Miss Julia Lays Down the Law Read Online Free PDF Page A

grated on my nerves so bad that I could hardly sit still. She went on and on until I thought she’d never get through, and, Sam, I’m convinced she, herself, is from New Jersey.” I stopped, tilted my coffee cup absentmindedly, then sighed and looked up. “Well, I might as well tell it all. She publicly humiliated me. And Emma Sue, too, who is just devastated. Oh, Sam, you wouldn’t believe what Connie said about boxwoods, and you know that I donated a
mint
to buy all those miniature boxwoods to line the paths of the park. And you wouldn’t believe what it cost to transplant those big, old ones that make the park look established.” I leaned my head on my hand. “And everybody
knew
that the boxwoods were my gift to the town, and everybody
knew
that the design was Emma Sue’s. And we had to sit there and listen to Connie tell us that the park is a scraggly, poorly designed mess. And I’m so mad at myself for not speaking up, I don’t know what to do. I should’ve said, ‘If you think you can do any better, then do it.’ Except we would’ve ended up with a rock garden edged with wild grasses and reeds. Maybe a puny pond filled with cattails. She likes a natural environment.
    “Oh!” I said, sitting up straight, “you won’t believe what else she wants to do. Make half the park into a
parking lot
! Can you believe it? Here, we have an entire city block for a green space in the middle of town, and she wants to pour concrete over half of it!”
    Sam said, “Well, I’d vote against that.”
    “Me, too,” Lillian said.
    “Sorry,” I said, “you don’t have a vote. Connie’s idea is for us—the leading women of the town, according to her—to take the bull by the horns, the bull being the town council, and push the town into the future whether it wants to go or not.”
    “She won’t get far with that,” Sam said, smiling, as he patted my hand. “I know who’s on the council, and I know at least one leading woman in town.”
    “Well,” I went on, “you haven’t heard the rest of it. This just ran all over me. Besides having to endure her scathing personal criticism—although she pretended to speak in generalities—I had to pretend it didn’t bother me. But everybody knew who she was talking about when she started in on the park. They kept cutting their eyes at us to see how we were taking it. Poor Emma Sue, I thought she was going to dissolve on the spot, while my face burned and my back got so stiff I couldn’t get up and walk out.
    “And even worse, it was ‘My God’ this and ‘My God’ that until I wanted to slap her silly.”
    Lillian said, “I thought you say she don’t b’lieve in prayin’.”
    “She wasn’t praying, Lillian. She was using
expletives
. You know, like ‘My God, that park is awful,’ and ‘My God, what is wrong with you people to put up with a town like this?’ It’s bad enough to have to hear it said all over television whenever anybody likes something or when they don’t like something. It’s ‘Oh, my God’ this and ‘Oh, my God’ that, and no one seems to think a thing about it.”
    Lillian, frowning, gave me a long look.
    “Don’t be frowning at me, Lillian. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s a different matter when I say ‘Oh, Lord,’ or you call on Jesus. What we say is not the same thing at all. They call on God without a thought in the world of getting a response—Connie certainly didn’t think she would. That’s what taking the Lord’s name in vain means. You and I, on the other hand
,
know we’re addressing someone and, furthermore, we
expect
an answer.”
    Lillian nodded in full agreement. “Yes, ma’am, and amen, we sure do. That’s what we askin’ for.”
    And Sam looked from one to the other of us. Then that amused smile of his spread across his face. “If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d think the two of you were trained by Jesuits. You may be doing what I’d call a little