Miss Julia Delivers the Goods

by Ann B. Ross

  “Lillian,” I said, hanging up the phone again, “people are kind but, I declare, it gets to be too much sometimes.”

  “Yessum, they start bringin’ covered dishes pretty soon you don’t watch out.”

  I shuddered, thinking of the last time the town turned out with covered dishes. It was for a funeral that, thank goodness, never occurred since Horace Allen turned up alive and well, but the thought of the same outpouring for Hazel Marie made me want to weep.

  I took my time that morning before going to the hospital. Having missed Dr. McKay on several occasions when I’d tried to time my visits to his, I’d just about given up on catching him on his rounds. So I ended up stepping out of the elevator in midmorning, only to run right into him as he was leaving.

  “Why, Dr. McKay,” I said, delighted to catch him unawares, “how nice to see you. And how is our patient this morning?”

  “Doing well,” he said with the beginnings of a smile. “Her fever’s down this morning, and she’s been able to take a little dry toast and liquids by mouth. So if all goes well, she’ll soon be on a normal diet. When she gets home, I want her to take it easy for another week. Give her several small meals a day instead of three big ones, and make sure she gets plenty of rest. Let’s give it one more day here to be sure the vomiting has stopped and she’s fully rehydrated. You can take her home tomorrow.”

  “Well, that is good news and a great relief to me. But we certainly don’t want it to happen again. So what’s your diagnosis? Or do you have one? Or can you even tell me?”

  “Oh, I have one, all right,” he said, this time with a broad satisfied smile on his face. “Actually, and I don’t mind admitting it, one of the nurses put me on the right track. The only thing wrong with Hazel Marie is a touch of hyperemesis gravidarum.”

  My hand flew to my throat and I rocked back on my heels. “Oh, my,” I gasped, “that sounds . . . grave.”

  “Not at all,” he said, turning toward the stairs. “It’s under control now and her condition is completely curable.” He glanced at his watch and moved off. “In time, that is. I’ll let her tell you about it.”

  As he left, I had to put my hand against the wall to steady myself. He was certainly treating Hazel Marie’s condition lightly enough—even cavalierly—but I knew that anytime an illness had a Latin name, it had to be serious. So I stumbled down the hall, tapped on Hazel Marie’s door and peeked in, prepared to offer succor and comfort and a consultation with another doctor.

  “Hazel Marie?” I whispered, easing into the room.

  She took one look at me, then grabbed the sheet and flipped it over her head. Turning toward the wall, she pled, “Don’t look, Miss Julia! Please don’t look at me. I can’t stand it.”

  “Why, Hazel Marie,” I said, hurrying to the bed. “What is wrong with you? Listen, it can’t be that bad. I just saw Dr. McKay out in the hall and he said you’ll soon be well and eating as normal as anybody. That’s good news. You have to be happy about that.”

  “I’m not happy about anything,” she mumbled, huddling under the sheet, her feet drawn up and her whole body curled away from me. “I’m so sorry, Miss Julia. Just so sorry, and I’ll leave just as soon as I can.”

  “Now, Hazel Marie, we’ll have you out of this place in no time, so don’t worry yourself about when you leave. Sam and I will take care of everything. We all want you home, and Dr. McKay said that the Latin condition you have is completely curable.”

  She drew herself up tighter, her shoulders trembling as she began sobbing into her pillow. “No, it’s not,” she moaned. “It’s awful, and, Miss Julia, I didn’t mean to. I’d give anything for this not to happen. I’m so ashamed.”

  “You don’t have one thing to be ashamed of,” I assured her, distressed that Dr. McKay’s diagnosis and prognosis had sent her into such a tailspin. “After all, you didn’t do it to yourself. Turn over now, and tell me what has you so upset. The doctor seemed pleased with your progress.”

  “Easy for him to say,” she snuffled into the pillow. “He doesn’t have to look you in the eye, knowing what he’s done.”

  “Well, believe me, he doesn’t have much to be proud of, the way he’s conducted himself. But, Hazel Marie, honey, please turn over and tell me what he said. I don’t understand Latin, so I don’t know how to help you.”

