Miss Julia Knows a Thing or Two

by Ann B. Ross

  Located on the other side of the Allen house from ours, the garage wasn’t within our eyesight—not that we would’ve noticed a night visitor anyway. A covered walkway, for Ida Lee’s convenience, led from the kitchen door, also on the other side, to an entrance to her second-floor apartment above the garage space. Would she not have heard something when Horace went in among the cars during the night? Maybe not. She could’ve been taking a shower, not at all expecting a sick man to be up and rummaging from Mildred’s Cadillac to his Boxster, and from Ida Lee’s SUV for grocery runs to the new Town Car that had been bought to distract him from the pleasure of wind in his hair.

  It was a clean, spacious garage, not at all cluttered with odds and ends as most garages are. I could’ve slept in it, myself. The thing about it, though, was what was Horace doing in there again? Yes, I remembered that he’d spent a night in his little Porsche not long before and had come out so stiff and cramped that they’d thought he’d never straighten up. Since he’d chosen the back seat of the Town Car for his most recent overnight stay, I’d say he was still able to learn from experience. That said something right there for the functioning of his brain.

  And another thing it said was that he’d known—and remembered—where the garage key was kept, and he’d known to lock the garage door behind him so that it would appear to be unoccupied. To me, that indicated the retention of more than a little cognitive ability.

  But not enough. For, after his previous attempt to go for a night drive, Mildred had kept the keys to the cars up in her room.

  At least, I think she had. What it came down to, it seemed to me, was that there was something sly and crafty about what Horace had done. There was no particular rhyme or reason for any of it—what good had it done him to sneak into the garage when he didn’t have access to keys to the cars? He’d gotten in, but not out.

  Maybe he hadn’t been able to think that far ahead. Experience, however, had taught him that, for a restful night, the back seat of a Town Car was more comfortable than a bucket seat in a Porsche.

  I was putting all that together while recalling the glint in his eye when he had looked straight at Mildred and called her his wife, Jane Smith. There had been something cunning in the tone of his voice, as if he knew he was cutting her to the bone and didn’t care. Yet he had gone docilely enough with Grady to be cleaned up and put to bed, perhaps because the night had already been erased from his memory or because another foray was already being planned. The human mind is capable of dredging up wondrous, as well as dangerous, things.

  * * *

  —

  “Sam,” I said, as I snuggled up to his back in bed that night, “please, please don’t lose your mind. I couldn’t stand it if you weren’t you anymore.”

  I felt him smile as he said, “I’m not planning to lose anything anytime soon.”

  “I feel so sorry for Mildred,” I went on. “And for Horace, too, although he doesn’t seem to know that anything is wrong. How do people like that think, Sam? What do they think about if they don’t remember yesterday or look forward to tomorrow?”

  Sam sighed. “I don’t know, sweetheart. It’s as if they live in the constant present—the always present, perhaps with unconnected flashes from the past popping up now and then.” He turned onto his back and blew out his breath. “You know, that’s exactly what we’re occasionally urged to do—stop moaning about the past, which can’t be corrected, and don’t worry about the future, which can’t be controlled. Seize the day, they tell us. It’s all you have. Seize the day, and make the most of it.

  “Good advice?” he asked. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do,” I said, looking up into the dark room. “How could anybody live without learning from the past or sleep at night without planning for tomorrow? No, thanks. Horace can seize the day if that’s all he has to grab, but I’ll gladly let it go and hope tomorrow will be better.”

  “It will be.” He patted the arm I had around him, and I smiled in the dark. “Now, tell me how your Christmas plans are coming along.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I certainly am. There’s only so much you can do to help somebody else, and Mildred is perfectly capable of taking care of her own. She just has to have a big production before she does it. Where do you think Tonya got her dramatic flair?”

  “You have a point,” I said, “but I worry about what it’s doing to that little girl. She must be totally confused in that crazy household with having her name changed a dozen times and playing Ken and Barbie dolls with somebody who’s supposed to be her grandfather. I wonder if Tonya knows what’s happening with Horace.”

  “Mildred hasn’t told her?”

  “I don’t think so. Doesn’t want to spoil her big starring role, I guess. Anything Tonya wants, Tonya gets, it seems, and Mildred is left holding the bag.”

  “That’s Mildred’s own fault.”

  “I know, but look, Sam, she’s all but lost Tonya and now she’s losing her husband.” At a sudden thought, I sat straight up in bed. “That’s it. They’re both gone for all intents and purposes, and look what she’s gotten in their place. A selfish, headstrong daughter and an empty-headed shell of the man she once married. She’s all alone.”

  “Lie back down, honey,” Sam said, pulling me back. “Maybe that’s where the little girl comes in.”

  I sighed and settled back. “Maybe so, but it’s strange, now that I think about it. I am convinced that the Lord sent Lloyd into my life just when I thought I would never overcome the hurt and shame of what Wesley Lloyd had done. But that little boy changed my life. Now, Mildred’s also suffering hurt and shame—because even though she puts a good face on it, she’s suffering over Tonya displaying herself on television in those low-cut dresses they wear, to say nothing of Horace becoming the talk of the town with his escapades. Mildred is like me—we’re old school and she feels she has a certain position to uphold which doesn’t include ridicule. People do look up to her, except she also knows that they love to see the mighty fall. But, Sam, if she could just see what’s right before her eyes, she might see that the Lord has sent her a child who could change her life, too.”

