by Ann B. Ross
“Why, Mildred, I love that idea. And just think. Once they get parked for my party, very few, if any, will want to give up their parking space to go to the Cochran house and come back. They’ll stay where they are and walk to your house from here. It’s perfect!”
“It is, indeed. Now listen, we’ll have to coordinate our guest lists—you’ll invite the wives and I’ll invite their husbands to join them. Of course,” she said, stopping for a minute to think, “there’re some without husbands—LuAnne and Helen come to mind—but I’ll reword their invitations. We certainly want all the usual suspects, don’t we?”
I laughed. “We certainly do, plus the immediate neighbors who’re affected by that house.”
“One thing, though, Julia,” Mildred said, “you don’t want to serve anything heavy—we want them to be hungry enough to come over here for supper.”
“Oh, absolutely. I’ll offer only hors d’oeuvres, and maybe oyster stew served in small cups.” I paused, considering the menu for such a party. “You know, Mildred, these are the times when I can see the benefit of alcoholic beverages. I mean, we’re essentially kicking off the holidays, and a tiny toddy would be in keeping with the season.”
Mildred laughed. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years. But don’t worry, that’ll be all the more reason for everybody to come on over to my house. They’ll get it here, that’s for sure.”
“Well,” I went on, “think of this—there’s no way the Homes for Teens can offer spirits of any kind—not even wine because that would offend the Baptists. And serving alcohol would undermine their stated purpose of rehabilitating teenage boys.”
“You’re right,” Mildred agreed. “Why, I expect fourteen- to eighteen-year-old boys are already quite familiar with six-packs and grocery-store wine. If their keepers serve it, that would just put their stamp of approval on it.”
“I think I’ll talk to Sam and see what he says about my serving it. He’ll be home in a few days, and I think he might agree that maybe something a little more festive wouldn’t hurt.”
“That would be perfect! We don’t want them so sloshed they can’t get across the lawn to my house.”
Much relieved that Mildred saw the wisdom of toning down our plans, I was also more enthusiastic about our new ones. No one I could recall had ever had a double party in adjoining houses. It would be the talk of the town, and invitations would be eagerly awaited and quickly accepted.
And, soothing to my troubled mind, I doubted that anyone would give a second thought to Madge Taylor’s invitation to view a refurbished warehouse for miscreant teenagers.
Which brought up another question—should I invite Lynette Rucker, the pastor’s wife? If I did, which under ordinary circumstances I certainly would, Mildred would have to invite the pastor as well. What would he think of my serving spirits? Did I care?
All things considered, I didn’t think I did.
Chapter 24
Quickly coordinating our guest lists, Mildred and I discussed, then either discarded or agreed upon, one name after another. I ended up with forty-two ladies’ names and Mildred, who included husbands on her list, more than double that, considering widows and divorcées and their male counterparts, in addition to a number of elected town officials and their wives plus the immediate neighbors of the Cochran house.
“Let’s use informals for the invitations,” I suggested, “and have Louise Hemphill write them. She has a beautiful hand, and she needs the money. She’s fast, too—we can have them in the mail by the end of the week.”
“Oh, yes,” Mildred agreed. “I’ve used her before and she does a lovely job. Just be sure you give her a correct original to go by. One time I misspelled cotillion on the original, and she sent out two hundred invitations with the same spelling.”
I had to laugh, for something like that would happen only to Mildred.
* * *
—
Working with Lillian, I decided on a menu suitable for a presupper party—neither too heavy nor too skimpy.
“We just can’t not have ham biscuits, Lillian,” I said, toiling over a list of party hors d’oeurves. “I mean, it is an autumn affair where they’ll be expected, but they might be too filling. We want the guests to be hungry enough to go on to Mildred’s for a meal. She’ll have my head if I fill them up before they get there. Or if they decide not to even go.”
“Why don’t we have them little, teensy biscuits?” Lillian said. “Like one-bite size, or maybe two for some ladies. An’ when the tray’s empty, jus’ not put out any more.”
