Miss Julia Weathers the Storm

by Ann B. Ross

  “I’ll go with you,” he said, a choice that didn’t surprise me. He never lost a chance to spend time with Mr. Pickens.

  Sam’s eyebrows had gone up when he heard that he’d been so cavalierly volunteered to babysit, but he took it in stride. “That’ll work.”

  And Coleman said, “Good deal. There’re a couple of things I want to look at again.”

  Binkie stood up, brushed sand off her backside, and said, “We have all the camping gear we need, honey. But you need shirts. Why don’t you look for a couple?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Coleman said and gave her a quick kiss that missed its mark. They laughed together, then the men trudged over the dunes, Mr. Pickens’s arm draped over Lloyd’s shoulders.

  That left us women, and little girls, to ourselves, and we continued doing what we’d been doing—lolling around and watching children.

  When I was sure that the men had had time to change and leave the house, I bestirred myself to go inside for a little peace and quiet.

  “Don’t go,” Hazel Marie said. “We’re taking the children—wet suits, sand, and all—up to the hot dog stand. Stay and go with us.”

  “Thank you, but no. I’ll fend for myself at the house.” Gathering my things, I hurriedly made tracks over the dunes, hoping for a hour or so of solitude.

  —

  After a quick shower and change of clothing, I spent twenty minutes trying to do something with my hair, all the time appreciating the silence of the house. Just as I started toward the kitchen to fix a sandwich, the screen door slammed and LuAnne came in clutching a towel.

  “I’ve had enough of ocean breezes,” she said. “And I certainly don’t want a hot dog. I should’ve come on back when you did. Oh, if you’re fixing lunch, I’ll just have a ham sandwich. If there’s any ham left. I declare, Julia, I’d forgotten how quickly food can disappear in a house full of children. And grown men.” Heading upstairs to her room, she said over her shoulder, “I won’t be long.”

  And there went my quiet time, but I made the sandwiches and, leaving hers on the island, took mine to the big sofa in the living room.

  She soon joined me, eating her sandwich beside me; then she curled up on the other end of the sofa, ready to talk.

  “Julia,” she announced, “I’ve just realized that I made a big mistake by coming here with all of you. I should’ve stayed home, and I’ve a good mind to pack up and leave this afternoon.”

  “Why, LuAnne, I thought you were having a good time. What’s changed, and how would you leave? There’s not an extra car.”

  “Oh, I could take a bus. I wouldn’t mind that, but of course I don’t know their schedule and, anyway, somebody would have to drive me to Charleston to catch it. So tomorrow will be better. Besides, I’m not packed yet.”

  “Well, I’m sorry you want to leave,” I said, dismayed at her change of heart, although I knew that LuAnne was given to sudden and, often, rash decisions. “Has anything happened to make you want to go.”

  “No, not specifically,” she said, looking off in the distance. “Well, actually, it’s just everything. Oh, Julia.” As the tears started, she jumped up to look for a Kleenex box, but came back to the sofa with a paper towel. Bounty, I think.

  “Don’t cry, LuAnne. Tell me what’s wrong. Is it Leonard again? I mean, still?”

  Her face covered with the paper towel, she nodded. “It’s always Leonard. When I see Binkie and Coleman, and Hazel Marie and J.D. being all lovey-dovey—and the men are so sweet—it just cuts me to the bone.”

  “I know just what you mean. I used to feel the same way.”

  “Well, see,” she said, glaring at me from tear-filled eyes. “You’ve forgotten how it hurts to compare the way they treat their wives and the way Leonard treats me. Julia, every time I hear J.D. Pickens call Hazel Marie baby girl, or see Coleman look at Binkie like he could eat her up as he calls her sweetheart, well, it just tears me up. It hurts so bad, I can hardly stand it.”

  “Well, my goodness,” I murmured, stunned at the bitterness of her words. “I’m sorry. I’m used to the way they carry on, so it didn’t occur to me—”

  “Of course it wouldn’t,” LuAnne said accusingly. “You don’t have to just watch it, you have it, too.”

