by Ann B. Ross
I sat still as others around Emma Sue and me stood, preparing to partake of Mildred’s offerings. Emma Sue was still writing, her head bent over her pad, while I looked around for a way to get out of the crush without being seen. We were crammed in so close that Emma Sue’s knees were right up against the chair in front, blocking that path. Harriet Malone was making no effort to get up, so I couldn’t stand until she did. And unhappily, I heard Harriet ask someone to bring her a plate because she thought she’d stay where she was.
I didn’t know what to do, for this was the best time to beat a hasty retreat. If I waited until everyone was leaving, Dr. Fowler would most likely be standing at the front door to wish us a good night. Fearing with all my heart a face-to-face meeting, I determined to get myself out of there while the getting was good.
“Emma Sue,” I whispered, nudging her, “let’s go.”
“It’s not over, Julia. And I’m staying till it is. I’m writing as hard as I can, but you’re making me forget half of what he said.” She bent over her pad again and stayed right where she was.
I did the only thing I could think to do. I slid down in my chair and dropped to my knees on Mildred’s oriental rug. Then, turning sideways, I began to crawl over Emma Sue’s feet. The folding chairs had been placed so closely together with hardly any room between the rows that I had to squeeze past a chair on one side and Emma Sue’s skinny shins on the other.
“Julia!” Emma Sue said in a hoarse whisper. “What are you doing?”
“I dropped something,” I whispered back. “Move your feet, Emma Sue. I think I’m stuck.”
“Well, for goodness’ sakes,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Get up from there and I’ll help you look.”
“I can’t. Swing your legs to the side so I can get through.”
She did, and I slid past her, still on my hands and knees. Reaching some empty chairs beyond her, but still hidden by people standing between me and Dr. Fowler, I grasped a chair seat to pull myself up. Folding chairs, as I was immediately reminded, are not the sturdiest objects around, for I found myself unable to get enough leverage to rise. Straining as hard as I could, the weakness of my lower limbs prevented me from getting to my feet, and all I could think of at that moment was the spectacle I would make if I had to crawl all the way to the front door.
“Miss Julia?” a voice above me asked. “Are you all right?”
I craned my head up and sideways to see Tina Doland, the bosomy young Baptist soprano, leaning over me, concern on her face.
“Oh, Tina,” I sighed in relief. “Give me a hand if you will. I’m down here and I can’t get up.”
“Did you fall?” Tina offered her hand and I clasped it, at last able to rise.
Quickly glancing around to be sure I was still behind a group of people, I reassured her. “No, I just dropped something. Let me tell you, Tina, it’s not the vision or the hearing that goes first. It’s the knees. Thank you for your help. I’ll be running along now.”
I’d just closed the front door behind me, having left without thanking Mildred for the lovely evening, when it opened again and Emma Sue came rushing out.
“Are you leaving?” she asked.
“I certainly am. I’ve heard all I want to hear.”
“Well, I’m going, too. Helen said she’d buy both books for me, so I didn’t need to stay.” She took my yellow pad and stuffed it, along with hers, into her tote bag, then said, “I kinda hate to leave, though. I was really learning something.”
“I don’t understand you, Emma Sue,” I said, as we walked along Mildred’s brick walk. “You said you wanted the pastor to send Dr. Fowler packing, yet you also want to hear what he has to say. Which is it?”
“Well, both. I want to know what he teaches, but I don’t want him to teach it, especially in the church. A subject like that, taught so graphically, is simply inappropriate in a church setting with a mixed audience. I mean, it was bad enough tonight with only women there, and I’m sure he toned it down some, but I think there’s a time and a place for everything, and in this case, the First Presbyterian Church of Abbotsville is not it.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Emma Sue. But where we differ is this: I don’t want to hear a thing he has to say. RDA, my foot. I’ve never heard anything so outrageous and unthinkable. Why, the heart attack rate would be off the charts in this town, and I’m not just talking about the husbands.” I fumed a while longer, then went on. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to see the last of Dr. Fred Fowler, because if all those women go home tonight and start initiating and instigating their husbands’ smoldering embers, there’s no telling what would happen.”
