Miss Julia Hits the Road (5 page)

I sat and stared at her, torn between pity and anger. Anger won out. “I still can’t believe that you’ve let things come to such a pass and not told me a word about it. I declare, Lillian, I am hurt,
hurt,
that you’d keep this from me.”

She wrung her hands, looking at them instead of at me. “I know you got yo’ hands full, an’ I thought somethin’ might turn up or Mr. Gibbs change his mind or somethin’. Coleman, he been helpin’ me look for a place to move to, but all them others what live there, they in the same fix.”

“Thay Lord,” I said, just about done in for going on my merry way while Lillian’d been losing her home. “How many others are there?”

“They nine houses on that street. Used to be ten, but the roof of one give way. Some people live by theyselves, like me, now my grands is grown an’ gone. Some’re married folks, an’ Mr. William an’ his wife, they have her ole daddy livin’ with ’em. Lot of ’em have they chil’ren come stay when they lose a job. Nobody have a place to move to, ’cept the Whitleys, who already gone to Durham. They daughter, she got a good job workin’ at the Duke Hospital.”

Well, my goodness, I thought, running my mind over the housing possibilities for that many people. There wasn’t much in the way of affordable housing in Abbotsville, especially for the financially handicapped.

I leaned toward her. “What did Sam say about this?”

“He say he gonna look into it, an’ talk to Mr. Gibbs, see he can work something out. But he say since we don’t have no leases, Mr. Gibbs might can do whatever he want.”

“Well, we’ll just see about that,” I said, ready to get on my high horse. “Lillian, far be it from me to undermine Sam and his advice, but I’ve already told you that I’m worried about his mental state. You need to take whatever he tells you with a grain of salt.”

Lord, I hated to tell her that, it seemed so hurtful to Sam. But I couldn’t just let her be evicted from her home while Sam piddled around, looking into it.

“We gonna have a meetin’ tonight,” Lillian told me, pushing away her cup of cold coffee. “The Reverend Mr. Morris Abernathy, he gettin’ all us what live on the street together to talk about what we can do. He ast Mr. Gibbs to come to the meetin’, too, but Mr. Gibbs say he don’ think he can make it. He got bus’ness to tend to, an’ can’t be ’spected to come to no meetin’ that can’t change nothin’, no way.”

“Well,” I said, standing up and pacing around the table. “He’s got a nerve. Lillian, you can’t just give up. If there’s anything that can be done, you’ve got to do it.”

“I tole Mr. Sam ’bout the meetin’, an’ he say he be there an’ tell us what he find out. Maybe somethin’ come up outta that, ’cause he gonna be lookin’ into it today. Proppity records and such like, down at the courthouse. Mr. Sam put a stop to it, if anybody can. We countin’ on him.”

“Good,” I said, wanting to encourage her, but hoping that Sam was up to the job. From what I’d witnessed of him lately, though, I wouldn’t want to depend on him, as Lillian clearly was doing. “I think I’d better be there, too. That be all right with you?”

“Yessum,” she said, smiling at me. “You more’n welcome, ’cause we gonna need all the help we can get. I don’ know what some a them folks gonna do; they gonna be out on the street without no place to lay they heads.”

“We’ll figure something out,” I assured her, wondering where in the world we could find housing for that many evicted families. “In the meantime, you tell Coleman to bring all your things over here and store them in the garage. There’s plenty of room, and my car can sit in the driveway. And,” I went on, pointing my finger at her, “you are moving in right upstairs, and I don’t want to hear another word about it.”

I sent Lillian home early that afternoon, knowing that she had a lot on her mind and needed to get ready for the meeting. There were some, she’d told me, who weren’t sure they wanted to go, fearing that Clarence Gibbs wouldn’t like it.

“Lord, what else can he do to them?” I’d asked her. “And who cares whether he likes it or not? I hope you can get them all there, Lillian. This needs to be a team effort, maybe a class-action lawsuit or something.” I didn’t know what I was talking about, but it seemed to me that if they were all being evicted, then they all needed to hold together. “You want me to pick you up?”

