Miss Julia Stirs Up Trouble: A Novel Read online

  Also by Ann B. Ross

  Miss Julia to the Rescue

  Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle

  Miss Julia Renews Her Vows

  Miss Julia Delivers the Goods

  Miss Julia Paints the Town

  Miss Julia Strikes Back

  Miss Julia Stands Her Ground

  Miss Julia’s School of Beauty

  Miss Julia Meets Her Match

  Miss Julia Hits the Road

  Miss Julia Throws a Wedding

  Miss Julia Takes Over

  Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA / Canada / UK / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

  Copyright © Ann B. Ross, 2013

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA

  Ross, Ann B.

  Miss Julia stirs up trouble / Ann B. Ross.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-60616-2

  1. Springer, Julia (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women—North Carolina—Fiction. 3. Cooking—Fiction. 4. North Carolina—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

  PS3568.O84198M5725 2013

  813'.54—dc23

  2012039880

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book is for Pamela Brown Silvers and for Patricia Toner, computer experts extraordinaire. Each of them has, at various times and for various reasons (mostly because of errors on my part), rescued me from the clutches of my wayward computer: For Pat who has the patience of Job and for Pam who always has the answers. Thank you.

  Contents

  Also by Ann B. Ross

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Lillian’s Extras

  LuAnne’s Helpful Household Hints

  List of Recipes

  The recipes collected by Miss Julia for Hazel Marie’s edification can be found within the text. Lillian’s recipes for side dishes and the like are listed at the end. A complete list of the recipes with page numbers is in the back of the book. Enjoy!

  Chapter 1

  Stepping carefully onto the newly sodded patches of grass at the side of the house, I stood by a hydrangea bush for a few minutes, admiring the graceful lines of my new Williamsburg chimney. Reassured that it was worth what it had cost to have it, I strolled across the lawn to the arbor near the back fence. After brushing dried leaves from the bench, I sat down to revel in the glorious October day. I marveled at the clear, blue sky—Carolina blue, as Lloyd called it—and the molten gold leaves of the gingko tree on the edge of Mildred’s lawn next door. A light breeze ruffled through the almost leafless wisteria vine overhead, as a feeling of peace and gratitude for our blessings filled my soul. All the carpenters, painters, paperhangers, plumbers, and brick masons were long gone, leaving us with a remodeled and redecorated house. Well, not the whole house, but three rooms had been remodeled and redecorated. Even better, extra furnishings, like the bedroom rug, which had been rolled into a stumbling block in the hall, were out of the house and the mattress was off the dining room table and back on our bed where it belonged. My house had been returned to its ordered self, and at least for these few minutes, all seemed right with the world.

  Sam, my darling husband—acquired late in life, but all the more precious because of it—was home from his travels, working now in his new office in the old sunroom upstairs and loving it. “The best and most efficient office I’ve ever had, Julia,” he’d told me, but I think that was because I’d had the foresight to put in the semblance of a tiny kitchen in a closet—a coffeepot and an under-the-counter refrigerator so he didn’t have to tromp downstairs every time he wanted something to drink. The hall bathroom was right next door, too.

  And Lloyd. My heart lifted as I thought of the boy foisted on me by my deceased first husband by way of a long-term adulterous situation, the boy who had become the center of my life. In spite of the fact that his mother was now well and truly married to Mr. Pickens—an event I’d almost despaired of ever happening—Lloyd didn’t seem eager to leave my house for theirs. He was still in and out, spending the school week with Sam and me and most weekends with his mother and Mr. Pickens four blocks away in Sam’s old house. I worried a little that the odd arrangement would warp his character but, on the other hand, having two homes with two helpings of being loved and wanted couldn’t be harmful. Both apprehensive and excited, he’d started his first year of high school and now, after a couple of months, he was finding that a quick intelligence and a sunny disposition were making a place for him. I couldn’t help but notice that he was still smaller and, in spite of his usual serious demeanor, younger-seeming than his classmates, many of whom were on the verge of manhood with their husky physiques and voices. And, actually, he was younger, for Hazel Marie had let him skip a grade before they came to live with me. Yet I had no worries about Lloyd fitting in. He was making new friends and meeting the new challenges set by his teachers. He was the joy of my life and, as I thought of him, I knew that at least for this moment in time, all was right with him and with the world.

