Miss Julia Meets Her Match (11 page)

“No, no, wait a minute.” Hazel Marie was half laughing at me, knowing how poorly Pastor Ledbetter and I got along. “I’ll tell you if you’ll give me a chance.”

“Well, I’m sure I can’t imagine who else could be so important.”

“Somebody named Curtis Maxwell. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

“No, I haven’t. So why is he so important?”

“Oh, you have. He’s the Maxwell of Maxwell Household Products. You know, Dorene Miller and Jackie Crutchfield and, I think Etta Mae Wiggins used to, and anyway, a bunch of others, they all sell Maxwell Household Products—cleaning agents of all kinds, room deodorizers, washing powders, floor wax, furniture polish, and I don’t know what all.”

“Oh, for goodness sake,” I said, shaking my head. “That stuff ’s not worth the powder it’d take to blow it up. I bought some once from Dorene, just to help her out because she was going through a rough patch, and Lillian hated it. We threw it out, and I didn’t buy any more.”

“Well, a lot of people like it. And that Curtis Maxwell makes it all, and he has housewives all over the country selling it for him. And a lot of men, too, especially those who’ve lost their jobs. He’s worth a mint, Miss Julia, and he’s coming to our church.”

“What’re we supposed to do? Roll out the red carpet for somebody who makes toilet bowl cleanser? It doesn’t make sense to me that his arrival deserves to be announced to the session.”

“Why, Miss Julia, he’s coming in on his private jet, and he’s renting a huge house just to be here for a few months. I think it’s kind of exciting to have somebody in our congregation who can pick up and go wherever he wants to go in his own airplane.”

“Maybe so, but anybody can buy a ticket and go off wherever they want to. Why in the world is Pastor Ledbetter so thrilled about having him?”

“Well, Amy, or rather her husband, thinks he’s hoping to have some help with that new roof the sanctuary needs, so he wants everybody to make Mr. Maxwell feel real welcome. He’s going to ask him to speak some of the Sundays he’s here, you know, in the pulpit and everything, because he’s known for his Christian testimony. He talks about how the Lord has blessed him with a successful business. We’ll be getting a notice in the mail, asking people to entertain him and make him welcome any way we can.”

They Lord, I thought to myself. The pastor was going to ask us to bend over backward for some man none of us knew, just because he had plenty of money and owned a private jet. It vexed me to think of it, for nobody had ever gone out of their way to give me any special treatment, and I had plenty of money. Of course, I didn’t have a private jet airplane, but who in the world would want one?

I spent the afternoon pacing the living room floor, worrying myself half to death while waiting for Binkie. I could hear the never-ending buzz of Latisha talking to, or rather at, Lillian in the kitchen. Little Lloyd was still in school and Hazel Marie was off running errands, still blithely ignorant of what was hanging over our heads. At the sound of tires scraping the curb, I looked out the front window and saw Binkie getting out of her car.

“Binkie,” I cried as I opened the door for her. “Are they leaving? What did he say? Did you break the lease?”

“Whew, let me get inside,” she said, as she checked the soles of her boots. “I hope I’m not tracking mud inside. Now, listen, Miss Julia,” she said, as she plopped down on the sofa, “I did the best I could, but Dwayne Dooley is not interested in letting you off the hook.”

“What did he say? Did you tell him I’d buy him out?” She nodded. “I told him everything I could think of, and offered him enough money to send you into orbit, but he just kept smiling and shaking his head. He said, ‘A deal’s a deal, and this’un’s a done deal.’ So, that’s it, Miss Julia, you have to honor the lease.”

“Oh, Binkie, this is awful! Isn’t there some way . . . maybe there’s a mistake, an error or something, when his lawyer drew up the lease. That would do it, wouldn’t it?”

She shook her head. “It would, but he showed it to me and there’s not a thing wrong with it. Unfortunately, in this case.”

“This just makes me ill.”

She flashed me a quick smile, which I was unable to return because of the sickness in my heart. “All we can do at this point is watch them,” she said. “I talked to Coleman about it, and he said that’s a prime area for growing illegal product. For that reason, he said the sheriff ’s glad the property’s being developed because all the activity’ll run the pot growers off. That’s not much help to you, though.”

I sank down in a chair, my perfect plan in tatters now that even the sheriff was smiling on Dwayne Dooley and his efforts.