  She pulled the sheet down, using it to wipe her face, but she didn’t turn over. Speaking to the wall, she said, “He didn’t tell you what caused it?”

  “No, just that you’d explain it.”

  “Oh, Lord,” she moaned, burying her face again. “I don’t think I can. But I’ll leave, Miss Julia. I promise I’ll go somewhere far away so nobody’ll ever know.”

  “Hazel Marie!” I said, a bit sharply. “Stop this talk of leaving. If you have something catching, we’ll put you in isolation, but you’re not going anywhere. Now tell me what we need to do to get you home where you belong.”

  I didn’t think she was going to answer, but suddenly she turned over and sat up in bed. Her face was blotched, her hair a rat’s nest of tangles with black roots and her eyes still overflowing. She drew her knees up and rested her forehead on them, hiding her face from me.

  “I guess you might as well know,” she said, her voice muffled, but determined. “You’ll find out sooner or later anyhow. I . . . Miss Julia, the doctor said . . .” Her shoulders hunched together and her voice dropped to a whisper, “The doctor, he said I’m . . . expecting.”

  “Expecting what?” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I drew a sharp breath as it hit me. “A baby?”

  I felt for something to hold on to, my hand lighting on the back of a chair. “Hazel Marie, are you expecting a baby?”

  She nodded and swallowed hard. “That’s what he said, but I don’t see how.”

  Well, Lord, if that was the case, she was worse off than any of us knew.

  I stood there a few minutes, as all the implications of this news seemed to hover over my head. I’d been struck dumb a few times before in my life, but even when my tongue wouldn’t move, my mind had continued to function. But not this time. I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t think. I just stood there and looked at her, a white noise in my brain. And the first thing that came into my head? A change-of-life baby, a distressing event for most couples and even more so for Hazel Marie who wasn’t even a couple.

  “Hazel Marie,” I finally managed to say, “you do know how babies are conceived, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it’s just that I didn’t think it would happen. I mean, I thought I was past the age. So,” she whispered, still unable to look at me, “so that’s why I have to leave. I’ll go somewhere where nobody’ll know you or know . . . how bad I’ve let you down. I’m just so sorry.”

  As she dissolved into tears again, my mind jumped back into gear. And the first thing I thought of was that, as shattering as the news of a baby was, it probably wasn’t as bad as having a tropical parasite. “Well,” I said, “I’ll admit that this has set me back a little, but it’s fixable. I’ll get Mr. Pickens back here if I have to drag him by the hair of his head. Then we’ll get you married and nobody’ll be the wiser. See? It’ll work out, so you put aside any thought of leaving.” Then with a supreme effort of will, I went on. “We’ll have things to do to get ready for a baby. Just imagine, Hazel Marie, a new little baby! Why, everybody’s going to be so happy for you, and Mr. Pickens most of all.”

  She shook her head. “No, he won’t. And, Miss Julia,” she said, finally turning those big eyes on me, “I have to do this myself. I’m the one to blame and I don’t deserve anything but to bear the awful shame of it.” A great sob shuddered through her. “For the second time in my miserable life.”

  “Oh, my goodness!” I cried. “Hazel Marie, don’t think like that. Why, Lloyd is no cause for shame. He is the light of your life, and mine. You’ve raised a fine boy, and I’m sure you’ll do just as well with this one, whatever it is.” Then recalling that she’d said she had
to do it herself, I trembled. “Hazel Marie,” I whispered, “you’re not thinking of . . . doing something, are you?”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  I nodded, unable to say the word.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, “I couldn’t do that. That’s why I have to go off somewhere, pretend to be a widow or something. And try to make a life for it.”

  “No,” I said with conviction. “No, we’ll get you and Mr. Pickens married, and that’ll solve all your problems.” I bit my lip, then proceeded. “I hate to ask this, Hazel Marie, but I guess I better. It is Mr. Pickens’s, isn’t it?”

  Her head flopped down on her knees again, and she began weeping as if her heart would break. “You must think I’m terrible!”

  “Oh, no. No, I don’t. I just don’t want you marrying the wrong one, that’s all.”

