Well, good for Mr. Pickens for making his views known. But even as I had that thought, two cars pulled up to the curb in front of the Cochran house and five people piled out, two carrying boxes, two others loaded down with stacks of linens and blankets, and the last carefully carrying a lamp. They were moving in—hurriedly, almost surreptitiously, without a glance at the creeping extension of Mr. Pickens’s fence.
Gritting my teeth, I drove on home to repair a few fences of my own.
—
“Sue?” I said when she answered my call later that afternoon. I had waited a couple of hours to give my hostess time to wash and put away her good china and silver after her guests had left. “I’m calling to apologize for my behavior this morning. I should’ve walked away from Madge, although we all know how difficult she is to avoid.”
“Oh, Julia,” Sue said in her warm way, “don’t worry about it. You don’t need to apologize for speaking the truth.”
“Well, thank you, but I do dislike striking up an argument in a social situation, especially in your home. It’s just that Madge gets under my skin so badly that I can hardly contain myself. And when she used your lovely coffee to solicit funds for that illegal project of hers, well, frankly, it’s a wonder that I’m not now apologizing for a physical confrontation.”
Sue laughed. “Well, if we’re being frank, I’ll tell you that I hadn’t intended to invite her. And the only reason I did is because Pastor Rucker asked me to.”
“He did? Why? What does he have to do with our social affairs?”
“I had already invited Lynette—wanting, you know, to include our new pastor’s wife. Then she called me back to say that the pastor would really appreciate it if she could bring Madge, too. So I was put on the spot, but I’ll tell you this. If Lynette tries that again, she’s going to see a dearth of invitations herself.”
A dearth? Sam would love the word, so I stuck it in the back of my mind to use when he came home.
“But, listen, Julia,” Sue went on, “you won’t believe this. When Lynette got here with Madge in tow, the first thing Madge did was to ask me if she could make a little announcement about that Homes for Teens since, she said, it was so seldom that so many well-to-do ladies were in one place.” Sue took a deep breath, then went on. “Julia, she wanted to use my party to solicit my guests! I told her absolutely no!”
Knowing Sue’s kind disposition as I did, I figured she’d probably said something like, “Please don’t do that, Madge. Why don’t you wait for a more appropriate time and place?” So even though Madge didn’t get to tinkle a spoon against a teacup to get everybody’s attention, it hadn’t stopped her from hitting me up for a check, and who knows how many other guests she’d hemmed into a corner?
“I’m glad you did, Sue,” I said. “To invite people to a social occasion only to let it degenerate into an unannounced fund-raiser would be the tackiest thing yet. But, then, Madge is no stranger to tacky. Anyway,” I went on, “the coffee was lovely, as everything you do always is. And I hope I didn’t spoil it too much by my run-in with Madge.”
“Not at all. In fact, you made me see the other side of what they’re doing. I didn’t know where Madge’s nonprofit house was located until Mildred told me after you left. So now I understand why Hazel Marie had to regret, although she’d just said that her husband was doing some yard work and needed her around. Maybe she’d heard that Madge would be here, but she didn’t say a word about it. She is just the sweetest thing, and I was sorry she couldn’t make it. I’d rather have her than Madge any day.”
“So would I, Sue, and Hazel Marie is sweet, but you should drive by her house and see what that husband of hers is doing. You’ll understand then why she felt she had to stay home—and you can blame it all on Madge Taylor and her gang of determined do-gooders.”
—
I didn’t know just how determined Madge had been until Mildred Allen called a little later on.
“You should’ve stayed at Sue’s a little longer, Julia,” Mildred said. “After you left, Madge buttonholed every guest there, trying to get them to commit to her new project. I noticed, though, that she made sure that Sue wasn’t near enough to hear her.”
“Did she really? Well, Mildred, I hope you know that Sue had asked her not to turn her social event into a fund-raiser, but it’s just like Madge to have her way regardless. She just has no conception of common courtesy.”
“Well, she told me she knew that the neighbors were what she termed ‘unwontedly fearful,’ but—be prepared—she’s going to bring them around by issuing an invitation to tea when they get that house fixed up.”
“An invitation to tea?” I almost yelled. “And that’s supposed to turn the neighbors into supporters of the demise of their own neighborhood? Mildred, the woman must live in la-la land. She has no clue at all.”
Mildred laughed. “You should’ve seen her face when I told her not to bother sending me an invitation because I was preemptively turning it down. And Madge said, ‘Oh, but, Mildred, you’re not a neighbor. What we’re doing won’t affect you.’ And I said, ‘Oh, but I am, too, a neighbor—my house is within the neighborhood circle. I’m not next door like Hazel Marie, but what affects my friend also affects me.’
“And, Julia,” Mildred went on, “I wanted to jump up and cheer when you called her a nimby right back at her, and I would’ve if it hadn’t been so hard to get out of my chair.”
—
Comforted by