“No’m, I thank you, though. I’m goin’ with Miz Causey, she live next door, an’ we gonna take some a them what might not go ’less we get ’em there. I’ll wait for you in front a the church, an’ we can go in together.”

Telling her that I’d be there a little before seven, I locked up behind her and fixed an early supper for myself. Since night fell so quickly this time of year, it didn’t seem all that early to be eating. After I finished, I went upstairs to put my feet up before getting ready for the meeting to save Lillian’s home.

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway startled me, and I got up to look out the window.

“Why, what in the world?” I asked myself, watching as Hazel Marie climbed out of the car and slammed the door with such force that her feet almost slid from under her. She stomped across the yard to the front porch, Little Lloyd tagging along behind her.

I hurried downstairs and opened the door as she rang the bell. She stood there, her face flushed with more than the amount of makeup she usually wore, huffing like she could hardly get her breath. Little Lloyd moved slowly up the steps, his head lowered and turned away.

“Hazel Marie . . . ?” I started, holding the door open.

“Can we come in, Miss Julia? I’ve left J. D.”

“Why, of course you can,” I said, stunned at this sudden turn of events. “But what happened?”

“Don’t ask.” She barrelled into the living room with a full head of steam. Then she turned on her heel and headed out the door again. “I forgot our suitcases.”

Little Lloyd followed her, giving me a shoulder shrug as he passed. I held the door for them as they came back, lugging suitcases and grocery bags of shoes, hair rollers, and various and sundry beauty aids.

“You sure this is all right, Miss Julia?” Hazel Marie asked as she passed me on her way in again. “We can always go to a motel.”

“You know it’s all right. Your room is just as you left it. Little Lloyd, I need to put fresh sheets on your bed, but you can go on up.” I tried to pull myself together as I closed the front door. I was of two minds about their return—pleased that I had the two of them under my roof again, and disturbed that Hazel Marie had no staying power. Although, to be fair, she had told me that living with Mr. Pickens would be a temporary arrangement, so he’d see the benefits and advantages of marriage. Have you ever heard of anything so foolish? I could’ve predicted what would happen, but far be it from me to bring that up in her present frame of mind.

I watched Little Lloyd trudge up the stairs, lugging a suitcase, with his backpack full of books on his shoulder, and my heart went out to him. No telling what he’d witnessed between his mother and Mr. Pickens if Hazel Marie’d gotten mad enough to leave. I had to shake my head at the pity of it all, as I looked at those skinny little legs of his in the short pants that came all the way to his knobby knees.

“I’ll be up in a minute,” I told him.

Then, heading toward Hazel Marie’s room, I heard her slam a dresser drawer shut, then clomp across the floor.

“Hazel Marie,” I said as I stood in her door. “What in the world is going on?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, slinging clothes out of the suitcase. “J. D. Pickens is without a doubt the most aggravating man who ever lived.”

“Well, I know that, but what happened? Did you have a disagreement?”

“I have just had it with him,” she fumed. “Believe me, Miss Julia, I’ve learned my lesson, and now I’m going to teach him one.” She slammed a hairbrush on the dresser.

Wondering how she intended to do that, I decided to let her cool down before finding out what else she didn’t want to talk about. “I’ll just go up and see about Little Lloyd.”

When I got upstairs, I found the boy looking out the front window of his room. The streetlight on the corner had already come on, early as it does on fall evenings.

“Little Lloyd,” I said, “why in the world is your mother so upset with Mr. Pickens? Did he do something to her?”

He turned from the window, but stayed beside it. “Yes, ma’am, I reckon he did. But he didn’t mean to.”

I knew better than to expect him to tattle on his mother, but I couldn’t resist trying to get a handle on the situation. “Well, what did he do?”

