by Ann B. Ross
Issuing another order, he said, “Sit and wait. I’ll get her.”
I did as I was told, and soon he appeared with Lillian, who came in wide-eyed and fearful. Ordering her to sit, he stood before us, his fists clenched and his face dark and threatening.
Much to my surprise, the next words out of his mouth were calmly said. “You’re talking about Hazel Marie?”
Taken aback, I said, “Why, Mr. Pickens, who else would it be?”
“Lord,” he said, falling into a chair as if his legs had given way. He buried his face in his hands, then came up for air. “How long has this been going on?”
I glanced at Lillian, who was studiously avoiding both of us. Gathering my courage, I answered, “I believe since San Francisco, wouldn’t you say?”
His head flopped back against the chair, and I could see his manly chest going up and down as he absorbed the information.
“All right,” he said, sitting up abruptly, his investigative mind apparently putting the pieces together. “She’s pregnant, is that what you’re saying?”
I nodded, as Lillian decided to jump in then. “Yessir, jus’ as much as she can be, an’ then some. An’ the daddy need to be helpin’ with them babies.”
His black eyes darted from one to the other of us. He swallowed hard, started to speak, stopped, then tried again. “Babies?” he croaked. “Did you say babies?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “But don’t worry. There’s only two of them.”
Chapter 40
Mr. Pickens had always been a quick study—he rarely had to be told anything twice. But in this instance, it took the longest time for him to come to grips with the news of the change in his circumstances. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t the lengthy interrogatory session he put us through.
Well, I did know what I expected. I expected him to either run with open arms to Hazel Marie and put an end to all our worries, or else I expected him to take off for parts unknown and never be heard from again. One or the other, but not these picky, picky questions about every aspect of the past few weeks.
“When did she find out?” he asked, beginning to pepper us with questions. “How long has she kept it from me? Who all knows about it? Why didn’t somebody tell me? Why didn’t she tell me?”
His eyes bored into mine with that last question, so I felt beholden to answer as best as I could. “I can’t answer that, Mr. Pickens, because I tried everything I knew to get her to tell you. But she’d have none of it. She even made me promise not to tell you, and, see, here I’ve just done what I promised not to do although it was really Lillian who finally told you and not me, as you well know. So please don’t tell her I told you because she’d know I broke my promise and might never trust me again.” I paused to catch my breath. “Anyway, Hazel Marie said it was her problem and she had to deal with it herself. Besides,” I went on, deciding that since he’d asked, I might as well tell it all, “knowing how determined you are to shy away from another marriage, she thought you wouldn’t care one way or another and would just leave her holding the bag, so to speak, regardless of what you knew. So whether you knew or didn’t know, it wouldn’t change anything as far as she and those babies were concerned.”
With his elbows on his knees, he leaned over and covered his face with his hands. “How could she think that?”
“Easy,” I said, emboldened by this unusual display of tractability. “She told you it was over, and you believed her. She said she didn’t want to see you again, and you believed her. She said she wanted to be married and make a home with you and Lloyd, but did you believe that? Oh, no, you didn’t. And this was all even before she knew what you’d done to her, and, Mr. Pickens, believe this if nothing else: She didn’t want to force you into marriage. I’m quite proud of her for that although I’ll tell you the truth, there’s not a viable alternative, and, believe this, too, we’ve considered every other option under the sun.”
“Yessir,” Lillian chimed in, “we have and she have, too. Why, no tellin’ how many times she been packin’ up to move off somewhere where nobody know her. An’ Miss Julia, she been doin’ all she know to do to keep her an’ Lloyd here, but they hardly any way out ’cept Miss Hazel Marie stay here an’ have two little yard chil’ren for everybody to talk about.”
He groaned, pulled his hands down his face and stared at the floor between his knees. “I can’t believe this.”
“Why, Mr. Pickens, every word we’ve said is the absolute truth.”
He glanced at me, then back at the floor. “I don’t mean that. I mean I can’t believe she’d think I wouldn’t care.”
