Miss Julia Hits the Road (40 page)

“Well,” one of them said, as they both hung their heads at being caught out. I declare, it just went to show how bullies will back down if you stand up to them.

“Tell you what, ma’am,” the other one said. “We just was talkin’ about it, and we feel real bad about fiddlin’ with that Road King. An’ we was just cuttin’ up on the road. We wouldn’t of hurt you none. Say, why don’t we come over and fix your bike? We’re good mechanics, and we’ll make it up to you.”

“Well, that is certainly nice of you, but it’s not my machine,” I said, taken aback by how agreeable they were, as well as by their assumption that I would own such a vehicle. “I’ll pass the word along to the owner. Now, I have no intention of carrying this any further, since crippling that motorcycle didn’t affect the outcome. But I want to know who thought up that stunt.”

They stood there, shifting from one foot to the other, looking like boys who’d been caught doing what they shouldn’t have been doing. Which, indeed, they had been.

“I don’t know as we oughtta . . .” one started to say.

“It don’t matter,” the other one said, shrugging. “It’s no skin off our backs to tell her, ’specially since he shorted us on the payment. Ma’am, he didn’t give his name, just offered a coupla hundred to anybody who’d take that Harley outta the race, which I ain’t sayin’ we did or we didn’t. He was real stoop-shouldered, though.”

I knew it. I just knew it. I gritted my teeth at the thought of Clarence Gibbs and his unfair business practices. “Gentlemen,” I said, “I appreciate your forthrightness, and I hope this will teach you not to engage in any more vandalism on this or any other Poker Run. You won’t get off so easy the next time, not if I have anything to say about it.”

The vengeful feelings I’d had toward them began to shift over to the real culprit, so I left them in peace. After all, they’d been as nice as they could be, just misguided.

As I looked for Sam and Little Lloyd in the rib-eating crowd, the band suddenly went silent. The revelers all turned toward the bandstand where a man I assumed to be Red, himself, whistled into the microphone and told everybody to quiet down.

“Listen up, folks,” he said. “The first order of business is to announce the winner of the Poker Run. We had a lot of good hands, but a royal spade flush takes the pot. And the winner is . . .” He raised his hand, as the drummer beat the fire out of his drum. “Mrs. Emma Sue Ledbetter! Come on up here, Emma Sue, you pretty little thing, you!”

Even from where we were standing, I could see how red her face turned when her name was called out. But she quickly recovered and seemed thrilled to death at her good fortune. She ran up onto the bandstand as the crowd clapped and yelled. I thought to myself that it might be the first time in her life that Emma Sue had received so much attention, and it pleased me to see it. After a great deal of carrying on, which Emma Sue seemed to enjoy, Red presented her with the prize. It was a white T-shirt, plain enough from the back, but downright garish with the Harley eagle across the front.

“Lord, Sam,” I whispered to him. “What have we done? She may see this as some sort of sign and take up gambling from now on.”

Sam laughed. “Larry Ledbetter’s going to have a fit, but he may have to buy her a Harley to go with it.”

Red took our attention again, as he quieted the crowd for the next item on the agenda. “Hold on, folks, the highlight of the Poker Run is comin’ up. I want to introduce the Reverend Morris Abernathy. He has an announcement to make, so let’s give him a good ole bikers’ welcome.” As the slightly inebriated crowd stomped and yelled, he stepped aside and motioned to the slight figure who stood behind him. “It’s all yours, Rev.”

I stood between Sam and Little Lloyd, crossing my fingers that the Reverend wouldn’t be intimidated by that sea of strange, hairy, and mostly white faces turned up to him. But a preacher is accustomed to addressing all kinds, and he stepped up to that microphone like he was born to it. I’m not going to repeat the message of gratitude and thanksgiving he gave, but he was interrupted several times with applause, whistles, yells, and shouts. When he began to thank the Lord for all of us who’d worked so hard, I thought my heart would swell up and explode. I saw Lillian and her friend Mrs. Causey, lean against each other, crying and laughing together.

Little Lloyd jumped up and down, yelling and clapping with the best of them. “We did it! We did it! Miss Lillian’s going to get her house back.”

“Cross your fingers, Little Lloyd,” I said. “We still have to make it official with Mr. Gibbs.”

Sam put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Aren’t you glad now that you rode with me?”

“Now that it’s over, yes, I am. But, Sam, I’d be in ever so much better shape if I’d ridden the whole way with you. Mr. Pickens took years off my life.”

His arm tightened around me. “You can go the rest of the way with me, Julia. They say that happy people live longer, so we might even pick up a few years along the way.”

I nodded, not knowing what to say to him, especially since I wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying to me.

Well, there’s not much more to tell, which is just as well as it’s never pleasant or edifying to have your ill-advised choices opened up for public viewing. Still, everything I did was for the good of others, and it all worked out in the long run. Even though I did have to endure a prolonged state of apprehension for dealing with the likes of Clarence Gibbs, who everybody knew looked after number one, first and foremost. Getting in bed with him, as we businesspeople are wont to say, was an unwise choice, to say the least.

Another dicey decision I’d made was agreeing to get as many “quality ladies,” as Thurlow called us, as I could to participate in the Poker Run. If my friends had known they were asked mainly because they met the age requirement, my name would’ve been stricken from any number of invitation lists.