“Well, that’s a thought. We’ll have lots of fruit and several cheeses. Maybe a dip with vegetable spears, and maybe water crackers with cream cheese and a dab of caviar on top. And I’m thinking we should have only one sweet tray.” Sighing, I put down my pen and looked up at Lillian. “I’m giving serious thought to serving alcohol in some form or fashion—it would take the place of a lot of food. So,” I went on, “Sam may divorce me, but let’s have a spiked punch. Oh, I know! I have Etta Mae Wiggins’s champagne punch recipe. That’s what we’ll have, along with coffee and maybe hot, spiced tea. And oyster stew, Lillian. We have to have that, and serve it in my demitasse cups. That way people won’t fill up.”
“Yes’m, but if you give ’em too much to drink, they might all have to go to the bathroom at the same time.”
“Goodness, surely they’ll pace themselves. Oh, and another thing, Lillian,” I said. “Do you know a couple of young girls who can take coats upstairs as the guests come in?”
“Yes’m, but I hope you know what you doin’ with spiking that punch,” Lillian said with a skeptical frown. “You havin’ your preacher?”
“No, but I’m having his wife. Mildred’s inviting him, but she’s an Episcopalian so he’ll know what to expect there.”
“He prob’ly wouldn’t ’spect it here, though.”
“Well,” I said, somewhat sharply, “he doesn’t have to drink it. But if it offends him, then too bad. He’s offended me often enough.”
“Law, Miss Julia,” Lillian said, laughing. “You a pistol when you get on your high horse. One good thing, though, can’t nobody say you set in your ways like a lot of people get.”
“You mean, like a lot of people get when they get old?”
“No’m, I didn’t mean it ’zactly like that, although it do be the truth.”
I laughed. “Thank you, Lillian, I take it as a compliment to be able to change with the times. Although,” I said, a little pensively, “the times don’t always suit me, and I reserve the right to denounce them whenever I want.”
“Me, too,” she said. Then, mumbling, she went on, “Whatever that means.”
I continued to sit at the kitchen table, checking and double-checking my lists—not only of guests to be invited and food to be served but also of Christmas decorations to be bought or brought out of storage—while Lillian worked around me. I declare, the Department of Defense was overlooking a valuable resource by not employing socially active women in their strategic planning offices. It took a far-seeing eye attuned to detail and an analytical mind to plan a mode of attack as well as a decent social affair.
Just as I was about to finish, I heard a rap at the back door. Looking up, I saw Hazel Marie open the door and walk in.
“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked. “I can’t stay but a minute. I’m on my way to the dry cleaner’s, but just had to stop to give you the latest news.”
“Oh, do come in, Hazel Marie,” I said, pleased to see her. “Come have a seat. Lillian and I were just finishing plans for a party.”
“Oh, good, I need a good party to take my mind off things. Lillian,” she said as she sat beside me at the table, “how are you? I hope you’re not missing Ronnie too much.”
“No’m, I get used to him bein’ gone pretty quick.”
“Well,” Hazel Marie
said, taking a deep breath, “I hate to carry tales, but I overheard some ladies talking yesterday and I just had to tell you. It wasn’t like I was deliberately eavesdropping, but I was out by that fence of J.D.’s trying to figure how many bushes I’ll need to plant and, well, you know how warm it was yesterday . . .”
“Unseasonably so,” I said, as Lillian nodded in agreement.
“Yes, well, there’s one tree in the Cochran yard and it’s right next to the fence.” She stopped as if wondering whether to continue, but she did. “J.D. says he’s going to rake up every leaf that falls in our yard and dump them all on their front porch. But, well, anyway, all of a sudden three ladies—I wasn’t sure who they were at first, but they’d been working inside that house. So they came out and sat under the tree to eat their lunch. You know, when they come to work over there, they all bring bag lunches. So there they were, talking about how much they were enjoying fixing up that house, and there I was, right on the other side of the fence, afraid to move. I couldn’t help but hear what they were saying.”
