Miss Julia Paints the Town

by Ann B. Ross

  Etta Mae introduced Mr. Kessler and started to introduce me, but Granny broke in. “Why, I know you. Old man Springer was the tightest human ever lived when he ran that bank. He kept trying to buy my place out here for the longest, but I wouldn’t sell it. Not to him, not to nobody.”

  “I’m married to Sam Murdoch now,” I said. “Mr. Springer’s been gone for some time.”

  “Good for you!” she said, cackling. “I’d say that was a move up, wouldn’t you? But y’all set down. Take a load off. We could set in the front room, but there’s a nice breeze out here. I’ll have to apologize for the way the yard looks.” She suddenly swung around and grasped Etta Mae’s arm. “Etta Mae, you got to talk to Boyce and tell him to start down by the road when he brings that Toro riding mower over here. I don’t want him running that thing up around the house at the crack of dawn. I can’t hear a word Diane Sawyer says for all the racket that thing makes.”

  “I’ll tell him, Granny,” Etta Mae said soothingly. “But you know he wants to do it before it gets too hot, and he does have to be at work early.”

  “Work! Ha! That boy don’t do a thing at work but hang on the counter and ring up the cash register. And before I turn around, that Betty Sue’s over here, snooping and prying in everything in the house.” She turned back to us. “Set down! Set down! It’s been a age since I had comp’ny. Park it in this rocking chair, Mr. Whatever-your-name-is. And Mrs. Springer, take that swing over there.”

  Mr. Kessler mumbled, “Kessler,” at the same time I said, “Murdoch,” but she didn’t catch either one.

  Granny plopped herself down in another rocking chair, her legs spraddled out because they barely reached the floor. “Well, this sure is nice,” she said, smiling at us. “I knew I was going to have comp’ny sometime today. My nose’s been itching all morning and it never fails that somebody’ll show up. Remember that, Etta Mae? ‘My nose itches. I smell peaches. Here comes a man with a hole in his britches.’” She leaned toward Mr. Kessler. “Guess that don’t mean you, though, does it?” Then she sat back in the chair and pushed off with the toe of her foot to set it rocking. “Not with that fancy suit, it don’t.”

  Before anybody could say anything, she suddenly sprang to her feet. “What am I thinking of! You folks’re hungry and me just a-settin’ here. I got a good pound cake on hand, just made it last week. And some Fig Newtons not even open yet. I’ll be back in a minute, just make yourselves at home.”

  Etta Mae grabbed her arm. “Wait, Granny, we don’t need anything. We came to visit with you. Mr. Kessler wants to talk to you because you’ve lived here so long. Sit down, now, and let’s just talk.”

  Granny did, but she eyed Mr. Kessler suspiciously, and I didn’t blame her. He’d been noticeably quiet, although to give him credit, he’d hardly had a chance to say anything.

  “You work for the newspaper?” Granny demanded. “Or you one of them college professors wantin’ to put me on tape?”

  “Ah, no,” he said, clearing his throat, “neither one. I…”

  “Well, good. I’ve had a bellyful of people stickin’ a tape recorder in my face, wantin’ me to put down history before I kick the bucket.”

  Mr. Kessler gathered himself and began again. “I assure you, Mrs. Wiggins, it’s nothing like that. I’m getting ready to develop some property…”

  “Not this property, you’re not. Etta Mae, I told you and I’ll tell anybody else that I’m not selling. Why’d you bring a land-hungry developer out here?”

  She said developer the way I thought it.

  “No, Mrs. Wiggins,” Mr. Kessler said before Etta Mae could reassure her. “I’m not interested in your property, although it’s a fine place.” He glanced quickly at me, hoping, I expect, for a little help, but this was his problem, not mine.

  “My property is downtown,” he went on, although I wanted to correct him on that. It wasn’t his yet. He leaned toward Granny and laid on what little charm he had. “I just wanted to meet a native of Abbot County, somebody who’s seen this area grow from a farming community to an up-and-coming retirement area.”

