The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush Page 14

  “What a jerk!” Verna muttered. “Somebody ought to—” She stopped. She was too much of a lady to say out loud what she thought somebody ought to do to Grady Alexander. But she was thinking it.

  “My sentiments exactly,” Myra May said. She picked up a small wire brush and began brushing the spark plug energetically.

  “Poor, poor Liz,” Verna said again. “I wonder how she found out.”

  “I hope to God it was Grady who told her—if he was man enough.” Myra May dunked the spark plug in the gasoline again and wiped it off with a clean rag. “I heard it on the switchboard after lunch and went to her office to see if there was anything I could do. But she wasn’t there. Mr. Moseley said she was taking the day off.”

  “Does he know? Mr. Moseley, I mean.”

  “I think he does, from the way he looked—sort of tight around the mouth, as if he’d like to give Grady a bloody nose and a couple of black eyes.” Myra May put the clean spark plug on the bench and took another out of the can. “He didn’t say that, of course.”

  “He wouldn’t do it, either,” Verna muttered. “He’s a lawyer.”

  “He’s Liz’s boss. And her friend. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.” Myra May began scraping at the threads with the point of her nail file. “Anyway, he said she’d be in tomorrow.”

  Verna glanced at her wristwatch and stood up. “I have to get back to the office. If I’m gone too long, Melba Jean will run of out things to do, and Sherrie will start lining up committee meetings for her Darling Downtown projects. I’ll be back at four thirty to make the call I was telling you about. But just one today. If there are others, they’ll have to wait until my lunch hour tomorrow.”

  “Okay by me,” Myra May said. “Listen, Verna, when you’re done with your call this afternoon, why don’t you go over to Liz’s with me? Just the two of us.”

  “You think she’ll want to see us?” Verna asked doubtfully.

  “Probably not. But she needs to. We can commiserate. We can cuss Grady out. We can make a Grady voodoo doll and stick it full of pins, or make a Grady target and throw darts.” Myra May swished the spark plug in the gasoline and began to dry it off with the rag. “What do you bet that the poor thing hasn’t eaten a bite all day? We could take a picnic basket.”

  “We could,” Verna agreed, and then she thought of something else. “Listen, I’ve got an idea. Instead of just the two of us, how about—”

  Myra May listened to her plan, then nodded. “Sounds right to me, Verna. When I get Big Bertha’s spark plugs back in, I’ll go make some phone calls. Not everybody will be able to come, but there’ll be some. And everybody can bring something.”

  “That would be swell.” Verna picked up her pocketbook and headed for the door. “Look for me on the switchboard about four thirty.” As she passed the flower bed that Baby Mann was spading up, she paused to ask if he’d be available to carry some boxes into the courthouse basement later that afternoon.

  She was rewarded with a wide grin and an eager “Be glad to, Miz Tidwell. I could do some sweepin’, too, like I done for Mr. Dickens.” He leaned forward. “I ain’t workin’ for Mickey no more, you know?”

  “I heard, Purley. It sounds like a good move to me.”

  He smiled beatifically. “Reckon so,” he said. “Reckon I’m on the Lord’s path now.” He began to sing a song that Verna recognized:

  Drinking gin, drinking gin,

  Ohhh it is an awful sin

  Ragged old clothes and shamefaced kin,

  All brought about by drinking gin.

  “O’course,” he added, “it was whiskey I was makin’ out there for Mickey, and not gin. But it’s probably all the same in the eyes of the Lord, ain’t it?”

  “I’m sure it is,” Verna said. “Come on over when you finish the flower bed and I’ll put you to work.”

  “I will,” Baby said. He was still smiling. “I think the Lord’s gonna be glad of what I aim to do. To cleanse the earth of the scourge of drinkin’, I mean.”

  Verna thought that might be claiming a little too much, but she nodded sympathetically. “No doubt,” she said.

  Later, she would have reason to rethink her approval.

  * * *

  Years before, Verna and her high school chum Ima Gail Renfro had piled into Ima Gail’s Studebaker Big Six and driven to New Orleans for Ima Gail’s little sister’s graduation from Sophie Newcomb College. For Verna, the trip had been simply magical.

  She had never forgotten the magnolia-scented evening when she and Ima Gail strolled down St. Charles Avenue in their floaty white dresses, arm in arm with the Newcomb college girls; the rich coffee-and-chicory au lait and sugar-dusted beignets at the old Café du Monde in the French Market, where you could hear the whistles and the chug-chug-chug of the riverboats; and the thrilling sound of the Bourbon Street jazz band playing “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.”

  Indeed, the visit had been so enchanting that—if Verna hadn’t already said yes to Walter Tidwell, who was patiently waiting for her to come back to Darling and marry him—she might have stayed on in the City That Care Forgot and lived a satisfying and perhaps even carefree life.