Little Lloyd was staring out of the window again. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t really know. Mama picked me up from school, and when we got home he was just sitting at the table talking with somebody, and Mama sent me outside. And the next thing I knew, she was throwing suitcases in the car.”

“Well, I say,” I said. “And she didn’t tell you why?”

“No’m,” he said, shaking his head and watching the street from the window. “She just said if she never saw Mr. Pickens again, it’d be too soon for her.”

“I don’t expect she meant that,” I said, wondering what he was looking at out on the street. Trying to distract himself, I surmised. “Let’s get this bed made up. You take that side and I’ll take this one. Then it’ll be ready when you are.” I removed the coverlet and began to unfold the bottom sheet that Lillian had left beside the bed. “You know, Little Lloyd, I know this is all pretty upsetting for you, but I’m glad to have you back. I’ve been needing some help with first one thing and another. That trailer park, for instance, and there’s a building on Main Street that’s coming on the market soon. We ought to look into that and see if it’s worth buying.” It’d been my habit to take the child into my business confidences here lately to prepare him for the day when I wouldn’t be around to help him with monetary decisions.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and tore himself away from the window long enough to help me make the bed.

“Now,” I said, straightening up after a final smoothing of his sheets. “Go ahead and unpack your suitcase. I’ll go see how your mother’s doing.”

I walked slowly down the stairs. Lord, I didn’t know what to think. Here I’d thought Hazel Marie was settled, lacking a marriage certificate, of course, but headed that way with a decent, if somewhat unmanageable, man.

Approaching her room through the back hall, I was relieved to hear none of the slamming and banging she’d been doing. When I tapped on her door, I saw her sitting on the bed with her head bowed and her hands twisting in her lap.

“Hazel Marie,” I said, “come on to the kitchen and let me fix you something to eat.”

“I don’t think I can eat anything.” She looked up at me with fierce eyes. “But,” she said, getting to her feet, “I’ll sit with you a while. I’m too upset to eat.”

When she was settled at the kitchen table in her usual place, I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and put it and a glass of milk in front of her. “Eat,” I said. “You’ll feel better.”

“I feel fine, now that I’ve done what I should’ve done in the first place, tell J. D. Pickens to get out of my life and stay out.” She frowned as her eyes darted around the room, and I prepared myself to endure another fit of temper.

“You weren’t feeling that way when I talked to you on the phone earlier today,” I reminded her.

“I didn’t know then what I know now, and that man has tried my patience for the last time.” She reached for the sandwich, but instead of picking it up, she put her palm on it and mashed it. Grape jelly oozed out the sides. “You won’t believe what he was doing when I came home today. I wanted to smack him to kingdom come, and I may still do it.” Her clenched fist slammed down on the table—some little distance from the sandwich, I’m happy to say. “But,” she said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“All right.”

“Oh, Miss Julia,” she went on, “you just don’t know what I’ve been through with him. He thinks he’s God’s gift to every woman he sees, and I’ve had my fill of it.”

Ah, I thought to myself, that’s what I was afraid of. Mr. Pickens was a world-class womanizer, and I’d warned Hazel Marie of those tendencies of his long before this. Of course, you can’t tell people what they don’t want to hear; they have to find out for themselves.

“Some men are just like that, Hazel Marie.”

“Like what?”

“Why, like Mr. Pickens. Running after everything in a skirt.”

Well, that certainly opened the floodgates. She covered her face with her hands and began to sob. “Oh, Miss Julia, I thought I could change him, he
said
he would change, but he hasn’t and I don’t think he can.” She gave a mighty sniff, grabbed a napkin and wiped her nose. “And it’s too late, anyway.”

Now, I hadn’t had much experience with men in general, but I knew enough to know that trying to change one was an uphill job, and Hazel Marie hadn’t stood a chance of changing the stripes of a man like Mr. Pickens. Women just melted when he turned those black eyes on them and smiled that wicked smile of his. Maybe he couldn’t help what he did to women. Some men can’t, you know.