  “Have what?”

  “A husband who acts like he loves you! Wake up, Julia, and don’t deny it. Sam treats you like you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. And you don’t know how much it hurts to see how sweet and attentive he is to you when . . .” She stopped for a deep breath. “When Leonard treats me like a piece of furniture. Or a refrigerator because I feed him.

  “And I’ll tell you another thing. Sometimes when I go downtown and see those couples—especially the old ones—walk down the sidewalk holding hands, it makes me so angry I can hardly stand it. Leonard never holds hands with me, in or out of public. In fact, he hardly ever even walks with me. He just shuffles along two steps behind me like we’re not even together.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to this torrent of pain and vehemence, so I said, “I guess I never thought about it.”

  “Well, why would you? But I can’t stand having my face rubbed in it all day long. I need to go home, Julia, and reconcile myself to living without what you and Binkie and Hazel Marie have and don’t even appreciate. You just take it for granted.”

  “Oh, I don’t think we take it for granted.”

  “Of course you do,” LuAnne said with a flip of her hand. “Just think how you’d feel if Sam suddenly ignored you like Leonard ignores me. Think how you’d feel if you had to struggle into your coat while he just stood there watching you. Think how you’d feel if Sam said first crack out of the box every morning, ‘What’s for breakfast?’ But of course you have Lillian, so I guess that doesn’t apply. But, Julia, he has never, ever, called me a sweet name—not from day one of our marriage. And I remember one day I was in a shop and the elderly clerk said, ‘What can I do for you, little darling?’ Now, I know some women would’ve been mortally offended, but I wasn’t. To have someone say something that sweet to me just tore me up, and I had to leave before I started crying.”

  “Oh, honey, that hurts me, too.”

  “But would Leonard ever say anything like that? No, he wouldn’t. He makes me feel like I’m just an attachment, something he puts up with as long as I perform in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, LuAnne, I don’t think that’s true. He’s quiet and withdrawn, and not very demonstrative, but a lot of men are like that.”

  She shot me an accusing look. “How would you know?”

  That did it for me. “How would I know? I know because I was married to somebody who was worse than Leonard ever was for forty-something years, and I resent being made to feel bad now because I lucked out with Sam. And if you want to know the truth, I feel that I deserve him because of what I had to put up with for so long.”

  LuAnne wiped her eyes and sat up. “I think you do, too. And furthermore, I think I deserve somebody like Sam, too. And I’m going to start looking for him.” She stopped and blew her nose on the paper towel. “Just as soon as I get home.”

  Chapter 21

  Relieved that she wouldn’t start looking that afternoon, I was happy to see the beach crew come straggling in, putting an end to our conversation. It did not, however, end my concern for LuAnne and her new plan. Where in the world would she find another Sam? He was one of a kind to my way of thinking. Good men don’t grow on trees, you know.

  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—you never know what you’re getting until you’ve married him. And to my—and LuAnne’s—generation, that meant you were pretty well stuck with whatever you’d gotten. Everybody thought that I’d made a brilliant move when I entered into a marriage with Wesley Lloyd Springer. And I’d thought so, too, until I’d had to live in it. He’d been mature, wealthy, a town mover and shaker, and a churchgoer.
And furthermore, he’d bathed frequently, dressed well, had good table manners—except for stirring his tea so long that I wanted to slap the spoon out of his hand—and didn’t snore. What more could a woman want?

  Well, take it from me, a lot more. A little kindness now and then, for one thing, instead of critical commentaries. Some thoughtfulness occasionally wouldn’t have hurt, either. A few give-and-take conversations that didn’t end with a lecture on how wrong I was, for another. And what about taking a little pleasure just by being in my company?