“Oh my,” Emma Sue said, stopping to think about it. “And what about people like Miss Mattie and Helen Stroud and a bunch of others I could name? They don’t even have husbands to go home to. What’re they going to do? It might be that if we allow Dr. Fowler to keep on, why, this whole town could go up in flames, couldn’t it?”
Chapter 25
After seeing Emma Sue off in her car, I walked on in the mild evening to our house. It was already past dark, but the streetlights and our porch light made the walk pleasant enough, and because we lived next door to Mildred, it didn’t take long.
I drew up, stopping short of my front steps as several random thoughts suddenly came together. Sam had suggested that Francie Pitts possessed some kind of special knowledge that kept her in husbands as fast as she needed them, and it seemed to me that Dr. Fowler had been referring to the same kind of knowledge when he promised to tell us the techniques and methods of pleasing a husband. The question that popped up in my mind was this: how did those two most unlikely people come to possess such erudition? Where’d they get it, or had they discovered it on their own? Or had they learned it through trial and error? Or by experimentation? Maybe Francie had—she’d had so many opportunities—but that wouldn’t answer for Dr. Fowler. He wasn’t even married. That stopped me cold, until I realized that Dr. Fowler probably had book knowledge, while Francie had gotten hers through personal experience.
Maybe Emma Sue was right to want to know more. Maybe I should’ve stayed and relied on Harriet Malone to keep me hidden.
But no, I mentally shook myself. I couldn’t risk having another humiliating meeting with Dr. Fred. Not that I feared the same outcome as before—not at all. I had myself well in hand by this time, no longer a pitifully needy widow woman who’d been like putty in the hands of a master manipulator. No, I just didn’t want to have to look at him up close.
And to keep that from happening, there was only one thing to do: confess the whole disgraceful incident to Sam. Just lay out all the humiliation and shame that I had suffered and continued to suffer, then throw myself on his mercy.
Actually, though, continuing to think about it as I lingered at the foot of the porch steps, maybe it’d be better not to mention “throw myself” on or at anything at all. He might think I’d done a gracious plenty of that already.
But at least, I reassured myself, once I’d cleared my conscience, he would understand why I was intent on avoiding Dr. Fred Fowler. I would no longer have to think up excuses to get out of attending the counseling sessions or any kind of gathering where he might be.
The only problem, of course, was whether or not Sam’s attitude toward me would change. How would he take learning that his wife had at one time been thought a loose woman?
I could’ve cried at the possibility that I’d be lower in his estimation, but I squared my shoulders, stepped up onto the porch and prepared myself to tell it all—with the possible exception of a few minor parts of the whole.
As soon as I opened the front door and stepped inside, I could hear a news program on the television. Sam, as he usually did, got up to meet me. “You’re home early, sweetheart,” he said. “How was it at Mildred’s?”
“Fine, but Sam, I need to—” Before I could finish the sentence, the telephone rang. “Who could that be? I’ll get it. Go on and watch your progr
am, and I’ll be in to talk in a minute.”
I went to the kitchen so as not to disturb him. When I answered the phone, I was surprised to hear Francie Pitts’s voice. “Julia,” she said, “they’re sending me home tomorrow, and I’m going to need some help. You offered to help any way you could, remember? So I want to borrow your woman for a week or two. Tell her she needs to be here at the hospital early tomorrow morning so she can learn about my medications and accompany me home.”
“What?” I could hardly believe what I was hearing. “Are you talking about Lillian?”
“Why, yes, of course. I need her, Julia. That Wiggins girl just won’t do, and Evelyn is not up to it. You can do without Lillian for a while, can’t you? I mean, you have your health, while I’m bedridden half the time. Besides, I’m just asking you to lend her for a couple of weeks.”
