Miss Julia's Gift: A Penguin Special from Viking (3 page)

He pulled a folded paper from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I scanned the official-looking document, noticed my name typed in, frowned, and asked, “What is it?”

Sam came over and sat beside me on the sofa. “It’s an official notification that a contribution has been made in honor of you and the Reverend King to the Boys and Girls Club of Abbotsville.”

“Oh, Sam,” I said, a pleased smile spreading across my face as I saw how generously he had shown his esteem for me and my co-honoree. “You shouldn’t have, but . . .,” I leaned my head against his shoulder, “I’m glad you did.” It was the best I could do.

Yet for days afterward I mulled the incident over in my mind, feeling that I had fallen short in some way. It had truly been a thoughtful gift and one that would, as they say, keep on giving. Maybe I should’ve shown more pleasure, maybe even gushed, although to be truthful, I didn’t know exactly how to gush, having more of a composed and sedate nature that limited the range of my emotions—limited them, at least, for public consumption.

* * *

It was a few gift-free days later as we sat around the dining-room table finishing the tasty lemon chiffon pie that Lillian had served. Sam, at the head of the table, had been telling Little Lloyd about a certain Roman emperor who’d had a marvelous vision while Hazel Marie and I listened in, completely entranced with the story. Have I mentioned that Sam loved history—and not just the history of Abbotsville, but further back than that? He had books around the house that I could barely pick up, much less read, the current one on the bedside table by another Roman named Tacitus, whose innumerable tales of war put Sam to sleep within fifteen minutes.

Just as his story ended, Lillian came into the dining room, removed our dessert plates, and said, “You ready now, Mr. Sam?”

Sam nodded and smiled across the table at me. “Yes, let’s have it.”

With a laugh, Lillian went back to the kitchen and came back bearing a beautifully wrapped gift about the size of a bread box. She set it down in front of me. “Mr. Sam, he say this is for the holiday.”

I looked up at Sam in surprise and some dismay. “What holiday?”

“I know, Miss Julia,” Little Lloyd said, squirming in his chair with excitement, “I know. It’s Groundhog Day!”

Hazel Marie looked perplexed. “I thought that was about the weather. I didn’t know you were supposed to give gifts for it.”

“I didn’t either, Hazel Marie,” I said, wondering what in the world Sam had come up with this time. His gifts ran the gamut from the fairly expensive to something he picked up in the yard. Like a buckeye. I never knew whether I was supposed to lavish gratitude on him or laugh at his wild imagination.

“Open it, Miss Julia,” Little Lloyd urged. “I can’t wait for you to see it.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Yes’m, I helped pick it out. Hurry so we can all see.”

So I did, with Lloyd coming around to my chair and Hazel Marie leaning forward and Lillian standing beside me, all of them waiting for my reaction. Which is what I so disliked about getting a gift—everybody waiting to see how surprised, delighted, or disappointed I’ll be. I never liked being the center of so much attention. So uncomfortable, you know.

Glancing again at Sam’s expectant smile, I untied the bow, opened the box, and pulled out . . . I didn’t know what it was.

“What is it?” I asked, frowning as I turned the object around. It had the head of a pig—I figured that out right away—but the body was only a rounded lump.

“It’s a Chia Pet!” Little Lloyd exclaimed, laughing. “See, Miss Julia, you water it and little plants grow all over it. Then it’ll look like a real pig.”

“Oh,” Hazel Marie said, “it’s so cute.” Then she frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I guess I don’t, either,” I said, thinking it might be a joke but not sure enough to actually laugh.

Little Lloyd jiggled with excitement. “Can I tell ’em, Mr. Sam?”

“Go right ahead,” Sam said, beaming with pleasure as I studied with, I knew, a perplexed look on my face, the denuded pig.

“See, Miss Julia,” Little Lloyd said, “it’s a pig because it’s Ground
hog
Day!”

* * *

Well, you can see how I was kept off balance by Sam’s gifts, which went from the sublime to the ridiculous—the Chia Pet Pig belonging in the latter category. Nonetheless, it took pride of place on the window sill above the kitchen sink and Lillian took on the care and feeding of it. Actually, it turned out to be quite remarkable and we all enjoyed watching it fill out as it began to bear a vague resemblance to a groundhog—if you already knew what you were looking for.

