by Ann B. Ross
“I’m glad he knows how to handle something,” I said, putting the list in my pocketbook. “He’s certainly not doing so well with Hazel Marie.”
When Hazel Marie decided she needed to do something useful that afternoon after lunch, she went upstairs to straighten the linen closet—one of her favorite busy things to do. She was changing the scented shelf liners and rearranging the sheets and pillowcases in neat stacks. I was happy enough to let her do it, while I sat in the living room reading the newspaper in more detail than my early morning scan.
Hearing a car door slam, I looked out the window to see Emma Sue Ledbetter and LuAnne Conover coming up the walk. I threw the paper aside and hurried up the stairs.
“Hazel Marie,” I said, puffing just a little, “LuAnne and Emma Sue are on their way in. Do you want to see them or are you still in bed?”
The stack of sheets she was holding started sliding from her arms and her face went as pale as one of them. “I think I’m going to throw up.” I caught the sheets and put them on a shelf as she leaned against the wall for support.
“You don’t have to see them,” I told her. “I’ll tell them you’ve had a relapse or something.”
“No,” she said, straightening up, “no, I’ve got to do it sometime. It might as well be now. But, Miss Julia, don’t leave me alone with them. I don’t know if I can do it by myself.”
The doorbell rang downstairs and I heard Lillian’s scuffling footsteps as she went to answer it. “Buck up, Hazel Marie. You’ll do fine. If they put you on the spot, I’ll jump in. Why don’t you wait up here till I call you. They may not even expect you to come down.”
Well, that wasn’t the case, because Hazel Marie was the first thing Emma Sue asked about as soon as I went down and welcomed them.
“How is Hazel Marie?” she asked, settling herself on the sofa. “We do hope she’s well enough for a little visit. You know, it’s been almost two weeks since anybody’s laid eyes on her and we’re all so concerned.”
“We really are,” LuAnne said. “Why, Julia, just this past Sunday at church, old lady Evans told me she’d heard that Hazel Marie has some kind of wasting disease and wasn’t long for this world.”
“Oh, for goodness sakes,” I said with a wave of my hand. “The things that get around in this town. Hazel Marie is well on the road to recovery after a long bout with whatever-it-was. She’s still a little weak and shaky because she’d let herself get run down before it hit. And you know how that stuff lingers on. But, other than still needing a lot of rest, she’s fine.” I stood up. “Let me call her. I know she’d love to see you.”
After going up to get her, I let Hazel Marie lean against me as we walked downstairs and into the living room. “Pretend to be weak,” I whispered. “Then they won’t stay long.”
She nodded, plastered a smile on her face, and wobbled to a chair. “It’s so good to see you both,” she said.
Emma Sue ran to give her a hug, but not before asking if she was still contagious.
“Oh, Hazel Marie,” Emma Sue said, “you don’t know how I’ve prayed for you. Honey, you’ve been constantly in my prayers.”
Not to be outdone, LuAnne had to give her a hug, too. “You’re looking so good. Why, I wouldn’t know you’d even been sick if Julia hadn’t told me. Although it took her long enough to say anything. I had to hear it at the post office.”
Lillian brought in a tea tray and a plate of shortbread cookies. I busied myself serving each of them, as the conversation gradually veered away from Hazel Marie’s looks and condition. Which was a good thing, because they didn’t seem to notice how the cup jiggled in Hazel Marie’s saucer as she took it from me. I looked straight at her and gave her an encouraging nod.
“Uh,” Hazel Marie began as soon as there was a lull, “you’ll never guess what’s happened.” She put her cup and saucer on a side table and clasped her trembling hands in her lap. “I’ve got a job.”
“A job!” Emma Sue exclaimed.
“Why?” LuAnne demanded, staring at Hazel Marie.
“Well,” Hazel Marie said, her eyes downcast, “the offer’s too good to turn down. And, you know, I can’t just do nothing for the rest of my life.” She took a trembling breath. “It’s not a good example for Lloyd, for one thing.” She glanced at me, and I nodded. She was doing fine.
“Oh, that’s so commendable,” Emma Sue said, “although I do think that mothers should stay home with their children. But,” she went on quickly, “it’s different with you, Hazel Marie, you have Julia and Lillian to take up the slack.”
