Chapter 41

I fiddled around all morning—checking on Lillian, paying a few bills, thinking about LuAnne—on edge as I wondered if she had rented Miss Mattie’s apartment and how she would do living alone. LuAnne wasn’t cut out for the solitary life. She liked to talk and needed someone to talk to. Or at, as the case usually was.

And still it rained. In sprinkles, then in thundering torrents, the rain kept pouring down.

“Will it never stop?” I asked as Lillian and I sat at the kitchen table for a late morning cup of coffee.

“No’m, don’t look like it,” Lillian said, reaching for the sugar bowl. “Maybe we oughta start thinkin’ ’bout buildin’ us a ark.”

I laughed, although it wouldn’t have been funny to those living near creeks and rivers. They might well be already trying to convert cubits into feet and inches.

“Your foot feeling better?” I asked.

“Yes’m, that medicine set me right, an’ a good thing, too, ’cause it about lunchtime. Lloyd say he eatin’ at that indoor place, but Latisha need to come home. She been bothering Miss Hazel Marie long enough.”

“I’ll go get her. You don’t need to be out in the rain with that foot.” And to that end, I rose to get the car keys and my pocketbook, then to call Hazel Marie to tell her that I was on my way. “I won’t get out, Hazel Marie. Just watch for me, if you will, and send Latisha out. I’ll pull up right in front of your walk.”

I declare, driving the four blocks to the Pickenses’ house was a trial—rain coming steadily down, mist settling in and around the trees, and windshield wipers flapping back and forth like a high-speed metronome. I could hardly see a thing, although I knew the streets like the back of my hand.

Pulling to the curb at Hazel Marie’s house, I lowered the passenger window a tiny bit and saw Hazel Marie in her doorway. She raised one finger, indicating that Latisha wasn’t quite ready, so I rolled the window up, put the car in park, and disengaged the door locks so she could jump in before drowning. But almost immediately Latisha dashed across the porch and down the walk. Wearing a yellow raincoat with her little red pocketbook safely underneath, and her arms full of bags of who-knew-what, she flung open the car door and dove headfirst onto the backseat, spraying rainwater as she came. Then she pulled the door closed.

“Hey, Miss Lady!” she yelled as if I were a mile away instead of in the front seat. “It’s rainin’ cats an’ dogs out there!”

“It sure is,” I agreed, turning to greet her. “Buckle up now, so we can get home before it gets worse.” She pulled the seat belt out and around as I waited to hear it click. Arranging one sack close beside her on the seat, she kept the larger one on her lap.

Then, as if the floodgates had failed, rain commenced drumming hard on the roof. “My word,” I said, looking up, “it’s really coming down now. We’d better wait till it slacks off a little.”

Peering through the windshield, I could barely make out the hood ornament through the pouring rain and the tiny hailstones bouncing on the hood. The windows began to fog up from our breath, so Latisha and I just sat, waiting it out and, speaking for myself, wishing we’d gotten home before the skies opened.

“You know what?” Latisha said, apparently unruffled by the deluge.

“No. What?”

“I’m almost through with my surprise, an’ I still got enough shells to make another one. All I got left to do is fill in a few bare spots on that frame, but Miss Hazel Marie said I oughta let it set awhile to be sure that glue’s gonna hold. So I left it there, an’ I hope to goodness them little girls don’t get ahold of it.”

“Oh, I’m sure Hazel Marie will take care of it. She won’t let the babies . . . what?” I jerked around as I heard rapping on the window by my head.

Looking in at me through the rain, mist, fog, and a large, floppy hood was a watery face and a hand making a rolling motion. Without thinking, except to give aid to a stranded motorist, I rolled my window down a couple of inches, getting rain-splashed for my trouble. “Yes? What is it?”

With my attention focused on the hooded face next to mine, I was just aware enough to register that one of the back doors was suddenly snatched open as Latisha screamed bloody murder. I twisted around, but, held fast by the seat belt, all I could do was glimpse for a split second a dark figure leaning over Latisha. Then, just as quickly, the face beside mine disappeared and the figure in the backseat sprang away, slamming the door behind him. In and out before I knew it.

“Latisha, are you hurt? Are you hurt!” Scrambling to unbuckle my seat belt, my heart pounding and the rain spewing through my window, I leaned over the front seat to get to her. Still strapped in, Latisha had her head thrown back, wailing as if her heart was broken.

