Miss Julia Weathers the Storm

by Ann B. Ross

  “Hazel Marie,” I called as I headed toward her room. “You need any help?”

  “I sure do,” she said, spooning cereal into a little open mouth. She and the two toddlers, all three still in their nightclothes, were on the bed while she tried to get some breakfast into them. “I have to get them fed or there’ll be no living with them. But if you’ll get the suitcases out of that closet and start dumping things in, that would really help.” Catching one little girl who was trying to crawl off the bed, she swiped a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. “Do you know how long we have? I still have to get these two dressed, and myself, too.”

  My word, I thought as I opened the closet and found four huge suitcases—she must’ve brought everything they owned. But I made no comment while I scooted them out and threw one on the bed. When I opened it, one little girl began crawling into it.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Sam didn’t say, just told me to get ready to go because they’d be right back.”

  That had been an optimistic prediction because the men were still gone. Actually, I wasn’t all that aware of how time was passing because I kept busy hurrying everybody along and helping where I could.

  Lloyd came clomping down from his third-floor penthouse, bringing his small suitcase.

  “You sure you have everything?” I asked, meeting him on the stairs. “Once we’re on the road, there’ll be no turning back.”

  “Yes’m, everything but a wet bathing suit hanging on the back porch. I’m going to get it now.”

  “Oh, my, I’d forgotten about the porch. How about gathering all the suits hanging out there and putting them in plastic bags? We’ll straighten out what belongs to whom when we get home.”

  He nodded and turned away to continue down the stairs. Then he stopped and said, “Can you believe that the sun’s shining and the day looks perfect, yet they’re saying a storm’s on the way?” He shrugged. “Maybe beach weather is different from ours.”

  “I’ve not taken the time to think about it, Lloyd,” I said, looking around to see how the sun filled the many-windowed house with bright light. “But you’re right. It certainly doesn’t look threatening. You don’t think we were given wrong information, do you?”

  He grinned. “No’m, because everybody else got the same information. I saw about six cars parked up and down the street with men in uniforms getting out to knock on doors.”

  “Well, we can only do as we’re told. So be sure and get those bathing suits, then see if you can help your mother.”

  Walking past Binkie’s door, I saw that Little Gracie was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, while Binkie was forcing a suitcase closed. I waved and went on to see about Latisha.

  She had already packed her little bag by herself, so I checked to be sure she hadn’t left anything.

  “You’re sure you have everything, aren’t you?” I asked, glancing back. “Nothing left in the living room or anywhere?” I picked up her suitcase because her hands were full.

  “No’m, I got it all,” she said, clutching two plastic grocery bags filled with shells.

  Just as I started down the stairs, I heard a rolling clatter and Latisha yelled, “Oh, dangnation! My shells is everywhere!”

  And sure enough, shells were scattered all over the upstairs hall and partway down the stairs.

  “Well,” I said with just a slight eye roll, “pile them up as best you can so nobody’ll step on them. I’ll bring you some more bags.”

  “Better be better’n these,” she said as she got on her knees and began sweeping shells into piles. “Wish I’d already give some to Miss Hazel Marie, so I wouldn’t have to pick up so many. I’m a good mind to just leave ’em.”

  “No, let’s get them up. But hurry, Latisha, we have to be ready to go when the men get back.”

  Gradually we all gathered in the living room, our luggage stacked together near the back door. And still, the men had not returned. I was beginning to worry, wondering what was keeping them. It got worse when Binkie started the coffeepot and made toast—it was beginning to feel as if it were a normal day.

  LuAnne paced around the house wringing her hands, looking out the windows, and wondering aloud if we were in the eye of the storm. After talking in a corner for a while with Etta Mae, LuAnne came up to me.

  “Julia,” she said, “there’s no need all of us staying in the path of danger. So Etta Mae and I are going to go ahead and get out of here. At least she had the foresight to prepare for just such an emergency.”

  “Well, okay, LuAnne, if that’s what you want to do. But I thought we might all try to stay together on the way back.”

