by Ann B. Ross
“Have a seat, and help me decide what to serve to drink at the wedding.”
Hazel Marie started smiling, then she said, “Well, I know what Binkie’d want.”
“What?”
“Beer. She loves that stuff.”
“Think of something else,” I said, knowing when I was being teased. “Your hands washed, Little Lloyd? Lillian’s ready to put supper on the table.”
“Yessum, I just washed them.” But who could tell the way he was working that Game Boy thing, both thumbs flying?
“I know what you can serve, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie said. “What about that sparkling grape juice they have in the grocery store? It looks like champagne and tastes real good. Miss Mildred Allen served some at her Christmas tea, remember?”
“You mean that wasn’t champagne? And here I’ve been thinking bad thoughts about her ever since.”
“No’m, it’s nonalcoholic, but I expect a lot of people wouldn’t know the difference if you wrapped the bottles in a towel.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do, if you’re sure we won’t be leading some poor soul astray. Far be it from me to be the cause of anybody’s downfall.”
I wrote down sparkling grape juice and hoped nobody’d make the mistake I’d made at Mildred Allen’s Christmas tea and think the worst of me.
Chapter 5
“Car turnin’ in,” Lillian said, as Hazel Marie and I straggled in for breakfast the next morning. She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and looked out the window. “I better put on some more eggs; it’s Coleman in that deputy car of his.”
“Wonder what he’s doing here so early?” I asked, making sure my bathrobe was presentable. “Although I’m always glad to see him. In fact, it’d suit me to see a little more of him around here.”
Hazel Marie tried to hide her smile behind her coffee cup, but I knew what she was thinking. Coleman was supposed to be living right upstairs in the room and sleeping porch he rented from me, but rarely used. Sam had been worried about me being alone after the terminal departure of Wesley Lloyd. So, since Coleman Bates had just moved back to Abbotsville after getting his law enforcement training on the streets of Atlanta, Sam had talked me into taking him in as a boarder. Coleman was pretty much alone in the world, a fact that had reassured me about having his family and friends in and out of my house. Even so, I’d had my doubts about taking in a boarder, but it’d worked out fine until Coleman’d met Binkie Enloe, and from then on, we hardly ever saw him. Oh, he showed up now and then to have one of Lillian’s meals, and occasionally he’d spend the night to justify, I guessed, the rent he kept on paying. I try not to think about where he spent the other nights, although I am on record as strongly disapproving. But far be it from me to pass judgment on what other people do.
I didn’t have to worry about that any longer though, since, thank goodness, they’d be safely married, come Saturday afternoon.
“Morning, folks,” Coleman said, as he came in the back door looking shined and polished in his dark navy deputy’s uniform with official badges and insignia on his shirt and leather-creaking law enforcement equipment dangling from his belt. “Lillian, you look good enough to eat.”
She laughed and ducked her head. He was her favorite, except for Little Lloyd. “I’m fixin’ yo’ breakfast, so get yo’self set down and ready for it.”
I cleared a place at the table while Hazel Marie set out a place mat and silverware for him.
“How are you, Coleman?” I asked, and received a beaming smile in answer. My goodness, his uniform certainly set off his trim physique. I’m not too old to appreciate a fine broad-shouldered young man, especially one with blond hair and deep blue eyes and good manners. And one whose happiness glowed on his face. That’s the way a bridegroom should look, I thought.
Still smiling, Coleman held out his hand for Little Lloyd to shake. “How you doing, bud?”
“Real good,” Little Lloyd said, hero worship glowing on his face. As the boy shook Coleman’s hand, it did my heart good to see how he’d picked up on so many of Coleman’s manly virtues. Although I needed to speak to the child about offering such a limp hand.
Then Coleman took a chair and held his cup for me to pour coffee. While he waited for Lillian to fix his plate, I brought him up to date with the wedding plans. “Be ready for some serious dinner table discussion tonight. You and Binkie come on along about seven. Hazel Marie, be sure and tell Mr. Pickens we’re expecting him, too.”
