Miss Julia to the Rescue (2 page)

“Oh, Hazel Marie, you’re not thinking of going to South America, are you?”

She laughed. “No, my obstetrician said it can be done here, but to wait awhile before thinking about surgery. So I guess I’ll just keep on exercising. Anyway,” she went on, smiling down on her babies, “I have my hands full with these two little ones now. It takes all my energy to keep up with them.”

By now—some five or so months after their birth—the babies were beginning to adjust their inner workings to fit in with the schedules of normal people, and I feared that Hazel Marie’s days were getting easy enough for her to reconsider the arrangements we’d made, especially if she was thinking of having surgery. I would never bring up the subject, though. I just acted as if the way things were would be the way things stayed.

“I’m happy for you, Hazel Marie,” I said, picking up where we’d left off, “but I do miss having you around.”

“Shoo, I seem to be over here so much you hardly have time to miss me. But I know what you mean, because as happy as I am, I miss you, too.”

We smiled at each other, then she said what I’d been dreading to hear. “But, Miss Julia,” she said, her lovely face marred by a frown, “I miss Lloyd, too. I don’t see how I can do without him much longer. I’d like us to think about when he can move in with us.”

I knew it. I
knew
it would be coming sooner or later, and here it was.

Every time Hazel Marie came to visit, which was two or three times a week, I would get that sinking feeling, sure that she’d come to tell me she wanted Lloyd living with the rest of the Pickens family. Up until this time, the boy had remained with Sam and me on the basis that he didn’t need to be uprooted in the middle of a school year even though a move would not have meant a change of schools. The other, maybe more important, reason was that, try as they might, Lillian, Etta Mae Wiggins and Hazel Marie had been unable to get those two babies on any kind of reasonable schedule. One or the other of the twins, and often both at the same time, were awake and screaming half the night. Which meant that Hazel Marie had to sleep when they did—namely, half the day. And who wants a young boy wandering around a house alone while his mother is laid up in bed all afternoon?

And Lloyd himself had made the final decision, saying that he didn’t have time to pack up and move all his stuff. That’s what he called it, his
stuff,
which consisted of a computer, a printer, lengths of wires and cables, books, games and innumerable other electronic gadgets, to say nothing of tennis rackets, tennis shoes, books and collections of everything from rocks to compact disks. Frankly, though, I thought that he, too, preferred peace and quiet to the continuous turmoil that the babies created. But he occasionally spent a night or a weekend with his mother when Mr.
Pickens was out of town. Even though James lived in the apartment over the garage at Sam’s house, Hazel Marie liked having someone in the house with her. So it wasn’t as if the Pickenses had abandoned the boy, although Mr. Pickens worried about it at first.

“I don’t want Lloyd thinking he’s been replaced,” Mr. Pickens had said to me. “He’s a big part of our family and I want him with us.”

Well, he was a big part of my family, too, and I wanted him with me. But I tried to stay out of it, simply suggesting that he stay at least until school was out, when he could unhook all his electronic appliances without needing them every day for homework.

So that’s where we were, but school would be out for the summer before long and here Hazel Marie was, saying she wanted her boy back.

I thought about crying, which I was on the verge of anyway, but to use that as a method of getting my way was too low to consider for long. Hazel Marie loved that child, and regardless of how many other children she had, although I hoped the twins were the last, Lloyd was her firstborn and special to her.

I pulled myself together and said, “I understand, Hazel Marie, and I think he’s planning on it as soon as school is out. Of course he’s welcome here as long as he wants to stay.”

I didn’t mention that my heart would break if he left. One thing, however, was certain: I’d never dismantle and redecorate his room.

“So,” Sam said that evening while we sat in the living room after supper, “Lloyd will be leaving when school’s out?” He folded the newspaper he’d been reading and watched as I separated yarn for the needlepoint piece I was working on.

“That’s the way it looks.” I cut a length of yarn and tried to thread the needle, then gave up in spite of the glasses I was wearing. “Oh, Sam, I don’t think I can stand it. Just look at us, sitting
here like two old people with nothing to do, and he’s just away for a tennis match. We should’ve gone, too. I don’t know why we didn’t. The school they’re playing is only two hours away. We could’ve gone.”

“We go to the home matches,” Sam reminded me. “He doesn’t expect us to be at all of them.”

“I know, I know.” I sounded a little snippy because I was on edge. “But I’m thinking that this is the way it’ll be all the time once he’s gone. And that we ought to take advantage and be with him every minute of the time we have left.”

“Julia, honey, it’s not as if he’s moving cross-country. He’ll be in and out of here all the time. This is home for him.”

“That’ll change soon enough, as soon as he settles in over there. And I know I’m thinking only of myself, but I just don’t know how I’ll fill the days without him here.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one way. Go with me to the Holy Land.”

I looked at him over my glasses. “Why’re you bringing that up again?”

He shrugged. “I’ve wanted you to go all along, even before this came up. Traveling would take your mind off Lloyd during his first weeks away.”

“No,” I said, not having to even consider it. “I’ve not lost one thing in the Holy Land. Besides they’re shooting at one another over there.”

“It’s safe enough,” he said, somewhat complacently. “You’d enjoy the trip. I know I will.”

“Yes, but you have wanderlust and I don’t.”

Sam grinned. “Restless foot syndrome.”