Binkie brushed back her hair and leaned forward. “Let me tell you what they’re doing out there. They’ve really been busy with bulldozers and equipment of all kinds. They’ve cut some roads and cleared a parking area for visitors’ cars and trailers and motor homes. They’ve sunk a well to have running water, and got electricity hooked up. They’re serious about this theme park business.”

I rubbed the frown lines on my forehead. “Well,” I said, half resigned to being the enabler of new gossip about Little Lloyd’s father. “I guess all I can hope for is that the theme park will fall flat on its face. If nobody patronizes it, they’ll have to move on, won’t they?”

“I expect they would.” She got up from the sofa and started for the door. “I better get back to the office. I’ve been gone too long already. Miss Julia, I’m sorry about all this. I wish I could fix it for you, but it looks as if you don’t have any choice.”

“It’s all right, Binkie,” I said, though clearly it was not. “I appreciate what you’ve done, and wouldn’t have another lawyer if one came free of charge. But let me ask you one thing. If I find out that they’re doing something illegal or underhanded, or that they’re here under false pretenses or engaged in any other shady activities, I wouldn’t have to honor the lease then, would I?”

“No, you wouldn’t.” She smiled like a conspirator. “If you hear of anything, let me know. We’ll run ’em out of town on a rail.”

I bade her good-bye, closed the door and sank down in my Victorian chair by the fireplace, just so put out with myself for getting into such a fix. That Mooney woman was out there creating havoc in our lives, and I’d done nothing but aided and abetted her in the doing.

Tiring of sitting and staring off into space, I made myself get up and go upstairs to find something to take my mind off the terrible troubles that Wesley Lloyd was still causing. You’d think that his being dead and gone would’ve put a stop to rampant rumors about his conduct. But no, they just went on and on, reaching out from the grave to distress and mortify me.

When I got to my room, I found Lillian changing the linen on my bed. She was holding a pillow under her chin while she slipped the other end into a pillowcase.

“Where’s Latisha?” I asked.

“She busy colorin’ ’cross the hall.”

“Good. Lillian, I need to talk to you. Something awful’s going on, and I need you to know about it.”

She put down the pillow and turned to give me her full attention. “How awful?”

“Oh, Lillian,” I moaned, sinking down onto the edge of the bed, “it’s just terrible.” And I went on to tell her about the Mooney woman and the stories about her and my late husband, and how everybody was talking about them and how she was doing nothing to stop the gossip. “I don’t think,” I went on, “that it would bother Hazel Marie all that much, except for the shame and mortification she’d suffer. It’d make her mad as fire, I know, just as it did me when I heard about her, but she could handle it. So I’d tell her, if it weren’t for Little Lloyd, who I’m trying my best to protect from hearing the tales. Because, Lillian, you know Hazel Marie couldn’t keep a secret if her life depended on it.”

Lillian’s eyes had gotten bigger as I related the whole sorry tale. “Law,” she said, “I thought all that be over an’ done with, now Mr. Springer be buried so long.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?” I said dryly. “But I guess we can’t expect much from a man who was constitutionally unable to stay in his own yard.”

“Well, but, Miss Julia, you know Miss Hazel Marie won’t go tell that chile ’bout his own daddy’s carryin’s-on. I don’t know why you say she can’t keep a secret.”

“Oh, I know she wouldn’t deliberately tell him. She’d want to keep it from him as much as I do. But you know how smart Little Lloyd is, and he’d know something was wrong as soon as he saw his mother in an agitated state. Which she would be, believe me.”

“Yessum, an’ first thing you know, he figure out what it is.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, and the very reason to keep this to ourselves while I try to send that woman packing. And I’ll do anything, Lillian, to keep that child ignorant of his daddy’s unnatural proclivities.”

“Well,” she said, reaching for a fitted sheet, “I hate to mention it, but from all I know ’bout men, Mr. Springer be more nat’ral than un.”

“And I hate to hear it, too. Still, they’re not all like that.” Sam, in all his big personality, shimmered in my mind. “Are they?”

“They’s no tellin’,” she said, with a rueful smile. “Now, get up from there an’ let me get this bed made.”

“Let me help,” I said, going to the far side of the bed. “I need to busy myself with something.”

