Miss Julia Hits the Road Page 2

  “I’ve seen it, which is more than I ever wanted.” I motioned him to my Duncan Phyfe sofa, now covered in a bright yellow chintz instead of the maroon velvet that my lately deceased husband, Wesley Lloyd Springer, had thought appropriate for our living room. I sat in the matching Victorian ladies’ chair across from Sam and studied him. “What in the world has possessed you, Sam, to get on such a machine as that life-threatening thing out there?”

  “Oh, just one of those things I’ve always wanted to do,” he said as he leaned back and made himself comfortable. “And I decided that if I don’t do some of them soon, I never will. We’re not getting any younger, Julia. Have to do them while we can.”

  “Well,” I said, with a glare at Lillian, who was standing in the arch to the dining room, still admiring Sam’s leather outfit. “That’s the second time today I’ve been reminded of my age, and I’ll thank you not to bring it up again.”

  Sam laughed. “That’s the thing, Julia. We’re both healthy and active and interested in what’s going on in the world. But if we just sit down and rest on the past, we’ll grow old in a hurry. So I decided to try something new and fun for a change.” He patted the helmet in his lap and smiled in a dreamy sort of way. “Always wondered what it’d be like to take a Harley out on the open road and ride with the wind, free as a bird.”

  “I say, free as a bird.” I shook my head at such an irresponsible notion. “You are a grown man, respected and admired by everybody who knows you, and by many who don’t. And to suddenly want to have fun, why, Sam, that is not the be-all and end-all of life, as you well know. Why in the world would you want to turn back the clock and turn yourself into a Hell’s Angel or something?”

  “Lots of people ride, Julia, and they’re not all Hell’s Angels—or anything like them. I’m joining a motorcycle club that has a lot of professional men in it, all just liking to ride and enjoy the great outdoors.”

  My skeptical look must’ve stirred him, for he went on. “They do a lot of good, too. They have charity runs, for instance, raising money for any number of good causes like St. Jude’s Hospital for Children and Toys for Tots around Christmas. You’d be surprised at what all they do.”

  “I probably would, seeing that I’ve read about those so-called motorcycle bashes in the newspaper. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Lillian?”

  I turned to her for confirmation, but she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I got beans to see about,” and left for the kitchen.

  “Now, Sam,” I continued, knowing that he needed some straight talking to get him back on track. “That’s not the kind of thing you ought to be involved with, I don’t care how many good causes those people support. They used to have those Woodstock kind of conventions over near Asheville until the city council put a stop to them. Thousands of motorcycle people from every state in the union gathered at a camp-ground, and they just tore up jack. I saw it all on the news, so I know what I’m talking about. I tell you, they disrupted the whole city something awful, all that loud music and swarms of cycles roaring and popping on the roads, tying up traffic and, would you believe, cutting up with such antics as coleslaw wrestling and wet T-shirt contests and other unsavory things I won’t mention, like beer belly contests. That’s just common, Sam, and you shouldn’t be associated with such a bad element. Like I tell Little Lloyd, you’re judged by the company you keep. I think you ought to turn that thing in and get your money back.”

  Sam laughed again—or maybe he hadn’t stopped. “I’m not planning to go to a rally, Julia. Put your mind at rest. The club I’ll be in rides mostly on weekends in groups of ten or so. We’ll go up on the Parkway or stay on the interstate, not in residential areas. Besides, this is the best time of the year to ride—leaves’re turning, the weather’s fine and just cool enough. I tell you, it’ll be something to see the mountainsides with all the colors, then pull off for some barbeque or a picnic. You’ll enjoy it, I promise you will.”

  “And I can promise I won’t. Because I’m not about to get on that thing.” If he expected me to participate in such an unseemly activity, that just showed how far from normal his mental state was.

  “Why, that’s why I came around, Julia. I want to take you for a ride. Now, wait,” he said, as I reared up in my chair. “We’ll just go around the block and let you get used to it.”