  “We want to go on,” LuAnne said, looking for confirmation from Etta Mae, who’d walked over to join us. “I need to get back, and besides, Etta Mae’s been advising me about getting a divorce. She’s had two of them, you know, so she knows what she’s talking about.”

  “Is it okay if we go on?” Etta Mae asked. “Ms. Conover is anxious to get started.”

  “Of course,” I told her. “If it’s all right with you, it’s fine with me. But, Etta Mae, I’m so sorry your vacation is being cut short. I wouldn’t have had it end like this for anything.”

  “Well, me, either. But I sure enjoyed every minute I’ve had of it.” She smiled at me, hesitated a moment as if considering a hug, then picked up a suitcase. “We’d better get our stuff in the car if we’re going. We’ll stay in touch by cell phone. Let us know when you leave.”

  Cell phone, I thought, and went to the kitchen where Sam had both our phones plugged into a charger. I put everything—wires and all—in my purse. I often forgot my cell phone, but never my pocketbook. I wouldn’t leave home without it.

  —

  As Etta Mae’s little red car backed out of the yard and started down the street, Lloyd stood watching from the kitchen window. Binkie had walked out to the car with them, waved good-bye, and was now back in the living room, checking the local news on the television set.

  “I kinda thought about going with ’em,” Lloyd said, as he turned from the window, “but there’s not much room in her backseat. Besides,” he went on, grinning at me, “Latisha wants to ride with me, so guess we’ll go back the way we came.”

  “Well,” I said, “with Mrs. Conover gone and most of the diapers used up, Sam and I have a big, empty backseat.”

  “That,” he said, “is a good thought. Let me go round up Latisha and see what she wants to do.”

  As he left, Binkie came into the kitchen, poured coffee, and handed me a cupful and a sweet roll. “We’ve rushed around so much that now we have to wait. And a good thing, I guess, because we need to clean out the refrigerator and the pantry. If there’s anything you want to take, now’s the time to get it. Plenty of snacks are left.”

  We set about cleaning out the kitchen, while our suitcases, plastic bags, toys, and all manner of this, that, and the other sat waiting to be packed into trunks and backseats—if we’d had trunks and backsets available, because the men still weren’t back.

  “What could be keeping them?” Hazel Marie asked, a frown of concern on her forehead. “I hope nothing’s happened.”

  Binkie said, “Probably waiting in line to get gas. I don’t know how many people are on the island, but if they’re all being evacuated, there’ll be mobs at the gas stations.”

  “Oh, my,” I said, “you think they’ll run out of gas? The stations have to be filled up, too, don’t they?”

  “Oh, I doubt they’ll run out,” Binkie said, trying for reassurance. “That hurricane’s been on the news for days. The stations will be prepared.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I mumbled, looking out the window again at the empty yard. But I determined right then that I would pass along to Sam Etta Mae’s habit of keeping a car ready for a fast getaway at all times.

  Chapter 23

  Lloyd came over for
a sweet roll, saying, “Boy, people’re leaving all over the place. It’s a good thing Etta Mae left when she did. The street’s full of cars.”

  Then, hearing something, he turned around and ran out on the back porch. “J.D.’s back!”

  That set us all a-dither as we ran around collecting children, double-checking suitcases, going to the bathroom one last time, while I listened for Lloyd to sing out that Sam and Coleman had pulled in, too.

  Instead I heard Mr. Pickens stomp in and Lloyd ask, “Where’s Mr. Sam and Coleman?”

  “Still in line, I guess,” Mr. Pickens said, sounding tired and short tempered, “somewhere. The station we went to first ran out of gas one car behind me. Sam and Coleman had to pull out and look for another one.”

  Oh, my, I thought, tempted to wring my hands; how far would they have to go? What if they ran out of gas before finding gas?

  “Hazel Marie,” Mr. Pickens said, “let’s get on the road, honey.”

  “We’re leaving before the others?” she asked.

