Miss Julia Stands Her Ground (3 page)

Just as Lillian was taking the yeast rolls out of the oven that Saturday evening, Mr. Pickens strolled in, smiling in the easy way he had, knowing he was welcome at any time. It was a wonder to me, though, how he always managed to get that welcome at dinnertime. I hurriedly set another place at the dining room table, while Hazel Marie and Lillian greeted him as enthusiastically as if he hadn't been with us three nights running over the past week.

“I'm so glad you're back,” Hazel Marie said, clinging to his arm. “Did you have a good trip? How was Atlanta?”

“Didn't see much of it,” he said, smiling down at her. “It was just a good place to meet. Better than having to go all the way to West Palm Beach to see him. But when an old friend needs help, you do what you can.”

“Oh, I know,” Hazel Marie said. “And you were so good to go see about him.”

“Quite commendable, Mr. Pickens,” I said, hoping that it had indeed been a him and not a her. “Is your friend sick?”

“Frank Tuttle? Not exactly.” Mr. Pickens shook his head, then frowned. “Things aren't working out for him here lately, but he's a good man. Best investigator I've ever known.”

“Well, I'm glad you could help him,” I said, not really interested
in another private investigator. “Lillian, if you're ready, we'll go to the table.”

Sam and Little Lloyd showed their pleasure in Mr. Pickens's return, for he was good company. He could keep us entertained, if not with his teasing manner, then with stories of his long involvement with law enforcement of one kind or another. He did seem to have settled down now, though, what with having his own investigative agency, to say nothing of his attachment to Hazel Marie and his addiction to Lillian's cooking.

As I sat at the foot of the table, picking at the food on my plate, I was doubly grateful for Mr. Pickens's carryings-on. I would've been unable to keep a lively conversation going, as burdened as my mind was with the secret that I had to eventually share with Hazel Marie. She looked so happy, as she gazed with shining eyes at that black-eyed, black-haired, and black-mustached Mr. Pickens, that pity for what was hanging over her head nearly overcame me.

“You're awfully quiet tonight, Miss Julia,” Mr. Pickens said, turning his intense gaze on me.

“I haven't been able to get a word in edgewise,” I said, somewhat tartly, but with a smile, trying to give back as good as he handed out. “Besides, Lillian's meat loaf is so good, I'm giving it my full attention.”

“It is that,” he agreed, but his lingering look told me that he'd noticed my preoccupation. He was not a trained investigator for nothing.

“Lloyd,” Mr. Pickens said, finally letting me off the hook, just as Lillian pushed through the swinging door with another basket of hot rolls. “Lillian's doing her best to get me fat, because she knows I can't resist anything she cooks. It's a conspiracy, is what it is, so pass the butter.”

Lillian snorted at his foolishness, but she liked it, and him.

“So, Lloyd,” Mr. Pickens went on, “let's shoot some baskets as soon as I can crawl away from the table. Want to?”

Little Lloyd's eyes lit up, since anything Mr. Pickens suggested was fine with him. “Yessir,” he said, eagerly. Then his face fell. “I'm not very good at it, though.”

“I know what your problem is,” Mr. Pickens said in an offhand way, as if problems were a dime a dozen. “Your goal's too high. It's at professional height, and it ought to be a foot or two lower for your age. Sam, if you've got a ladder, we can fix it and get in a few baskets before it gets too dark.”

“Sure,” Sam said. “We can do that. I should've realized it was too high myself.”

Little Lloyd frowned, as he looked hopefully at Mr. Pickens. “Is it really too high? I mean, it's not because I'm too short?”

“Nope,” Mr. Pickens said, buttering a roll with infinite care. “If you're going to be ready for the season, you need to practice with the goal at the official height for your age.” Mr. Pickens's black eyes glanced up at him, a smile beginning at the corner of his mouth. “Besides, bringing it down gives me an advantage, and I'm going to take you on, bud.”

Little Lloyd laughed out loud for the first time since the soccer coach broke his heart, and I could've hugged Mr. Pickens's neck. He was a good man, in spite of his frisky nature and aversion to domestication.

Listening to this exchange and marveling at how sensitive Mr. Pickens was to the child's athletic needs, especially after his failure to measure up to soccer standards, it occurred to me that one way to put a worry in perspective was to be overwhelmed by a bigger one. So, though I'd let myself be troubled because Little Lloyd hadn't won a place on the team, how important could that be now that his place on the Springer family tree was being questioned?

But not by me. From the first time I'd laid eyes on the boy, I'd known there could be only one person responsible. But now, the child's paternity had to be proven all over again. His legal rights had to be established beyond question, and his mother's reputation
salvaged, or else they both would become social outcasts. Financial ones, too.

And the thought of it just tore me up. Here I'd exerted all my considerable social influence to get Hazel Marie accepted by my friends, my church, and the entire community, and it had paid off. She was now a valued member of my set, which, frankly, was the most envied set in town. And, if you could overlook her attachment to that devilish Mr. Pickens, the details of which I tried not to think about, she had since lived an exemplary life.

I couldn't help but wonder what Mr. Pickens would think if he knew of Brother Vern's accusations. It doesn't matter what anybody says to the contrary, I knew that once an accusation is made concerning someone's morals, no matter how false or how thoroughly disproved, the taint of it never goes away. Would Mr. Pickens look with doubtful, rather than loving, eyes on Hazel Marie and her son after this?