“You heard from him lately?” Coleman asked Hazel Marie. When she shook her head, Coleman went on. “Binkie’s keeping him busy, I expect. She’s hired him to investigate some case she’s just taken.”
“Well, I’m glad somebody knows what he’s doing,” Hazel Marie said, a little sharply, too. “I haven’t heard a word from him.”
I wanted to tell her that, given Mr. Pickens’s type, she’d better get used to his independent ways.
“I saw him this morning for a minute at Binkie’s office,” Coleman said, as I passed the cream pitcher to him.
“They’re working on Saturday?” Hazel Marie asked, obviously disappointed. “I thought sure he’d be off.”
“Yeah, well, Binkie’s got a bee in her bonnet about that case. Anyway, I said something about dinner tonight. Was that all right, Miss Julia?”
“Of course. Is he coming?”
“He said if that slave driver I’m about to marry will let him, he will.” Coleman shook his head, smiling. “That girl’s a pistol.”
“I can’t wait to see him,” Hazel Marie said, brightening considerably.
“Y’all heard the news?” Coleman asked, as he set to work on the plate of bacon, eggs and grits that Lillian set before him.
“What news?” Lillian asked, standing over him to see if he wanted anything else. “I don’t never turn on the radio or the TV till Miss Julia outta the kitchen.”
Coleman grinned and said, “That little spot of trouble we had at the jail yesterday was an escaped prisoner.”
“Oh, no!” Hazel Marie said, while Lillian turned her face to the ceiling and said, “He’p us, Lord.”
“Who?” I asked.
He glanced up at me, his eyes smiling. “Dixon Hightower. Remember him?”
“Well, I should say I do. I thought that little rascal was locked up for good.”
“We did too. He was put away as a habitual violator, a three-time loser, a few years ago. But some liberal lawyer wrangled him a new trial, which is how he escaped. They transferred him from Raleigh to our jail for the hearing, and, well, he got away from the jailer.” Coleman just shook his head. “Embarrassing as hell, you want to know the truth.”
“That sounds just like him,” I said. “Dixon Hightower’s nothing but a nuisance, but you have to watch him like a hawk.”
“Yes, ma’am, we learned that the hard way. A couple of deputies may lose their jobs over this. Problem is, we haven’t caught him yet.”
“You mean he’s still loose?” Hazel Marie’s eyes widened at the thought. “The jail’s not but four or five blocks from here. Why, he could be right under our feet, and us not know it. I can’t stand the thought of somebody sneaking right up on me.”
“Oh,” Little Lloyd said and put his fork down.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Coleman said, noticing the child’s peaked look. “Dixon’s not going to hurt anybody, just pester us to death, that’s all. We’ll have him back behind bars in no time. But, Miss Julia, you should take some reasonable measures, like keeping your doors locked. You know how he is.”
“Well, my Lord,” I said, thinking to myself that I didn’t need this worry added to the full week’s worth I already had. “He ought to have a good whipping, with all the turmoil he’s put this town through. I remember Pastor Ledbetter going out of his way to help him and bring him into the church. Talked until he was blue in the face about the vice of stealing, for all the good it did. The pastor told Dixon that he should be trusting the Lord to provide for his needs and not be stea
ling what belonged to other people. Problem was, though, Dixon didn’t need any of the things he stole; he just picked up whatever took his eye.”
I sighed, recalling the many futile efforts so many had made to reform the unreformable. “And Dixon’s poor mother tried her best with him, but some people just can’t be helped. I can’t remember a day of his life when he wasn’t stealing something from somebody. Why, you couldn’t put your laundry out on a line without half of it being gone when you went back.”
“It wasn’t just laundry, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie reminded me. “He was bad for sneaking into people’s houses, when they were home, too, and taking anything he could pick up, although I never heard of him taking anything of much value. He liked odds and ends. But there’re people who’ve sworn their doors were locked, then looked up and saw Dixon inside the house.” She frowned at the thought. “I don’t know how he does it, but he can get in anywhere.”