Still, it worked out, in spite of Thurlow’s having the nerve to ask Emma Sue, Helen, and LuAnne right to their faces if they were over fifty; I almost had to shake them to get them to admit to it. Not a one of them would ever see sixty again. Well, maybe fifty-eight.

And agreeing to make that run on a motorcycle? Have you ever heard of anything so untypical of a mature and cautious woman? Even though I came through unmarked and unscathed, my reputation as commentator on all things correct and proper suffered damage from which it still hasn’t recovered. Take the Sunday morning after the Poker Run, while I was still reveling in my triumph, when LuAnne showed up for services in a pair of trousers. When I indicated to her that they were hardly appropriate for formal church services, she’d just gaped at me. Then she said, “You don’t have a whole lot of room to talk, Julia, considering what you showed up in at Red’s yesterday.”

And you wouldn’t believe the whispers, rumors, and flat-out gossip that have been bouncing around town about me and Thurlow Jones. Ever since the amount of his checks became common knowledge, people have wondered aloud at what I’d been willing to do to get it. It wasn’t enough that I’d risked my neck on two motorcycles, with all the near-misses attendant on each one. Oh, no, there must’ve been something more going on between us. Why else would he hand over that much money?

I declare, people always have to assign some ulterior motive to every good deed. Believe me, I had not sold Thurlow Jones one thing but, come to think of it, maybe it was a compliment of sorts that people had no trouble believing that my attentions were worth that amount of money.

So, see, it wasn’t all fun and games, regardless of how Mr. Pickens viewed it, and, yes, I suffered some repercussions from my decision to help others. And if I benefited from it, as did Lillian and her neighbors, who among you would hold it against me?

After the high point of claiming Thurlow’s checks and of getting into my own clothing that Saturday night, I existed in a state of agitated turmoil until Monday morning rolled around, when I could finally conclude my business with Clarence Gibbs. I was at Binkie’s office thirty minutes early to make sure that Mary Alice had deposited the funds in the bank. Then I had to suffer an untold amount of anxiety waiting for Binkie to show up. All I could think of was that she might be lying in at the hospital, and wouldn’t be able to come to work.

“If that’s the case,” I told Mary Alice McKinnon, as I paced the floor in Binkie’s reception area, “I’ll just drag Mr. Gibbs up to the delivery floor, and Binkie can arrange my deliverance from him, as well as her own.” I stopped short, coming up against another scary thought. “And where
is
Mr. Gibbs, anyway? What if he doesn’t come, Mary Alice? What if neither of them gets here? I declare, I’m so nervous, I’m about to jump out of my skin.”

But then Binkie waddled in, looking tired and overburdened. And who wouldn’t in that condition? As far as I was concerned, that baby could make its appearance just as soon as Binkie completed my transaction.

“Binkie, honey,” I said, immediately concerned for her well-being. “Get in your office and rest yourself. You don’t look well at all, which isn’t a nice thing to say, I know. But I’m worried about you.”

“Thanks, Miss Julia,” she said, taking off her coat and going into her office. Mary Alice bustled around with files and folders, ready to help her get set up for the business at hand. “I’m not feeling so well, either. But I want to get this sale closed for you as soon as we can. Is Clarence here yet?”

And in he walked. Or rather, stormed. Clarence Gibbs was not in a good mood, and he made no effort to hide his unhappy state.

“You sure that check will clear?” he asked, as he sat hunched over in a client’s chair in front of Binkie’s desk. The bags under his eyes were darker than usual, indicating to me that I’d not been the only one to have a few restless nights.

“Absolutely sure,” I snapped. “You can call the bank if you need peace of mind. But I tell you right now, Mr. Gibbs, I am not in the habit of bouncing checks, and I resent your implication.”

“Bid’ness is bid’ness,” he said, so mad that he could hardly bring himself to look at me.

“Exactly. And if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

Binkie suppressed a smile as she pushed the forms in front of us for our signatures. He scrawled his name, each time breathing out between his teeth to make sure we knew how much he hated doing it.

Throughout the signing and notarizing and passing of money, he was not in the least gracious about relinquishing any and all claims to my house or about selling me, as the treasurer of the Willow Lane Fund, the Willow Lane property.

But the way I looked at it, he’d gambled on the chance of getting both, and he lost both. That’s just the way the cards fell and, if I’d had a mind to question him on the subject of those fat boys, who I was convinced he’d hired, something more than cards might’ve fallen.

Even though I couldn’t prove a thing, he should’ve counted himself fortunate to walk out unhindered and unharmed, with a check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in hand. He had nothing at all to complain about, but of course he didn’t see it that way.

When our business reached its conclusion to my satisfaction, if not his, I thought to try to lift his spirits. “Mr. Gibbs,” I said, as he prepared to leave. “You should thank your lucky stars that things have worked out this way. What if you’d put an untold amount of money into that water-bottling scheme of yours, and every man in the country came down or blew up or was otherwise incapacitated with the affliction that hit Thurlow Jones? Why, just think of the lawsuits you’d be embroiled in. You should be grateful that we came along and saved you from such a fate.”

But he couldn’t see it that way, and wouldn’t even shake my hand. I decided I’d never do business with him again.

“Miss Julia,” Binkie said as soon as Clarence Gibbs took his grudging self off, “would you mind running me over to the hospital? I’m not feeling so good.”