In Front of God and Everybody (27 page)

Miss Delaine cleared her throat in a way that told me I had overreacted and she did not appreciate it.

“I have a letter right here from Eunice Magruder, the head librarian of the Beauhide County Library. Do you want me to read it to you?”

My mind sputtered like the engine of Mr. Brett's old lawnmower. Words jerked out of my mouth, making no sense.

“Why . . . why . . . if you . . . of course . . . sure.”

She cleared her throat again and said, “All right. Mrs. Magruder's letter reads: ‘What an unusual request! Please pass on the following information to your patron. Mrs. Emmaline Rance is not dead. She is, and has been, very much an active part of our little community. In fact, Emmaline Ellison Rance is the secretary of our library board. Until last year, she owned one of the largest ranches in Beauhide County. Perhaps your patron heard of Mrs. Rance's troubles and assumed she had succumbed to the devastation brought about by the scheming and reckless man she married just two years ago.'”

I squawked and slid down the wall, flat to the floor on my backside.

“Who'd she marry?” I yelled into the phone. “Does it say who she married? Is his name Jeffrey Rance? What'd he do to that woman?”

“April Grace, honey,” Miss Delaine said after a brief silence. “Why are so you agitated? If you're worried about finding another subject for your composition before school starts, I'll be glad to help you. You don't have to write about deceased people in Texas, do you? There are plenty of interesting women who've lived and died right here in Arkansas. In fact—”

“Does the letter say who Emmaline Rance married?”

“You needn't shout. I'll read you the rest of the letter: ‘Mrs. Rance was hospitalized last winter for stress-induced heart failure after she learned J. W. Rance, her husband, had sold a huge part of their estate to a Japanese developer. By the time she recovered, the man had left Beauhide County and, we hope, the state of Texas altogether. She's filed divorce, of course, but doesn't know where J. W. Rance is, so the papers have yet to be served. Please feel free to pass this information along and assure your patron that Mrs. Rance is now fully recovered and busy as ever, although she is now without the ranch and fortune that had been in her family for many generations.'”

I just sat there on the floor, limp as a rag doll and just as speechless.

“Are you still on the line?” Miss Delaine asked. “April Grace, are you there?”

I finally took in air, then swallowed hard.

“I'm here,” I said weakly. “Miss Delaine, will you keep that letter for me until I can get to the library and pick it up?”

“Of course. But, honey, I—”

“Thank you.” I let the phone drop out of my hand.

For a little while I stayed on the floor, trying to come up with a way to get to Cedar Ridge. Mama and Daddy were gone; Ian was at his place, mowing his weedy yard; today was Mr. Brett's day off, so he'd be at an auction somewhere—his favorite thing to do. Grandma had gone off with That Man. Someone had always driven Isabel anywhere she wanted to go, so she probably could not drive. I felt pretty hopeless right about then.

But just about the time I heard funny noises coming from the uncradled telephone receiver on the floor, I decided that if any air remained in my bicycle tires, I'd pedal my way to town. Rough Creek Road discouraged bike riding unless you hankered after a chiropractic adjustment at the end of your trip. Jouncing over that road's rocks and ruts would rattle my brains loose, probably, and if I got flattened by a milk truck on the way to town, Mama and Daddy would kill me. But I had to get that letter. No one would believe me without it. I scrambled to my feet, hung up the telephone, and headed outside into the afternoon sunlight.

“Where are you going?” Isabel said as I rushed down the porch steps.

“I gotta get to town.” I hurried toward the shed without pausing.

“How?”

“I'm gonna ride my bike.”

“What?!” A few seconds later I unfastened the rusty latch on the shed door, and Isabel was right beside me. Boy, I didn't know she could move that fast.

“You can't ride your bicycle all the way to town,” she said. “It's dangerous.”

“I have to.”

I pulled open the shed door, and a field rat rushed out into the daylight. Isabel saw it, screeched, and jumped aside, but she didn't hightail it back to the house like you'd expect her to do. Instead, she eyeballed the thing until it disappeared into the pasture where it belonged.

“I will not let you put yourself in danger, April Grace!”

My bicycle hadn't been out of the shed in two years. To get to it, I moved a small wooden stool, an old bucket with a hole in the bottom, a broken broom, and an empty gas can. I wheeled the old red bike outside and took a look at it. Both tires were flatter than a flitter. Plus, it was covered in dirt.

Isabel looked at it with her nose curled up and her mouth in a wad. “Well, I'm glad to see you cannot use that nasty thing. Now tell me what's so urgent that you suddenly must go to town.”

“I'll just have to walk.” I took off down the driveway. “But there's no time to waste talking. If you want to walk along, I'll tell you what's up.”

Off I went with Isabel teetering along beside me on her high heels. That woman did not own one pair of anything as practical as sneakers. Looking at her long, skinny feet, I wondered if they even made sneakers that would fit. But this was not the time to make snide remarks in my head about Isabel.

“You like my grandma, don't you, Isabel St. James?”

“Yes, yes, I do!” she said.

“Well, that old goof she's fixing to marry is a rotten old goat.”

“What? What?” she said. We were stepping along at a pretty good clip. She was panting like Daisy on a hot day and clutched my arm with her good hand for support. “What makes you say that, child?”

So I told her every nasty little detail that I could remember about Mr. Rance, including the parts about apple trees and the little flap on the VCR. By the time I got to the letter from Texas, we had reached the place in the road where Grandma had bailed out of the truck to look for Queenie that time.

Isabel stopped dead. Her clutching fingers were hard as iron and hurt my arm like crazy.