“What was it?” I asked, leaning forward.
“They were talking about what they were doing for what they called those ‘poor, unloved, mistreated, and deprived children.’ And, I’ll tell you, it was the silliest stuff I’ve ever heard. I recognized Mary Nell Warner’s breathy voice—you know how excited she can get. But, Miss Julia, she’s had no experience whatsoever with teenage boys. She’s never even been married, but she told about an old train set she was going to bring and set up for the boys to play with. And one of them—I’m sure it was Lorna McKenzie because I’d seen her go in the house that morning—anyway, she said she’d bought two bedspreads with cowboy designs on them that were ‘just so cute,’ and somebody else—it sounded like Diane Jarret—she said she’d had so much fun rearranging furniture, putting out cushions with clever sayings like ‘Hope,’ ‘Eat well,’ and ‘You can do it.’ And she said she’d put flowers in vases around the rooms to perfume the air. They went on and on like that, trying to outdo each other in preparing the house, and, I declare, they sounded for all the world like little girls playing house. They almost had a falling out over the color of towels to go in a bathroom.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said, slumping with near despair. “That house is nothing but a pastime for them with no thought of the responsibility of taking on wayward teenagers. I wonder how long their interest will last when there’s a fight, or one stays out overnight, or the cops come calling. And,” I went on, “Lorna and Mary Nell are busybodies of the first order, anyway. And if they were there, I’ll bet Sadie Morgan was, too.”
“Oh, she was,” Hazel Marie said, “because one of them said she was crocheting a maroon throw to go on the sofa, and crocheting is Sadie Morgan’s thing. She sent me a set of pink doilies when we moved into Mr. Sam’s house.
“Well,” Hazel Marie said, leaning her head on her hand, “it’s just one thing after another. Every time I turn around, there’s something else to worry about. Why, just this morning I caught J.D. teaching Lily Mae how to handle one of his tools. It was too heavy for her to even pick up, but have you ever heard of such a thing? I said, ‘J.D., she’s a little girl!’ and he said, ‘Girls can do whatever they want to do.’ Which, I guess, is a good way to look at it, but a nail gun?
“But then,” Hazel Marie went on, “he does something so sweet that I can’t stay mad at him. You know Mrs. Randolph, who lives across the street from us in that little English cottage?”
“Oh, yes, Ethel Randolph. She lost her husband last year.”
“Yes, and she’s been kinda lost herself since then. Anyway, those people working on the Cochran house park on both sides of the street, making it so narrow that two cars can’t get through at the same time. And yesterday, one of them parked so that the back end extended over Mrs. Randolph’s driveway, and she couldn’t get her car out. J.D. saw her standing over there crying because she was about to be late for a doctor’s appointment, and the owner of the car had gone off with somebody else to buy picture hangers.”
“Oh, how thoughtless!”
Lillian, frowning, said, “Some people don’t think of nobody but theyselves.”
“Well, they won’t do it again, because J.D. got me to take Mrs. Randolph to her appointment. I had to wait almost two hours to bring her home, so thank goodness Granny Wiggins was with the children. Anyway, when I brought her home, that whole side of the street had been cleared out. J.D. had called the police and they’d had that car towed, and the owner got a citation and a fine when she came back with her picture hangers. And on top of that—I don’t know how he did it, but there were signs going up all along that side of the street saying NO PARKING THIS SIDE. And J.D. stood out there and pointed his finger in Mrs. Randolph’s face and told her if anybody ever parked there again, she was to call either him or the police or both. And she was so grateful that she cried on his shoulder.”
Hazel Marie sighed. “He can be just so sweet.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, willing to be, but not entirely, convinced.
“But,” Hazel Marie went on, “wait till you hear what else he’s doing.”
Lillian, spellbound by the tales of Mr. Pickens’s derring-do, asked, “What in the world else?”
