Miss Julia To The Rescue Part 15

However it had happened, I was saddened for them, stuck as they were with indelible dermal designs.

Shuddering a little at the thought, I was glad to approach the gathering of ladies, many of whom smiled and waved at me. As I joined them, I felt relieved to be among familiar faces and unadorned arms and necks. Well, except for strings of pearls, lockets, a few diamond tennis bracelets and several charm bracelets, all of which were perfectly normal and appropriate, and could be removed at any time. I put the pitiful young couple out of my mind and set about to enjoy the party-until I met our hostess.

Chapter 29.

Mildred watched with a peculiar smile on her face as she introduced me to Agnes Whitman, and I must say that it took an act of will to keep my composure and respond courteously to Miss Whitman's welcome. The woman was skinny as a rail, one of those thin edgy types whose eyes bore into you. On that hot day, she was dressed in a long-sleeved, high-neck silk blouse with a long flowing skirt that flipped around her ankles. And sandals-sandals that revealed long toes with rings on them. And after I had gone back and forth about the kind of shoes I should wear. Her hair was pulled back tightly from her face, then fell long and straight down her back all the way to her waist. It was dark with plenty of gray, which might make you think she cared little about her looks, but you'd be wrong. When she turned her head to speak to Mildred, who was still silently amused at my reaction, I saw scars behind her ear. Face-lift, I thought, having seen such scars a few times before, but to my mind this one hadn't been too successful-her eyes had a definite slant to them and her face was so tight that her lips looked like two thin lines.

I don't mean to be critical. If somebody wants a face-lift and can afford it, why, go ahead and have one. I, myself, was just waiting for an arm lift.

But Agnes Whitman's drastic face-lift wasn't the worst of it. It was her earrings that drew my eyes and kept them there, in spite of my trying to look everywhere but at them. They were so long that they dangled to her shoulders and so heavy that her earlobes were stretched. But the absolute worst was how those earrings were attached. I stared-I couldn't help it. Her earlobes were filled with ... well, I don't know what to call them ... plugs, I guess, or maybe round corks from which a number of jangling chains and disks hung. I declare, the woman looked like a Zulu chieftain in a National Geographic magazine.

"Thank you for having me," I managed to say, shaking Miss Whitman's extended hand. "Your home is lovely." A more descriptive word would have been impressive, which wouldn't have expressed a personal judgment on a matter of taste, but courtesy had been too long ingrained in me. So I lied, which in a social setting is entirely forgivable.

"I'm so glad you like it," Agnes said, her eyes, which I noted were slightly popped, whether from birth or from surgical intervention I couldn't tell, giving me the once-over. "I designed it myself."

"Remarkable," I murmured, inwardly relieved that I wouldn't have to find another architect for my project.

"Please," Agnes said, indicating a linen-covered table in the shade of the cabana, "have something to eat. And drink. There's wine and mint juleps, or if you'd like something straight, just tell the barman." Then turning to give me that pop-eyed stare again, she abruptly said, "So glad to meet you, but I see someone else coming. Excuse me."

I glanced back toward the house and saw Helen Stroud walking toward us. "Mildred," I said as our hostess moved away, "why didn't you warn me?"

"I did," she whispered. "I told you I hadn't seen her in years and didn't know what to expect. And I told you she was a little strange. But you have to admit she's interesting. I told you that, too."

"Well, yes, you did. But let's get out of the sun. I'm about to melt." As we wandered toward the table, I went on. "I hope the something straight is lemonade."

Just as we arrived at the table, which was covered with trays of fruit and vegetables as well as a variety of cheeses and nuts, without a ham biscuit in sight, LuAnne Conover came rus.h.i.+ng over.

"Julia, Mildred," she whispered, her eyes bright and darting around, "did you see that valet? Have you ever seen anything like all that metal on his face? I nearly died. And the maid! Honey, she is covered with tattoos."

"Sh-h-h, LuAnne," Mildred said, laughing. "Not so loud."

