Miss Julia Hits the Road (6 page)

“Hazel Marie,” I said, wanting to offer something to ease her heartache. “I don’t think he means a thing by it. I’ve never seen a man so taken with anybody as he is with you. I watch him, you know, and he can’t keep his eyes off you.”

She gave me a teary smile. “You think so?”

“I know so. The man’s in love, Hazel Marie, and it looks like you’re just going to have to put up with the way he attracts other women.” I said this even though I couldn’t’ve done it myself.

Hazel Marie sniffed again, picked up the sandwich, then put it back down. “One thing I’ll give him, he knows how to treat a woman.”

Intrigued, I longed to ask just what that treatment consisted of, since I’d never had any of it, and probably wouldn’t recognize it if any ever came my way.

But I held my peace as tears began to spurt out of her eyes again. Ignoring them, she picked up the flattened sandwich and finally took a bite. Chewing and sniffing as she wiped her eyes with a napkin, she went on, “He can be so sweet and thoughtful and kind and considerate.” She swallowed hard. “And I could just knock him winding.”

“I don’t blame you. I’d want to do the same.” I thought of how I’d wanted to take the hide off Wesley Lloyd Springer when I found out that one woman hadn’t been enough for him.

“Oh, Miss Julia,” Hazel Marie suddenly wailed. She put her head down on her arms and began crying like her heart was breaking. I took the sandwich from her hand and put it on the plate. “It’s even worse than you think.”

“What is?” I said, leaning close. “What in the world could be worse?”

“He . . . ,” she sniffed, her voice muffled against the table. “He, he’s married.”

“Married! To
who?
”

“To
two!
”

I reared back in my chair and grasped the edge of the table with my hands. “He’s married to two women? And leading you on at the same time? Why, Hazel Marie, the man’s a bigamist! I can’t believe this. That sorry thing needs to be in jail, and I’ve a good mind to put him there.”

“Well,” she said, straightening up and wiping her face. “He’s divorced from both of them, so I don’t guess they’d put him in jail for that.”

After the stunning revelation of two Mrs. Pickenses, I had to heave a sigh of relief. Mr. Pickens was at least free of criminal intent, legally speaking. But divorce? And two of them? That didn’t say much for Mr. Pickens’s qualifications for another stab at marriage.

“You just found out about this?” I asked.

“Yes! And I wouldn’t have found out at all if one of them hadn’t come to see him today. Just showed up out of the blue, and he had the nerve to invite her in and be sitting at the table drinking a Coke with her when I walked in. Can you believe that? There they were just talking and laughing, and she had her hand on his arm.” She rubbed the napkin over her eyes, mopping up mascara-tinged tears, then plunged on. “And do you think
he
would tell me who she was? No,
she
did!” Then, mimicking somebody else’s voice, she said, “ ‘Hi, I’m Tammi with an
i,
and J. D. and I were married for a short while. Too short, don’t you think, J. D.? We didn’t give it long enough.’ Little red-headed witch, I could’ve snatched her bald-headed.”

“And so you left?”

“I certainly did, and I’m not . . .” She stopped as we both looked up at the ceiling at the sound of Little Lloyd’s footsteps running across the upstairs hall and galloping down the stairs to answer the front door.

“You stay here,” I said, rising from my chair. “I’ll see who it is.”

When I got to the living room, Little Lloyd had opened the door for Mr. Pickens. They stood together, with the child’s arms around his waist and Mr. Pickens holding him close.

“Told you I’d come, didn’t I?” Mr. Pickens said to him.

The boy looked up at him. “Did you bring Tammi, too?”

Mr. Pickens laughed and hugged him closer. “No, I didn’t bring Tammi. She’s long gone and good riddance. Don’t you worry about her. Now, where’s your mother?”

The child heaved a mighty sigh, and we all turned as the kitchen door swung open and Hazel Marie walked into the dining room, heading toward us. She looked a sight, with smeared makeup, tangled hair and red eyes. I don’t think Mr. Pickens minded in the least. He walked over to her, crooning, “Hazel Marie, sweetheart.”

