by Ross, Ann B
“Come on, Hazel Marie, let’s get out of these shopping clothes and get to work.”
“I’m coming,” she said, then turning to Lillian, she asked: “Did J.D. call?”
“No’m, but he might’ve tried and not got through.”
“I hope he will,” Hazel Marie said. “I can’t wait to tell him about my bridesmaid’s dress.”
“Binkie’s keeping him busy,” I reminded her. “And I’ll tell you something else, Hazel Marie, you can’t expect a man to be interested in a dress.” Or non-dress, I added to myself. But on recalling how little she’d be wearing, maybe he would.
* * *
As it turned out, we didn’t get far with the silver that afternoon. By the time we all got off the phones, Hazel Marie left to pick up Little Lloyd at school. We’d heard a news broadcast on Lillian’s kitchen radio that Dixon Hightower was still eluding capture, so Hazel Marie didn’t want the boy to walk home by himself.
When they returned, Lillian put a glass of milk and a peanut butter sandwich in front of Little Lloyd. “You eat all that,” she told him. “I know you hungry.”
“Yessum, but I’ve got to hurry and get over to the church for Mrs. Ledbetter’s meeting.”
“Law, you ain’t goin’ over to the church by yo’self. Miss Julia, he can’t go by hisself. That ole Dixon could reach out an’ grab at him.”
Hazel Marie gasped at the thought, but I said, “Dixon’s nowhere around here, Lillian. The boy’s perfectly safe to walk half a block. But,” I went on, seeing the stricken look on Hazel Marie’s face, “I’ll walk over with him and wait for him till the meeting’s over. I need to talk to Emma Sue anyway, and see what she’s done about that missing clock.”
“Oh, thank you, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie said. “I’m hoping to hear from J.D., so I want to stay by the phone. I’ll keep on with this silver while you’re gone.”
“What clock?” Lillian asked.
“Oh, the one with the brass balls of the pastor’s,” I said, waving it off. “Emma Sue thinks Norma Cantrell took it, but that’s the way false rumors start. Now, don’t any of you say a word about it, because I don’t believe in passing on gossip.”
* * *
As Little Lloyd and I walked across the street toward the church, I said, “Now, Little Lloyd, it’s good to be active in a young people’s group and be involved in wholesome activities. But if it’s too much for you, you don’t have to stay in it. You already go to church and Sunday school, and you have your schoolwork to consider, so don’t feel like you have to add anything else if you don’t want to.”
He said something in reply, but I didn’t catch it. The noise as we passed the construction site was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think. The sidewalk was covered in mud from hoses snaking around wheelbarrows and pallets and one kind of power tool after another. Why, we even had to leave the sidewalk and walk in the street to get past them all. I’ll tell you, Pastor Ledbetter was going to have a monument to family values to beat all other monuments. The thing was huge, stretching up some three stories and spreading out to cover most of what had been the parking lot. From what I’d heard, although I tried not to listen when the subject came up, they were putting in a gymnasium, a running track and an exercise room with all kinds of muscle-building machines that would create ripples on your stomach, and who would want such as that, I’d like to know. And a sauna, of all things. Plus office space, meeting rooms with up-to-date sound and video systems and a snack room with a microwave. Now, don’t tell me that Presbyterians needed such luxuries, especially since what we really needed was more space for the day-care center the church ran during the week for working mothers. Of course, we’d been the last church in town to open a day-care center, since Pastor Ledbetter didn’t believe in working mothers. The diaconate and the session finally overruled him, though, since most of their wives and daughters were now running the town’s professional offices, hospital, retail stores and city and county bureaucratic departments, in spite of what the pastor didn’t believe in.
When Little Lloyd and I finally got into the relative quiet of the church, closing out the din of construction, he joined several other little boys and girls who were on their way upstairs to Emma Sue’s meeting.
“Tell Mrs. Ledbetter that I’ll be waiting down here in the Fellowship Hall for you,” I told him, hoping that would make her hurry things along. I’d brought along my lists to rearrange while I waited, and I didn’t want to wait long.
A lot of good that turned out to do, because an hour and a half later, after I’d made a completely new list and read every pamphlet in the rack and was reduced to reading a hymnal somebody had left on a table, the children finally came straggling downstairs. They all looked somewhat dazed, although a few ran out of the building as if their lives depended on it. Little Lloyd was one of the last ones, coming down the stairs carrying a long box full of papers of some kind, a bewildered expression on his face.
He walked over to me, holding the box across both arms. “I’ve been elected chairman of home missions,” he said, looking up at me. “I didn’t want it, but Miz Ledbetter said it’d be good for me. She said I was the perfect one for the job since you had all the time in the world to help me, and it’d be good for you, too.”
“Well, I never,” I huffed, taken aback at having been appointed to a committee at a meeting I hadn’t even attended. But that’s the Presbyterian way of doing things. If you’re not on your toes every minute of the day, they’ll slap you on a committee so fast it’ll make your head swim. “What’re we supposed to do on this committee?”