LuAnne had a frown on her face, making me wonder if she was entertaining a few doubts. “What kind of job?” she asked, wanting, as I knew she would, all the details.
“Well,” Hazel Marie commenced, her hands gripped so tightly it was a wonder that no one commented on them, “they want me to be an event organizer. At a hotel. In Palm Beach. That’s in Florida.”
My eyes widened, and my cup began to jiggle. How had she come up with event organizer?
“Palm Beach!” Emma Sue cried, almost sputtering. “You’re moving?”
Hazel Marie nodded, glanced at me and said, “I guess so.”
I chimed in then. “Hazel Marie wants to expand her horizons.”
LuAnne sat there, her eyes narrowed. “Just what does an event organizer do?”
“Um, well,” Hazel Marie said, her eyes darting around looking for an answer. “They organize events. At the hotel, like, well, they’ll give me a training course.”
I leaned over to make a point. “LuAnne, you know those big hotels are always having social occasions, like dances and balls and luncheons and so forth. I expect Hazel Marie will be organizing them.”
“Which big hotel?” LuAnne asked.
Hazel Marie’s mouth opened but nothing came out.
“The Breakers,” I said, naming the only one I’d heard of.
“Oh, my goodness,” LuAnne said, patting her chest. “The Breakers! Why, that’s marvelous. I’ve always wanted to go there. You are so lucky, Hazel Marie. How’d you ever know to apply?”
“Well,” I said, ready with an answer, “I met a few people when I visited Palm Beach.” Which was certainly true, let LuAnne think what she would. She didn’t know who I’d met, and who I hadn’t.
“I will really miss you, Hazel Marie,” Emma Sue said, moved almost to tears, which was not unexpected, “but this sounds like a wonderful opportunity. So glamorous and all, but I hope you won’t let being around all that wealth change you.”
“No, ma’am, I won’t.”
I thought we’d gotten past the worst of it until LuAnne asked about Lloyd. “He’s going with you, I take it.”
“Well,” Hazel Marie said, her voice thick and quivery with threatening tears. “I haven’t decided yet.”
We’d gotten to the touchy place where I needed to be careful. So I picked my way by saying, “It’s a big decision, as you can imagine, LuAnne. We’re concerned about changing schools since he’s done so well here, so Hazel Marie may go on by herself and send for him when she gets settled. She wants to do the right thing by him.”
Emma Sue nodded. “That sounds like the smart thing to do. But, oh, Hazel Marie, we are going to miss you. I don’t know who we’ll get to help with the Christmas pageant. But you’ll be back for the holidays, won’t you?”
Lord, I had to nip that in the bud, since Hazel Marie was suddenly struck dumb, realizing that by the time Christmas rolled around, she’d be in no shape to be seen. “Why, Emma Sue,” I hurriedly said, “the holidays will be her busiest time. That’s the season in Palm Beach, and you know how social those people are.”
“Oh, I do,” LuAnne said, her eyes glowing. “I read about them all the time. You wouldn’t believe all the parties they have, Emma Sue, raffles and auctions and all kinds of things. The season in Palm Beach is just full of high society types and glittering celebrities.” She leaned forward, eager to share now in Hazel Marie’s good fortune. “Maybe you’
ll meet somebody while you’re there.”
I saw a shudder run through Hazel Marie and quickly came to my feet. “I think she needs to rest now. Come on, sweetie, you’ve done enough today.” I put my arm around her as she stood, then addressed LuAnne and Emma Sue. “Excuse me a minute. I’ll be back down as soon as I help her upstairs. She still gets these weak spells, but a little Florida sunshine ought to fix that.”
Emma Sue and LuAnne immediately rose and, wishing Hazel Marie well, prepared to leave as I’d known they would. You can generally count on people with good manners, even when you’ve temporarily put aside your own.
Chapter 22
“Lord, Sam,” I said that night as we lay in bed, talking in the dark. “How in the world she came up with event organizer, I don’t know, but it was perfect. Emma Sue and LuAnne didn’t know any more about it than she did, so they couldn’t get into details. But Hazel Marie had seen something about event organizers in one of her magazines. Vanity Fair, I think, and apparently it had stuck.”