  Hazel Marie had her challenges as well, and to my constant amazement, considering the fact that she’d had such a disreputable background to overcome, she was meeting them head on. Who would have ever thought that the overpainted woman who’d flounced up to my door, bastard son by her side, announcing to me and the
world what Wesley Lloyd Springer had been doing before he passed over, would turn out to be a sweet and valued friend, as well as an accepted member of Abbotsville society, such as it was? Those twin baby girls—born, I am happy to say, firmly within wedlock—took almost all her time, but she would have it no other way. I had made the mistake of suggesting within Latisha’s hearing that she employ a nanny or, at least, an au pair to give her a rest from the constant demands. Hazel Marie rejected the suggestion—she couldn’t turn her babies over to anyone else—but Latisha decided that when she grew up she wanted to be either an au pair, once she learned what an au pair was, or a rock star. Lillian just rolled her eyes at her little great-grand.

  Mr. J. D. Pickens, an erstwhile rambling man, seemed as contented as I’d ever known him to be, or as a freelance private investigator can be. I’d fretted a little about Hazel Marie’s devotion to those babies, fearful that he’d feel left out, which I understand can occur when a wife is too busy or too tired to address her marital duties. When I carefully broached the subject to Hazel Marie, she assured me that Mr. Pickens lacked nothing in that department, and from what I can tell by the smug look on his face, she wasn’t wrong. James, who’d looked after Sam for years before our marriage disrupted their cozy nest, is still with the Pickens family and, though he and I have a prickly relationship, I’m grateful that their kitchen is in good hands, which means that no one is going hungry. James rarely turns his hands in the rest of the house, but with playpens and toys and strollers and high chairs strewn everywhere, there’s not much he can do in the way of keeping a neat house.

  I leaned my head back against the bench, thinking with deep pleasure about my loved ones, safe and thriving and prospering—all was, indeed, right with my world.

  “Miss Julia!” I looked up to see Lillian waving a dishrag at me from the back stoop. “Miss Hazel Marie wants you!”

  I came to my feet and hurried to the house. It wasn’t like Lillian to yell across the yard, so one drastic image after another flashed through my mind.

  “What is it?” I gasped, my heart pounding by the time I reached her. “Is it Lloyd? The babies?”

  “Neither one,” Lillian said, her eyes big. “They jus’ take James to the hospital.”

  “Oh, my word.” I flew to the telephone and picked it up. “Hazel Marie? What happened?”

  “He fell, Miss Julia!” Hazel Marie’s voice was filled with panic. “Down the stairs on the side of the garage, you know, coming down from his apartment. I was so scared I didn’t know what to do, but thank goodness J.D. was here. He called the EMTs, and he just called me from the emergency room. James’s right wrist or hand or something is broken so he has to have a cast. And he sprained his ankle, too, but they just wrapped it up.” She stopped and took a deep breath with a catch of fear beneath it. “I thought he’d killed himself.”

  “But he’s all right?” I asked. “I mean, other than that?”

  “J.D.’s bringing him home, so I guess so. I’m putting him in the back bedroom because he can’t go up and down the stairs anytime soon, and I’ll feel better having him close by. He can’t even walk by himself, Miss Julia.”

  “Oh, my. But they’ll give him some crutches, won’t they?”

  “J.D. said he can’t use them because the cast practically covers his hand. Oh, the poor thing—we’re all so upset over it.”

  They were going to be upset over more than that, I thought, when Hazel Marie, the world’s most inept cook, had to take James’s place in the kitchen.

  It just goes to show that when you have a few minutes to glory in everything being right with the world, you’d better enjoy them while you can. It’s never long before something comes along to turn your world inside out and upside down again.

  “We better take supper to ’em,” Lillian said, opening the freezer door. “Sound like nobody fit to do any cookin’ over there, so good thing I got enough pork chops to go ’round.”

  “Yes, thank you, Lillian. I’ll run up and tell Sam about James.”

  “He already know,” Lillian said, just as I heard Sam’s footsteps on the stairs. “He pick up the phone same time I did.”

  I went to meet him in the hall, knowing that he’d be concerned. James had been with Sam for years before we married and Sam thought the world of him, even though James got a little more averse to work every year that passed. Still, they’d gotten along well until Sam had brought me into the mix. There was no way in the world I would’ve put up with James’s languid attitude toward getting things done. I’d once heard him tell Lillian that he enjoyed work, so much so that he could sit and look at it all day long. So it had been arranged for James to stay with the Pickens family when they took up residence in Sam’s house. I didn’t want him underfoot at my house and James didn’t want me pointing out work to him.

  “Hazel Marie said they’re bringing him home,” I said as I met Sam at the foot of the stairs, “so he must not be too bad off. Are you going over?”