“Well,” Hazel Marie said, as if ridding herself of a great burden, “you know there’s room for three cars to park on the street in front of our house—one between our driveway and the property line where J.D.’s fence is, and two more from the driveway to the corner of the block. Actually, there’s room for three but there’s a fire hydrant at the corner where nobody can park.
“So those places fill up fast with all the ladies and some men coming and going next door, and it drives J.D. crazy to see them all lined up in front of our house. Anyway, yesterday afternoon after they’d all left, J.D. told James to move his car from the garage and put it in one of those parking places. And he was about to put his car and mine in the other two places, until he realized that we’d all be going and coming, which meant that somebody could take our places while we were gone.”
Hazel Marie pushed her hair back, then heaved another deep sigh. “So off he went and came back with three—three, Miss Julia—old, beat-up cars from a used-car lot and parked them in the spaces in front of our house. I said, ‘J.D., did you go out and buy those cars?’ And he said, ‘Nope, I made an arrangement with the owner. If you’ll look on the windshield, you’ll see signs that say GOOD USED CARS FROM CARSON & SONS. I’m giving him free off-site advertising space in return for parking them here.’” Hazel Marie blew out her breath. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“Well, no, I haven’t, but I certainly admire his creative thinking.” I didn’t mention the fact that there’d still be cars parked in front of his house, but I guess it makes a difference when you do it yourself.
Chapter 25
Hazel Marie wouldn’t stay for lunch—she had errands to run, and with her husband on a rampage, she knew better than to stay away from home for too long.
But just as Lillian got out the bread and mayonnaise to make sandwiches, LuAnne called and rescued me from another egg salad sandwich.
“I know it’s late to be calling,” LuAnne said, “but if you haven’t eaten, let’s go to lunch.”
Pleased to get out of the house, I agreed and we met at the popular Hot Dog Palace—as a change, you know, from tearooms and fusion restaurants. Not that either of us ordered hot dogs. We both had the bacon, lettuce, and tomato, or BLT, sandwiches. Only they turned out to be bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato sandwiches, or, I guess, BLFGT sandwiches, which sounded slightly questionable. Whatever they were, they were good and made a hearty change from salads, dainty sandwiches, and strange sauces. An added plus was that the Hot Dog Palace did not offer wine, either by the glass or by the bottle, so I didn’t have to watch and worry as LuAnne imbibed.
“Julia,” LuAnne said as she
unwrapped a knife and fork from a paper napkin, “tell me the truth. Did you know about Leonard and that Totsie woman?”
Uh-oh, I thought. Who wanted to get into such a conversation with every plumber, electrician, contractor, and half the secretaries in town eating lunch around us?
Lowering my voice and leaning toward her, I said, “No, LuAnne, I promise you I did not know until you sent me into the courthouse to look for him. And even then, I wasn’t sure.”
Of course, I had heard the rumors, but I had not known, so I hoped that my equivocation would satisfy her. I mean, who would rush to a friend and say, “Guess what your husband’s doing”? On the other hand, no wife wants to be the last to know. When and what to tell certainly presents a conundrum to anyone who wants to both help and protect a friend.
To tell the truth, every time I thought of how LuAnne’s husband had lived two lives for years, I’d get so angry on her behalf that I could hardly see straight. And I wasn’t so dense that I didn’t realize I was identifying with her because the very same thing had happened to me. I was well aware that my anger toward Leonard was partially aimed at Wesley Lloyd Springer, my late unmissed first husband. And I also knew what a futile exercise that was, seeing that Wesley Lloyd was six feet under and had been that way for years.
As the young waitress placed our orders before us, we thanked her and began eating—thank goodness for something to divert LuAnne from further questions of what I’d known and when I’d known it. Her question, however, had been a reminder of the only thing that continued to trouble me about my first marriage. And that was the question of what I would’ve done if I’d learned of Wesley Lloyd’s double life before, instead of after, I’d buried him. I was still not sure if—at that time in my life—I would’ve had the courage to leave him. To see that LuAnne—the neediest woman I knew—so obviously had that courage made me not only admire her but also wonder where it had come from.