“Knock on doors and hand these out,” he said, setting the box on the floor and handing me a pile of pamphlets entitled “The Power of Prayer,” and stamped with the phone number and address of the First Presbyterian Church of Abbotsville. I glanced inside one of them and saw that it was little more than a list of what to pray against. Our nation would be saved, it said, if we united in prayer against liberal forces that wanted to extend the welfare state, secular humanists who wouldn’t allow little children to pray at football games and tree-hugging groups that were trying to undermine free enterprise.
Before I could gather myself, so outraged at the thought of sending children to pass out such propaganda that I could hardly get my breath, Little Lloyd said, “And we’re supposed to put these on as many cars as we can.” He handed me a stack of slick red and blue bumper stickers.
I held one up and read PRAY WITH US, which put me in need of prayer myself, to keep from going upstairs and smacking Emma Sue Ledbetter to kingdom come.
“My Lord,” I said. “What has got into that woman? Little Lloyd, there’s no way in the world that you’re going door-to-door to pass these things out. What does she think you are, a Jehovah’s Witness or a Bob Jones student? I’m going up there right now and give her a piece of my mind.”
“She’s already gone,” Little Lloyd said. “I saw her go down the hall toward the front stairs by the chapel.”
“Well, of course she would! She knew I was waiting for you down here, and she didn’t want to face me. I tell you, Little Lloyd, I know why she gave this job to you; she’s getting back at me. I don’t have a doubt in this world but that she’s got that prayer chain humming again. She’ll have everybody on it praying for my soul!”
Little Lloyd’s glasses slid down his nose as he frowned. Then he said, “Why’s she worried about your soul, Miss Julia?”
“Because she has to have something to worry about,” I said, then seeing the worried look on the boy’s face, I went on. “It’s only because I don’t agree with her on every little thing, and because I took my name off the prayer chain. I’ll tell you one thing, Little Lloyd, spreading rumors about somebody under the guise of praying for her is not my idea of a Christian activity. And I’ll tell you something else, being a Democrat does not put anybody’s soul in danger, either, and don’t you listen to anything anybody says to the contrary.”
“No’m, I won’t.”
Chapter 12
We picked our way through the obstacle course by the construction site and, for the first time since they’d dug the foundation, I didn’t pay it any mind. I was too intent on doing something about the preacher’s wife who was intent on using a child to put me in my place.
Pointing Little Lloyd toward the car, I stuck my head in the kitchen door to tell Lillian where we were going. She called after me as I headed to the car, “You better watch out for that Dixon Hightower.”
“I’m not worried about Dixon Hightower,” I called back. “I’ll deal with him if I have to. Right now I have other things on my mind.”
In ordinary circumstances, we’d’ve walked the four blocks to Sam’s house, but I was in too much of a hurry to get there and get something done about that meddlesome woman. Besides, that box of one-sided political tracts and religious bumper stickers was heavy. So I drove.
I pulled into Sam’s driveway and turned off the motor. “Come on, Little Lloyd. Grab a few of those things to show Sam, but just leave the box on the backseat.”
Sam came to the door as we walked up on his wide veranda that was lined with white rocking chairs and ferns hanging from hooks between the porch columns.
“Well, Julia,” he said, smiling at us as he held the screen door open. “This is an unexpected pleasure. It’s been a while since you honored me with a visit. Hello, Little Lloyd, I’ve been missing you around here, too. What’ve you got there?”
“Just wait till you see, Sam,” I said, following him into his comfortable living room. The room was a testament to Sam’s long widowerhood, filled as it was with heavy leather furniture grouped around the fireplace. A dark Oriental rug covered the floor, and overstuffed bookcases lined the walls. If it hadn’t been for the French doors, open now to the veranda, you’d’ve felt smothered in books and magazines and papers of all stripes and kinds.
“Look at this, Sam,” I said, taking the pamphlets from Little Lloyd and poking them at Sam. “I want you to just look at this.”
“Have a seat, Julia. Make yourself comfortable and let me see what James can offer us from the kitchen.”
“Nothing for us, thank you all the same,” I said, holding up my hand. “That reminds me, though, I need to ask James if he would help us at the reception.”
But I had other things on my mind at the moment. “Sam,” I said, “that woman’s got her sights set on me, and I’m not going to stand for it.”
“What woman?”
“Why, Emma Sue Ledbetter. Who else would do something as sneaky as this? She’s gone all the way around Robin Hood’s barn to get back at me. Just look at this stuff.” And I thrust the pamphlets in his hand.
As he skimmed one of them, his eyebrows went up. “Interesting. What do you want me to do about it, Julia? If this reflects her views, there’s nothing we can do to change them.”
I almost stomped my foot. “That’s not the point! I don’t care what her views are, as long as she doesn’t push them on me! But worse than that, she’s told this child to distribute them. And to top it off, she expects me to help him do it!”
I took a breath and ranted on. “And as far as what you can do about it, you can go to the session and show them what she’s doing and have them put a stop to it.”
“I’m not on the session anymore. . . .”
“I know that, but they’ll listen to you, Sam. And if that’s not enough to shake you up, look at this thing.” I took a bumper sticker from the boy and waved it around. “She wants this child to glue these things on every car he can, and she wants me to help him. Can’t you just see us, sneaking up on parked cars and slapping on bumper stickers? Furthermore, she didn’t even tell him to ask permission first, did she, Little Lloyd? That’s called vandalism in my book, and this child is not going to be a party to it. If she wants to cover every car in town, let her do it. But she’d better not come within ten feet of mine!”