“And out, too, it seems,” I said. “As the sheriff has so recently found, no offense to you, Coleman.”
Little Lloyd was taking this all in, his eyes wide behind his glasses. Coleman reached over and ruffled his hair. “Don’t you be worrying about Dixon. He’s holed up somewhere, laughing at us. Soon as he sticks his head out, we’ll snatch him up so fast he won’t know what hit him.”
“I sure hope so,” Little Lloyd said. “If anybody can catch him, I know you can.”
“Just let me at him.” Coleman laughed, then laying his napkin beside his plate, he got to his feet. “Got to get back to it. ’Preciate the breakfast, Lillian, it ought to hold me till I get some more of your good cooking tonight. Now, you folks keep your doors latched. I don’t want anybody dropping in on you.”
As he started toward the door, he turned back and said, “Almost forgot. Binkie asked me to give you this, Miss Julia. It’s our invitation list.”
“Good. We’ll get on the phone right away.”
Lillian stuck a Ziploc bag filled with cookies into Coleman’s hand, as his radio erupted with static. He gave her one of his quick grins, waved to us and jogged to his patrol car, his head turned to speak into the radio on his shoulder.
“Lock that door while you’re there,” I said to Lillian.
“That’s what I’m doin’,” she said, but I hardly heard her for thinking of Dixon Hightower, the town thief, now a man on the run. I remembered him as no more than a child in his mind, although he had to be at least forty years old by now. Dixon had never gotten his full growth, his mother having to buy his clothes from the Belk’s boys’ department. Not that it did any good. Dixon didn’t like to bathe, or change clothes, either. He had a sly way about him, always scuttling along from one end of town to the other, picking up bottles for the deposit. He kept a smile on his face, though, just as friendly as he could be while he was robbing you blind.
“His poor mother,” I said. “It’s a good thing she’s dead and gone, and not having to witness what Dixon’s up to now. But I’ll tell you one thing, he’d better not mess with me while I’m busy with this wedding.”
Thinking about that possibility put me on edge, especially when I saw Little Lloyd press his hand against his stomach, which occasionally got queasy on him. He was a nervous child. I patted his arm, and glanced out the window half-expecting to see that little pest tiptoeing from one boxwood to the other.
“He better not try stealing anything ’round here,” Lillian said, brandishing the heavy iron pan that she cooked corn-bread in. “He gonna meet this arn skillet, if he do.”
Then Little Lloyd said, “Mama, I’m supposed to go to a meeting at the church this afternoon.”
“Oh, honey,” she said. “I don’t think you ought to go anywhere today. I don’t want to take the chance of you running into Dixon Hightower. Let’s wait till they get him back in jail.”
“He wouldn’t hurt you, Little Lloyd,” I said, entirely agreeing with his mother but not wanting to give him nightmares. “All he’d do is sneak up on you and scare you half to death. Then he’d pick your pocket clean as a whistle.”
After a while Little Lloyd looked from one to the other of us. “Mama? I don’t think I can miss that meeting. Miz Ledbetter’ll be mad as thunder at me.”
“Emma Sue Ledbetter!” I said. “What kind of meeting is she having?”
“She wants to start a young people’s group. She came to our Sunday school class last week and said she wanted everybody between nine and twelve years old to show up today and not be late. She meant it, too.” He rubbed his stomach.
I heaved a sigh that would’ve blown out a candle. “Wouldn’t you know, she’s at it again. I declare, I don’t know why the pastor didn’t take her with him.” I stopped, because I knew why he’d left his wife at home while he led a church group on a tour of the Holy Land. The both of them poor-mouthed around for months, making sure every member knew that his salary couldn’t cover two airline tickets. They wanted the deacons to give him a bonus or raise his salary or, barring that, they would’ve accepted a love-offering for her expenses. But the pastor already had every member, except me, pledged up to the hilt to pay for that Family Life Center he was so determined to build. The man could get blood out of a turnip, so there were a number of fairly anemic-looking people in the congregation who weren’t at all interested in providing an expense-paid vacation for his wife. Even if it was an educational trip and they planned to get rebaptized in the river Jordan.
