Miss Julia to the Rescue
Read Miss Julia to the Rescue Online
Authors: Ann B. Ross
Miss Julia to the Rescue
Also by Ann B. Ross
Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle
Miss Julia Renews Her Vows
Miss Julia Delivers the Goods
Miss Julia Paints the Town
Miss Julia Strikes Back
Miss Julia Stands Her Ground
Miss Julia’s School of Beauty
Miss Julia Meets Her Match
Miss Julia Hits the Road
Miss Julia Throws a Wedding
Miss Julia Takes Over
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind
Miss Julia to
the Rescue
A
NN
B. R
OSS
V
IKING
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in 2012 by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Ann B. Ross, 2012
All rights reserved
Publisher’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Ross, Ann B.
Miss Julia to the rescue : a novel / Ann B. Ross.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-101-56149-2
1. Springer, Julia (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women—North Carolina—Fiction. 3. North Carolina—Fiction. 4. Widows—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O84198M585 2012
813′.54—dc23
2011037606
Printed in the United States of America
Set in Fairfield LH
Designed by Alissa Amell
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
This one is for The Book Club—the one in Mississippi that is so special to me, as well as for all the book clubs everywhere whose members buy, borrow, read, discuss, recommend and love books.
Chapter 1
“Hazel Marie,” I said as we sat at my kitchen table, “would you mind terribly if I redecorated your room?”
“Why, Miss Julia,” she said, smiling at me, “it’s your house. You can do whatever you want to it.” Hazel Marie leaned over to replace a pacifier in one baby’s mouth, then rocked the twin stroller back and forth with her foot.
She had strolled the babies over on this beautiful early June morning and now sat visiting with me. She was blooming—there was no other word for it. Second motherhood, late though it was, certainly agreed with her. Of course, a lot of it had to do with the fact that on this go-round she had a husband by her side. Well, not literally by her side today, for Mr. Pickens was off somewhere doing his private investigative work, while she reveled in her place as a well-situated matron, complete with spouse, three children, home and social standing.
It was all so different, you know, from her first foray into motherhood, when she had kept her head down, raising Lloyd essentially alone and avoiding notice as much as she could. That’s what you do when you’re a woman kept by a married man who wanted to keep his double life secret. Which he did until he keeled over one night in his new Buick Park Avenue and it all came out.
“What’re you thinking of doing to it?” Hazel Marie asked, picturing, no doubt, the pink and gold room upstairs that she for the first time in her life had decorated exactly as she wished. She had
chosen pink velvet armchairs—faintly French in style—pink taffeta bedskirt and quilted coverlet, pink striated wallpaper, pink lamps and pink carpet. Touches of gilt on picture and mirror frames and odds and ends throughout the room relieved the pink to some extent. It was a little much for my taste, but Sam and I had slept in it for months while she was on bed rest, relegated by her doctor to the large bedroom downstairs.
But now, she and Mr. Pickens, along with their baby girls, were ensconsed in Sam’s house, four blocks away, and Hazel Marie was loving every minute of it. That meant, however, that Sam no longer had a quiet and private place to work on the book that he’d been fiddling with for so long.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” I said, leaning my head against my hand, “the upstairs hall is stacked with boxes of Sam’s papers and books—everything that was in his office at your house—so I have to make an office for him here. I’ve gone back and forth over this, and it comes down to either your room or the downstairs bedroom. Your room will be quieter for him and the downstairs room will be larger for the two of us, so that seems the best solution. The only thing, though, is the walk-in closet you put in upstairs. I hate to give that up.”
“You wouldn’t have to,” she said. “You could use it for out-of-season clothes and for things you don’t wear very often.”
“Well, yes, I could.” I sighed, trying to visualize Sam and me in each of the rooms. “I’ve even thought of turning the closet into Sam’s office. Goodness knows it’s big enough. What it comes down to, though, is that I hate to dismantle what you loved so much. It’s like—I don’t know—resigning myself to the fact that you are truly gone.”
“Why, Miss Julia,” she said, laying her hand on my arm. “That is so sweet. I thought you’d be glad to have me out of your hair and on my own. Well, on my own with J.D., I mean.”
I knew what she was getting at—safely married with legitimate children. And I
was
glad, but I still missed her in spite of the rough start we’d had. The two of us had spent too many years
together with me struggling to get over what she’d been to my now-deceased first husband—as hard as it still is to say, she had been his mistress and the proof of it, in the person of Lloyd, had the run of my house. And those same years had been spent with her trying to fit in with my respectable and unblemished way of living. We’d each done a good job of arriving at a meeting of minds and living in harmony, if I do say so myself. In fact, almost too good a job, because I was left with an empty space where she’d once been.
But I tend to look on the bright side of things, and the bright side of having her in Sam’s house was not having little Julie and Lily Mae in mine. Oh, I was delighted with those twin babies, but I’d lived too many years in a quiet and well-organized home to adjust easily to the demands of growing children. Except for Lloyd, of course, whom I never minded having around, even though he was currently the reason for my unrelenting anxiety and feelings of dread.
Lillian pushed through the swinging door from the dining room and stopped. “I didn’t know y’all was down here! Jus’ look at them baby girls, they growin’ like weeds.” She leaned over the stroller and stroked the cheek of one of them—I never knew which was which. “Hey, little sweet girl, you come to see Lillian? I think you both need a sody cracker, don’t you?”
The babies kicked and crowed and smiled at Lillian, reaching little hands for the saltines she offered. One immediately spat out the pacifier and crumbled the cracker against her mouth, while the other tried to get her cracker in without releasing the pacifier.
“How you doin’, Miss Hazel Marie,” Lillian asked, her eyes staying on the babies. “You gettin’ much sleep?”
“They slept six hours straight last night. I couldn’t believe it, but I’m getting them outside as much as I can. They sleep better if they have some exercise.” Hazel Marie smiled ruefully. “Of course, pushing this stroller around means I’m the one getting the exercise. But I really need it.” She looked down and patted her stomach under the loose top she was wearing. “I’m so stretched
out of shape from carrying twins, it’s unbelievable. I exercise like crazy, but I think the only hope is to have surgery to take up the slack.”