* * *

“Miss Julia?” Little Lloyd stuck his head around the door frame of my bedroom, a hesitant smile on his face.

“Come on in, honey. I didn’t hear you come up the stairs.”

He sidled into the room and stood by the desk where I had been balancing my checkbook—a task still new enough for me to enjoy doing. “I was being quiet in case you were resting.”

“No, just staying abreast of business matters. See, Little Lloyd, a good manager always knows what’s in the bank and what’s in pocket. Never guess and never hope. Always know.” I felt it was incumbent upon me to instruct the child in good management habits, especially where money was concerned, because he would have so much of it when he reached maturity—half, in fact, of Wesley Lloyd’s sizable estate. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“Yes’m, I guess.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and took a deep breath. “Uh, Miss Julia, can I ask you something?”

“Of course you may. What is it?”

“Well, some of the kids at school are talking about Valentine’s Day and I don’t much know what to do. Because, see, it’s my first year in middle school and none of the teachers have said anything, so I’m thinking it won’t be like in little kids’ school where we put our valentines in a box and the teacher hands ’em out after we have a party.” He picked up the little globe with the flag-waving mouse that I was using as a paperweight and turned it over to watch the snow fall. “And I’m thinking that maybe we’re too old for valentines and that’s why none of the teachers have started decorating boxes. Maybe they think we’ve outgrown little kid stuff.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. But if some of the students are talking about it, they must not think they’re too old.”

“It’s mostly the girls. So I thought I’d ask you what I ought to do. I don’t want to maybe get one from somebody and not give them one.”

“That is a problem,” I said, putting down my pen. “Why don’t you ask the other boys what they’re going to do? They’re probably in the same quandary you are.”

“Yes’m, I guess I could. I just don’t want them to think I’m dopey or something.”

I could tell that I wasn’t helping him, so I wracked my brain for a solution. “Let me ask you this: Is there someone special you’d
like
to give one to—even if you don’t get one from that person?”

He ducked his head and smiled. “Maybe. But I don’t want anybody to know.”

“Then here’s what you do. It’s the way we did it when I was a girl. Go ahead and buy your valentines, then address them to everybody you even think will give you one. That way you’ll be prepared if the teachers decide to distribute them in school. But let’s say they don’t. And let’s say that your friends give some out—maybe before school or at lunch—then you’ll have yours ready to go when you get home.”

“But it’ll be too late then. School will be out.”

“No, the way we did it was to go around right after dark—not too late, mind you—and put a valentine on the porch or stuck in a screen door. Then you ring the doorbell and run.”

“You
run
?” He laughed at the thought.

“Oh, yes, you may have to hide in the bushes if they come to the door too fast, because you don’t want them to know who left the card. Of course, you can sign your name if you want to, but it’s more fun if you use something like Your Secret Admirer or Be My Valentine or whatever.”

“I like that idea! And it’s even better because by that night everybody’ll think Valentine’s Day is over and it won’t be. And I can give a valentine to everybody who gave me one at school and even to somebody who maybe didn’t, and they’ll have to guess who did it.”

“Yes, and I’ll tell you something else. Any little girl who gets a valentine from a secret admirer will just be thrilled—she will always wonder who it was and she’ll never forget it. That would be a very nice thing to do, because there are always a few girls who won’t get any.”

“You mean,” he asked, thinking through what I’d said, “give one to the girls nobody likes?”

“Who would know?”

He laughed. “Nobody!”

“And think how special those little girls would feel. And I think you’d feel pretty special too.”

“Me, too,” he said, as he turned to leave. “Thanks, Miss Julia.”

I smiled, pleased at how little it had taken to lift his spirits. Then picking up my pen and turning back to the bank statement, I sighed. It seemed that everybody was having trouble with giving and receiving.

* * *

Emma Sue Ledbetter, our pastor’s wife, called to ask me to pick her up on my way to our monthly circle meeting, during which there would be a ten-minute Bible study and two hours of arguing about project reports, eating finger sandwiches and deciding where we would meet the following month.