  “That’s the plan,” he said, short and abrupt. Exhaustion lined his face, or maybe it was worry that was doing it—who knew with him? He was still in flip-flops and Bermuda shorts and the T-shirt which he’d undoubtedly slept in, and from his expression he had no intention of changing to anything else. Unshaven and uncombed, he was more than a little rough looking.

  Of course, there wasn’t a whole lot of difference in his rough looks when he was cleaned up and nicely dressed.

  Before long, we had the Pickenses’ large trucklike vehicle loaded with suitcases and odds and ends that always accompany children. The little girls were unhappily buckled into their car seats—one was crying because she wanted to go to the beach and the other was screaming because they were leaving Lloyd.

  As they pulled out of the yard, Binkie said, “I’m feeling a little abandoned. How about you?”

  “Well, at least it’s quieter, which is the best I can say. But, Binkie, what if Sam and Coleman don’t get back? What if the gas has run out and they’re over in Charleston and can’t get back?”

  “They’d call us. In fact, I don’t know why they haven’t already called. I’ve tried to reach Coleman, but the phones are acting funny. But, listen, let’s not worry about it. Maybe the storm will veer off again, and we’ll have another whole week here. I wouldn’t mind being abandoned if that happened.”

  “Well,” I said, “you may be feeling abandoned, but I’m feeling stranded. We are on an island, you know.”

  Lloyd and Latisha were glued to the television, watching the progress of Marty.

  “Hey!” Lloyd suddenly sang out. “Come look at this.”

  Binkie and I walked over to see a view of the hurricane—the eye of which was plainly visible—whirling right off the coast of Georgia.

  “They’re expecting it to make landfall between Savannah and Charleston by tomorrow morning,” Lloyd said. “Both cities are being evacuated right now. Miss Julia,” he said, turning wide eyes to me, “what if we don’t get out?”

  The wind rattled the front windows right about then, and we all thought about the possibility of weathering the storm where we were.

  But Binkie was having none of it. “No way. The cops will get us off the island, and the worst that could happen is that we’d end up in a shelter somewhere.” She stopped, bit her lip, then said, “I do wish Coleman and Sam would get back, though.”

  Feeling the need to move around, I walked out onto the front porch, and nearly got blown back inside. The wind—still in gusts—was fierce, but the closeness of the rolling gray clouds really set me back on my heels. They had covered the eastern horizon and were rising toward the zenith. We should’ve been on the road hours before this, yet here we were in late morning with the sun about to be covered and the wind about to reach gale force. And Binkie and I were stuck on an island with three children and no wheels. And husbands? Well, who knew where they were?

  “Binkie,” I said, after closing the front door behind me and drawing her close, “maybe we ought to call somebody.”

  “I’ve been calling Coleman for the past hour and can’t get through.” She looked as troubled as I was feeling.

  “Maybe we should begin thinking of where we could hunker down in the house—if we have to, that is.”

  “Well, I’ve heard that a bathtub with a mattress on top is the place to be in a tornado if you can’t get underground. But I don’t know about a hurricane.”

  “Oh, my,” I said, picturing the five of us riding out a hurricane in a bathtub.

  “They’re here!” Lloyd yelled, as he ran from the kitchen window to the door. “Both of ’em! They’re here.”

  Latisha and Little Gracie ran after him, although Binkie grabbed Gracie to hold her back. “You need to go to the bathroom? Hurry, so we’ll be ready to go home with Daddy.”

  The two men walked in looking tired and bedraggled, but both were grinning.

  “Don’t ask,” Coleman said, as he swept Little Gracie up in his arms. “Man, what a morning. We’ve helped push two cars that ran out of gas, broken up a couple of fights, been in three lines, almost getting to the pumps twice before finally getting filled up.”

  “Daddy, Daddy,” Little Gracie said, getting his attention. “We thought you’d gone home without us.”

  “Never in this world!” he said, hugging her tight. “I wouldn’t leave my girls. No, ma’am, I wouldn’t.”

  Latisha, who’d been clutching her bags of shells as she kept a watchful eye on the goings-on, said, “Well, I’m glad to hear it, ’cause Miss Binkie was talkin’ ’bout puttin’ us all in the bathtub.”