  But LuAnne had been on the right track—what a husband calls you or how he refers to you in the company of others reveals his true feelings. Wesley Lloyd had spoken to me and of me in terms of pronouns—you, she, her, and occasionally simply Julia. Never, never had words like honey, darling, sweetheart, or anything of the kind issued from his mouth. At least addressed to me, they hadn’t.

  And don’t tell me that those words can be used when they have no meaning behind them. I know that, but I also know that being called a sweet name can warm a cooling heart and erase a lot of bitter feelings. And a lack of loving words is quite likely to indicate a dearth of loving feelings.

  I’m not wrong about that because right soon after Wesley Lloyd had been laid to rest, I’d learned exactly where his feelings had lain.

  But enough of that. Suffice it to say that I understood LuAnne’s longing for spontaneous indications of Leonard’s love and commitment to her. But of course if he had another woman on the back burner, she wasn’t going to get any. However, as much as I sympathized with her, I had heard about all I wanted to hear on the subject of Leonard Conover.

  A sudden rain shower spattered against the windows and we both got up to look out. The ocean’s edge was white with breakers and the sea oats were bent over by the wind.

  “Oh, my,” I said, thinking of the little ones getting sopping wet. “Everybody’s out in this.”

  “They’re probably at the hot dog stand,” LuAnne said.

  “There’s no shelter at that thing. Let’s hope they’re in the hotel lobby, waiting out the rain.”

  “I hear somebody,” LuAnne said, turning toward the back door.

  And sure enough, in came Hazel Marie carrying one twin, Etta Mae with the other one, Binkie with Little Gracie, and Latisha loaded down with hats and towels—everything and everyone looking like a gaggle of drowned rats.

  “Look, Miss Lady!” Latisha screamed as she swung a little red plastic pocketbook, as bright and shiny as patent leather, from its red strap. “Look what Miss Binkie got me in the hotel. We had to go in there to get out of the rain, an’ they had a little store in there just full of all kinds of things. But this was the best of all. I been wantin’ me a pocketbook, an’ now I got one.”

  “Run dry off, Latisha,” I said. “But your pocketbook is lovely and just perfect for Sunday school.”

  “Yes’m, but for more’n that.”

  Hurriedly bringing an armful of towels, I helped the mothers strip the little girls and dry them off, then reclothe them. And on top of that, entertain them while their mothers showered and dressed.

  Latisha announced in her piercing voice that she was glad she’d gotten her hot dog eaten before the rain turned the bun to mush. “I never seen rain come down so hard,” she said, “an’ us out in it. I thought somebody was gonna get hit with lightnin’, ’cause you know it come with hard rain.”

  “Well, you’re safe now, Latisha,” I assured her, although I’d not heard a clap of thunder in the first place. “But what’re we going to do with your hair?”

  “It jus’ gonna dry by itself,” she said. “A little rain won’t hurt it, an’ Great-Granny’ll fix it when I get home.”

  “Well, if you’re sure,” I said, somewhat relieved because I wasn’t sure that I remembered how to plait.

  —

  The men came in a little later, expressing surprise that we’d had rain. “It was clear as a bell in the city,” Sam said.

  “And hot as hell,” Mr. Pickens said under his breath. “Well, ladies, who wants to go out to eat?”

  We all looked at each other, torn between risking another near-drowning and having to cook a meal. Nobody said anything.

  “Tell you what,” Coleman said. “Why don’t a couple of us go pick up some barbecue?”

  Every face in the room brightened at the prospect, so Binkie set about making a list of who wanted what.

  —

  By the time we’d had our fill of barbecue and put the children to bed, the rain squalls had stopped and an almost full moon was lighting up the beach. Streaks of cloud, though, were hovering on the horizon with the occasional flash of lightning way off in the distance.

  “Sam,” I said, as we prepared for bed, “where is that hurricane? Was this rainy day a precursor?”

  He grinned, then said, “Might’ve been, honey. I just checked the Weather Channel, and the eye’s off the south coast of Georgia but it’s not expected to turn inward. In fact, they said it’s wobbling toward the east and out to sea. We’ll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

  “Well, I don’t want to be caught down here in a hurricane that’s turned tricky on us. Maybe we should think about going on home.”

