by Ann B. Ross
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I said. “I don’t believe that. What would Dixon want with such things?”
“Probably nothing,” Hazel Marie said. “You know how he is. He just picks up whatever’s in front of him when the urge to take something strikes him.”
“Well, I wish they’d catch him before he’s blamed for everything that happens in the county.” I passed Emma Sue’s rolls to Mr. Pickens, as I mused aloud. “Where in the world could he be?”
The Abbot County sheriff answered me by way of an interview with a cosmetically enhanced television reporter who asked questions like: “Are the residents of the county in any danger from this desperate man?” with a dazzling smile on her face.
Sheriff Earl Frady stared at her, and I thought for a minute that he didn’t have an answer. He seemed to be trying to figure out what she was so happy about. Then he said, “No, we don’t see him as desperate or dangerous. My guess is he’s left the county by now . . .” He had his mouth open to say something else, but she cut him off. She was looking for something more exciting and found it in several brief prerecorded interviews with county residents who’d reported sightings. One man said he’d seen a man on his roof, hiding behind the chimney. He knew it was Dixon because nobody else could climb that high without a ladder. The camera then panned around the house to show that there wasn’t a ladder in sight.
“I declare,” I said, “people’re crazy, aren’t they? They must sit around all day thinking up ways to get on television.”
“That’s the truth,” Hazel Marie said, standing and beginning to pick up our plates. “But at least the sheriff thinks Dixon’s out of the county.”
“Well, he’s the authority,” Mr. Pickens said. “But I’m thinking that’s just for public consumption. For my money, that ole boy’s still around.”
“You think he’s still here? Close by us?” Little Lloyd’s eyes were about to pop out of his head. “Oh, me, I was hoping he was gone. Now I’m going to start worrying again.”
“Sorry, sport,” Mr. Pickens said. “Didn’t mean to worry you. All I meant was that Dixon’s likely holed up in some unlikely place, but not anywhere close to you.”
“Who wants dessert?” Hazel Marie asked. “J.D., would you like ice cream on yours?”
“Sure, pile it on.”
Little Lloyd shook his head. “I think I’ll pass. My stomach’s not feeling too good.”
“Then you’ve made a wise decision to pass,” I said, recalling Emma Sue’s remark about a surprise in her dump cake. “Now calm that stomach of yours down. Dixon’s not interested in us at all and there’s no reason to make yourself sick over him.” You do have to reassure children when their little minds are filled with worry.
“That’s right,” Mr. Pickens said, with one of his wicked grins. “Miss Julia knows I’m hot on his trail, so there’s not a thing to worry about.”
Little Lloyd managed a smile, as we, especially Mr. Pickens, concentrated on our plates. Then Little Lloyd’s attention was drawn back to the news, which I’d mentally turned off. “Wonder what that is?” he asked.
“What, sugar?” Hazel Marie said.
We all turned to the television set just as Kenny said, “We’ll have an update on this unusual occurrence tonight on the eleven o’clock news. Tune in then when we’ll have a live report from Abbotsville.”
“Well, I never,” I said. “Wonder what other unusual occurrence has happened in Abbotsville? They’ll probably blame that on Dixon, too. Turn that thing down, will you, Hazel Marie? They’ve got their sports segment on, and I have no interest whatsoever in a southern hockey team.”
* * *
When Hazel Marie started rattling on about the wedding and/ or party set for tomorrow, I didn’t want to hear it. I could hardly bear to think of the fiasco we were facing the next day, much less sit around and discuss it. So I shooed the three of them out.
“Go sit in the backyard,” I told them. “It’s a beautiful evening, and Raymond cleaned all the yard furniture. So just go on out and enjoy it. I’ll get the kitchen cleaned up, and I can do it better by myself.”
Both Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd seemed eager to enjoy Mr. Pickens’s company. He was an entertaining man, I had to admit, although he was entirely too free with his teasing and carryings-on. With the sadness weighing so heavy on me, I was in no mood to put up with him. Much better not to infect the others with my sinking feelings. Besides, it’d take me forever to clean Emma Sue’s Pyrex casserole dishes and get the kitchen back to Lillian’s standards. I knew she’d have something to say about its condition as soon as she stepped in the door the next morning.