She backed away from him. “Don’t come around trying to sweet-talk me. I’ve had enough of it!”

“I know I should’ve told you, but I was afraid I’d scare you off,” he said, holding out his arms. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s just talk about it.”

“I’m not about to talk about it,” she said, tears coursing down her face. “How can I when I’m not speaking to you ever again? You might as well leave, ’cause that’s all I have to say.” And she stomped off to the kitchen, letting the door close in his face.

His shoulders slumped as he stared at the closed door. Then he glanced at me in a sheepish way, and said, “Guess I blew it this time.” Then he took Little Lloyd’s hand, saying, “Sit out on the porch with me, son, and we’ll straighten this out between us.”

Mr. Pickens’s concern for the child’s feelings confirmed what I’d always thought. He was basically a good man whose flaws all had to do with women.

I went back into the kitchen to see about Hazel Marie. She was sitting with her elbows propped on the table and her face buried in her hands.

“You could’ve let him explain,” I said, trying not to sound as if I were accusing her of being hasty. “Maybe he got married when he was young and didn’t know any better. Or he could’ve been tricked into it. There could be a good explanation.” Actually, I didn’t know any really good ones, but I wanted to soothe her feelings.

“He could’ve told me, Miss Julia. Not just let me walk in and see the second Mrs. Pickens hanging all over him. It’s obvious what she wants. I heard her tell him while I was packing that she’d just broken up with her latest live-in. She wants J. D. back. And she can just have him!” She rubbed at the tears that were welling up again.

“From what I heard,” I said, “he doesn’t want her back. He wants you.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all ruined now. I’m not going to get into it again with a married man. Not ever, ever again.” She covered her face with her hands, unable to look at me, as her words conjured up her previous relationship with my husband.

“Hazel Marie,” I said as firmly as I could, “it’s not the same. Mr. Pickens is divorced, even if he did have to do it twice. So unless there’s another wife he hasn’t told you about, he is unattached at the present time.”

“But, but, remember Pastor Ledbetter’s sermon on divorce, when he said, once married, always married? He said,” she said, sniffing wetly again, “he said there’s no such thing as divorce in God’s eyes, so that means J. D.’s still married to his first wife. And, and, it means his second wife was just like me—a blamed fool for falling for him. No wonder they both threw him out.”

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” I said, just so put out at the damage Pastor Ledbetter seemed to wreak every time he opened his mouth. “Listen to me. I happen to know that the pastor himself has performed wedding ceremonies for people who’ve been divorced. So what does that say about his pronouncements from on high?” I thought for a minute, as what she’d just said came through to me. “They threw him out?”

“He said they did. And laughed about it. See, Miss Julia, he’s just impossible.”

“No, Hazel Marie, that makes him possible,” I said, satisfied that I’d found the pastor’s justification, as well as my own. I didn’t know how I felt about divorce, except that some married people needed it, and those who seemed to need it the most rarely got it.

While I was musing over my sudden insight into how the pastor managed to overcome his objections to performing the second marriage of an elder’s divorced daughter, I heard Little Lloyd close the front door and run up the stairs. So Mr. Pickens had had his talk and, if I knew him, he now had an accomplice on the inside.

“See, Hazel Marie,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “Mr. Pickens was the injured party.” Though the Lord knows, I thought, it was hard to picture him in such an innocent light. “
He
didn’t get the divorces, his wives did. So even Pastor Ledbetter couldn’t argue with that.”

“Well, but he should’ve told me before this.” She took another bite of the sandwich, her eyes still swimming with tears, and chewed it as if it had little taste. Then she looked at me. “You really think it’s all right that he’s been married before?”

“Of course it’s not all right,” I said. “But what’s done is done, and he’s not married now, at least in the eyes of the law. As to what he is in the eyes of the Lord, I don’t have a clue, and neither does Pastor Ledbetter.”