Well, I thought, as I stabbed my fork into a helping of Lillian's cheese casserole, he'd have some nerve if he did. Mr. Pickens had been involved in more than a few less than savory associations himself, and if he got all self-righteous about false accusations toward Hazel Marie, and possible indiscretions in her youth, I certainly intended to remind him of his own not so youthful ones.

 

I started clearing the table while the others went outside to adjust the basketball goal over the garage door. Hazel Marie turned on the yard lights as she hurried out with a tape measure to make sure that the men attached the goal at the correct distance from the ground. Sam and Mr. Pickens, with a great deal of laughing and banging around, dragged a seldom used ladder out of the garage, while Little Lloyd drove me crazy, bouncing a ball on the paved driveway.

I shuddered to think of Sam up on a ladder, trying to manhandle that heavy goal, and I didn't want to watch his exertions. Nor Mr.
Pickens's, either, who'd never shown the least indication of being handy around a house. It was a wonder to me that those two grown men insisted on doing work that neither of them was qualified to do.

Lillian began rinsing dishes and putting them into the dishwasher, glancing at me as I went back and forth from the dining room, bringing in plates and silverware. “Don't you want to see how they doin'?” she asked.

“No, I don't want to see either of them break his neck. Sam ought not to be climbing a ladder at his age.”

Lillian craned her neck to look out the window. “Mr. Sam, he holdin' the ladder. It's that Mr. Pickens what's up it.”

I didn't respond, busying myself with getting out dessert plates for Lillian's apple pie. I could feel her frowning looks aimed my way as I did it.

“What's the matter with you?” she finally asked. “Here, I been waitin' an' waitin' for you to make out yo' Christmas menu so I can be thinkin' 'bout all that cookin'. An' look like you always thinkin' 'bout something else. An' look like to me, you not actin' right.”

I stopped and leaned on the counter. “Oh, Lillian, I can't think about Christmas menus right now. It's too early, and for all I know, we may not even have Christmas. There's something weighing on my mind, and I'm just heartsick about it. It could change everything.”

She turned off the faucet and faced me. “Somethin' wrong with Mr. Sam?”

“No, oh, no. Sam's fine.” I took my lip in my teeth, pondering the wisdom of unloading on her right then, even though Hazel Marie was still in the dark. I'd always unburdened myself to Lillian, and just because I now had a husband throwing a ball around in my driveway was no reason to stop confiding in her. “It's Brother Vern, Lillian. He's back and making trouble like we've never seen.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You mean that preacher what stole our boy out from under us an' put him on the TV?”

“The very one. And it's beyond belief what he's come up with now. I am so distressed I don't know what to do.”

She put her wet hands on her hips, and demanded, “What he doin'?”

“He's saying . . .” But I had to stop, for the ballplayers were coming back inside, laughing and slamming doors and arguing over who had won a horse, of all things. The four of them came in looking flushed and excited and healthy. And wanting dessert, so I whispered, “I'll tell you later. But keep it to yourself for now.”

She gave me one of her frowning looks, cutting her eyes at me from under her brows, then she nudged me out of the way and began to serve the pie.

At no time during the evening did I have a chance to get Hazel Marie alone, which was just as well for I didn't need a houseful of people when I disclosed a subject of such magnitude. As it turned out, she and Mr. Pickens decided to go off somewhere by themselves, leaving Little Lloyd with Sam and me.

After Lillian left and the boy went upstairs to his room, I climbed the stairs for the second time in two days.

Knocking on the jamb of Little Lloyd's open door, I said, “Am I disturbing you?”

He looked up from the book on his desk and smiled. “No'm, I'm just reading about Lewis and Clark. Did you know they took a dog with them? His name was Seaman because he was such a good swimmer.”

“Well, I declare. No, I didn't know that.” I sat down in a chair next to his desk and tried not to stare too intently at his face. “I knew they took an Indian lady with them, but I never could pronounce her name.”

“Sacajawea,” he said, which sounded fine to me. Then he went into a long discourse about the expedition, where it started,
where it ended, and how long it took, while I watched his facial expressions and hand motions, looking for traces of his heredity.

I was trying to reassure myself that Wesley Lloyd had left his mark. And, I'll tell you, it was a different way of looking at the child. For the few years he'd been in my care, I'd tried every way I knew
not
to see Wesley Lloyd in him. Every time he did or said something that reminded me of my faithless husband, I'd averted my eyes and closed my mind, determined to forestall seeing any inherited reminders. I'd looked for Hazel Marie in him, and deliberately denied what was as plain as the nose on his face.

Now I had to alter my thinking, and in order to protect the child, search for evidence of his resemblance to Wesley Lloyd Springer.

It really wasn't difficult, when viewed with unbiased eyes. There was the same wispy hair that, bless his little heart, would begin to recede in middle age, and the thin face with a fair complexion, spotted now with freckles, and the hazel eyes that were neither one color nor the other. And his short stature and slight frame—all spoke of familiar characteristics. It was only when the child smiled or laughed that his own sweet and benevolent nature shone through. At those times he exhibited nothing at all of Wesley Lloyd's rigid and arrogant spirit.

So, if it came down to offering proof, I'd have to make sure that Little Lloyd refrained from smiling, keeping at all times a belligerent frown on his face. That way, nobody would question who had fathered him.

“Did you want me for something, Miss Julia?” Little Lloyd asked, and I realized that he'd finished giving me a history lesson while I'd continued to peer at his facial features.