  Trying unsuccessfully to dry her face, she said, “There’s never been anybody but him. And there never will be. But, Miss Julia, there won’t be a wedding. There’s only going to be another little bastard—excuse me for saying an ugly word, but that’s what everybody else will say. Because J.D. won’t marry me. That’s why we broke up in the first place.”

  “You mean he knows about this?” I was shocked. I knew that Mr. Pickens danced to his own tune, but even he couldn’t be so callous.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, he doesn’t. I just found out myself when Dr. McKay told me the test was positive. But he’s not going to know, because I never want to see him again as long as I live. If J.D. won’t marry me for myself, I don’t want him marrying me for a baby.”

  Well, I didn’t see why not. As far as I was concerned, that was the best reason of all to marry, and it didn’t matter to me how many movie stars had babies out of wedlock. Their example didn’t make it right, and I determined then and there that Mr. Pickens was going to do the right thing, come hell or high water, although I am not a cursing kind of woman by any stretch of the imagination.

  Chapter 8

  I don’t know how in the world I got home in one piece, the way thoughts were flitting in and out of my head like a swarm of bees. Could that doctor have gotten it wrong? How could he have mixed up an ulcer or a parasite with a baby? What kind of test had he run? Maybe the test was wrong. Was he so young and untried that he needed help to diagnosis something that should’ve been obvious? Not to me, you understand, but to a doctor. Dr. Hargrove wouldn’t have had to rely on a nurse, but thank goodness for the woman’s common sense.

  And, if Hazel Marie continued in her resolve to reject Mr. Pickens, what were we going to do with another illegitimate child? It had taken every favor and every cent owed to me to get the town to accept Hazel Marie and Lloyd, but even I couldn’t expect them to overlook a second slip.

  I pulled into the driveway, turned off the ignition and just sat there, thinking. The last thing Hazel Marie had done before I left the hospital had been to beg me not to tell Sam and Lillian.

  “I don’t want them to know,” she’d said. “I’m too ashamed.”

  “Hazel Marie,” I told her, “I have to. They are worried sick about you, and you know they’ll keep on after us and after us, wanting to know what’s wrong. By the way, what is wrong? I mean, I never heard of being with child turned into Latin before.”

  “Oh,” she mumbled, “the doctor said it meant a lot of vomiting due to pregnancy. Something like morning sickness all day long.” She sniffed, then blew her nose. “And I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”

  “Well, me either,” I’d said, amazed at what you can learn if you just listen. “Now, Hazel Marie, I want you to let me tell Sam and Lillian before you get home. That way, you won’t have to do it yourself, and they’ll have time to get used to it. But not Lloyd. I’ll let you do that in your own time and in your own way. And when you get your strength back, we’ll sit down and figure out what to do.”

  She’d finally agreed and I’d left, only to find myself still sitting in the car trying to figure out the next step.

  “Lillian,” I said as I walked through the door and into the kitchen on my way to the living room, “is Sam here?”

  “No’m,” she said, wiping a pan with a dishrag. “He at his house.”

  I didn’t stop, just turned in a half circle and headed back to the door. “He’s always somewhere else when I want him.”

  I got to the door, but, on second thought didn’t open it, just turned in another half circle and walked back into the kitchen. “Well, I wanted to tell him first, but since you’re here and he’s not, I’ll tell you. You were second on my list, anyway. You might better sit down, Lillian.”

  “Oh, Lord!” she cried, flinging the pan in the sink and throwing the dishrag in the air. “I knew it, I knew it! Oh, my sweet Jesus, Miss Hazel Marie got something awful! What we gonna do, Miss Julia, what in the world we gonna do?”

  “Lillian, Lillian,” I said, taking her by the arm and leading her to a chair at the table. “Sit down now and listen to me. It’s not something awful. Well, I mean it is, but not the way you’re thinking. Just listen to me now because we’re all going to need your help.”

  Tears were gushing from her eyes and I could feel her trembling as I sat beside her. “Oh, that pore little boy without no daddy and now no mama, neither. They say good folkses die young, and nobody better’n Miss Hazel Marie. Oh, that sweet little thing, she too good for this world.”