  “It’s growed enough, if you ask me,” she said, giving him a sideways look. “But do what you want downtown. I got no business down there anyhow. But you can leave the farms and orchards and mountain ridges alone. You folks come in here and first thing you know there’s stores everywhere you look. If it’s not a McDonald’s, it’s a Hardee’s. Don’t nobody cook at home anymore, not with a hamburger here and a hamburger there. Every time Betty Sue takes me to Delmont to the Winn-Dixie something’s closed down and two more’s took its place. I can’t find my way around anymore, and I’m tired of it.”

  Mr. Kessler opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t know where to go from there.

  But Granny took up the slack. She jerked straight up in her chair and said, “I tell you what, though, you put one of them chain Dollar Stores in Delmont and you’ll be doing a good thing. We got a halfway one already, but Betty Sue took me to a real one over in Abbotsville and I like that place. Etta Mae, you ought to give it your business. You can go in there lookin’ any way you want. You don’t have to dress up or anything, not like when you go to Wal-Mart or something.”

  Mr. Kessler leaned back in his rocking chair and sighed. He fidgeted a little and looked longingly at the car.

  Etta Mae finally got Granny to talk about the old days, drawing her out about how cows used to wander along the wide dirt track that was now Main Street in Abbotsville, and how once the Abbot County sheriff had the bright idea of using the volunteer fire department to hose down Main Street after a winter storm had piled up huge drifts of snow.

  “Why,” she cackled, “it didn’t even get up to twenty degrees that whole blessed day, and that stuff froze over like nobody’s business. Ended up with a solid layer of ice from one end of Main Street to the other, as any fool shoulda knowed would happen. Couldn’t nobody, man nor beast, walk on it for a week.” She sat back placidly and said, “What else you want to know?”

  “Well, uh,” Mr. Kessler said, “how long have you lived here?”

  “Since the day I married Mr. Wiggins. I come here as a bride and I’ll stay here till they carry me out, feet first. Ain’t nobody gonna move me out before that. This place’s been bought and paid for many times over, if you want my opinion, what with taxes going up and up. Etta Mae helps me with that, ’cause I’ll tell you something, Mister, them Social Security checks ain’t hardly worth spit in a bucket.” Granny rocked a few seconds, then went on. “’Course I’m plenty glad to get ’em.”

  “Now, Granny,” Etta Mae said, “Boyce helps, too.”

  “Huh!” Granny said, dismissing Boyce with a wave of her hand.

  By this time Mr. Kessler began to get restless and I could tell he’d about had enough of viewing the natives. I gathered my pocketbook and suggested we let Mrs. Wiggins get on with her day. He was immediately on his feet, thanking her for her time and for the hospitality. Etta Mae hugged her again and spoke softly to her, promising to come back soon for a longer visit.

  “You do that, honey,” Granny said. “Anytime you want to. The door’s always open.”

  She stood watching us from the porch as we got into the car, Mr. Kessler taking the front seat again, which I thought was ungentlemanly of him as I crawled into the back. Etta Mae started the engine and began to back around to head out, waving to Granny one last time.

  Mr. Kessler, craning his neck to look back over the fields, said, “You and your uncle going to inherit this place?”

  “I guess,” she said. “We’re all that’s left anyway.”

  The car dipped and swayed on the dirt track, then scratched off when we reached the gravel road.

  “I’ll give you a bit of advice,” Mr. Kessler said. “One of you ought to get a power of attorney before your grandmother loses her mind completely. That way, you can put her place on the market and get her into a nice retirement home where she’ll be taken care of. And,” he said, reaching
into his breast pocket and holding out a card, “when you do, call me. I’ve been looking for some land for a golf course. I’ll make you a good offer.”

  Etta Mae slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a standstill in the middle of the road. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands, her shoulders hunched over, as she stared straight ahead. I saw her breathe deeply a couple of times in an effort to control herself. It didn’t work too well.

  Ignoring the card he still held out, she turned to glare at him through narrowed eyes. In a voice tight with anger, she said, “I want you to know I was raised to respect my elders and to treat others as I want to be treated, but I’ll tell you here and now, my granny is not going to a retirement home. Not as long as I’m around. If I’d known what you were after, I’d have never brought you out here, so you can get it off your mind. Her home is not for sale.” She mashed down on the gas and the car moved off with a rattle of gravel against the underside.