“Not that I’m against a young people’s group, you understand,” I said to Little Lloyd. “I think it’s a good idea. But Emma Sue Ledbetter is known to have spells of do-good activities which she can’t seem to help. I remember the time her heart was burdened about the babies in the nursery on Sunday mornings because they needed grandmotherly attention. She went around badgering every white-headed woman in the congregation to sign up for nursery duty. As if, by the time you’re sixty, you’d be thrilled at the opportunity to change diapers again.”
I propped my chin on my hand, remembering the havoc she’d created with that proposal. “The pastor was gone then, too, at General Assembly, I think. You wouldn’t believe the hornets’ nest he came back to, because Presbyterian women, and men, too, for that matter, don’t like both the pastor and his wife getting calls from the Lord. It’s confusing, to say the least.”
I stopped then, because I’m not one to criticize either the pastor or his wife in the presence of young children. Even when one or both needed it.
“Don’t worry about the meeting, Lloyd,” Hazel Marie told him, patting his hand. “We’re just being careful so, if you have to miss it, I’m sure Mrs. Ledbetter’ll understand.”
“I hope so,” he said, not at all convinced. “She said she expected me to be there, come what may. Come what may, that’s what she said right in front of the whole class.”
“It’ll be all right,” I said, smoothing down the cowlick that was standing straight up at the back of his head. He needed to be sleeping in a stocking to tame the thing. “I’ll call and tell her that today’s not a good day. Besides, I think your stomach’s feeling a little uneasy.”
I didn’t mention the fact that when Emma Sue Ledbetter got on her high horse, she put my stomach in the same state of contention. Emma Sue and I had never seen eye to eye on a number of matters. For instance, if she was in charge of a Women of the Church meeting, as she usually was, she never failed to call on me to offer the prayer. I just hated to pray in public and she knew it, since I’d told her time out of mind not to call on me.
“Julia,” she’d once told me, a note of exasperation in her voice at having to instruct me again. “As Christians, we should always be ready to pray, preach or die.”
“You may be ready, Emma Sue,” I’d said, “but I’d just as soon wait on all three. Call on somebody else from now on.”
But from then on, she’d been concerned about my prayer life, giving me books and tracts to read, offering to have one-on-one prayer with me, wanting to be my prayer partner and warning me that pra
yer was the way to sanctification which, if I didn’t watch out, I’d never reach.
Don’t you just hate to be given spiritual advice from somebody who needs a bigger dose of it than you?
Chapter 6
“My word,” I said as I looked over the invitation list Coleman had given me. “They haven’t given any thought to this at all. I’ll just have to add some names to it; I can think of a dozen right off the top of my head who should be here.
“Now, Hazel Marie, and you, too, Lillian, help me with what else we have to do today. Florist, for one thing. I’ll call The Watering Can, and get them lined up. Who else?”
“Photographer?” Hazel Marie said.
“Oh, goodness, yes. I’ll give that job to you, Hazel Marie. Call around until you find one, although with all the weddings scheduled for next weekend, it may take you a while. But stay on it until you do; we have to have pictures. What else?”
“You call that catering lady?” Lillian asked.
“She’s on my list to call this morning. And I’d better put down Emma Sue Ledbetter and tell her to cancel that meeting. Saturday afternoon,” I grumbled, jotting down her name. “Who ever heard of having a church meeting on Saturday? The church takes up enough time as it is.”
“What you want me to cook for tonight? An’ how many people you havin’?”
“Well, let’s see. Coleman and Binkie, of course. Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens. That’s four, and I make five. Five, Lillian.”
“You not gonna ast Mr. Sam? That way the table be even out. Man, woman, man, woman, man, woman.”
That stopped me because I had to think about it. Coleman and Binkie both thought the world of Sam, and ordinarily I wouldn’t think twice about inviting him. But it’d been ten days since I’d heard from him, and two could play that game. So I said, “I hadn’t planned on it. Besides, Little Lloyd can even out the table if that’s all you’re worried about.”