“It won’t be out of your way, Julia,” Emma Sue had said, “and I’ll be ready and waiting when you get here. Actually, since I’m teaching the lesson, they can’t start until I get there, so it doesn’t matter if we run late.”

“We won’t be late. I’ll be by about nine thirty but, Emma Sue, I have to leave as soon as it’s over. So if you plan to linger, it might be better to go ahead and take your car.” Because our circle met in the homes of the various members, some of the group were often reluctant to leave, tarrying to chat and visit with one another until occasionally the hostess felt compelled to offer lunch. Overstaying their welcome, I called it.

“Oh, I’ll be ready to leave when you are,” Emma Sue assured me. “You won’t have to do anything special for me. I’ll just come and go when you do. Because, see, Julia, I’ve decided to Go Green, like I’ve been hearing about everywhere, and the big thing I can do is save gas by not driving. You ought to be doing the same, Julia. Your big car must take gallons just to go to the store. And you know, we all waste so much gas by taking our own cars everywhere we go, so you really should do whatever you can to be ecologically sound.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said drily, but silently fuming because
she
was saving gas by riding with me while at the same time having the nerve to lecture me for using it.

We were meeting that morning on the second Tuesday—our usual meeting day—at Rebecca Tildon’s home, a split-level ranch-style house in what passed for the suburbs of Abbotsville—in other words, outside of town. There were about fifteen or so of us, all milling around the living room where extra folding chairs had been set up in a circle. Hence the name of the group, I suppose.

Coffee, both regular and decaf, was served and trays of finger food and cubes of fruit on toothpicks were on the table in the dining ell. As soon as Emma Sue and I entered, having left our coats in the front bedroom, we were engulfed by the admiring talk of Janet McDonald’s new diamond tennis bracelet. Everyone wanted to see it, touch it, and exclaim over it, and Janet had worn a short-sleeved sweater to better display it. It was so lovely that not even our worst cynic could think that it might have come from Walmart or Sam’s Club.

“Jim gave it to me,” Janet kept saying, her face flushed with pleasure. “And for no reason in the world. I still can’t believe it. I have to keep looking at it to be sure it’s real.”

Janet was such a nice, likable young woman that not a soul in the room would have begrudged her such a beautiful gift. Many of them might have yearned for a bracelet like hers, but none would covet the one she had. All during the lesson and the discussions afterward, I noticed how Janet would occasionally glance down at it, then turn it around on her arm, as if to reassure herself that it was really there. A smile never left her face.

Now that, I told myself, was the way the recipient of a gift should react. Her husband would assuredly know how well he had pleased her. I tried to make mental notes to follow the next time that Sam astounded me with an expensive and unexpected gift like the diamond studded watch he’d given me on New Year’s Day because, he’d said, time was passing and he wanted us to make the most of each minute. I’d still have to work on my reactions to gifts such as buckeyes and Chia Pets. It seemed to me that my expressions of gratitude in those cases should be somewhat less in kind and quality.

Emma Sue’s Bible lesson was competently delivered as usual, but her subject—the list of spiritual gifts such as faith, wisdom, knowledge, and so on—brought me up short. Here I’d been concentrating on how to properly express my thanks to my husband for tangible gifts, when I should have been focusing on the gift of wisdom by which I could properly discern my responses. It was evident to me that I did not have the gift of appreciation, which wasn’t even on the list but should’ve been.

When the meeting was over, I drove back to Emma Sue’s house, parked in her driveway, and waited for her to get out. On the way there, I had complimented her on the lesson and told her, without going into detail, that she had made me see a few things in a new light.

“I’m glad of that, Julia, thank you,” she said, making no move to leave. “I know you need to get home, but did you get a good look at Janet’s bracelet? It nearly knocked my eyes out. You know there are tennis bracelets and then there are tennis bracelets, and that one had the biggest diamonds I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s beautiful, all right.” Then I added, “She’s so happy she’ll probably be showering Jim with hugs and kisses and favorite meals and catering to his every whim forever.” Or maybe, I thought, a more appreciative response would be for Janet to simply wear the bracelet every day and forgo an effusive display. I wished I knew which was the more fitting.

“Yes.” Emma Sue sighed. “Bless her heart.”