  “Yes, and throw me off when you try to stop it, too. No, Sam, I’m not riding on two wheels, no matter who’s trying to drive it. Besides, there’s nowhere for anybody else to sit, and if you think I’d sit on your lap, you’d better think again.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, but there’s a passenger seat on the back with armrests and everything. It’ll be like sitting in your easy chair, and I’ve got a helmet for you, too.”

  I just looked at him, as visions of me straddling that monster with my shirtwaist dress hiked up and flapping in the breeze, holding onto Sam for dear life, flickered through my mind. “You didn’t need to waste your money on any kind of get-up for me, Sam, because it’ll be a cold day before you get me on that machine.

  “The idea!” I went on, as his assumption that I’d just be thrilled to grab onto all that leather and go flying off who-knew-where on a loud, open-air, souped-up piece of machinery struck me as the height of wrong-headed thinking. “How you could even think I’d be interested in such an undignified activity is beyond me, Sam Murdoch. In fact, it’s beneath me and, if you want to know the truth, it’s beneath you, too. No,” I said, shaking my head, “you can just forget about it. I’m not about to swing my . . . my . . . self on that contraption.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up on you, Julia,” Sam said, getting to his feet with those layers of leather creaking with every movement. “I’ll admit, I need a little more practice on it, but I need a partner on that backseat, too. All the other riders in the club bring their wives and girlfriends with them. You wouldn’t want me to be the only one without a good-looking woman perched on the back with her arms wrapped around my waist, would you?”

  I rolled my eyes, seeing no need to answer such a question. I didn’t care if he never had a woman, regardless of her looks, clinging to him. Well, I’d have to rethink that when I had the time to give it adequate attention.

  “Now,” Sam said, looking toward the kitchen. “I need to speak to Lillian a minute. A legal matter she’s concerned about.”

  “Why, what?” I asked, immediately disturbed that I didn’t know that Lillian had any legal matters. “Is she in trouble? Is it her family? What’s going on, Sam, and why hasn’t she said anything to me?”

  “I don’t know, Julia,” Sam said as he headed out of the room. “But right now, she wants to speak to me in private. Besides,” he said, turning back to give me a sly grin, “maybe she’ll ride with me if you won’t.”

  I started to follow him as he pushed through the door to the kitchen but stopped, brought up short by Lillian’s desire for privacy. That worried me. I thought that Lillian and I had no secrets from each other. At least, she knew all of mine.

  But what did I know of hers? Very little, if the truth be known. Oh, I knew that her nephew had been arrested a few times and was now serving time for theft. And I knew both of her daughters had had children out of wedlock, then had left the grandbabies for her to raise while they went up north to find work. And I knew that Lillian’d had at least two husbands, but that neither of them had stayed very long. From what I’d gathered, one had taken off years ago without a word to her, and she’d kicked out the other one. And, wouldn’t you know, but the one she’d sent on his way was the one she talked about and still longed for.

  I knew, also, that Lillian was strong in her faith and within herself. She’d lived her life pretty much on her own, raising two daughters and two granddaughters with hardly a lick of help from anybody, and without one word of complaint. Furthermore, I knew that I had her to thank for keeping me on the straight and narrow every time I was about to bounce off the ceiling. And I knew that I respected
and admired her for her sense of fairness and for her honesty, although on occasion I wished she would keep her opinions to herself, and let me do what I wanted to.

  But I didn’t know a thing about any legal problems. Even more worrisome was why she’d want to talk to Sam about them. Sam had retired from the practice of law a few years back, so he couldn’t give her any official help. And if his current interests in motorcycles, flowers and poetry were any indication of the way his mind was working—or not working—he could even give her bad advice. And Lillian would follow it because she thought the sun rose and set on him.

  The fact that she hadn’t confided in me could’ve hurt my feelings if I’d let myself stew over it. The thing to do, I resolved, was to find out just what was going on that worried her enough to turn to a lawyer who I had plainly told her was more than a little addled in the head. And without saying word one to me.