  “Here, honey,” Binkie said, giving Latisha a reassuring pat with one hand and, with the other, handing Coleman a sweet roll that was cold and hard by this time. “How far did you have to go?”

  Sam, still in his pajama top halfway tucked into his pants, and his beach sandals, said, “We ended up at the far end of Mount Pleasant. Everything from here to Sullivan’s Island is jammed with cars, OUT-OF-GAS signs, and people with nasty tempers.”

  “Remind me,” I said, putting my hand on Sam’s arm just to touch him, “to tell you how Etta Mae avoids such entanglements.”

  “By thinking ahead, apparently,” he said, smiling somewhat ruefully. “Where is she, anyway? I know she had a full tank. Has she already started back?”

  “Yes, and LuAnne went with her. They’ve been gone at least an hour, maybe longer.”

  Sam’s eyebrows went up. “LuAnne, too? That’s interesting.”

  “More than you know. She intends to get firsthand instructions from Etta Mae on getting a divorce. She’s probably taking notes.”

  “Good Lord,” Sam said, shaking his head, then turning to a more pressing problem. “Look, honey, can you put your hand on a shirt for me? I don’t want to wear pajamas all day.”

  Lloyd and Coleman had already begun taking the luggage downstairs and loading the cars, but I was able to hold them off long enough to locate a shirt.

  Binkie, giving the kitchen counter a last wiping down, said, “Miss Julia, you want to take some of this food with you? Or shall I throw it out? There’s bread, peanut butter, some cheese, and lots of Fritos and Doritos.”

  “Oh, let’s don’t throw it out. Just divide it up, and we’ll both take some. We’ll stop for lunch before long, but having a few snacks on hand couldn’t hurt.”

  And what a fateful prediction that turned out to be.

  Chapter 24

  We drove away from the house with Coleman and Binkie behind us and Latisha looking back, mumbling, “So long, big, ole yellow house. See you later.”

  She and Lloyd were in our backseat along with his books, her plastic bags of shells, a tennis racket or two, and a big sack of Doritos, peanut butter, and two bananas. Latisha had carefully stashed her pocketbook between two hanging bags of clothes i
n the trunk, saying that she was about tired of having that thing bumping against her side all day long.

  “Not a lot of traffic, is there?” I remarked as Sam drove toward the bridge connecting the islands and onto the road which would eventually take us to the interstate.

  “I hate to tell you,” Sam said, “but that’s probably because we’re the last ones to leave.”

  “Well, it’s better than being embroiled in a traffic jam.”

  Sam glanced at me and grinned. “Hold on to that thought.”

  But before I had time to hold on to anything, cars began to converge from all sides—easing into lanes and making room for themselves where there was no room. It was a marvel to me that where there’d been almost no cars at all suddenly was filled with them.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Lloyd said, sitting up as far as his seat belt would let him. He was staring through the windshield. “Would you look at that!”

  I was already looking, and as far as the eye could see, which was several blocks to the great bridge and up to the crest of it, there were cars, trucks, pickups, SUVs, vans, and every sort of vehicle known to man lined up bumper to bumper on both lanes. And not a one of them was moving.

  “What’s going on?” Lloyd asked.

  “Could be an accident,” Sam said, “but I’m afraid it’s because everybody’s trying to get on the interstate. I expect it’s full.”

  I frowned at the thought. “How can an interstate be full?”

  “They’re evacuating Charleston, honey, as well as everybody all up and down the coast.”

  Latisha, realizing that we couldn’t move until everybody else moved, said, “Look like we gonna be stuck here forever.”

  “We just have to be patient, Latisha,” Sam said. “We’re just one of thousands of cars heading west on the interstate.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that, because by the time we got to the ramp, some thirty minutes later, and some kind soul had let us ease into the westbound lane, we became just one more vehicle on the longest parking lot on the east coast. I didn’t know when or how Coleman and Binkie got onto the interstate, but by that time they were far behind us even though our progress was measured by inches rather than miles.