  “He’s good about that.”

  “What?”

  “Sending a child to change lives.”

  Chapter 27

  I stayed home the following day and tended to my own knitting—placing some Christmas orders, accepting a few holiday invitations, and checking the silver for tarnish. Mildred knew where I was. If she wanted company or help or someone to babysit, she would call. I had other things on my plate and it was time to take care of them.

  Number one, well, maybe the only pressing one, was Etta Mae and The Handy Home Helpers. We needed to do something fairly soon, declare ourselves an interested party or something. If we kept delaying a move, Lurline Corn could sell out from under us or even decide to take the business off the market.

  I’d not heard a word from Etta Mae since she’d said she wanted to sleep on it before making a decision. Was she still sleeping? Had I pushed her so far so fast that she was using a delaying tactic to slow things down? Maybe she really didn’t want the responsibility of owning a business and owing money on it. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for entrepreneurship. Some people aren’t, you know.

  Yet I had seen something in that young woman that deserved an opportunity, a helping hand, a chance to better herself—the very thing she’d once told me she wanted more than anything else. All she lacked was self-confidence and a financial backer. I was ready to provide both, but if she wasn’t ready to accept them, the best thing for me to do was to back off.

  So, with a sigh, I decided that I would push no further. You can’t help someone who won’t help themselves, and as much as I hated to give up on Etta Mae, perhaps it was time I did.

  Besides, what had happened to my intention to stay out of other people’s business? That new
leaf I’d turned over had apparently fallen back in place as I’d flown off in all directions, trying to rearrange Etta Mae’s life and Mildred Allen’s, too.

  It was a shame, though, because I could see so clearly how both of them would gain so much if they had my foresight. Etta Mae would have independence and a secure future. She’d no longer be open to every blandishment by any man who made promises he couldn’t keep. And Mildred, my dear friend Mildred, who had lost so much yet couldn’t see what was right before her eyes.

  * * *

  —

  “Miss Julia!” Etta Mae’s voice on the phone late that afternoon jarred me with its edge of panic. “I have to talk to you. Can I come over? I won’t stay long, but something’s happened and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Come right on,” I said, then went in to tell Sam and Lillian that something had come up to put Etta Mae in a state and for them to go ahead with supper. “We’ll talk in the living room. But stay close, Sam, there’s no telling what has her so upset, but something sure has.”

  When Etta Mae arrived, she looked frayed around the edges with lipstick bitten off and mascara smudged around her eyes. She kept dabbing at them with a damp tissue. I led her to the sofa in the living room, then closed the doors and sat down beside her.

  “Now, what happened?” I said.

  She drew in a rasping breath and said, “Lurline is about to sell The Handy Home Helpers to somebody else. She told me today. She called me to her office and said she wanted me to understand that she was doing what was best for me, even though it might mean the sale won’t go through. I didn’t know what she was talking about, because as far as she knows I don’t have anything to do with selling her business.”

  “What did she say?”

  Etta Mae’s hand shook as she mopped at her eyes. “Well, she said there’s somebody ready to buy it as an investment. He doesn’t want to run it, so all that’s holding him back is finding somebody who can run it for him. He asked Lurline if there was anybody already working for her who could step in with the right set of managerial skills—that’s what she said he said—the right set of managerial skills. And she said she’d immediately thought of me because I’ve been there the longest and I have my CNA degree and I know the patients and so on and so forth.” Etta Mae stopped and sniffed as tears poured out again.

  I nodded, realizing that another buyer was thinking almost along the same lines as I was—invest in a sound business and put it in good hands. “She knows what you’re worth.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not worth anything to her. She reminded me of how long we’ve been friends and how she’s helped me over the years and how she knows me backward and forward and how she knows what I can do and what I can’t. So, she wanted me to know that even though I look good on paper, that’s what she said, on paper, she knew that it would be too much for me. So she couldn’t recommend me to him, and she wanted me to know that for my sake she was probably passing up a golden opportunity to sell out and move to Florida, and it was all because she didn’t want me to be in a position to fail and ruin the business she’d started so long ago and end up having to wait tables or something. She said she hoped I appreciated her watching out for me.”

  “She actually said that?” I leaned back against the sofa, just done in by Lurline’s idea of what a friend does to help a friend get ahead. If that was what she really thought of Etta Mae, why tell her about it? She’d devastated Etta Mae’s self-worth while expecting to be appreciated for her thoughtfulness in not recommending her.