  Chapter 3

  By the time Sam came back into the living room to say that he wasn’t giving up on me as his backseat partner and I’d told him his foolishness was giving me a headache, I’d decided to tackle the immediate problem that he presented before dealing with Lillian’s legal concerns. First things first, I always say, and my fear for Sam was more pressing than the nagging worry over Lillian.

  I stood on the porch watching as Sam switched on that monster, revving it up and raising so much Cain that the noise reverberated up and down the street. When he got it going to his satisfaction, he guided it, wobbling as he went, out on the street. I gasped as he sped up, overtaking a car, then whipping back in front of it.

  “He’s going to kill himself,” I said, biting my lip as the roar of the motor diminished in the distance.

  Shaking my head in dismay, I wondered how much he was going to enjoy the great outdoors when he was laid up in the hospital in a full-body cast.

  The thing to do, I determined, was to get somebody to talk some sense into him. It was a settled fact that he wasn’t going to listen to me. All he’d done was laugh at my concerns, which was one of the few normal things he was still doing.

  The first person I could turn to was Deputy Coleman Bates. Sam might listen to him and take heed, since Coleman had honored Sam by asking him to be the best man at his wedding to Binkie. And, besides that, Coleman was a law enforcement officer who could warn Sam in ways that I couldn’t. Maybe describe some accidents he’d seen; tell him what happens to a rider when there’s nothing between him and the pavement or a logging truck. Lord, Sam would be nothing but a greasy spot if he had a wreck on that thing.

  With such worrisome thoughts in my mind, I went upstairs to use the telephone by my bed, not wanting Lillian to overhear me. If she could have secrets, so could I. Besides, she’d seemed too entranced with motorcycles in general to be worried about who was trying to steer one, and who was doing a poor job of it, too, I might add. Even I, with no experience of those two-wheeled machines, could tell that.

  Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Coleman was on patrol and couldn’t be reached.

  “Could I leave a message, then?” I asked the dispatcher.

  “We can’t take personal messages on this line,” he informed me. “Is it urgent?”

  “Well, I should say it is,” I snapped. “If an inexperienced and disturbed individual weaving in and out of traffic isn’t urgent, I don’t know what is.”

  “Somebody’s driving while impaired?”

  “That’s it! I would certainly say he is impaired, and Coleman needs to straighten him out before he kills himself.”

  “Where is this individual, ma’am?”

  “Oh, he’s home by now, so just tell Coleman to call me first, then go on over there. He knows where Sam lives.”

  “Uh, ma’am, this wouldn’t be Mrs. Julia Springer, would it?”

  “Why, yes. How did you know?”

  After leaving a message for Coleman to call me, I hung up, thinking again of how pleasant it was to live in a small town where everybody knows everybody and their business. Of course it had its drawbacks, too—especially when you didn’t want everybody knowing your business.

  Disappointed not to get Coleman, I went to the next person who might be able to get through Sam’s hard head. As I dialed, I thought again of how empty the house seemed without Little Lloyd in it. Not that he was a boisterous child, not at all, just as quiet and mannerly as anybody could want. But he filled up the spaces just by being around, and I missed him something awful.

  “Hazel Marie,” I said when she answered, “I need to speak to Mr. Pickens. Is he there?”

  “No, not yet. He’ll be home about suppertime. At least, he said he would. Anything I can do?”

  “I wish there were, but I’m afraid not,” I said with a sigh. “Oh, Hazel Marie, it is just so pitiful. I never thought I’d live to see the day when an active, intelligent man started down the road to wrack and ruin.”

  “Oh, Miss Julia, who’s in that kind of trouble?”

  I could hear the immediate concern and sympathy in Hazel Marie’s voice. She was so pleasing in that respect, her heart always going out to whoever was suffering or in dire straits.

  “It’s Sam,” I said woefully, as the thought of the deterioration of that great and decent man overwhelmed me. “You won’t believe what he’s up to.” I went on to tell her what he’d taken to wearing, what he’d bought to ride on, and what he expected me to do with him on it. “And Hazel Marie, he’s spending a fortune on flowers, and he’s writing some of the worst poetry you’d ever hope to read, and changing his manner of dress, and coming over here every time I turn around, and just making a plain nuisance of himself.”