“I don’t know what I’d do if he was.” She began sobbing again between bites of the sandwich. “I just love him so, and I know he loves me. So, why, Miss Julia,
why
didn’t he tell me?”

“There’s no telling. I’ve given up trying to understand any of them.” The thought of Sam crossed my mind—Sam and his unexplainable behavior of late. “Now, Hazel Marie,” I said, glancing at my watch. “We’ll deal with Mr. Pickens when the time comes, but right now I’ve got to see about Lillian.”

“Oh,” she said, swallowing hard, as immediate concern for another suffering soul distracted her. “What’s wrong with Lillian?”

I gave her a long look, concluding that what she needed was something to take her mind off Mr. Pickens and his waywardness.

“I’ll tell you in the car,” I said. “Call Little Lloyd and tell him he’ll need a jacket and some long pants. It’s getting cool out there.”

“Where’re we going?” she asked, sopping up mascara-soaked tears as she started out of the chair.

“We’re going to a protest meeting at the Reverend Morris Abernathy’s AME Zion church.”

As Little Lloyd scrunched up between the bucket seats so he could hear better, I told Hazel Marie about Lillian’s impending homeless state.

“That’s just not fair,” she said, righteously upset on Lillian’s behalf. She gave an angry sniff—or maybe she needed to blow her nose again. “It’s not right to put all those people out when they’ve lived there for so long.”

“Amen to that, Hazel Marie,” I said, heading the car toward the south end of town where Lillian’s church was located. “Even though Clarence Gibbs may have the law on his side, we ought to be able to do something.”

I turned the car down several streets lined with increasingly smaller and less well-cared-for houses, trying to figure out where the AME Zion church was. Several blocks closer to town than Lillian’s street, I remembered, but off the beaten track since I never passed it when I drove her home. I knew it was in the same general area as her neighborhood, though.

“You know,” I went on, “I’ve heard of landlords who collect cash rents every week, but I had no idea that Lillian lived under those conditions.”

“I thought Miss Lillian probably owned her house,” Little Lloyd said.

“I guess I did, too,” I said, as a feeling of shame swept over me. “No, to tell the pitiful truth, I just never really thought about it.”

“Well,” Hazel Marie said firmly, her mind already taken up with Lillian’s problem. “We have to do something. What can we do, Miss Julia?”

“I know,” Little Lloyd said. “She can move in with us.”

“She certainly can,” I agreed. “And that’s what she’s going to do. But I’m afraid she’ll only accept it as a temporary measure. She wants her own place, and I don’t blame her. Hazel Marie, we’ll just have to research places to rent and help her get resettled. And in a much nicer place, too.”

“I think she ought to buy a house,” Little Lloyd said. “Then she won’t ever have to move again.”

“I expect she can’t afford to buy anything, honey,” Hazel Marie told him.

I nodded grimly, doubting that Lillian had any savings, much less any collateral for a bank loan. Still, she seemed to’ve managed her affairs with care and prudence. Then again, what did I know about how she did it? I’d never asked, never thought it my business to look into hers.

Maybe I should have.

“I’ll give her the money,” Little Lloyd said, and I could’ve hugged him for his generous little heart. “Can’t I do that, mama, out of what my daddy left me?”

Hazel Marie thought a minute, then said, “I don’t know, sugar, if you can or not. We’ll have to ask Mr. Sam.”

Sam was the administrator of the child’s trust fund, and I had a sinking feeling at the thought that Sam might not be able to administer anything for much longer.

“I’ll take care of Lillian,” I said. “Let’s not bother Sam with that right now.”

I pulled to the curb a few doors from the small brick church, where we could see a group of people standing around in the bare, leaf-strewn yard before going in to the meeting. A few clumps of bushes huddled next to the foundation of the church, throwing shadows from the light fixture over the church door. A pole lamp near the street gave off a meager light in the early dark of the Fall evening.