Miss Julia Hits the Road

Chapter 1Pushing through the swinging door from the dining room, I started talking before I got into the kitchen good. "Lillian, I need to ask you something, and I want a serious answer. What in the world is wrong with Sam Murdoch?" She turned away from the sink and squinched her eyes at me. "They's not one thing wrong with Mr. Sam. An' what I think, Miss Julia, is you ought not be pickin' on him." "Well, he's acting strange, if you ask me." She turned back to the sink, mumbling about not having heard anybody ask anybody. Lillian was bad to mumble under her breath whenever she disagreed with somebody, namely me. I didn't mind, though, since I'd been known to do a little mumbling myself on occasion. She'd been taking care of my house, my meals, and me for so long now that we pretty much knew what the other was thinking, whether we spoke up or not. And I knew she never liked hearing anything against Sam, which was why I hadn't brought up my concern about him before now. "Lillian, please," I said, "Would you just come sit down and help me with this?" "If you want these green beans for supper, you better let me finish stringin' 'em." "For goodness sakes, you can do it easier sitting down. Bring them over here and let me help you. "Maybe the first thing I ought to do," I went on, as she brought the plastic bag of beans and the bowl of snapped ones to the table, "is ask what's wrong with you. I declare, Lillian, neither you nor Sam have been yourselves lately." "I don't know nothin' 'bout Mr. Sam," she said, busying herself with spreading the morning's newspaper on the table. "He actin' like he always do, far's I can tell." "No, he's not. You just don't know the half of it." I took a handful of beans and began stringing them on the newspaper. "He's been sending flowers, for one thing. Well, you've seen them. They're all over the house." "That's 'cause he know you sad an' lonesome with Miss Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd gone to live with that Mr. Pickens. He know you miss 'em, an' he tryin' to cheer you up." "That's probably true." I nodded in agreement. "But one arrangement and one potted plant would've been a gracious plenty for any cheering up he wanted to do." I dropped snapped pieces into the bowl and reached for another handful of beans. "About the time one arrangement begins to wilt, here come two more. And the notes, Lillian, you just haven't seen those notes." "No'm, 'cause you won't let me." "No, and I'm not going to. Or anybody else, for that matter. Embarrassing is what they are." Lillian cut her eyes at me, then laughed in the old way, her gold tooth shining. It struck me that she'd done precious little laughing since Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd had packed most of their belongings and moved in with Mr. J. D. Pickens. Just to see if it'd work out, Hazel Marie'd said. Mr. Pickens was that private investigator I'd once hired, who set about winning Hazel Marie's heart without one word being said about making the situation legal. Except by me, who'd had plenty to say on the subject. Believe me, I won't ever employ a handsome man with a roving eye and an aversion to matrimony again. "What them notes say?" Lillian asked. She got up to turn down the heat under the pot where she'd put a chunk of streak-of-lean on to boil. "Never mind what they said. But you'd be worried about him, too, if you knew." I took a trembling breath, recalling some of the poetic passages that had accompanied the flowers, all in Sam's handwriting. "Then, Lillian, he calls me every day, just wanting to talk, he says. Now, you know how I hate talking on the telephone when nobody has anything to say. At all hours, too, as if some people aren't already in bed or busy with important matters." I stopped, then went on to tell it all. "And another thing. He drops by to see me without a by-your-leave or anything, just shows up right out ofRoss, Ann B. is the author of 'Miss Julia Hits the Road' with ISBN 9780670032075 and ISBN 0670032077.