  There was dead silence on the line, then some muffled noises as she struggled to get her breath.

  “Hazel Marie!” I said. “It’s nothing to laugh about. This is serious, I tell you.”

  “Oh, Miss Julia,” she gasped, as if she’d half strangled herself. “I hate to tell you, but we already know about it. The motorcycle, that is.” She stopped while laughter bubbled out again. “I didn’t know about the flowers and poetry, though. I think that is so sweet.”

  “Sweet!” I should’ve known that would be Hazel Marie’s response. She was so easily taken in by men. Just look at her situation now, to say nothing of her previous one with my husband. Which is exactly what I’ll do—say nothing of it. “I’m worried about him, Hazel Marie, and in spite of all the indications of encroaching senility, he’s been giving legal advice to Lillian, and you know she’ll do whatever he tells her to. And no telling what that’ll be in his current state of mind.”

  “Why does Lillian need legal advice? Is something going on with her?”

  “Don’t ask me,” I said, disturbed again at the thought of Lillian’s secrecy. “I tell you, Hazel Marie, there’s more than one person around here who’s acting strange. Now, listen. I want you to ask Mr. Pickens to talk to Sam and get him off that motorized death trap before it kills him.”

  “I don’t think J. D. would be much help, Miss Julia. You probably don’t want to hear this, but it was J. D. who helped Sam pick out that motorcycle. He’s got one, too, you know.”

  “No! I didn’t know that. But come to think of it,” I went on, “it doesn’t surprise me. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’d expect from Mr. Pickens. But it does surprise me that you’d let him do it.”

  “It’s not so bad,” she said. “In fact, I kinda enjoy it, too. We’ve been riding on the weekends, and Little Lloyd just loves it.”

  “Hazel Marie! You let that child get on the thing? Oh, my goodness, he’s going to be damaged for life. You’ve just got to put a stop to it before something awful happens.”

  “Now, Miss Julia, of course he wears a helmet, and J. D. is real careful when Little Lloyd rides with him.”

  “Thay Lord,” I said, holding my aching head, “I know how that man drives a car. No telling how he drives a motorcycle.”

  “I tell you what,” Hazel Marie said. “Why don’t we come over this weekend and
let J. D. show you how safe it can be? Once you ride on one, you’ll feel a whole lot better about them.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Here was somebody else who was trying to get me on the back of one of those things. And if Hazel Marie thought she could do it, then Sam wasn’t the only one not clicking on all cylinders.

  Well, no help from that quarter, I thought as I hung up the phone. I should’ve known better than to expect anything sensible from Mr. Pickens.

  Then Binkie came to mind—and just as quickly left it. Ordinarily, she’d be the one I’d turn to about Sam, since he thought so much of her that he’d arranged for her to take over his law practice when he retired. Those two were as close as two peas in a pod, and Binkie could’ve given him some straight talk about peril to life and limb, to say nothing of the liabilities he could be stuck with.

  But Binkie was out. That girl was so close to giving birth that she could hardly walk. In fact, the last time I’d talked to her, she’d told me that she was only working part time now. Too tired and uncomfortable to make a full day, she’d said. So she was going home around three o’clock instead of the usual seven or eight.

  I just couldn’t add another burden to the one she was already carrying. So who did that leave?

  Lillian, that’s who. I’d just have to make her understand that Sam needed our help, and that she should be cautious about taking his advice. That way, I could kill two birds with one stone and, between us, we could look after him and talk him into some sedate activity more suited to his age.

  A sudden image of the local shuffleboard court filled with senior citizens flashed in my mind. I shuddered at the thought, but if that’s what it took to get Sam off that death trap, I’d learn to wield one of those sticks with the best of them. At least there’d be less danger from a wayward puck than from a motorcycle flipping in the air.

  What I had to do was ease into a general conversation with Lillian, then gradually persuade her to tell me what was bothering her. I felt justified in using such a tactic because she didn’t need to be taking half-baked legal advice from Sam when I was perfectly willing to help with whatever she needed.