“I believe it,” I said, remembering the trip to Russia he’d taken awhile back. “I know you want to go and that’s fine. Just count me out.” I looked at the needlepoint piece, wondering if I’d ever finish it. “Besides, it’s not as if you’re going by yourself. You’ll have plenty of company, won’t you?”

“There’re about nine or so who’ve signed up, but Ledbetter asked if I would talk you into going, or anybody else, for that matter.
I think he’d hoped to have a bigger group so he’d get better tour rates.”

“For goodness sake, Sam, why would anybody want a cut-rate tour? I still don’t understand why you’d want to go with him in the first place.” Pastor Ledbetter was not someone I’d choose to lead me around a strange land. He was hard enough to take on home ground.

“Oh, he’ll do fine. This’ll be his third trip, and I’ve heard good reports about the second one.” Sam raised his eyebrows and gave me a wicked grin. “Not so good about the first one. Everybody got sick, including him.”

“Preachers ought to stay where they belong,” I pronounced. “I’ve never understood why they have to go running around all over the world. Next thing you know, he’ll be wanting to go to Africa.”

“Yeah, he’s mentioned that. Wants to build a dam or a hospital or something one of these days.”

“Well, count me out of that, too.”

“Okay, but I’d like to count you in for the Israel trip. Give me one good reason why you don’t want to go.”

I looked at him. “I’ll give you more than that. I have no desire to get in an airplane and let somebody else drive it. I don’t like flying, and I wouldn’t like traipsing all over the Holy Land with my knees aching and my feet hurting. And Pastor Ledbetter would drive me crazy, being with him every day, and I have to supervise a room remodel here. There’s no way I’d turn a bunch of carpenters loose in this house with nobody watching them. And, finally, Hazel Marie might need me. She’s still not in full control of those babies, and with Mr. Pickens gone so much she’ll need help. And, well, I guess this is the final reason, but Lloyd might want to stay on awhile, so I need to be here in case he does.” Then I said, “But I know how much you like to travel and see new places. Your plans are all made, bags ready to be packed and everything, so you go on and don’t worry about me. Besides, I don’t have a passport. That’s really the final reason.”

“I expect,” Sam said mildly, “we could get you one, have the process expedited, so that’s not a good reason.”

“Well, I’ll strike that one and let the others stand.” I smiled at him, ready to let the conversation lapse.

“You don’t mind my going?”

“Sam, I miss you every time you step out of this house, even to walk downtown. So, yes, I’ll mind your being away for—what? Two weeks, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, two and a couple of days for travel.”

“I wouldn’t keep you from doing something I know you’ll enjoy. You just have a good time, and I’ll try to have your office all set up and ready for you by the time you get back. Then we’ll see if you can finish that book you’ve been working on for a hundred years.”

“Setting me a challenge, huh?”

“That’s right,” I said, giving him a warm smile. “Actually, it would’ve been better if you’d had that book done by now. Then while everybody’s reading it, you could be out of town.”

Sam laughed. “I doubt everybody’ll be reading it. There won’t be many who’ll be interested in the legal history of Abbot County. Although,” he said, patting his fingers against his mouth, “it’s not turning out to be quite as dry as I thought it would be. Might not be a bad idea to plan another trip when it does come out.”

“Ooh,” I said, teasing him. “You mean you’ve been writing a racy book all this time?”

“Well, you know what they say,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “A writer should write what he knows.”

I laughed, warmed by my husband’s teasing. “You’re too much, Sam.” I held up the painted needlepoint canvas—Japanese or maybe Chinese chrysanthemums, only partially stitched. “Look at this thing. There’s so much shading, I’ll never figure out what color goes where.”

“Pretty,” he said and picked up the paper again.

I slipped the needle into the canvas and folded the piece, ready to leave it for the night. “Sam,” I said, “I’ve just had a thought. Emma Sue’s not going on the Holy Land tour, is she?”

“I don’t think so. She planned to go on that first tour—the one that was a disaster—six or seven years ago, got a passport and was all ready. But at the last minute she backed out and ended up staying home, remember? And now I guess she’s too busy with all her commitments.” He turned a page of the newspaper, then looked at me. “Why?”

“Well, it seems to me that the pastor could make arrangements for his own wife to go at least once. And, yes, I know. She says she has too much to do to leave, but I’m wondering if the real reason has to do with thinking they can’t afford it.”

Sam lowered the paper. “That would be a big part of it, I expect.”

“Then she can go in my place. I’ll pay for it.”

“You mean,” Sam said, his eyebrows lifted high, “as
my
seatmate, roommate, whatever?”

“No,” I said, laughing at the look on his face. “I want you to enjoy the trip.”

“Well, seriously though, it would be a nice gesture on your part, Julia. I think Emma Sue uses her commitments as an excuse because it’d be too expensive for both of them to go.”

“Yes, but you and I know what the pastor makes, and they could afford it if he’d just do it. Tell him tomorrow that
I
have too many commitments and that I want Emma Sue to go in my place.”

“Okay, but what if the real reason is because he wants a break from her,” Sam said, “or she wants one from him?”

“Too bad, because she’s going.” I laid aside the needlepoint and went over to his chair. “That’s not the case with us, though, is it?” I sat on the arm of his chair and took his hand. “I expect you’ve noticed that we’re all by ourselves. And, furthermore, it’ll be a couple of hours before Lloyd gets home.”