we’ll go today and watch the children tomorrow. Lloyd,” he said, turning to him, “why don’t you come with us? Unless you want to wait and go with the ladies.”
