Miss Julia Paints the Town

by Ann B. Ross

  “We still have a little time,” I said. “I was there about midday, and they were just tearing down the annex. Maybe something will happen before they get to the main building.”

  He shook his head. “No, I was just down there, and the last thing they did before quitting was put a hole in the back of the courthouse. Right through the courtroom where I’ve tried hundreds of cases.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” I said, my hand against my chest. “Why did they do that?”

  “To get a jump on tomorrow, I guess, and also to make sure nobody’ll have second thoughts. The commissioners have been getting complaints all day, to say nothing of all the protesters marching up and down the street. They might’ve realized how unpopular they’ve become and put a stop-work order on the demolition. Too late now, though.” He sighed and rose from his chair. “Lloyd, let me change clothes and we’ll go look through the rubble before supper. We’ll be scavengers and see if we can find us a nice souvenir. You want to go, Julia?”

  “I think not. I couldn’t stand seeing it. But see if you can find a brick with a date on it, or something like that.”

  Lloyd, saying he needed to change out of his school clothes, followed Sam out of the kitchen.

  I turned to Lillian and whispered fiercely, “You see? You see what kind of man Arthur Kessler is? He will be the ruination of this town if we let him. Oh, my,” I said, running my fingers through my hair, as a new thought struck me. “With Sam in and out, I better change plans with Etta Mae. And with Mildred, too. I’m not about to honor that man with a soiree, barbecued or otherwise, now that he’s actually struck a blow at the heart of this town.”

  With Lillian rolling her eyes and mumbling under her breath, I called Etta Mae again.

  “I’m just about to leave,” she told me. “I’ll be by to get you in about twenty minutes.”

  “Something’s come up, Etta Mae, so you’ll have to find Poochie by yourself. Sam’s home and I don’t want him to know what we’re doing, and I have to run over to Mildred’s and try to put a stop-work order on the soiree. I don’t want Mr. Kessler to think we’re celebrating him or anything he’s done or plans to do.”

  Etta Mae wasn’t too thrilled about going on a Poochie hunt by herself, but I finally talked her into it. When she realized that she would be on her own, she asked, “What’ll I do with him when I find him?”

  “Well, I don’t know. If you think we can depend on him to show up, have him meet us at the courthouse about one o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  “That’s the best time, Etta Mae. Sam’ll be good asleep, and nobody’ll be on Main Street. Tell Poochie what we want so he’ll bring the right tools and whatever he needs to climb that thing. He’ll know. He’s done it a dozen times. Just be sure he’ll be there, and I want him sober as a judge. It’s only fitting, given where we’ll be.

  “Oh, and Etta Mae,” I went on, “don’t come to the house. We don’t want to disturb anybody’s sleep. I’ll meet you around the corner on Jefferson a little before one. And, listen, when you talk to Poochie, make sure he knows that I’ll make it worth his while.”

  I hung up the phone, feeling more than a little anxious about leaving such an important part of my plans in somebody else’s hands.

  “Jus’ th’owin’ money ’round like a crazy woman,” Lillian said, plunking a skillet down on the stove. “Mr. Poochie ain’t nobody to be climbin’ no courthouses with.”

  “Oh, I’m not climbing anything, Lillian. My goodness, no.” I laughed at the thought. “Besides I’m afraid of heights, but I’m going to be there to be sure Poochie does. And be there to take care of that statue when he gets it down.” I frowned as I thought of the intricacies of moving an art object. “I’m wondering how heavy it is, and how he’ll manage to disengage it and hold on to it at the same time. But surely he knows what he’s doing. Well, I’m not going to worry about that. He’s done it before, so he can do it again. My worry is where we’re going to put it once we get it. Be thinking about that, Lillian. I’m going to run over to Mildred’s and tell her to call off the soiree.”

  “No way in the world, Julia,” Mildred said in no uncertain terms. She settled herself more firmly in the wicker chair on the side porch where we were sitting. “Why, we’ve already dug a pit in the backyard and everything. I have a whole pig on order to be delivered tomorrow. It needs to cook all night and all day, you know. And everybody I know’s been invited, and Tina Doland’s been over here every day practicing on my Steinway. No, it’s too late to call it off. Besides, it’s taken my mind off Horace, and I want people to know that I’m not sitting around grieving like an abandoned woman.”