  “I know, I know,” I crooned, handing her a dish towel since the Kleenex box was out of reach. “But she’s not dying, not even close to it. No, listen now and pull yourself together. That’s not what I have to tell you. Are you listening?” I pulled the dish towel from her face, looked her in the eye, and took a deep breath. “Hazel Marie’s going to have a baby.”

  Lillian’s eyes got wider and wider as she took in the news. She stared at me in wonder, then she sprang from the chair and let out a shout that could’ve been heard on Main Street. “A baby! She gonna have a baby? Thank you, Lord! Oh, thank you, Jesus! We gonna have us a baby in the house!”

  Then she spun around and stopped. “We need us a new dryer, Miss Julia, for all them diapers. That ole one gettin’ finicky on me. Oh, thank you, Jesus, a new little baby!”

  I didn’t remind her that nobody washed and dried diapers anymore. I just let her enjoy planning for the addition to our family, while waiting for her elation to run its course. In fact, I couldn’t look far enough ahead to worry about diapers, since we had to get through the next few months first.

  “Lillian,” I said, “one thing to keep in mind. We cannot tell Lloyd. His mother needs to do that, so we have to keep it to ourselves. I’ll tell Sam, but it’ll only be the three of us who knows. Well, and Hazel Marie, of course.”

  Lillian’s eyes squinched up as she thought it through. “What about Mr. Pickens? He make another one what knows.”

  I shook my head. “No, apparently he doesn’t, and furthermore she doesn’t want him to know. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I can’t get over it.”

  Lillian’s voice dropped low as she asked in wonder, “He don’t know?”

  “No, and I’d think a man of his knowledge and experience would know that when you play with fire you’re likely to get burned. I am very upset with him, Lillian, and I don’t care what Hazel Marie says, he is going to get himself back here and accept his responsibility. This new baby will have a father if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Oh, he do that, Miss Julia,” Lillian said, nodding her head in complete confidence. “Mr. Pickens, he a fine man an’ he get her married ’fore you know it.”

  “I’m not so sure, Lillian, because there’s another fly in the ointment. I guess I haven’t told you, but Hazel Marie has broken up with him and he’s moving to Charlotte. She made me promise not to call him and says she never wants to see him again. I am just heart-broken over it, especially with a baby on the way.”

  Lillian was rarely speechless, but this time she was. She stared at me with her mouth wide o
pen, then she snapped it shut only to open it again to speak. “You don’t mean it,” she said in utter awe. “Why, that pore little thing don’t know what she doin’. No wonder she sick. Miss Julia, they’s only one thing to do. We got to get Mr. Pickens back here, an’ tell Miss Hazel Marie she don’t have to see him, she jus’ have to marry him.”

  “My feeling, exactly. Be thinking how we can get him here, especially since she made me promise not to call him.”

  “Oh, I already figure that out. I know how to use the telephone, an’ nobody make me promise nothin’.”

  “Lillian,” I said, as a great weight rolled away, “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Me, neither,” she said, and we smiled at each other in complete agreement.

  By the time I got to Sam’s house to tell him the news, I’d worked myself into a fiery state over Mr. Pickens’s careless ways. He’d taken advantage of Hazel Marie, then walked off, leaving her with the consequences. The very idea, I fumed, strewing seed hither and yon, then leaving before the harvest. I was not going to have it.

  And Hazel Marie could just get herself off her high horse and walk down the aisle like many another had done before her. Those two had more than themselves to think of, namely Lloyd and the new little bundle of joy or whatever it was. They’d made themselves a family, so now they could just act like one.

  The garage door was closed, so I got out of the car and walked up on the porch, taking care not to slip on the wet leaves that covered the steps. I rang the doorbell, still reluctant to just barge into another woman’s house, even though Sam’s first wife had been dead and buried for longer even than Wesley Lloyd Springer.

  James opened the door and immediately stepped back. “Miss Julia, how you do? Come in, come in an’ dry off. It gettin’ airish out there, don’t you think?”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I said, walking into the wide entrance hall. “If you’ve finished with the garage, James, you need to get those wet leaves raked off the steps and the walk.”