Miss Julia's Marvelous Makeover Read Free Page B

my hand. Hearing his response, I walked into my former sunroom—the one Deputy Bates had rented after Wesley Lloyd Springer left me a somewhat bereaved widow and before Deputy Bates married Binkie—the sunroom that I’d made into Sam’s home office. I was loath to disturb him, because this was one of the few free days he’d had to work on his book since winning the primary the previous month. Of course, having been the party’s only candidate, winning the primary had been a foregone conclusion. “If you’re busy,” I said, though not really meaning it, “this can probably wait. We can talk later.”
    â€œNever too busy for you. Come on in.” Sam had risen from his creaky executive chair behind the desk and pulled a wing chair closer. “Sit down and talk to me. I’m stuck in the year 1966, trying to decide how much to reveal about Judge Alexander T. Dalton. You may remember him better as Monk Dalton.”
    â€œVaguely,” I said, sitting down and trying to show a little interest in the history he was writing about the shenanigans of the local legal community. “Didn’t he have two wives at the same time?”
    Sam laughed. “Yeah, they had him on a bigamy charge until one of the women, the one he’d lived with for years, told him that if he’d make a hefty settlement on her, she’d testify that they’d never had an actual ceremony, and she’d move to Florida. He did and she did, and the charges were dropped.”
    â€œOh, well then. Tell it all, Sam. That’s the kind of book people will buy. But listen, the mail just came and I need your advice.” I held up the letter—written in pencil on lined notebook paper—that I’d just received.
    â€œWho’s it from?”
    â€œElsie Bingham. You don’t know her, but she’s my half first cousin or half cousin, first removed, or something. Her father was my father’s half brother.” I stopped and thought for a minute. “Or maybe his stepbrother, which would make her no kin at all to me. Wouldn’t that be nice.”
    Sam smiled at my sarcasm. “Not good news, then?”
    â€œAbout as far from it as you can get. Listen to this.” I began reading.
    Dear Julia,
    Haven’t heard from you in so long you might be dead as far as I know. But in case your not, guess your still living high on the hog like you always did.
    I let the letter fall to my lap in disgust. “Wouldn’t that just frost you! A nice way to start a letter to someone you haven’t had contact with in forty years.”
    â€œKinda puts you off, doesn’t it?” Sam agreed.
    â€œI’ll say. But she was always like that. Well, listen to the rest of it.” I lifted the letter and began again to read:
    I know you remember the summer you spent with us on the farm which is gone now and good riddance I say, except we’re on another one just as bad. Or worse. Anyway your mother was sick and died from whatever she had so that’s why we had to take you and your sisters in and feed and cloth every one of you all summer long cause your daddy was to broke up to lift a hand for his own children.
    â€œI say, feed and clothe us! That was the worst summer of my life. And I happen to know that Papa sent money to Uncle Poseyto take care of all our needs. What he actually did with it is another matter because we ate a lot of corn bread and buttermilk and you wouldn’t believe the amount of beans. And as far as clothing us is concerned, by the time we were sent home we’d outgrown everything we owned. Papa had to send Pearl downtown with us to buy school clothes. You should’ve seen what we ended up with, but Elsie’s right about one thing. Papa was out of his mind with grief and not responsible, which was when I as the oldest began to take over.”
    â€œAnd did an excellent job of it, I’m sure.”
    â€œI don’t know