  “Well,” I said, stirring a breeze against my face with one of Mildred’s lovely fans. The porch was a pleasant, shady place but it was that still, muggy time of day when the temperature soars. “Well, you’re not going to feel abandoned, come Saturday. You might as well know that I gave an interview to a newspaper reporter this morning and kind of mentioned you were having a barbecue. And that everybody was invited.”

  She stared at me for a minute, then reached for a little silver bell on a side table and tinkled it to summon Ida Lee.

  “Well,” I said, somewhat defensively, “that’s what you said.”

  Before she could answer, Ida Lee appeared with a tray of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. She handed each of us a glass, then started to leave.

  “Ida Lee,” Mildred said, “Tell Robert to dig another pit behind the pool house and please order another pig from the meat man. Looks like we’re going to have a crowd to feed.”

  When Ida Lee left, I said, “Mildred, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have issued a blanket invitation in your name. I overstepped, but you know I’ll help with the expense.”

  Mildred heaved herself out of the wicker chair, taking the green and white striped cushion with her. Brushing it off her backside and walking to the edge of the porch, she said, “No, you won’t. It’s my party, and actually, I’m glad. I only hope that Horace hears what a good time I’m having. Wherever he is.” She sniffed in a ladylike manner and leaned over to look closely at a peony bloom. “Bless his heart, I hope he hears about it because he’s always urging me to become more community-minded. He’ll be so pleased. I’m just sorry that he’ll miss it.” Flicking ants off the bloom, she added, “These bushes need spraying.”

  I nodded in response and kept fanning, unable to come up with anything suitable to say. There was a lot I could’ve said though. What in the world was the woman thinking, feeling sorry for Horace? After all he’d put her through and was continuing to put her through? He was still among the missing, wasn’t he? I say, bless his heart.

  Changing the subject, I asked, “How is LuAnne doing? Have you heard from her lately?”

  “My Lord,” she said, straightening up and waddling back to her chair, “that woman is about to drive me crazy. LuAnne’s always been more talk than action, but now she’s over here every day, wanting to help do this, wanting to change that or whatever pops into her head. ‘What can I do?’ she asks a dozen times a day. ‘Why don’t we do such-and-such? Let’s do it this way.’ And on and on. You know how she flits around anyway, but with this soiree, well, I’ve never seen her so excited about anything. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.” Mildred took a long drink of lemonade, then went on. “I finally asked her what her problem was. And do you know, she actually thinks Arthur Kessler is interested in her. I didn’t say anything, but I don’t know where in the world she got that idea.”

  I did, but silence seemed the safest course.

  By the time I was back home, Sam and Lloyd had returned from their search of the rubble behind the courthouse. Lloyd had found a a short rod of steel which he was convinced had come from a jail cell in the annex. They were both covered in brick dust up to their knees, so supper had to wait while they showered and changed, while I listened to Lillian grumbling about her roast getting as tough as shoe leather.

  After she serve
d supper and left for the day, Lloyd went to his room to text some messages or send e-mail or do something having to do with electronics, while Sam and I sat in the living room reading magazines. The television was on, but after the news, which Sam never missed, it was turned down too low to bother either of us.

  I turned the pages of a Time magazine, but my mind was elsewhere—specifically, on the night’s business that lay before me. Would Poochie show up? Could I entice him to climb to the top of the dome? Could he get the statue off and then down?

  The first order of business, though, was to get Sam in bed and sound asleep. I heard Lloyd walking around upstairs and was relieved when he called down to wish us good night. That, I thought, would bestir Sam, but he kept reading something in the National Geographic, a magazine he’d become attached to ever since, he’d told me, as a boy he’d discovered pictures of naked natives in it. By now, though, I assumed he’d had his fill and was reading instead of looking.