As I scrubbed baked-on dump cake with a Brillo pad and worried about ruining the manicure that I’d paid seventeen dollars plus a three-dollar tip for, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d done everything possible to make Binkie see the light. Maybe sending Coleman with flowers and love notes and an engagement ring had been too little too late. Maybe my visit had hardened her heart. Maybe it’d all get on her nerves—you never know what’ll upset somebody who’s expecting. Maybe something else was needed.
I nearly choked with a sudden, wayward thought. What if I sent Pastor Lance Petree over there to serenade her with his guitar and questionable singing voice? The picture that came into my mind of what Binkie would say, much less do, under those circumstances was enough to bring out a quick laugh. Although it was just as quickly cut off as my throat thickened.
Giving up on Emma Sue’s blasted Pyrex dish, I filled it with water and Lemon Joy and left it. Lillian would just have to fuss; I couldn’t clean the thing.
Chapter 27
I went out onto the front porch, since there was nowhere to sit in the living room except in one of those tiny, backbreaking chairs from the rental place, and took my seat in one of the rockers. It was almost full dark with the streetlamps throwing long shadows across the yard. I sat in the corner behind the wisteria vine where I was shielded from the steady stream of people walking along the sidewalk. I sat there in the dark and let all the burdens on my heart come flooding over me. I thought I’d drown with the weight of them. Whatever the morrow brought, it would also bring the loss of Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd. They’d be moving out and miles away, thanks to Mr. Pickens who, if I’d known what was going to happen, I’d’ve never engaged in the first place. Even if it had been to find Hazel Marie when we thought we’d lost her to a fund-raising scoundrel. I’d just not had the confidence in myself to try to track her down without Mr. Pickens’s professional help, when the fact of the matter was, Little Lloyd and I managed quite well by ourselves with only minor help from Mr. Pickens. And look where it’d led. Hazel Marie so much in love she couldn’t see straight and ready to leave my house and home to throw in with a smooth-talking private investigator. He was handsome, though; I’d give him that. But I couldn’t give him much else because he’d be taking that child along with Hazel Marie.
Maybe I should sell this house, just get out from under all the memories, good and bad, that lingered in its corners. And maybe I should convert all of Wesley Lloyd’s quick-stop stores and car washes and commercial buildings into cash, and move into a retirement home where I wouldn’t have to deal with the likes of Etta Mae Wiggins and her constant nagging.
I sighed, thinking that I might be able to fix it so that pushy woman would be somebody else’s problem, but how would I fill my time? Sit in a rocker as I was now doing and feel sorry for myself? Since Little Lloyd and Hazel Marie had been with me, my days had been so full that the past was as if it’d never been. But when they left, I knew the bleak years would come rushing back over me like a tidal wave. Why, I can’t tell you how many committee meetings I’d attended during those years, just to have something to do until Wesley Lloyd came home for supper and the six o’clock news. When the church doors were open, I was there—Women of the Church meetings, circle meetings, Sunday school meetings and any other meeting that women were allowed to attend. Then there were D.A.R. meeti
ngs, P.E.O. meetings and any other meetings anybody could dream up for idle hands and minds, except political meetings, which Wesley Lloyd deemed unsuitable for someone in my position. I carried casseroles to new mothers and shut-ins, arranged a few flowers, read a few books and tried my hand at needlepoint—everything and only the things dictated by the Lord for a woman to do and passed directly to me by way of Wesley Lloyd.
Where had my mind been? Now, here I sat, brooding on how I’d fill the empty days ahead, but determined not to let Wesley Lloyd direct me from the grave. I didn’t know what I’d do, but one thing was for sure. I’d never go to another committee meeting again, especially one that Emma Sue Ledbetter was on. Imagine! Putting me and Little Lloyd on a committee that we were eminently unsuited for. And for our own good!