"Well, I don't care," LuAnne returned right smartly. "If somebody wants to freak herself out like that, she has to expect to be talked about. But let me tell you what Marlene told me." She leaned in close as the three of us huddled to hear the latest. "She said she'd heard that Agnes herself is covered with tattoos and that's why she's wearing that blouse in this heat. She didn't want to shock us at first meeting."

My head, along with Mildred's, swiveled around to look at our hostess, who was chatting with Helen.

"Surely not," I said, although I had wondered at the long sleeves and high neck of Agnes's blouse-not exactly what one would expect at an outdoor party.

"Well, I'm just pa.s.sing on what Marlene said," LuAnne went on. "She said Agnes has full-sleeve tattoos, like that maid. That's what it's called-full-sleeve because it runs from shoulder to wrist, and it's considered body art, of all things."

"Art, my foot!" Mildred said, drawing back in surprise. "Art is what you hang on the wall."

"I'm just telling you what I heard, but we'd better be careful before getting too close with her. You never know."

As soon as I got a look at the young man tending bar, I was inclined to agree with her. Having walked over to the table set up with drinks, intending to ask for something cold and unlaced, I turned on my heel, deciding I could do without. The bartender had a two-inch metal rod stuck straight through the septum of his nose, and all I could think of was how it must've hurt going through. I also wondered how in the world he kept it clean.

I walked out of the cabana into the shade of the awning and met Pastor Poppy Peterson, who was heading for the table. Poppy was an a.s.sistant minister and one of my favorite people, even though she was a Methodist. She was her usual luscious-looking self, dressed today in a sundress that revealed her smooth, creamy shoulders and a discreet decolletage. Apparently having given no thought to the perils of walking on gra.s.s, she had on high heels that almost qualified as stilts-three inches at a minimum and open toed to display bright red toenails.

"Miss Julia!" she said, a smile lighting her face. "I'm so glad to see you. How are you?"

"Hot, ill at ease and disturbed. How are you?"

Her laughter, always close to the surface, bubbled up. "I don't need to ask you why. My only question is why I was invited."

"Because Mildred and I put you on the list," I told her and went on to explain how that had come about. "We had no idea what we were getting into and, frankly, I still have no idea. What is it with these people, Poppy?"

"Let's walk over here out of the way," Poppy said, taking my arm and moving toward a table with an umbrella. "I've already filled my plate once and don't need to again. It's all vegetarian anyway."

We sat at the table beside the pool, and Poppy scooted her chair close to mine so we could talk. "It's like this-I think," she said, her voice pitched low. "I got here fairly early, so I had the benefit of a long talk with Agnes, or rather of listening to a long talk by Agnes. In fact, I think she was just waiting for me. She started by asking me how I'd decided to become a Christian minister-that's the way she put it, with the emphasis on Christian. But instead of letting me answer, she announced that she's a minister, too, but a minister of a much older religion than the Christian church. Then she went into this long song and dance about the necessity of strengthening the bond of mind, body and soul, which I gather are inclined to fly apart if you don't. According to her, if you want to become a complete human being and experience the divine, you have to enhance your life by celebrating certain ancient rituals that she would be happy to explore with me."

"What in the world was she talking about?"

"Beats me," Poppy said, shrugging her shoulders. "I just told her I was already celebrating an ancient ritual every day in my devotions and once a month with Communion. Then I invited her to the Methodist church, which didn't go over too well. I think," Poppy went on with a conspiratorial grin, "I've lost my place on her invitation list."

"I'm taking my name off as well," I said, although I wasn't as sanguine about it as Poppy. I was still distressed by what I'd seen and by what might be seen under Agnes's blouse if she took it off. "Well," I went on, "she may be off on a tangent as far as religion is concerned, but we do have to give her credit. Not many people would employ those poor misled refugees from a motorcycle gang. I know I'd hesitate to have them around every day."

Poppy crossed her arms on the table and hunched closer. "I don't think they're from a motorcycle gang. They may be members of that church Agnes was talking about. I mean, if you can call it a church, given that it's nontheistic, but it's probably part of some New Age movement that's essentially pagan, which means not new at all but as old as the hills. If it's what I think it is, they're into ritualistic manipulation of the body with piercings and tattoos and even cutting the skin to make decorative scars. The idea is to test the limits of what the body can take."