  Etta Mae nodded, then covered her eyes with a shaking hand. “I thought . . . I thought I meant something to her. I mean, she gave me a job years ago and helped me go to the technical college for my degree and gave me the worst cases, the hardest patients to deal with, and the longest hours, and so on and so forth. So I thought I was a real help to the business because she depended on me so much. And all that time she was just . . . just carrying me.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Etta Mae, get a grip.” I stood up and stomped around a little, so distraught that she’d accepted Lurline’s opinion without question. “Can’t you see what she’s doing? I don’t know how close you think the two of you are, but I can tell you one thing—she is not your friend.”

  “Well,” Etta Mae said, frowning as she thought about it, “she was always there for me whenever I got divorced, and she showed me how to open a bank account and buy insurance and told me where to get my car fixed when it needed it. She always knew what to do if I got sick or needed anything. And she gets her feelings hurt if I don’t tell her every little thing so I thought she cared about me, although it did get to be too much sometimes—her meddling, I mean.” Etta Mae stopped, looked around as if just seeing where she was, then she said, “She’s been running my life, hasn’t she?”

  “Yes, and you’ve let her do it.”

  “Well, kinda, I guess. I thought she just liked having somebody look up to her and ask her advice. So I always listened, then did what I wanted to, anyway. But I didn’t know that she thinks I don’t have sense enough to run the business. But I do, Miss Julia, I know that business as good as Lurline does. Maybe better, because she’s not around half the time.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you,” I said, sitting down again. “Maybe Lurline has done you a favor, backhanded though it was. Maybe her trying to tear you down is enough to wake you up to some facts.”

  “But why would she do that? I mean, she wants to sell and she says she has a buyer, so it looks like she’d jump at the chance to get the business off her hands. She knows I’d work just as hard for him as I have for her, except I guess I haven’t done as good a job as I thought I had. I don’t understand it.”

  “Well, I do,” I said, just as sure of it as I was sitting there. “The woman is eaten up with jealousy.”

  “Jealousy?” Etta Mae’s eyebrows went up almost as far as Sam’s when he was surprised. “Why would she be jealous of me? I’m her helpless little tagalong who can’t keep a husband and has to be told what to do.”

  “Yes, and you’re the one she puts in charge when she wants to be off. She doesn’t think you’re so helpless then, does she? Think about it, Etta Mae. You’re young, you’re as pretty as a picture, you draw men like flies, and you’re highly capable. What is she? Sixty? Sixty-five? And she’s nothing to look at with that hair dyed so black it’s like Shinola shoe polish on her head. Men aren’t swarming around her, are they?”

  “No’m, but ever since Raymond passed, she’s had Bug Timmons living with her off and on, and—”

  “Who? Did you say Bug? Who is that?”

  “Oh, he’s Raymond’s sister’s boy. His mama said he was cute as a bug when he was little and the name stuck. Lurline waits on him hand and foot, but somebody has to ’cause he’s so shiftless he won’t hit a lick at a snake. He’s been in and out of trouble all his life—never did finish high school—but Lurline thinks the sun rises and sets on him even though he’s not worth shootin’ and everybody knows it. He’s been living off her for years because his mama got married again and moved to Tennessee. And, now that I think of it, that may be why Lurline wants to get out of Delmont. Maybe she’s had enough of him, too.”

  “Well, see,” I said, pointing out the obvious. “You have a fun, carefree life living on your own and doing as you please, while she has a useless nephew dragging her down. She’s jealous of you, and she hides it under a pretended concern for your welfare. She’d like nothing better than to see you fail at something she’s made a success of, which makes me wonder why in the world she wouldn’t recommend you just to see it happen.”

  Then I knew why Lurline hadn’t given Etta Mae a recommendation. “Because, of course, she knows you wouldn’t fail.”

  With an almost bewildered look, Etta Mae said, “I guess I never thought Lurline was all that underhanded. Nosy and bossy, yes,
but not downright mean and hateful.” Etta Mae’s eyes filled again.

  “Well, now you know,” I said, deliberately refusing to sympathize with her feelings of loss. We had no time to wallow in recriminations and what-should-have-beens. Time, in fact, was being wasted as we talked.

  “Etta Mae,” I went on with a spurt of urgency, “did Lurline tell you who it is that’s thinking of buying the business?”

  “Yes’m, she did. And he’s certainly able to buy it. Wouldn’t even have to get a bank loan, either. He’s loaded, and he ought to be because he won’t lift a finger unless he sees money up front. And I know that, because he kept me out of jail one time for something I didn’t do.”

  “Who in the world are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Ernest Sitton, Esquire, Delmont’s number one attorney-at-law.”

  Chapter 28

  Ernest Sitton? Ernest Sitton! Why hadn’t I listened more carefully when Sam was talking about him? It pays to know with whom you are dealing when the stakes are as high as they certainly were now. Ernest Sitton could slip in and buy out Lurline Corn before we turned around good. And Etta Mae was absolutely correct in saying that he could afford to buy The Handy Home Helpers. He could probably buy up everything that was for sale in the dinky little town of Delmont, to say nothing of anything he wanted in all of Abbot County. He had the wherewithal to do it, and he was a formidable adversary not only in the courtroom, but would also be one in a bidding war over a coveted property.

  But why in the world would he want to own a home health service? There was only one answer—he’d seen the potential just as I had.