Sam laughed low in his chest. “Pretty fast thinking, if you ask me.”
“I think so, too. And a whole lot better than running a cash register at a 7-Eleven, which I think is all she’s ever done. I can’t see that as something to build a career on, or to move to Florida for, either. And Emma Sue and LuAnne certainly wouldn’t have.” I shifted to get a little more comfortable. “But, Sam, the whole thing was like driving stakes in my heart. I mean, she’s taken the first step toward moving away from us. It’s like a door has closed against any other solution, and I am just sick about it.”
Sam pulled me closer, letting me know that he understood the despair I was feeling. “Has she told Lloyd yet? About the baby, I mean?”
I shook my head against his chest, then moved to come up for air. “No, and I asked her about it. She said she thought she might not tell him at all, especially if she can bring herself to leave him here. And then she admitted that the real reason she hasn’t told him is because he’d tell Mr. Pickens. So she’s going to wait at least until he’s gone.”
My words hung over us in the dark as we both thought about that. Then I went on. “I keep thinking that maybe one of us ought to tell the boy and let him go ahead and tell Mr. Pickens. Sometimes that seems the only way to break the logjam.”
“Not yet, Julia. We might lose her for good if we interfere.”
“Well, I’ll tell you this, every time I think of Hazel Marie off somewhere by herself, I get so distraught I can hardly see straight. You know how she is, Sam, sweet as she can be, but naive and gullible. Somebody could take advantage of her, as several already have, and we wouldn’t be there to help her.”
“All we can do is let her know that we’re here if she needs us. And, remember, she is a grown woman.”
“I know, but being grown doesn’t always mean you can take care of yourself.” I turned over in bed, almost ready for sleep. “Or that you have good sense, either.”
Mr. Pickens, looking professionally serious, came by for me the next morning. He was noticeably quieter than usual, not even carrying on nonsense with Lillian. Instead, he kept casting glances at the dining room door as if hoping that Hazel Marie would come through it.
“You feelin’ all right?” Lillian asked him. “You lookin’ a little peaked.”
“I’m fine, Lillian,” he said. “Just got my mind on what we have to do this morning.”
I took the time to show Lillian the list of people we’d be searching for, asking if she knew where any of them lived.
“These folks,” she said, pointing at a name, “they live on the other side of the county, close up to Brevard. You won’t have no trouble findin’ ’em, everybody knows who they are. An’ this one here, I think he live on Benton Creek Road.”
“Near that Pentecostal church?” I asked.
“Yessum, but not that far. I don’t know them others.”
“This one,” I said, tapping a pencil against a name, “I believe lives up that wiggly road off the Delmont Highway.”
Mr. Pickens had had enough directional discussion. “Let’s get a move on,” he said and headed for the door.
Raising my eyebrows at Lillian, I hurriedly collected my pocketbook and followed him out to his car. It was a different, but little better, one than the car he’d driven when we first met.
“I see you have a new car,” I commented pleasantly as I slid into the seat beside him.
“Had it for a while,” he said, busily cranking it and backing out of the driveway. “Which way?”
“Well,” I said, realizing that social chitchat was not on his agenda, “Let me see.” I took the list out of my pocketbook and studied it. “Let’s look for the Tillmans first. Go west on Polk, then take a right on Sanders Street. Go about six blocks and pick up 68 West. Then veer south after a few miles on the highway and turn left after you pass McCleary’s grocery.”
He gave no answer, just drove according to my directions. When he turned onto the highway, he said, “You do know where we’re going, don’t you?”
“I know about where we’re going. I’ll know it when I see it.”
He gave me a quick sideways look that would’ve been chilling if I’d let it bother me. “You know, Mr. Pickens,” I said, uncomfortable with his snippy responses and constrained by good manners to make sociable conversation to fill in the gaps. “You’d do well to invest in one of those global things. You can get a portable and put it right up there on your dashboard. Then you’d be able to find any place you’re looking for.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got one.”
“Well, my goodness, let’s use it.”
“Miss Julia,” he said, as if it pained him to point out the obvious, “you have to have an address for the thing to work.”
“I know that. My car has one built in.”