“Then you better do something to show her you do because she’s serious about leaving town. And she’ll be up and gone this weekend if she finds out that Emma Sue Ledbetter’s giving her a surprise going-away party Monday night.”
He sprang from his chair, walked across the room, turned around and walked back. Then he stood there for a minute like he didn’t quite know what to do next. “I’m going over there,” he finally said. “She may not want me, but I’m going.”
As he headed for the front door, Lillian and I exchanged a triumphant look, then we came to our feet, calling, “Wait! Mr. Pickens, wait.”
“What?”
“You need some shoes,” I said, pointing to his bare feet.
He looked down and said, “Oh. Well, just hold on a minute.” As he started down the hall toward the bedroom he was temporarily occupying, he stopped and came back. “Do not,” he said, pointing his finger at me, “leave this room. I don’t want you running over there and telling her I’m coming.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that for the world,” I said, stepping back to my chair to show I had no intention of ruining his big moment.
Lillian sank down in her chair again, and we sat there gazing first at each other, then toward the hall where we expected to see him return.
“He takin’ a long time to put on them shoes,” Lillian whispered, a hint of worry creeping into her voice. “You don’t reckon he slip out the back, do you?”
“Well, he just better not.” But a sense of dread was filling my mind. If he flew the coop after knowing what he needed to know, then he was a lost cause and we were back where we’d started from.
Then, to my great relief, we heard the sound of well-shod feet striding purposefully down the hall. He appeared in the doorway, dressed in gray slacks and an ecru linen jacket over a white shirt and paisley silk tie. And shoes. His hair was neatly combed and ready for business.
“Why, Mr. Pickens,” I said approvingly, “you look so nice. Perfectly appropriate for a late afternoon wedding proposal.”
He glared at me, opened the front door, and strode across the porch toward his car.
“Come on, Lillian,” I said, jumping up and running after him. “Let’s ride with him.”
Easier said than done, for Mr. Pickens’s car was not made for backseat passengers who were any larger than Lloyd. And both of us were.
Mr. Pickens already had the engine rumbling as I reached the passenger door and opened it. “We’ll go with you, if you don’t mind. It’s awfully hot to be walking.”
I stepped back, holding the door wide, and motioned to Lillian to crawl in the back. But seeing the problem after she flipped down the front seat, I said, “Wait, I’ll get in the back. You sit up front.”
We jostled each other, trying to change places, as Mr. Pickens impatiently revved the motor. “Just get in, one way or the other,” he said, his teeth clenched together. “I don’t have all day.”
“Well,” I said right smartly, as I crawled over the front seat, “you’ve waited this long, you can at least give us time to get in.”
I got settled and buckled in with some difficulty, but when Lillian righted the front seat, it smacked my knees straight up into my lap. “Oh, Lord,” I moaned. “Hurry, Mr. Pickens, I’m so crimped up back here I can hardly breathe. Lillian, move your seat up a little if you can.”
“I can’t, M
iss Julia,” she said. “I already on top of the dashboard.”
Mr. Pickens clunked the gearshift into reverse and we spurted out of the drive onto the street. “Will you two just hold on for two minutes?” He slammed the car into gear and off we took, nearly inflicting a whiplash injury as my head was jerked backward. “You could’ve walked, you know.”
I didn’t reply, making gracious allowances because Mr. Pickens was under some stress and shouldn’t be blamed for injecting a little sarcasm now and then. Poor man, he had a lot on his mind.
But I’d made all the allowances I was willing to make when he suddenly swerved the car to the side of the street and slammed on the brakes. We came to a screeching halt as my head snapped forward from the loss of momentum, and Lillian let out a piercing shriek.
“What! What is it?” I yelled.
“Siren,” Mr. Pickens said calmly, as if he hadn’t just put me in double jeopardy as far as whiplash was concerned.
I heard it then, coming up fast behind us. Mr. Pickens waited, his thumbs impatiently drumming on the steering wheel, as the car idled on the side of the street. The sirens, for there were more than one, increased in volume as two sheriff ’s patrol cars, a first responder ambulance truck and a long, heavy fire engine raced past us, one after the other. The car shuddered with the shock waves of their passing.