“Let go of me, Isabel St. James! I have to save my grandma.”

“Not without me, you aren't!” she declared. “And we aren't walking all the way to Cedar Whatever. I'll drive us to town.” She whirled around and marched back the way we'd come. She kept twisting and tripping over rocks and holes in the road.

“Oh, I've had enough of this!” She yanked off those silly high heels and kept on going barefoot. I knew that rough rocky road on the soles of her citified feet must have been painful, but she must've gritted her teeth because she didn't slow down.

“I didn't know you drove!” I hollered, then ran to catch up with her.

“I do in an emergency. And this is an emergency.”

“But where are you getting a car?”

“We'll walk to our place and get the pickup.”

Well, let me tell you, it was hot as blazes outside—it usually is in August around here. We both worked up a good sweat in a real short time. I didn't even know Isabel
could
sweat.

At one point Isabel asked, “You never liked the old man, did you?”

“Nope. But, of course, no one listened to me when I said he was snoopy and bossy.” I gave her a look. “As many times as he's had supper at our house, did you never notice that?”

She blinked a few times. “Actually, I did, but I just assumed he was like everyone else around here.”

I bristled. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You know . . .” She slid a look at me.

“No, I do not know. Not everybody around here is like that, and besides, he's not from
here
. It's snooty remarks like that, Isabel St. James, which make people dislike you. And I'm starting to like you, so don't mess it up.”

She drew in her lips and blinked some more. Then, to my utter and complete astonishment, she smiled.

“I'm starting to like you, too, now that I see you are a perceptive, caring child and not always a smart-mouthed little brat. We have totally misunderstood each other, April Grace.”

“That's true. But I'm not the brat of the family. And if you'll stop acting all superior and looking down on everyone here . . .”

“That has never been my intention,” she said.

Hmm. It sure seemed that way, but maybe I'd been wrong.

She added, “If you'll stop coming up with pointed little barbs to hurt me . . .”

“The truth hurts.”

She grimaced, and I continued, “But we're trying to turn over a new leaf, aren't we? So what the hey. All right, I'll try not to be such a smart-mouth, and you just gotta stop saying things like, ‘Back in California, we always had this, or did that.' And, ‘You people here are so dumb or ignorant or whatever.' You're not in California anymore, so you might as well learn to love it here 'cause that's where you are.”

She got all prickly again.

“Well, April Grace, you really need to stop making snide remarks about anyone not born and raised in these parts. It's very off-putting. Sometimes I think you're making fun of us. And I'll tell you something else for your edification: sarcasm is a very unattractive trait in a child.”

I knew she was right. Every thought in my head did not need a Voice. I'd probably hurt people's feelings more often than I realized.

“Well, I reckon I can try to control that.”

“I'll make an honest effort to adjust my behavior too.”

“And what you said earlier about us being alike?”

“Yes?” She wore a little smile that threatened to become bigger.

“Well, it just about kills me to admit it, but you were absolutely right.”

She let out a breath as if she'd been holding it for a long time.

“So let's try to get along as friends, shall we?” she said.

That sounded reasonable to me. I stuck out my right hand. “Deal?”

She reached out, and we shook.

“Deal. But one more thing.” She did not let go.

I gave her a look. “What's that?”

“When you speak to me, please call me Isabel or Mrs. St. James instead of my entire name. Will you do that?”

Well, if someone called me April Grace Reilly every time they spoke to me, I'd feel more like a thing instead of a person, so her request was reasonable.

I said, “Okey-dokey. I'll do it, Isabel.”

“Good.” She released my hand. “Now, let's go save Grandma Grace from the clutches of that wormy old weasel.”

I grinned at her. “I like the way you think.”

When we got to their house, Ian was halfway finished mowing the grass. In his spare time, Ian had come over to their place and cut back the seedlings and scrub and burned all the brush. Even though they weren't living there yet, he had kept the yard mowed. Their old place didn't look near the wreck it had a few weeks ago. In fact, it looked right nice and neat.

Isabel beckoned to him. He turned off the mower and walked over to us, wiping the sweat off his face with his forearm. Isabel explained about Mr. Rance and Grandma and the letter from Eunice Magruder that was at the library.

He announced, “I knew that old man was up to no good. I'm going into town with you.”

Boy, oh boy, Ian can drive fast when he gets a notion.

After I ran into the library and got the letter from Miss Delaine, we sat in the cab of the pickup, and all of us took turns reading it.

He said, “That explains it.”

Isabel and I looked at each other and then at him.

“Explains what?” I asked.

“Yes, darling,” Isabel said. “If you know something more, you should tell us.”

Ian nodded. “Yesterday, Jeffrey Rance showed up in the lower pasture where I was grubbing out some of those multiflora roses from the fencerow. He asked me for a loan, can you believe that?”

Isabel blinked a bunch of times, but she did not say anything. He continued.

“He said his truck payment was due, and he found himself short of cash. I told him I didn't have a penny to lend him, but he didn't believe me. Kept saying that since I'd sold my Caddie and we were living rent-free with the Reillys, he knew good and well that I had plenty of money. I told him about the deal Mike and I had worked out, how we were using the cash from the sale of our car to buy remodeling for the house. He kept wheedling and trying to strike a bargain, but I stayed firm.”

“Oh, darling, it's marvelous that you didn't give in to him!” Isabel said. “I would hate to think you gave money to that awful old man.”

“But I'm not finished.”

“Oh?” she said prissily. It's such a habit for her, speaking that way. I have a feeling it will be a while, if ever, before she quits doing it. “Then continue telling us, darling.”