  Becoming more edgy and irritated, I flipped through the pages of the Time issue that I’d been trying to read. Hearing a low rumble of thunder off in the distance, I looked up. “Is that thunder?”

  “I hope so,” Sam said without raising his head. “We could use some rain.”

  Well, I couldn’t. At least not tonight. All I could do was pray that it would hold off until morning. But it was one more thing that was urging me to get down to the courthouse and get our business done.

  “I declare, Sam,” I said, snapping through one page after another, “there’re more ads than articles in this thing. And the lead article is on the brain, of all things. I thought this was supposed to be a news magazine. I’m tired of seeing something on health or exercise or how to lose weight or some other such thing every week that rolls around. If I wanted to read such as that, I’d buy a medical magazine, not a Time. I don’t know what those editors are thinking, do you?”

  “Uh-uh,” he said, continuing to read without showing one sign of sleepiness.

  “Well,” I said, slapping down the magazine and standing up, “I’m going to bed.”

  That got his attention. He looked up at me over his glasses, his eyebrows raised. “Really?”

  “I’m on my way,” I said, walking toward the bedroom.

  Down went the National Geographic and up off the sofa he came. “I’m right behind you,” he said.

  Chapter 36

  It was all I could do to stay awake, especially with Sam sleeping soundly beside me. Finally, I thought, as the clock on the bedside table flipped to twelve-thirty. I carefully eased out of bed and, with a last glance at Sam, walked barefoot out of the room and down the hall.

  I felt my way through the living room and then the dining room, both lit dimly by the streetlight on the corner, and slipped into the kitchen. Thunder, sounding closer, rumbled again as it had been doing off and on through the night.

  Lord, I thought, please don’t let it rain, but if it has to, I could do without a storm. Blindly, I ran my hands along the wall, avoiding chairs, fearing to make the least noise, since I didn’t dare turn on a light. As I reached the pantry door at last, I eased it open, slid inside and closed it behind me. Switching on a light, I pulled out a dress, underclothes and shoes from behind a ten-pound sack of Martha White flour where I’d hidden them earlier.

  I dressed hurriedly, wishing briefly for the green, cropped, polyester pants I’d bought in Florida but thrown out once I was back in Abbotsville. That’s the problem with keeping a neat clothes closet. Just as soon as you get rid of something you think you’ll never wear again, you’ll wish you had it back. As it was, though, a print housedress and my clunky gardening shoes would have to do, especially since I’d only be giving a pep talk to Poochie to start him up and a payment when he came down with the statue. It wasn’t as if I’d be doing anything active like ransacking an SUV.

  When I was dressed, I switched off the light and opened the door into the kitchen. I had to stand there a minute or so until my eyes adjusted to the dark. Thunder, still some ways off, rolled around, and I waited and listened to see if it had wakened anybody.

  Tiptoeing to the back door, I unlocked and opened it, cringing with each click of the lock. As soon as I stepped out on the back stoop, I felt the soft, steady fall of rain. So much for prayer, I thought, and slipped back inside. It took ages for me to slide steathily back through the kitchen, the dining room and the hall to the coat closet. I found Hazel Marie’s yellow rain slicker—with hood, I might add—and my umbrella. Just as I backed out of the closet, I had a second thought. Hanging my umbrella back on the hook, I felt around for Sam’s old bumbershoot, thinking I might need something more serviceable than a little fold-up number. Four people, if they were friendly, could huddle under the bumbershoot.

  I tightened the hood around my face as I stepped off the back stoop and onto the drive to the sidewalk. It was all I could do to open the huge umbrella, but after struggling with it a few minutes it provided a welcome shelter. I hurried past the house and around the corner toward the place on Jefferson Street I’d told Etta Mae to wait. I’d not dared crank up my car. Sam or Lloyd, one, would’ve heard and raised a hue and cry about hijackers or something.

  It was a strange experience to be walking the lonely streets of Abbotsville on a dark and rainy night all by myself. The rain wasn’t heavy, but it tapped steadily on top of the heavy canvas of the bumbershoot. The glow from the streetlights wavered in the downfall as I looked around for Etta Mae, parked somewhere along the silent street.

