Miss Julia Stands Her Ground Read Online Free Page A

suggest that she and I go upstairs, but before she had her chair pulled out, she started talking. “Miss Julia, you’ll never guess what I heard last night about the Denhams.”
    â€œDub and Clara? I can’t imagine those two doing anything worth talking about. Which would you rather have with chicken, rice or potatoes?”
    â€œOh, rice. Now, listen, Miss Julia, Clara’s left him.”
    I looked up at her. “Who?”
    â€œDub.”
    â€œWhere’d she go?”
    â€œThat’s just it. Nobody knows. Apparently, she came home from work a few days ago, slapped some papers down in front of him, and walked out with two suitcases.”
    â€œI can’t picture Clara Denham slapping anything down, as meek and mild as she is.”
    â€œI’m just telling you what I heard, and everybody’s saying that she’d taken it as long as she could, and just finally snapped. Maybe it got better in the telling, because it doesn’t sound like her. I mean, she’s so meek and mild.”
    â€œWell, she is a librarian.”
    â€œYes, and what is Dub? Just a big blob as far as I can see.”
    I was intrigued, in spite of the urgency I was feeling to tell her about her own looming troubles. But Sam had urged delay, I reminded myself, so I nodded in agreement. “That man’s been on disability for as long as I can remember. He hardly cracks a lick at a snake.”
    Lillian, who couldn’t help but hear our conversation, walked over to the table. “Mr. Dub, he work some ’round tax time at that place they open up for people who need help with they figures. Miz Edwards, what live on the street over from me, she use him last year, an’ she say he do yo’ taxes an’ not even listen to what you say.”
    â€œDub Denham,” I said, “has never been known for his social skills. He’s the last person I’d ever ask to a dinner party.”
    â€œI should say!” Hazel Marie agreed. “Have you ever seen him eat? I sat at the same table with him at the last church supper, and it was awful to watch him shovel it in.” Hazel Marie stoppedand sat up straight. “Come to think of it, Clara always stays in the kitchen. Maybe that’s why she left him. She couldn’t stand to watch him eat.”
    â€œReason enough,” I pronounced. “I read, one time, about this fastidious woman who was newly married, and at her first dinner party, she served soup as the first course. It just did her in when her husband, normally a well-mannered man, made loud, slurping noises when he ate it. Well, instead of saying anything to him and risk hurting his feelings, she just never served soup at her table again.”
    After a moment of quiet as we thought about that, Hazel Marie said, “What did she do when he ordered it at a restaurant?”
    â€œWell, I don’t know, Hazel Marie. But, let me tell you, if you followed that method with Dub, he’d starve to death.” I tapped my pencil against the list I was making, trying to stop thinking of Dub’s poor table manners. “You know, Hazel Marie, I haven’t seen either of them in church lately. Not that I’ve been looking for them, but still.”
    â€œI saw her after Sunday school a couple of weeks ago, coming out of the young marrieds class.” Hazel Marie squinched up her mouth. “They’ve both got to be in their fifties. Wonder why they go to that class?”
    â€œNow you know we Presbyterians aren’t like the Baptists, who make it their business to keep up with everybody’s birthdays. They make you move to another class whenever you pass a milestone, which, I’ll tell you right now, I’d rather not have the public recognition of.”
    Hazel Marie nodded, then got up for a coffee refill. While her back was turned, Lillian put a slice of coffee cake at her place, mumbling, “She better eat something.”
    When