  Mr. Kessler smiled. “No offense intended, but keep it in mind. You never know when you might need to sell it.” He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his head to watch the scenery out the window. Probably, I thought, calculating the worth of every plot of ground we passed.

  I caught Etta Mae’s flashing eyes in the rearview mirror and if I’d ever thought her heart wasn’t in my plan to fix Mr. Kessler’s little red wagon, I didn’t think so any longer.

  Chapter 29

  The drive back to Abbotsville was marked by a heavy silence which Mr. Kessler seemed perfectly at ease to let lengthen. Etta Mae, however, drove hunched over the wheel, her breath coming in short snatches as if it was all she could do to hold herself in check. She didn’t ask Mr. Kessler where he wanted to go; she just pulled to the curb at the courthouse and waited for him to get out.

  He had the temerity to behave as if nothing was wrong and the grace to thank us for the outing. Then he said that he looked forward to any other expedition we wanted to make. Etta Mae didn’t glance his way, just revved the motor to hurry him on.

  Hesitant to step into the middle, I nonetheless said, “There’s someone else I’d like you to meet, Mr. Kessler, if you’re available later today. Mr. Jones is a member of one of Abbotsville’s finest families, and I think you’d enjoy meeting him. The two of you might find a lot in common.”

  We made arrangements to meet around three o’clock, and he closed the door and walked away.

  Before I could commiserate with Etta Mae, she snatched up the card he’d left on the seat. “Look at this! Just look at it!” Her hand shook as she flapped it in front of me. “Does he think I’m going to change my mind? I’ll show him!” She tore the card into little pieces and threw them out the window. “If they charge me with littering, he’s getting the bill.”

  Then she leaned her head against the steering wheel and laughed. “Lord, I don’t know when anything has flown all over me like that. I could’ve wrenched his head off, and I still might.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said, feeling some shame that I hadn’t stepped in to put him in his place. “I couldn’t believe he would be so crass as to suggest you move your granny out of her home like that. The man has no sensitivity at all. And I’ll tell you this, Etta Mae, we’ve got to get rid of him before he buys up the whole county.”

  She lifted her head. “Just tell me what to do.”

  I sat back in the seat as the car continued to idle at the curb. “I’m thinking,” I said. Then looking at the courthouse grounds and the shops and stores across the street, I went on. “Just look at this town, Etta Mae. It could be a picture postcard. It is absolutely beautiful, so clean and neat with flower boxes and garden benches and Bradford pear trees lining the street. There’s hardly another town like it. And it’s filled with just the kind of good and decent people that Mr. Kessler wants to use as advertisements so he can make a killing. He’ll exploit this town and eventually turn it into the very thing that all his new people are running away from.” I stopped and bit my lip, thinking about what I’d just said. “I’m as progressive as the next person, don’t you know. If it’s done right. And I’m not against new people moving in. But we have something special here, and I resent being used by Mr. Kessler for our own eventual destruction. As far as I can see, Etta Mae, the two of us are the only ones standing in his way. And I firmly believe he’ll run right over us if he figures out what we’re doing. Unfortunately, our plan to introduce him to your grandmother sort of backfired on us. All we did was show him a prime piece of real estate, and the upshot of that was to put it in his head to get it away from her.”

  “She won’t sell. And he’d better not bring up the subject to me again.”

  “What about your uncle?”

  “Oh, Lord.” She leaned her head against the steering wheel again. “Boyce would sell in a minute if he could.” She looked out between the spokes of the steering wheel. “If he gets it in his mind that Granny’s losing hers, I guess he could petition for power of attorney, couldn’t he? Oh, me,” she moaned, “what am I going to do? He’s closer kin than I am, so I wouldn’t have a thing to say about it.”

  I leaned up on the front seat. “You need to get her to a good lawyer and fix it so he can’t. She needs a will and she needs to put you in charge. I’d do that as soon as possible if I were you. Before Mr. Kessler gets to your uncle.”

  “You’re right and I will. But, man,” she said with a sad laugh, “I hate to bring all that up to Granny. She’ll have my hide.”