I was horrified. "Why?"

"Well, obviously, I don't understand it. But we studied cults a little in seminary, and there is one that encourages a kind of alteration of the body. You know, by decorating it and changing the way it looks."

"You mean like having a face-lift?"

Poppy laughed. "I doubt cosmetic surgery qualifies as a religious ritual, but I guess it could. I'd certainly do a lot of praying before having any."

I nodded, thinking of something Hazel Marie had said. "What about having surgery on a woman's stretch marks?"

"You mean a tummy tuck?" Poppy smiled and patted my arm as if she knew what I was thinking. "I wouldn't worry about something like that. That's putting things back the way they were, not adding things like whole sleeve tattoos or covering your back with designs or piercing yourself everywhere. And even those don't always have a spiritual dimension-probably most don't." Poppy thought for a minute, then sat up straight, a frown on her face. "I wish I could remember what we studied-well, not studied-it was just mentioned in cla.s.s along with a number of other cultic practices. But if Agnes really is a minister, then these people out here could be part of her congregation."

An intense look pa.s.sed across Poppy's face. "I'm going to look up my notes and do some research as soon as I get home. I sure don't want our young people getting involved in it. We have a hard enough time with the Baptists' enticing them with basketball courts and game rooms and so on."

"Let me know what you find out," I said, thinking of the Presbyterian young people and, of course, of one in particular. And thinking also that I should warn Pastor Ledbetter about this hotbed of freakish behavior in our midst. If, that is, he could ever get world travels off his mind.

Chapter 30.

As soon as the tattooed valet brought my car around, I hopped in as spryly as I could manage, took off the hat that kept grazing everything in sight and threw it on the pa.s.senger seat. I drove away disturbed and saddened by the strange ways that people sought meaning in life, or perhaps sought attention by being different. I could've told them a better way to have both meaning and attention, but I wasn't asked and doubted I ever would be.

The strangest thing, though, was that Agnes Whitman, after greeting me warmly enough, seemed to avoid me the rest of the afternoon.

But maybe I was being too sensitive. There had been a lot of guests-maybe thirty or so-not only from the list that Mildred had given her but also many of her Fairfields neighbors as well, and as the hostess, she'd had to mingle. But every time I had approached a group she was with, she'd moved away to another one. I couldn't think why she didn't want my company-she had invited me, after all-but perhaps I was reading too much into her actions. Perhaps the way she always kept one step beyond me was unintentional.

One other possibility occurred to me. Maybe she'd seen Poppy and me huddled together and a.s.sumed we'd discussed her, which, I must admit, would've been a correct a.s.sumption. But she would not have had to worry about defending her beliefs to me, in spite of her efforts to proselytize Poppy. I am a firm believer in avoiding discussions of politics and religion in a social setting and simply would not have put up with it.

Besides, what I'd wanted to talk to her about wasn't religion, but Adam Waites and the fact that he was committed to me for some weeks to come. I'd wanted to make sure she understood that he wasn't available until I was through with him. And, actually, when it came right down to it, I needed Adam working at my house. I needed things to progress, to see changes, to have something new and different to think about-like how well a new room or two were shaping up. The fact of the matter was that Lloyd had had his last final exam that very day, and more than likely, he had started packing up his stuff while I was out partying.

Trying not to dwell on the emptiness I was feeling, I drove home with all that Poppy had said running through my mind, wondering how anybody would willingly undergo the pain of an electric needle on sensitive flesh, much less the agony of piercing metal stakes through nose, eyebrows, lips, ears and who knows what else. If such procedures came under the heading of wors.h.i.+p, I was doubly glad I was a Presbyterian, which only required sitting through boring sermons and mumbling through hymns I couldn't sing.