I let the wires hum for a full minute as I got myself under control. “Well, first off, Francie, you’ll have to talk to Lillian yourself. I can’t speak for her. She’s not mine to lend, you know. And second off, don’t they have nursing care out at Mountain Villas? Won’t you have help from them?”
“But Julia, I need personal care. I don’t want to have to depend on somebody dropping by twice a day to see whether I’m still breathing or not. Give me Lillian’s number and I’ll talk to her.”
I gritted my teeth, gave her the number and hung up. Lord, what would I do if Lillian decided to work for her? Francie had a way of getting what she wanted, and I had no doubt that she would offer Lillian an exorbitant amount of money. And if Lillian took the job, she’d earn every cent of it by the sweat of her brow.
I was so disturbed by Francie’s high-and-mighty ways that I stomped into the living room, fuming to Sam about losing Lillian. After recounting the phone conversation, I said, “You know, and Francie does, too, that you do not take somebody’s help away from them. It’s just not done. I have never heard of such arrogance. The idea! Oh, Sam, what will I do without Lillian?”
“Lillian’s not going anywhere,” Sam said. “She has too much sense to get involved with Francie Pitts and too much loyalty to leave a good job for a couple of weeks’ worth of work, no matter how much she gets paid.”
“Oh, I hope you’re right. I almost didn’t give Francie her number, but then I thought it had to be Lillian’s decision. I couldn’t bring myself to decide for her. Although I wanted to, and I wanted to tell Francie where to get off, too.”
We went on discussing the matter for some little while, with time out occasionally for me to vent my anger at Francie’s nerve. Then before I knew it, it was time for bed and I had not gotten around to offering a confession of my wild and unseemly behavior in the bridal parlor.
I didn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning and waking occasionally to go over in my mind how to tell Sam about Dr. Fred, and to think of all the cutting remarks I wished I’d made to Francie. I can always think of the perfect comebacks two hours or more after I need them.
But as I walked down the stairs early the following morning, I heard the familiar sounds of breakfast being prepared and Lloyd talking with someone. With a lifted heart, I hurried into the kitchen and saw Lillian right where she always was: standing by the stove, spatula in hand.
“Lillian,” I said, walking over to her, “I am so glad to see you. Thank you, thank you so much.”
“What you thankin’ me for? These pancakes not even done yet.”
“Didn’t Francie Pitts, I mean Francie Delacorte, call you last night?”
“Yes’m, she did.” Lillian flipped a couple of pancakes in the pan.
“And?”
“An’ nothin’. She say she need help real bad, an’ I say I help her find some if I can. But I don’t know nobody want to work for that lady. She mean talkin’.”
“Oh, Lillian,” I said, leaning my head against her shoulder. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say that.”
“Why? You think I take a job when I already got one? I know what side my bread’s buttered on.”
“Well, thank the good Lord for that. No, I really didn’t think you’d take it, but knowing Francie, I figured she’d offer you so much you wouldn’t be able to refuse. And I couldn’t have blamed you, Lillian, but I’d have been sick about it if you had.”
“Shoo,” Lillian said, as she stacked four pancakes on a plate for Lloyd. “They’s not enough money in the world for me to go to work for her. An’ you know I don’t talk about yo’ lady friends, ’cept she don’t sound much like a lady to me.”
“To me, either. And you can talk about her all you want. She’s no friend of mine. First, she accuses Etta Mae of being a thief and causing great bodily harm. Then she tries to steal you away from me. No, she is no friend of mine.” Watching as Lillian poured warm syrup over Lloyd’s pancakes, I went on. “I’d like a couple of those, too, and Sam’s going to want several. I hope you made enough batter.”
Lillian cut her eyes at me, then smiled. “I think I been ’round here long enough to know what my fam’ly want ’thout bein’ told. Now go on an’ set down. You need some coffee to get yo’ head on straight.”