“Tell me this, then,” he said with the hint of a mocking smile. “How do you enter: Go south a few miles, turn left at McCleary’s grocery, and drive ten miles up a wiggly road? Or how about: Somewhere between that apple orchard with a feed and seed sign and the crossroads, but not as far as the Pentecostal church?”
I looked straight ahead, not deigning to answer. His sarcasm was so unbecoming that I wouldn’t stoop to respond. As he continued to drive, the silence, if there’d been any with the rumbling of the outsized motor, would’ve been deafening.
Then he glanced across at me. “Or what about: On that road that crosses the creek that floods every time it rains? No, ma’am,” he concluded, “what do I need with a GPS, when I’ve got one sitting right next to me?”
“Mr. Pickens,” I said as coolly as I could manage, “since we’ll be working together for the next few days, I would recommend that you put aside your personal problems and not let them slop over into your professional business. It would improve your disposition immeasurably. There’s the grocery. Turn left right past it.”
“Personal problems? I’ve got no personal problems,” he said as he bounced the car off the pavement and onto a well-scraped dirt road.
“An inability to recognize a problem is a problem in itself,” I said, deciding that if he needed a lecture, I was willing to give him one. “There’s enough ice between you and Hazel Marie that you could cut it with a knife. Now it seems to me that the two of you could come to some sort of pleasant compromise. There’re other people who’re being affected, you know.” Well, of course he didn’t know, but I’d gone as far as I could safely go.
He nodded, gave the car a little gas as we started up a hill, then said, “Yeah, I know, and Lloyd’s right in the middle of it. But I don’t know what she wants me to do. She won’t have anything to do with me, and I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t know what I’ve done.”
“Well, if that’s the case, you’re in worse shape than I imagined.” I sat up and pointed to a small white house set back off the road on a hill. “I think that’s the Tillman house. Turn in and let’s see.” Then with a sharp glance at him, I said, “You might consider that
it’s something you haven’t done.”
That comment gained me a disparaging grunt as he applied himself to negotiating the narrow driveway.
As the car bounced up the steep drive, I took note of the weedy front yard, the sagging barbed wire fence on the right, a car up on blocks beside a weathered barn and the small farmhouse that badly needed a good scraping and a few coats of paint.
“Doesn’t look very prosperous, does it?” I murmured, looking out the windshield.
Mr. Pickens parked near the front porch and took some index cards from his pocket. Studying one, he said, “Says here that the Tillmans’re half-brothers and they’ve lived here alone since their mother died. Neither ever married, and one of them, Ted, was arrested several times, mostly in the sixties. Never served any time to amount to anything, just kept overnight a few times. He made a couple of first appearances in court, then was released on time served or for lack of evidence.”
“Arrested for what?”
“Looks like petty theft, mostly. He took a lawn mower from a neighbor one time that was later found in his barn.” Mr. Pickens looked up and nodded toward the leaning barn. “That one there, I guess. And Sam mentioned something about a mule, but couldn’t remember the details. Apparently his mother pled that he was mentally incompetent, and the court released him. Sam thinks Bob looks after him now.”
“Well,” I said, seeing two old men standing behind the screen door, staring at us, “looks like there’s the brother and his keeper. We better let them know what we’re doing here.”
“Right.” Mr. Pickens opened his door and started to get out. He turned back and said, “Keep it as light as you can, and let me ask the questions. Sam doesn’t want them any more hostile than they already are.” He gave me one of his old wicked grins. “They might shoot us.”
Chapter 23
“Morning,” Mr. Pickens sang out, as he mounted the rickety steps to the porch where the two men stood in the doorway, one in front of the other. The one in front, holding the screen door, was the shorter. He was round in body and full in the face, with red cheeks and deeply embedded eyes. What hair he had was white, ringing the crown of his head like a ruff of fur. With a red suit, beard, and wig, I thought as I stepped up onto the porch behind Mr. Pickens, this Tillman could get a seasonal job at the mall. Now though, he was wearing pants from an old suit, scuffed brogans, and a checked shirt. He seemed friendly enough, though he didn’t step back to welcome us into his home, which was just as well. I had no desire to go farther than right where I was.