“What is it?” I screamed, though I could hardly hear myself through the racket she was making. “What happened? Did he hurt you? Latisha, talk to me. Are you all right?”

She stopped on a dime and closed her mouth, as tears streamed down her face. “My shells,” she sobbed. “He took my shells.”

“Your shells?” I couldn’t believe it. We’d just been accosted in a rainstorm, invaded by two dark figures, and scared half to death, and all that had been taken was a plastic grocery sack of shells? What in the world would anybody want with a bag of seashells, available to anybody who walked on a beach?

Finally catching my breath enough to think halfway clearly, I engaged the door locks, rolled up my window, and shifted the gear into drive.

“We’re getting out of here,” I mumbled, not knowing whether the shell thieves were still around or not, but wanting to get safely home. Squinting through the rain and trembling as I drove, I saw a black vehicle streak past on a cross street, but in the sheets of water pouring down, it could’ve been anything from a pickup to a hearse. One thing was for sure, though, if it had been the same black Suburban we’d been seeing, its occupants had finally made a move. But for what? A sack of shells? We’d have given it to them if they’d asked.

“You all right back there, Latisha?” I dared not take my eyes off the street to check on her, the visibility being so bad. Hunched over the steering wheel, I eased the car along, straining to see the yellow line in the downpour and trembling from having been the victim of criminal intent on the part of someone with no sense whatsoever.

“Yes’m, I guess,” Latisha said, sniffing wetly. “One good thing, though, that ole thief didn’t get Miss Hazel Marie’s glue gun. I still got it, so he’s outta luck if he tries to make something with them shells.”

“She let you bring it with you?”

“Yes’m, I begged her an’ promised I wouldn’t use it ’less somebody watches me.”

“Well, I’m glad he didn’t get it.” But I was concentrating so hard on getting home that I failed to fully appreciate our good fortune in having been robbed by moronic thieves. I mean, my pocketbook was still on the seat beside me, and Latisha’s was still across her shoulders.

So intent was I to stay in the right lane that it wasn’t until I turned into my drive that I realized I’d driven four blocks without buckling my seat belt. “So sue me,” I mumbled. “I don’t care.”

I jumped out, ran around the car to Latisha’s door, unbuckled her, and, grabbing her arm, sprinted for the house.

“Lock the doors, Lillian!” I yelled as we, sopping wet, pushed through into the kitchen. “Hurry, lock the doors!”

Latisha ran to her, burying her face in Lillian’s arms, so it was left to me to run around locking the doors.

“What in the world goin’ on?” Lillian demanded as she took Latisha onto her lap. “What happen to my baby?”

“Oh, Lillian,” I said, collapsing onto a chair beside her, my soaked dress dripping on the floor. “You won’t believe it. I can’t believe it! Latisha, honey, did he hurt you?”

Nestled in Lillian’s arms, she shook her head. “He jus’ get my shells, an’ I’m not even finished with my surprise.”

Lillian hugged her close and said, “But you still got another sackful at home, ’member?”

“Not many,” Latisha said, tears welling up. “An’ they all half broke. My best ones is gone.” Then, straightening up to look at Lillian, she said, “Great-Granny, they’s only one thing to do. We got to go to the beach an’ get some more.”

“Well, not today,” Lillian said, hugging her. Then to me, “What happened to y’all?”

“I’ll tell you the truth, Lillian, I don’t know. It was the strangest thing, and I’m still shaking.” But between us, Latisha and I told her what had happened, and she didn’t understand it any more than we did. “Sam,” I said, springing up, my wet dress clinging to places it shouldn’t have. “I’ve got to get him home. And Lloyd. And warn Hazel Marie.”

“Mr. Sam on his way,” Lillian said. “He called a few minutes ago.”

“Good, he can pick up Lloyd. I’ll feel better with us all safely together.” Then I called Hazel Marie and told her what had occurred right outside her front door.

“So keep your doors locked,” I said, then reassured her that Latisha had not been harmed. “She’s just upset over losing her shells.”

“Oh, bless her little heart,” Hazel Marie said, her voice filled with sympathy. “It took her a whole week to collect so many. I am just so sorry.”

They Lord, I thought, we’d just been the subjects of a well-planned, perfectly coordinated attack by two muggers dumb enough to have snatched something absolutely worthless, and Hazel Marie was mourning the loss.