I leaned my head back and set the rocker going, trying not to sink down into despair at my own pitiful situation or at Hazel Marie’s headlong rush into common-law living.
I stopped the rocker with a jolt. It came to me like a news flash. There was the difference: I’d done whatever I was supposed to do according to whoever was making the rules, namely Wesley Lloyd, while the Binkies and the Hazel Maries of the world were doing whatever they wanted without a thought in their heads as to the consequences. There ought to be some middle ground somewhere, but, I declare, I didn’t know where it could be or anybody who’d found it.
Just look at Binkie, who’d let me plan and prepare for her wedding and, without one word to me, called it off in a flight of fancy that took no account of anybody else’s feelings. If her parents had had to put up with such unmitigated willfulness from her, no wonder they’d moved to Florida. I had a good mind to do the same.
“Miss Julia?”
I hadn’t heard the child as he’d come through the dark house nor could I see more than his outline as he stood in the unlit living room looking out through the screen door. My eyes weren’t what they once were.
“Over here, Little Lloyd.”
“You feeling all right?” He opened the screen and came to stand beside my chair.
“I’m fine. Just sitting here in the dark worrying myself sick over Binkie and Coleman. And dreading the day that you and your mother’ll be moving away. I’ll miss you, Little Lloyd.”
“I’ll come back to see you.”
I patted his arm where it rested on my chair. He was a thoughtful child, sensitive and considerate. Very much like me, I was pleased to note.
“I know you will. Now, don’t listen to an old woman’s complaints. I’m just feeling sorry for myself thinking about being alone again. I’ll get over it; don’t you worry.”
“You won’t be alone, Miss Julia, because you’ve got Lillian and, when I get old enough, I’ll look after you.”
Oh, Lord, my heart clenched up in my chest with the sweetness of it. I had to clear my throat before I could answer.
I put my arm around his skinny shoulders and squeezed him close. “That means more to me than anything I’ve ever heard. Thank you, Little Lloyd.”
But, being a child, his attention quickly shifted, and I was just as glad since I’m not one to express my emotions in public.
“Look, Miss Julia,” he said, pointing toward the street. “That’s a WLMN-TV van! And it’s stopping!”
I peered through the wisteria vine at the white van with a satellite dish and antennas on the roof. The boy was right; it had pulled to the curb and stopped, the motor still running. I couldn’t see anything else but a mass of shadowy people, many more than there had been the previous night, on the edge of the property line that ran between my and Lila McCarran’s side yard next door. The crowd was massed on the sidewalk for some little way and spilled out onto the street.
“My word,” I said. “Why would television people be on our street?” I grasped Little Lloyd’s arm. “You don’t suppose they’ve caught Dixon, do you?”
He trembled at the thought, then his great good sense took hold. “No’m, it couldn’t be that. There’d be a bunch of deputies here, too, if it was Dixon. All I can see is a lot of people standing around like they were last night. I walked down the driveway a while ago, but they were talking too low for me to hear what they were saying. Maybe we ought to call Coleman to see what’s going on.”
“Well, it makes you wonder, doesn’t it? I just can’t figure out what’s drawn them here, or why a television station would be interested.”
As we watched, three people climbed out of the van, one of them a sleek blond woman holding a microphone. A man hoisted what turned out to be a camera with a powerful light onto his shoulder, while another one reeled out wires and cables onto the street. Then he began positioning the woman and directing the man with the camera. I guessed he was the director.
“This thing’s getting out of hand, Little Lloyd. I don’t know what’s worth televising over there, but I don’t like it. Let’s go in and see if Coleman’s on duty. If he’s not, he’ll be at Binkie’s, and I’m not sure I want to disturb him over there. He’ll be in the midst of some heavy negotiations, if he’s doing what he’s supposed to do.”
“We could ask Mr. Pickens,” Little Lloyd said. “He might could find out.”
“I don’t know,” I said, going across the porch. “He didn’t seem all that interested at supper. Got his mind on Dixon, I expect.” Besides, I thought but didn’t say, Mr. Pickens was probably so occupied with Hazel Marie he wouldn’t know which end was up. “Though we could ask him to go out there now and find out what’s going on.”