  “It’s for her own good. Now let’s go eat. I’m about to cave in and Lillian’ll be wondering where we are.”

  As soon as we walked in the door, Lillian looked up and said, “’Bout time you got here. This soup ’bout simmered down to nothing. But ’fore you set down, Miss Julia, Pastor Ledbetter say he got to talk to you. He want you to call him soon as you get home.”

  “Well, they Lord, what could he want? Etta Mae, have a seat at the table and let me call him.” As I dialed his office at the church across the street, I kept mumbling to myself. “I know he’s going to want me to do something, and I don’t need another thing to be worried with. He can just get somebody else. I’ve done my turn and then some.”

  But he didn’t ask me to lead this or chair that, all he wanted was to talk to me, “as soon as you can come over,” he said. It was apparent to me that he was agitated over something, and since I’d made it my business lately to steer clear of him, I didn’t think he could be upset over something I’d done.

  “Let me get a bite of lunch,” I told him, “then I’ll run over. But I have an appointment at three o’clock, so we’ll have to be finished before that.”

  After we ate, I left Etta Mae to rest at my house until it was time to pick up Mr. Kessler. As I went out the door, she and Lillian were lingering companionably at the table while they discussed the merits of thick, fluffy biscuits over thin, crispy ones.

  Pastor Ledbetter came out of his office and into the Fellowship Hall to meet me as soon as he heard the back door close. That showed how anxious he was, for he usually sat in his office until Norma announced a visitor. But Norma was apparently still at lunch, because her desk in the outer office was empty, and I was grateful for it. Norma Cantrell felt it her duty to poke her nose into everybody’s business, declaring that it was her job to keep the pastor from being bothered with trifling matters. The woman set my teeth on edge.

  Pastor Ledbetter led me into the inner office, closed the door behind us and stood until I was seated in one of the damask wing chairs in front of his desk.

  As he sat down in his executive chair and looked across the desk at me, I had a sinking feeling. The grim look on his face told me that I was in for a counseling session. It crossed my mind to go ahead and ask forgiveness for what I’d done and for what I’d left undone, whichever was on his mind. Except he wasn’t the one I should’ve been speaking to.

  Nonetheless, I prepared myself for the onslaught, sitting stiffly in the chair with my back straight, my feet together a
nd my hands clasped on the pocketbook in my lap. “I hope you’re well, Pastor.”

  “Thank you, I am,” he said abruptly as if he had to get the amenities out of the way. Then, steepling his fingers, he went on. “Miss Julia, I am deeply disturbed over the troubled marriages of some of our most influential members. I’m sure you know who I’m talking about since they’re all close friends of yours. I’ve made it a point to counsel each one of these women, prayed with and for them, and yet I don’t see any movement toward reconciliation. And, from what I hear, you’ve had a hand in their refusal to listen to reason.” He paused to let that sink in, then he went on. “It seems to me that you’d want to be giving these women more constructive advice, given the success of your current marriage.”

  Well, at least he didn’t want me to take on another job in Sunday school or vacation Bible school or the Women of the Church or some other organization suitable for women.

  “If my current marriage is a success,” I said in response to his last comment, “it’s because it’s a good one for a change. But let me understand, I assume that you’re speaking of Mildred Allen, Helen Stroud and LuAnne Conover, is that right?”

  He nodded. “Yes, I’ve spoken with all three, and they seem to be absolutely unbending in their determination to throw over the traces of their marriages. Against, I might add, all admonition of Scripture and my own counsel.”

  I sat forward in surprise. “Even Helen?” Sam hadn’t told me that.

  “She’s more adamant than the others, if that’s possible. Now, Miss Julia, you mustn’t think that I’m revealing any confidences from my counseling sessions. I asked each one if I could discuss the problem with you, mainly because they all mentioned you in one way or another.”

  “Oh, yes? And just how did I become a topic?”

  He waved his hand as if it were of no concern. “They mentioned they’d spoken to you and that you’d given them suggestions they intended to follow. You apparently have a great deal of influence over them, which is why I felt compelled to speak with you and urge you to amend your advice so these marriages can be saved and strengthened, instead of torn apart.”