She was right, and that’s exactly what I did. Sitting at the table, waiting for Sam and a plate of pancakes, peace descended around me like a warm cape. Take that, Francie Pitts, I thought. And I kept that serene feeling for about two minutes, right up to the time the burden of unburdening to Sam also descended on me.
Chapter 26
Sam came into the kitchen and walked over to the table, wishing everybody a good morning on his way. It was still a marvel to me that he had such an even temperament, even early in the morning. He was never crabby or snappish, but always warm and pleasant. Such a difference, you know, from my first experience with a husband. With Wesley Lloyd, I always had to test the temperature before opening my mouth, and nine times out of ten, I kept it shut.
Sam walked toward his place at the table, stopping beside Lloyd. Putting his hand on the boy’s shoulder, he said, “How’s it going this morning? You sleep well?”
Lloyd grinned up at him, a fork dripping with syrup in his hand. “Yes, sir, I did. Hope you did, too.”
Sam nodded, patted his shoulder, then sat down. As he spoke to Lillian and awaited his plate, I poured coffee for him, thinking of how the atmosphere in the house had changed since Sam came into it. He had a way of making every one of us feel important because, I guess, he had a true interest in us: what we were doing, how we were feeling, what our plans were, and on and on. It is remarkable how one person in a family can so influence, for good or ill, everybody else. I could see it clearly because I had such opposites—Wesley Lloyd Springer and Sam Murdoch—as illustrations.
So I mentally sighed, even as Sam reached over and clasped my hand. Would he change when he heard what a mess I’d gotten myself into? I would certainly stress that it hadn’t been all my fault. I’d not gone to the church that day with the intent of making myself of interest to Dr. Fowler. Dr. Fred, I contemptuously corrected myself. Far from it. I’d barely known the man, much less thought of him as a possible suitor. It had been the pastor who’d asked me to show the good doctor around the church and sent us off into the empty rooms and hallways by ourselves. And still I’d thought nothing of it. And didn’t think anything of it until we reached the bridal parlor and Dr. Fred began his advances. After that, well, I simply can’t be held responsible, I don’t think.
But I didn’t know what Sam would think, yet I had to tell him and suffer whatever consequences there might be. No more pleasant mornings, maybe, or intimate glances or holding of hands or sweet words or warm places in bed. Well, I’d always been one who believed in holding people accountable for their words and actions, and now it was my turn.
“Sam,” I began when Lloyd got up to get his book bag. “Sometime today I’d like to talk to you. I’ll come to your house if you won’t be too busy. What’s a good time?”
“We can talk now, if you want to. I’m never too busy for you.”
“No, it’d be better later on. I need the walk as well.” Actually, I wanted total privacy and I was unlikely to get it here at home. Somebody was always telephoning or dropping by, and at Sam’s house there’d be no one there but James, and I could send him to the store.
“Well, you just come on whenever you want,” Sam said. “I’ll be there . . . No, wait. Tom Hansen’s coming by this morning to pick up the letter of recommendation I’ve written for his son. And Rotary Club meets today, so I’ll be gone till after lunch. I can cancel both, though, if the morning’s better for you.”
“No, that’s fine, Sam. Don’t cancel either one. I’ll come by this afternoon.”
We left it at that, and I set about planning the best way to tell him, what to tell him and how much or how little to tell him. I just wanted it all off my conscience, and I wanted Sam to understand why I couldn’t go to the marriage enrichment sessions taught by a poor excuse for a human being. And I wanted him to reassure me that our marriage was already abundantly enriched, with no dearth of sparks to keep it alive.
After Sam and Lloyd left, I spent half the morning worrying myself to death by going over and over what I planned to say. I couldn’t sit still; I couldn’t get my mind off it, so finally I told Lillian that I thought I’d call Etta Mae Wiggins to see how she was doing.
“Maybe she’s heard something,” I said. “You know, Lillian, I’m really worried about her. She’s lost her job, and I doubt she has any savings. She won’t let me help her, so I don’t know what she’s going to do. I would’ve kept her on here for a few more days, but she wouldn’t have it.”