I locked the front door behind us, just in case Dixon was sneaking around. Then we went to the kitchen, lit only by the light over the stove, and I dialed the sheriff’s department. The dispatcher was able to put me right through to Coleman, which was unusual, to say the least.
“Just brought somebody in to be booked, Miss Julia,” he explained. “What can I do for you?”
“First of all, you can tell me why you’re not over at Binkie’s, talking some sense into her.”
“I’ll be off duty in a few minutes, and I’m going over there then. But, Miss Julia,” he said, then paused for so long I thought he wasn’t going to continue. Then he went on. “I was going to call you, but I might as well tell you now. I’m giving up on trying to change Binkie’s mind. If I keep on at her, I might end up losing her altogether.”
“Coleman! No!” Not only did I not have the bride, I was about to lose the groom as well. “Listen to me, you can’t take that attitude. You’ve got to be positive and determined. You’ve got to convince Binkie that you’re going to be here and that she has to be, too.”
“No,” he said, and I could almost see him shake his head. “I’m not going to shame myself by showing up without her. I’m sorry, Miss Julia, for all the trouble you’ve gone to, but it’s better to let it go. I don’t want to count on something that’s not going to happen.” He gave a short, painful-sounding laugh. “Even though she says she’s still thinking about it.”
“She’s going to think herself right into a lonely old age if she’s not careful. Now, Coleman, you may be giving up on your wedding, but I’m not. I don’t want to hear another word about it, so just get it out of your head right now.” Taking a deep breath and hoping to show I’d brushed off his change-of-heart threat, I said, “Now that we have that taken care of, I need your help with another matter. We’ve been noticing a group of people gathering on the sidewalk outside the house for the last couple of nights, and now there’re even more of them. I don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re making me nervous. And on top of that,” I added, “a television van’s out there with lights and camera and everything, getting ready to put them on the news, and I want to know what’s going on.”
“Yes, ma’am, we know about ’em. Not about the television; that’s news to me. But as long as the crowd’s peaceful and not bothering anybody, there’s not much we can do. It’s some kind of religious vigil.”
“On the sidewalk? What in the world is religious about the sidewalk on Polk St
reet?”
“Beats me. Just telling you what some of the other deputies told me. I’m working the south side of the county, so I haven’t been over there. Maybe they’re commemorating a special day. Or something.”
“Well, that makes me feel some better, I guess. Maybe that’s why a television station sent their truck. Human interest, you know. Well, far be it from me to interfere with somebody’s way of worship. Even though it wouldn’t be mine.”
After hanging up, I reassured Little Lloyd that the sheriff’s department had the sidewalk congregation well in hand. I kept Coleman’s announcement that he might not show up for his wedding to myself. If I didn’t bring it up, I wouldn’t have to think about it.
Little Lloyd, unaware of my increasingly troubled mind, still had his on the sidewalk gathering. And he’d come up with some reassurance on his own. “One good thing, Miss Julia,” he said. “As long as they’re out there, that ole Dixon Hightower won’t be sneaking around, will he?”
“Highly unlikely, I’d say. He’ll stay away from crowds where somebody might recognize him.” Then looking at my watch, I said, “Are your mother and Mr. Pickens still in the backyard?”
“Yessum. I just came in because I was worried about you.”
“Bless your little heart. But as you can see, I’m fine. Now, let’s get some lights on in here to remind them that it’s close to bedtime. Why don’t you go up and start your bath?”
When he left, I stood in the empty kitchen realizing that I could’ve shaken Coleman until his teeth rattled. What was he doing going on duty when he should’ve been romancing Binkie? And what was he doing even thinking of giving up when she was wearing his ring? I had a good mind to call him back and tell him to drop what he was doing and take care of what was important.
But as far as telling him how to take care of it, well, I’d reached the end of my rope in the romance department. But that rope hadn’t been very long in the first place.