  “Yes, I better see about him. I’ll tell you the truth, Julia—James is not an easy patient. The year he had the flu—a really bad case of it, too—I was up and down the stairs all day and half the night taking care of him.” Sam smiled as he remembered. “I made the mistake of rigging up a bell that would ring in the house when he needed something. They’re going to have their hands full with him.”

  “I doubt Mr. Pickens will be as compliant as you, and I expect James will find that out soon enough. Anyway, tell Hazel Marie that we’re bringing supper so she doesn’t have to worry about that.” I walked to the door with Sam. “How long do you think he’ll be in a cast?”

  “I don’t know. Five or six weeks, maybe, depending on how severe the break is.”

  Good Lord, I thought. In five or six weeks the Pickens family would be either poisoned from Hazel Marie’s cooking or starved half to death.

  Chapter 2

  Lillian and I began wrapping foil around bowls and bagging other ingredients for the supper she planned to cook in the Pickens kitchen.

  “Oh,” I said, putting a plastic tie on the last bag, “I better let Lloyd know where we’ll be. I don’t want him coming home to an empty house.”

  Pleased with my new knowledge of up-to-date messaging systems, I began to text to his cell phone. He had shown me how to do it, but I was not as dexterous as he and his friends were, their little thumbs flying over the keyboards. Still, with time and thought, I could send a message which I knew he wouldn’t get until the final bell rang. Checking his messages would be the first thing he did when students were allowed to access their cell phones, so I typed in:

  GO TO UR MOTHERS AFTER SCHOOL. XOXO.

  “There,” I said as I pressed OK to send it. “Quick, easy, and understandable. I hope. Although every time I type a message, I worry about the next generation’s spelling skills. Or lack of.”

  As Lillian and I took bags and pots to my car, she said, “I forget to tell you, but somebody called Miss Hazel Marie right before she called.”

  “Who was it?”

  “He didn’t say. Jus’ ast for her an’ when I say she not here, he kinda grunt an’ hang up.”

  “Somebody selling something, probably, or wanting her to donate to some cause or another. He’ll call back if it was important.”

  When we arrived at the Pickens house and walked up onto the front porch laden with our half-cooked supper, we could hear James moaning. Well, not moaning, exactly—it was more like the steady, rumbling buzz of a thousand bees issuing from his throat. Hazel Marie had left the door open for us, so we walked into the hall where we heard the humming run up and down the scale. It never reached to a scream, just a rippling drone that let everyone know how miserable the hummer was.

  “I hope he stop that pretty soon,” Lillian mumbled as we made our way to the kitchen.

  “I expect he will,” I said, although the sound was putting my nerves on e
dge. “He’s still getting over the fright of falling and breaking a bone. You know how it is—he’s probably still in shock from it all. You want this pot on the stove?”

  “Yes’m, jus’ put it on a back eye and turn it on low. You think we oughta go in an’ see him?”

  “Yes, let’s do and get it over with. He’ll appreciate our concern, but, I declare, I never know what to say to someone who’s bedridden.”

  So we walked back to the bedroom, the humming sound getting louder as we approached. Sam caught my eye as I walked in and smiled as he lifted James’s foot and pushed another pillow underneath, then carefully lowered the Ace-bandaged limb. Hazel Marie, looking more disheveled than usual, stood by the bed wringing her hands, while Mr. Pickens stacked more pillows for James to rest his arm on.

  “You have to keep your foot and your hand elevated, James,” Mr. Pickens said, arranging the cast-clad arm and hand on the pillows. Only the ends of James’s fingers extended beyond the cast. “Look,” Mr. Pickens went on, “Lillian and Miss Julia have come to see about you. Come on in, ladies—visiting hours just started.”

  Hazel Marie’s face lit up as we moved toward the bed. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you both. Can you believe this? Poor James, he feels so bad.”

  And to prove it, James started humming again. His eyes were half closed and a look of strain wrinkled his face. He was pitiful in his misery.

  “I’m so sorry this happened,” I said to him. Then, in an attempt to encourage him, I went on. “But look at it this way: It could’ve been so much worse. You could’ve broken your ankle instead of just spraining it. I mean, we have to look on the bright side, don’t we?”

  “Can’t be no worse, Miss Julia,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m about stove up for good.” He turned his head away and began to hum again.

  Then suddenly his eyes popped open and his head came up off the pillow. “My forms! My forms!” he cried, then fell back, giving up the effort.

  “What’s he talking about?” I asked.