  Although feeling fairly dry and cozy under the canopy, I was beginning to worry that we’d missed connections. My feet were getting wet, and I’d about had enough of walking in the rain. But a car door opened ahead of me, and Etta Mae stuck her head out.

  “Miss Julia!” she said in a loud whisper. “Is that you?”

  “Why, yes, it is, and thank goodness you’re here. I’m about to drown.”

  “Hurry and get in,” she said, closing her door and leaning over to open the one on the passenger side.

  It took me innumerable minutes to maneuver myself into her low-slung car and to manhandle the huge umbrella in with me. At last, I was inside with the door closed and the dripping bumbershoot sticking up between my knees.

  “Is that a tent?” Etta Mae asked.

  “Just about. Where’s Poochie?”

  “He’s meeting us on the side street on the other side of the courthouse. He needed his truck for all his equipment.”

  “I just hope he’s there,” I said, wiping my face with a wadded-up Kleenex that Hazel Marie had left in a pocket. “Lord, I wish this was a rainy night in Georgia or any place besides here.”

  Etta Mae giggled as she cranked the car and drove to the corner to turn toward the courthouse. I looked back, but no lights had come on in my house. So far, so good.

  I jerked in surprise and possibly emitted a little shriek—I’m pretty sure Etta Mae did—as lightning lit up the world.

  “My word!” I gasped. “How close was that?”

  “Not very. Listen, six one-thousand, seven one-thousand, eight…, nine…” She paused, then said, “Hear the thunder? It’s miles away and headed south. I checked the weather station before I left.”

  “That’s reassuring. Be sure and tell Poochie, too. I expect he’ll be glad to hear it.”

  As our destination was barely six blocks from my house, Etta Mae was soon easing down the street that ran along the side of the courthouse. She pulled in behind a pickup truck that gave off a dull, black glint from the streetlight. I could tell, even in the dark, that the truck had seen better days a long time ago. The bed of the truck was piled high with what looked like junk of one kind or another. I could make out bedsprings and something that looked like slats sticking up over the cab, not to mention a barrel or two and a paint-smeared canvas drop cloth hanging out over the muddy tailgate.

  The door of the cab opened as Etta Mae parked and switched off our lights. Hunched over against the rain with his hands in his
pockets, Poochie Dunn ambled over to her window.

  She rolled it down and said, “Hey, Poochie. Crawl in the back seat.”

  He slid inside, along with a sharp, wet dog odor, leaned back against the seat and grinned. “I changed my mind. I ain’t goin’ up there.”

  “Well, for goodness’ sake, Poochie,” I said, twisting around to look at him. He was a small man, not much bigger than Lloyd in my estimation. From what I could see, he was wearing a pair of striped coveralls and some kind of ball cap, and though the light wasn’t good, I do believe he had a number of teeth missing.

  That announcement along with his complacent grin about undid me. “Why’d you get us out on a night like this if you weren’t planning to do it? We could all be in bed instead of skulking around, acting like sneak thieves or something.”

  “I was plannin’ on doin’ it, but I ain’t goin’ up in no storm. Uh-uh, not me.” I don’t know how he did it, but he could talk and grin at the same time and he kept proving it. “That thing up there’s nothin’ but a lighnin’ rod. My granddaddy tole me to stay on the ground when it storms, and he knowed, ’cause that’s where he watched for enemy planes.”

  Etta Mae turned to look at him. “Recently?”

  “Naw,” Poochie said, shaking his head. “He was a air-raid warden in Dubya-Dubya Two.”

  “Oh.” Etta Mae nodded, then flinched as another lightning flash lit up the town, followed by a roll of thunder.

  “It’s still a long way off,” I said, then with exasperation heavy in my voice went on. “Poochie, do you know me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Etta Mae tole me, but I knowed you before that. You brung my mommy a ham for Christmas one year, an’ I don’t never forget a kindness.”

  That set me back a minute, for I didn’t remember anything about that particular charitable act. Which just goes to show how careful you have to be. People remember, for good or bad, what you easily forget.