Well, of course there was more to it than that, but I'm talking about just the outward observance in a Presbyterian service. When you got down to the real requirements like treating others as you want to be treated, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and loving the unlovable, they might, in the long run, prove harder and more rigorous than having a metal rod jammed through your nose, although I wouldn't want to do a comparison test.

I went into the house through the front door, castigating myself for not telling Lillian to go home early. I would be the only one for supper, and after attending such an unappetizing social gathering, all I wanted to do was have a snack and sit around feeling sorry for myself, alone and lonely for Sam and Lloyd.

Well, that would have to wait. Seeing that Lillian was still there, I could tell her about the party and what I'd learned about people who believed that nuts and bolts and safety pins stuck into and through tender places would get them to heaven.

So I sailed into the kitchen, saying, "Lillian, you won't believe this, but ..." And stopped as I saw who was sitting at the table with her. "Why, Lloyd, I thought you'd be at your mother's."

He grinned and ducked his head. "I got lonesome for Miss Lillian's cookin'. James can't hold a candle to her, and, well, you know how Mama is in the kitchen." He turned his empty cup around in the saucer, glancing up at Lillian.

Lillian laughed, got up from the table and brought a cup and saucer for me, along with the coffee pot. I sat down with them, pleased to have them both with me.

"Supper'll be ready in a little bit," Lillian said as she poured coffee. "Latisha gone on a day trip-a long day trip-with her cla.s.s, so I'll fix her a plate an' heat it up later. Lloyd," she went on, "tell Miss Julia how Mr. Pickens doin'."

"Oh, he is something else," Lloyd said, delight beaming on his face, "I can't help but laugh, 'cause he's a mess. I mean, in a good way. He can't stand to stay in bed, but it hurts too bad to walk around and he can't sit in a chair too long, even with that pillow he carries everywhere. James has to go to the kitchen so he can laugh, and Mama wants J.D. to stay in bed, so she gives him back rubs all day to keep him still. She says he'll never heal if he keeps moving around like he's doing."

"She gonna spoil that man," Lillian said. "But 'bout the onliest time you can keep a man like that still is when he sick or gun shot. So I guess she makin' the most of it while she can."

I laughed at the thought. "At least he won't be running off looking for missing persons anytime soon. She'll have him home for a good while now." Then, sobering at a memory, I went on. "Lloyd, do you know if he's heard from that sheriff yet?"

"No'm." He shook his head. "I don't think so. He told Mama that it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know Coleman was going to call the sheriff, but so far he's not been able to get him."

"Sheriff McAfee is a hard man to pin down. It took hours for Etta Mae and me to even get in to see him, then he avoided us by sending us to the wrong church, and now it's like he doesn't know or care that he's lost his prime suspect or witness or whatever label he's hung on Mr. Pickens. I don't know what to think, but I wish he'd do something so we could put this behind us."

"Jus' watch," Lillian said. "He be showin' up here sooner or later, or sendin' somebody 'cause I bet he want Mr. Pickens back up there."

"Well, if he does," I said, "I hope he has a better way to transport him than we had. I don't think Mr. Pickens could stand another trip like that, even if he is on the mend. Anyway," I went on, "let me tell you about the garden party."

I briefly described Agnes Whitman's house and grounds, then went into detail describing her valet, maid and barman. And her, as well. "I tell you, I've never seen anything like it. They've just ruined their bodies and, as far as I'm concerned, their lives as well. And the strangest thing was that, according to Poppy, all that metal and ink could be connected to some kind of religion. Have either of you heard of anything like that?"

Lloyd's frown had gotten deeper the longer I spoke. "No'm," he said, "but our tennis coach has a tattoo up high on his arm. I guess it could be something religious, but I don't think so 'cause he goes to the Episcopal church. It kinda looks like an anchor, but I'm not sure. He always wears s.h.i.+rts with sleeves."

"Well, see," I said, sure that my point had been proved, "he keeps it covered up. I expect he wishes he hadn't gotten it, but he probably did it when he was in the service and didn't know any better. And now he has to live with it, and those poor souls at the Whitman place will, too."