“Now, Julia,” Sam said, beginning as he usually did to dampen my fire. “Sit down and cool off. Of course, Little Lloyd’s not going to do that, and, of course, I’ll make sure that somebody on the session knows what she’s doing. But let me remind you, a good eighty percent of the elders will agree with her and the other twenty percent won’t want to make waves with the preacher’s wife.”
“That just makes me so mad I can’t see straight,” I said, finally sinking onto the leather sofa, which creaked under me. “Especially since you’re probably right. But, Sam, she’s deliberately aiming this at me. Hold that thing up, Little Lloyd, so Sam can see it.”
The boy stretched out the bumper sticker, and Sam read aloud, “ ‘PRAY WITH US.’ Well, Julia, if people want to encourage prayer, that’s their privilege. I don’t see any reason to get upset about it, but I agree that you and Little Lloyd ought not to be pasting them on parked cars.” He smiled at the thought, but I was not amused.
“I should say not. Now, I’m a firm believer in prayer, Sam, as you well know. So if anybody wants to stand on a street corner and make a public fool of himself, why, I say that’s his right, but that doesn’t mean I have to do it. And, furthermore, I don’t think it’s necessary to announce to the whole world that you’re praying, or advertise that fact with a bumper sticker, either.”
“They don’t see it that way, Julia,” Sam said with that easy smile of his. “I expect they see it as a witness to others and as a testimony to their faith. I can’t imagine that this is aimed directly at you.”
“Sam, I declare,” I said, jumping to my feet again to pace between stacks of books on the floor. “You are so blessed tolerant that you’re going to wake up one morning and find that you don’t stand for anything. My problem is not with people who want to paste these things on their bumpers or with people who want to pass out tracts from door to door. It’s still a free country after all, as long as they don’t expect me to join in. And that’s exactly what Emma Sue Ledbetter’s doing with this.” I stopped in front of him and put my hands on my hips. “And I’ll tell you why. It’s because she’s been exercised for months that my prayer life’s not up to par, and it didn’t help when I resigned from the prayer chain.”
“Slow down, Julia.” Sam put his hands on my shoulders, and for the first time, began to take me seriously. “You don’t need to let this upset you so.”
So I reminded him of why I’d opted out of the prayer chain, which I was sure Emma Sue had then started buzzing on my account, as well as Norma Cantrell’s.
“She as good as told me,” I went on, “that my soul’s in danger because I refused to be a party to it. She’ll have the prayer chain praying for me, and you know what that means. By the time her request for prayer is passed along to every nosy woman on the chain, no telling what the end result will be.”
By that time I noticed the pale face of Little Lloyd as he listened and took in all I was saying. “Little Lloyd,” I said, turning to him, “I’m sorry you had to hear all of that. But don’t you worry about it. Some people just get carried away, and Mrs. Ledbetter is one of them, even if she is the preacher’s wife. Just because somebody enjoys a certain position doesn’t mean they’re always right, or that they’re above criticism.” Wesley Lloyd Springer sprang to mind, but I refrained from mentioning him. Then, having reassured the child, I turned back to Sam. “I’m going to set that woman straight, Sam, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Now, Julia,” Sam said. “All you have to do is tell Emma Sue that Little Lloyd can’t do it. Both of you have too much to do with this wedding coming up and, besides, isn’t Lloyd going with his mother when she moves?”
“Oh, Lord, don’t bring that up! I can hardly bear to think of it, much less tell Emma Sue. Why, Sam, imagine what she’d send out along the prayer chain then. Little Lloyd, why don’t you run to the kitchen and speak to James; you don’t need to hear this. Ask him about coming to our house on Saturday, and tell hi
m that I’ll confirm it with him as soon as I get my ducks in a row. Hurry, though, because we need to go and let your mother know what’s going on. Just leave that stuff here with Sam. In fact, why don’t you bring that box in and leave it here. I don’t want to be carting it around. Sam, you can throw it out or burn it or do whatever with it. Well, wait. Leave me one of each to show Hazel Marie. And leave two more for Coleman, so he’ll know to go after Emma Sue if there’s a sudden spate of bumper stickers around town.”
Little Lloyd started toward the door to get the box from the car. “Wait,” I said, stopping the boy as he left the room. “Leave another set for Binkie; she needs to know what’s going on. Sam, thank you for your help, although I expected a little more concern from you. You just never take anything seriously enough.”
“Oh, I do. You just don’t notice what I’m serious about. Now, Julia, don’t let Emma Sue get you down; you have enough on your plate right now. The pastor’ll be back before long, and he’ll calm her down.”
“I know.” I sighed. “I just hate the thought of what the prayer chain’s passing along about me.”
Before I could continue bemoaning my fate, I was distracted by Little Lloyd, who was running up the steps and across the porch. He snatched open the screen door and let it slam behind him. Before I could reprimand him, he ran up to me, breathing hard. “It’s gone! Miss Julia, that box is gone!”