Mr. Pickens looked over his shoulder to be sure the street was clear, then he eased the car into the lane and drove a little more sedately toward my house and Hazel Marie. Maybe the sight of the emergency vehicles had calmed him down. What good would he be to her if he got all banged up in an accident?
“Wonder where they’re going?” I mused aloud, not expecting an answer.
“Could be anything,” Mr. Pickens answered, “from a three-car pile-up to a cat in a tree. They go all out for every call.”
“Might be a fire somewhere,” Lillian said.
“Not necessarily,” Mr. Pickens said. “The fire truck rolls, regardless.”
He was approaching the last turn before Polk Street when Lillian said, “I don’t hear them sireens no more. They done stopped somewhere.”
“Hazel Marie!” I shrieked as fear jolted through me like a streak of lightning. The same fear must’ve jolted Mr. Pickens, for he stomped on the gas, took the turn on screeching tires and straightened up on Polk Street.
Then he slammed on the brakes a full block from my house, and a good thing he did for the street was crammed full. Cars were parked along both sides and emergency vehicles with red and blue lights flashing and white lights strobing blocked the center.
“Let me out, it’s our house!” I screamed, unbuckling the seat belt and pushing the back of Lillian’s seat. “Hurry, Lillian, something’s happened to Hazel Marie!”
As she fumbled to unbuckle herself, Mr. Pickens flung open his door and ran toward the house, his very nice tie streaming over his shoulder. He was running full steam, zigzagging among parked sedans and SUVs and the fire engine until he came to a patrol car that had skewed to a stop sideways in the street. It didn’t even slow him down. He took a leap up onto the hood, came down on the other side and made tracks across the yard.
“I can’t get outta this thing!” Lillian cried, but by the time she finally did, I’d already flattened Mr. Pickens’s seat and crawled out the driver’s side.
I wanted to run to the house, but I was too fearful of seeing what I feared to see. Holding onto the car, my limbs quivering, wanting to go and wanting to stay, I could see the heads of a mob of people swarming on the porch and in the yard, giving way only when the paramedics parted the crowd with a loaded stretcher.
“Lillian,” I moaned, as she came around and put an arm around my waist. I clutched at her, fear of the worst filling my mind with a white haze. “Don’t let it be Hazel Marie. Or Lloyd. Oh, Lord, please, not Lloyd.”
Chapter 41
The paramedics slid the stretcher into the back of their vehicle and closed the door with a thunk. In a second or so the truck began to back and fill to untangle itself from the traffic jam, lights flashing and siren working up to a wail as it sped off toward the hospital. Deputies disengaged from the crowd, got into their patrol cars and edged away from the cars parked along the street. Firemen waved at the deputies and headed toward the rumbling fire engine.
“Do you see Mr. Pickens?” I asked, clinging to Lillian’s arm. “Did he go with them? Oh, Lord, Lillian, I’m afraid to know which one it was.”
“We not gonna know ’less we go see,” Lillian said.
So we hurried toward the house, picking up speed as we passed the huge red fire engine hovering over us, my heart thumping with every step.
“Who’re all these people? Where’d they come from?” I asked, as we broke into a run.
“Folks always come when something awful happen,” Lillian panted, as she trotted along beside me.
When we gained the sidewalk in front of my house, I saw that the mob of people, which turned out to be a fairly small mob, was all women. One or two familiar faces began to emerge out of the haze that filled my head. But I didn’t stop, just plowed on up my walkway toward the porch as the crowd parted for us. I heard a low murmur of sympathy and a few moans issuing from both sides—none of which alleviated my anxiety.
As we approached the three steps to my front porch, my breath suddenly caught in my throat and I came to a dead stop, falling back against Lillian. I thought my heart had stopped, too, for there, spread across the steps and onto the walk, was a large, red puddle, still dripping from step to step.