“Yessum, an’ me, too, after hearin’ all that. It gonna worry my mind something awful from now on.” She flipped the top sheet on the bed, while I took one end of it. “You need all them blankets on here?”

“I certainly do, even if they’re so heavy I can hardly turn over.”

We spread the blankets and, working in rhythm, soon had the bed made.

“Miss Julia?” Lillian was dusting the bedside table, and didn’t look at me when she spoke. “You seen Miz Allen lately?”

“Mildred? Why, no, I don’t guess I have. Well, I saw her in Sunday School but, come to think of it, that was a few weeks ago. Why?”

“I jus’ wonderin’ how she doin’.”

“As far as I know, she’s doing fine.” I looked at her sharply, feeling that she was leading up to something but didn’t much want to get to it. “Lillian, what’s wrong with Mildred Allen?”

“Well, I hate to bring up something else on top of what you just tole me, and you know I don’t like to carry no tales. ’Specially ’bout yo’ friends.”

“What? What else is happening in this town? Tell me what Mildred’s doing, and I’ll talk to her about it.”

“Oh, no’m, don’t you be doin’ no talkin’ ’bout it, specially not to her. I wouldn’t hurt that nice lady for anything in the world.”

I was about exasperated by this time, for I knew Lillian did not loosely talk about people. For her to go this far meant something dire had happened to Mildred.

“Just tell me, Lillian. What is it?”

“Well,” she said, her eyes carefully avoiding mine, “you know that boy of hers and Mr. Horace’s come home some few weeks ago?”

“Tony. Yes, I’d heard he had, and wondered why we haven’t seen him in church.”

“He not likely to be there any time soon. I tell you, Miss Julia, I never heard the like in my life.”

“If you don’t tell me what you’re talking about, I’m going to call Mildred and get it straight from her. Is Tony sick? Is Mildred sick? What is it?”

“It like this. You know Mr. Tony been in New York City all these years? No tellin’ what he been doin’, ’cept he say he been in the ladies’ dress business.”

“Yes, I know, and he’s done quite well, I understand. When he was a boy, Mildred used to take him with her wherever she went. We all knew that when we invited Mildred, we’d get Tony, too. Nobody minded, because he was so charming, and he loved to visit with her friends. He sat right down there in my living room many an afternoon, drinking tea and entering into the conversation like he was one of the ladies.”

“Yessum, that just the trouble. He be one of the ladies now. Least I hear tell he is.”

I frowned. “What do you mean, he’s one of the ladies?”

“I mean he done gone and got a operation an’ now he say his name Tonya, an’ he wearin’ dresses an’ high heels an’ nylon stockin’s an’ I don’t know what all, an’ his mama done took to her bed.”

“They Lord,” I cried, collapsing on a chair. “Surely not, Lillian. That has to be just false and baseless gossip. I know he used to be slightly on the precious side with all that curly hair, and he did like to wear a cape and walk around with a cane occasionally, but Mildred loved him to death and purely doted on him. Oh, this will just kill her. And his daddy! That man must just be crushed.”

“What I hear,” Lillian said, “is Mr. Horace be sulled up something awful. Won’t even look at Mr. Tony, nor talk to him nor nothin’ else. He jus’ make out like nobody in the house but him and Miz Allen.”

“Horace has always been a proud man,” I said, thinking of the lumbering investment broker who kept his own counsel while making money for himself and the few clients who could put up with his uncongenial personality. “You know,” I went on, “I’ve always wondered how two such large people as Mildred and Horace could produce such a dainty little thing as Tony.”

“Yessum, it be a wonder.”

I rubbed my forehead, trying to get my mind around this shattering news. I glanced up at her. “Where did you hear all this? Are you sure it’s true?”

“It all over my neighborhood. Mr. Tony, I mean, Miss Tonya, been seen all over town. He got him one of them little sportscars, an’ everybody want to know where he get his money. I mean, after payin’ for that operation an’ all. We figure it don’t come cheap.”

“I can’t believe this. Maybe he’s practicing for a part on the stage or something. He was always interested in acting, and did a good bit of it in school. That’s probably what it is. He’s been away from Abbotsville so long, he’s forgotten how people talk. In New York, you can pretty much do whatever you please, and nobody’ll look twice at you. That’s all it is.”