"No," Lloyd said, slowly shaking his head. "They might not have to. I think now those things can be removed with laser surgery or something. I think it takes a long time, though, and it's pretty expensive. Probably painful, too."

"Well, from what Poppy said, enduring pain is part of it-you know, while they're getting stuck or cut or pierced, so I guess they wouldn't mind a little more. But I'll tell you the truth, I've never felt the least bit religious when a doctor comes at me with a flu shot."

"Law," Lillian said, getting up from the table, "all this talk about needles an' safety pins give me the s.h.i.+vers. It all I can do to wear clip-on earbobs of a Sunday. Y'all 'bout ready for supper?"

I stood, too. "I'll set the table. You're eating with us, aren't you, Lloyd?"

"Yes'm, and staying the night, too, if that's all right."

I beamed at him, my heart lightened. "It's always all right, and you don't ever have to ask."

"Well, good, because I thought I'd wait to move my stuff until J.D. can help me. He offered to, just as soon as he's well enough."

"That was thoughtful of him," I said, at once serene and comforted. I began laying out the place mats. "We don't want to rush his recovery, though, do we?"

Lillian suddenly turned from the stove. "Oh, Miss Julia, I forget to tell you. That carpenter been up yonder hammerin' all day, an' he say 'fore he left to tell you he can't work tomorrow. He promised a lady to do something for her, but he be back soon as he can."

"What!" I spun around, immediately upset at being left in the lurch by someone I was depending on. "He can't do that-just walk off the job without a fare-thee-well. He's supposed to be reliable and professional, at least that's what I was told. Now what am I going to do?" I stood there with a handful of silverware, just so put out with this turn of events. "I'm calling Mildred."

Chapter 31.

A lot of good that did, for Mildred had no solution for me.

"He didn't say who he'd be working for?" she asked.

"No, but you know who it has to be, don't you? Agnes avoided me all afternoon, so I think she already knew he'd be at her house tomorrow. I am just done in about this, Mildred. I expect people to do what they say they'll do when they say they'll do it."

"I don't know what to tell you, Julia," Mildred responded. "It's not like Adam to walk off a job. So if it is Agnes, he must feel obligated to her in some way. Maybe he made her a promise, and she called him on it sooner than he expected." Mildred paused as we both thought about it. "What are you going to do?"

"I've a good mind to fire him. Except I don't know who to get in his place. Not many people want to come in and complete a job somebody else has started. But, Mildred, Sam'll be home in less than a week and I just hate for him to come back to the mess this house is in. He might talk the pastor into jumping on another plane and going to Africa."

Mildred laughed. "Oh, I doubt that. Did Adam tell Lillian when he'd be back?"

"No, just said as soon as he could, which could be weeks, for all I know."

"That is strange. It's just not like him at all. You know he's so religious, and I'm not talking about talking about it. He tries to live it, too. He once told me that he dedicates every job he does to the Lord. I think something's going on that we don't know about."

"You may be right," I said, calming down a little as I thought about Adam Waites and what might be happening in his life. "I tell you, Mildred, it's like he hasn't had his mind on what he's doing from day one. I gave him specific instructions, all written out and everything, and still he was going off on tangents, planning to stain instead of paint and make a built-in desk when a built-in desk is not on the plan. I asked if he was having trouble at home, but he said no and shrugged it off. But the whole thing put me on alert. I figured I'd have to watch him closely, but now I can't even do that."

"Well, speaking of trouble at home, that daddy of his keeps all those boys on a tight rein. They're all super religious-I mean that's how they were raised-very fundamentalist with no television or movies or parties or anything like that. But the interesting thing about those boys-the ones I've met, that is-is that none of them are rebellious. They're just as happy as they can be." Mildred stopped again, then said as if it were hard to believe, "joyful, even."

After a little more back and forth that produced no answers for my problem, we hung up, leaving me still fuming. I immediately dialed Adam's home number, determined to demand that he return to work and finish what he'd been hired to do. His mother, however, answered the phone and told me that he was working late, which almost sent me into orbit because he wasn't working late at my house. She was so pleasant, though, that I had to be satisfied with leaving a message.