I had never been a fainting kind of woman, but for just a second or two I lost any sense of where I was or what I was doing. “Hazel Marie,” I moaned, as visions of the recent disaster flooded my imagination and the irony of the situation nearly did me in. Just when we’d gotten Mr. Pickens of a mind to do the right thing, after all the trouble and worry we’d been through, a fateful occurrence had just released him to go his carefree way.
I could’ve cried and, in fact, did. If Lillian hadn’t been there holding me up, I would’ve crumpled to the ground.
“Miss Julia, Miss Julia,” Lillian said, patting my face. “Get hold of yo’self. It not what you think. Look at it, jus’ look. See them little bits an’ pieces?” She propped me up, urging me to look more closely. “See, that’s jus’ some of that Mexicum soup been spilt. Look at them cucumber pieces and there’s some little bell pepper chunks all cut up. It’s all right now. It’s not bad as you think.”
Lord, she was right! As my mind and eyes cleared, I could see what she’d pointed out. Gazpacho! Swinging around, I looked at one face after another, recognizing Mildred, LuAnne, Helen, and a dozen others from the Sunday school class, the book club, and the garden club, all of them with beautifully wrapped gifts in their hands. Some were holding trays or covered dishes as if they were on their way to a Wednesday night prayer meeting. And there at the top of the steps stood Emma Sue, wringing her hands as tears flowed copiously down her face.
“Oh, Julia,” she wailed, “we wanted to have this cleaned up before you got here. I’m so sorry there’s such a mess, but you won’t believe what happened.”
My mouth had fallen open at this unexpected reception, and I couldn’t seem to be able to close it. Gazpacho? Why? What were they doing at my house? Where was Hazel Marie? Mr. Pickens? Lloyd?
Emma Sue, smiling bravely through her tears, picked her way down the steps, sidestepping the dripping liquid. “We’re all so sorry. We wanted to surprise you and Hazel Marie.”
“You have, but where is she?”
“Well, I don’t know. We just got here,” Emma Sue said, looking around at the women who had closed in on us as if she expected to find Hazel Marie among them. “See, what happened was, I was just about to ring the doorbell when Miss Mattie Freeman came up the steps right behind Clarice Bennett. And she, I mean, Miss Mattie, was carrying a big bowl of her gazpacho—you know how good it is—and she missed a step, or at least we think she did. So she stumble
d against Clarice, knocking her down, and then fell right on top of her. Well, that big bowl she was carrying went flying up in the air and gazpacho spilled all over the place. It ruined Clarice’s dress, so she’s gone home to change, but the bowl didn’t even break, and we were afraid Miss Mattie had hurt herself so we called nine-one-one on a portable, and they took her to the emergency room. Just for observation, don’t you know. I don’t think she got hurt, but you never know. You do have homeowner’s, don’t you, Julia? Anyway,” Emma Sue summed up, looking beseechingly at me, “Surprise!”
I had so many questions I didn’t know which one to ask first. “Mr. Pickens,” I said, choosing what I hoped was the safest one. “Did you see him? He came running up here to help as soon as we saw all the commotion.”
“Why, yes, he helped them get Miss Mattie on the stretcher.” Emma Sue looked around. “But I don’t know where he went.”
LuAnne pushed her way through the crowd. “I saw him. I think he ran around to the back.”
“Well,” I said, choosing the question I probably should’ve asked first, “what’re you all doing here?”
“Why, it’s obvious, Julia,” Emma Sue said with some exasperation. “We’re having a surprise going-away party for Hazel Marie, and now it’s just ruined.”
“Today? I thought you were having it Monday night.”
“I knew it!” Emma Sue said, swinging around and searching the crowd. “Mildred told you, didn’t she? I knew she would, that’s why I told her the wrong day. Mildred Allen, where are you?”
“Miss Julia,” Lillian said, “we better get these ladies inside ’fore they melt. We be callin’ that ambulance back here, it so hot.”
About that time, the front door opened and Lloyd stepped out on the porch. A startled look swept across his face at the sight of so many women. His head switched around from one to the other. “Hey, Mrs. Allen, Mrs. Ledbetter. What’s going on?”