  “Still plenty of time, honey,” he said as he crawled in beside me. “I bet Marty’ll be hammering Bermuda tomorrow, and we’ll have a beautiful day.” He turned off the light, then turned to me. “If you’d like to take that bet, sweet girl, it’s time to ante up.”

  With a brief sympathetic thought of LuAnne and what she was missing, I turned to my sweet-talking husband.

  —

  My eyes snapped open as a loud banging noise—blam, blam, blam—from the back of the house jerked me wide awake. Sam was already pulling on his pants, while the thump of feet hitting the floor resounded all over the house.

  “What is it?” I asked, still sleep befuddled, although the room was bright with early morning sun.

  “Somebody at the door.” Sam left, pulling the bedroom door closed behind him.

  The banging at the back door stopped, so Sam or Mr. Pickens or Coleman or maybe all three had gotten there to stop it.

  What in the world was it? Maybe the vandal had returned and done some real damage to the cars this time. I threw back the covers, quickly put on a robe, and hurried out to meet whatever it was head on.

  “Who is it?” Hazel Marie asked, peeking out from behind the door of her bedroom.

  “What’s going on?” Binkie looked over the railing from the second floor, while Little Gracie and Latisha huddled next to her.

  “Somebody at the door, I think,” I answered. “I just hope nothing’s happened to the cars.” By that time I was looking out the window over the kitchen sink, and my heart sank at what I saw. “Looks like island security or rent-a-cop or somebody official.”

  I turned around as Sam returned, trailed by Coleman and Mr. Pickens. “Are the cars all right?”

  “They’re fine, except for being close to empty,” Coleman said. “Ladies, we’re being evacuated. Get everybody packed while we go gas up.”

  Evacuated? That meant that time was running out, didn’t it? It hadn’t been a suggestion, but an order—get out and get out now.

  “Sam?” I said, getting his attention. “Sam, is it the hurricane? Is it headed this way?”

  “Sure is. It’s roaring up the coast, headed for Charleston and the islands. Which means us.”

  “Well, what happened to Bermuda is what I want to know. Last night you said it was wobbling that way.”

  “Sounds like it stopped wobbling and worked up a head of steam. Get everybody ready to go, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Grabbing car keys, the three men didn’t stop to dress, just headed out in short or long pants, T-shirts or pajama tops, sans belts and shirts. At the door, Sam pulled up short. “Julia
, honey, run upstairs and get Etta Mae’s keys. We need to get her car filled up, too.”

  I hurried up the stairs, realizing that there were three men and four cars, so I’d have to roust Etta Mae out of bed.

  She met me at the door of her room, and when I explained the situation, she proved how a single woman looks after herself. I hoped LuAnne would take note.

  “No problem,” Etta Mae said. “I always fill up when I get where I’m going. I did it Friday night before coming here, and I haven’t driven it since.”

  “Etta Mae, you are a wonder.”

  “No’m, just thinking ahead.” She grinned. “I never want to be caught short.”

  I doubted she ever would.

  Chapter 22

  I quickly dressed, hands trembling with the need for speed—who knew when Marty would hit? If the island was being officially evacuated, then the storm had to be seriously headed toward us. The television was blaring warnings, showing overhead pictures of a huge cloud taken by idiots in an airplane, as well as pictures of people nailing plywood panels over windows and cleaning out grocery shelves.

  Had we waited too long? How far inland would the storm rage? Would it follow us up through the whole state?

  Emptying the closet and the dresser drawers, I stacked everything on the bed. Neither Sam nor I had bought anything since we’d been at the beach, yet I had the devil’s own time getting our clothes back into suitcases and hanging bags. The pile seemed to have expanded since I’d packed them at home.

  After checking and rechecking to confirm that I wasn’t leaving anything, I dragged the luggage to the living room, leaving them there to be put in the car.