  But Ima Gail had no Walter to go home to, so she had stayed. In fact, she was still there, once married, now divorced and working in a bank on Canal Street, in the city’s downtown district. She came back to Darling every so often to visit her mother, dazzling all her high school friends with her chic clothes and stylish coif. The last time she was home, she had confessed to Verna that the city didn’t seem quite so magical as it had when they were nineteen, now that so many of the elegant townhouses and Creole mansions had turned shabby and unkempt, like once-proud matrons down on their luck.

  But the Café du Monde still had the best chicory coffee in the world, and when you walked down Bourbon and Dauphin, jazz and blues still poured like liquid velvet from every open door.

  “I love the nightlife,” Ima Gail had said, “and the music and the food and the people. I even love my bank job.” Shaking her head, she’d added, “To tell the truth, I don’t know how you stand it here in this backwater of a town, Verna. Nothing ever happens here. Nothing at all!”

  That wasn’t strictly true, Verna thought. There had been plenty of excitement in Darling over the past couple of years, what with Bunny Scott getting herself killed, and Al Capone’s ex-girlfriend moving in with her aunt across the street from the Dahlias’ clubhouse, and the theft from the county’s bank accounts, and all that furor over the Texas Star and her flying circus. In fact, as far as Verna was concerned, life had been a little too exciting lately. She realized, though, that Ima Gail—who was now a city girl—might not agree.

  Ima Gail’s first job had been as a teller at the Bienville Bank and Trust, and she was now a loan officer there. Verna hoped that she might know—or be able to find out—whether the mysterious Mr. Duffy was who he said he was. That was the phone call Verna intended to make, and since she didn’t have a home telephone number for Ima Gail, she had to make it during business hours.

  So at four thirty sharp, she walked into the Darling Telephone Exchange office and took the chair next to Rona Jean. The switchboard might look complicated, but it hadn’t changed a bit since Mrs. Hooper had taught Verna to operate it several years before. A marvel of modern technology, it worked on a relatively simple system—simple, that is, as long as you kept your mind on what you were doing and didn’t stick the right plug into the wrong socket, or vice versa.

  Verna and Rona Jean were sitting in front of a vertical board that displayed rows of empty sockets, one for every individual or party line in town, and a horizontal board with a dozen pairs of cords with phone jacks on the ends. When a caller—Bessie Bloodworth, say—rang the switchboard, a tiny bulb began blinking above her socket on the vertical board. Rona Jean would pull out one of a pair of cords from the horizontal board, plug the jack into
Bessie’s socket, and say, “Number, please,” into her headset microphone. When Bessie gave the number or said, “Rona Jean, honey, please ring up the grocery store for me,” Rona Jean would plug the other cord into the Hancock’s Grocery socket and send a signal down the line to ring the phone on the wall behind the grocery store counter, under a big yellow cardboard sign advertising Brown’s Mule Chewing Tobacco—“Every bite tastes right.”

  When Mrs. Hancock answered, Rona Jean was supposed to flip the switch that cut off her headset so that Bessie could order her groceries without Rona Jean finding out that she was going to make a tuna fish casserole for supper, or had run out of toilet paper. That was the principle, although everybody in town knew that the operators didn’t always bother to turn off their headsets, especially when the traffic on the switchboard was slow.

  Long-distance phone calls involved more operators. The switchboard had a couple of lines that connected to the long-distance switchboard in Mobile. If Bessie wanted to talk to her friend Alva Ann in Pensacola, she would give the number to Rona Jean, who would call the Mobile operator and tell her that she had a party who wanted to talk to Pensacola. The Mobile operator would patch the call through (eventually) and sooner or later, Rona Jean would be able to give Alva Ann’s number to the Pensacola operator. When Alva Ann answered her phone, Pensacola would connect with Mobile and Mobile would connect with Rona Jean and Rona Jean would plug Bessie in so she and Alva Ann could trade news and recipes. It might take fifteen minutes or more to make the connection, especially if the circuits were busy or the call had to go through several long-distance operators before it finally got where it was going and back again.

  Since Verna was calling during business hours, she ran into the usual “Sorry, that circuit is busy” several times. But at last she had Ima Gail on the other end of the line, and after exchanging the usual hellos and how-are-yous, was saying, “Ima Gail, I wonder if you could help me. I need to find out about someone you may know. His name is Alvin Duffy.” Rona Jean was busy handling a couple of local calls, but Verna lowered her voice when she said Mr. Duffy’s name.

  “Alvin Duffy?” Ima Gail asked. Verna pictured her frowning and picking up a pencil to jot down the name. “Is that D-u-f-f-i-e?”

  “D-u-f-f-y,” Verna corrected. “Mr. Duffy works for Delta Charter. Or so I’ve been told,” she added cautiously. Who in Darling knew for sure? Mr. Johnson? Maybe she ought to talk to him, too. Once she had the information from Ima Gail, she could see if it matched what Mr. Johnson knew. If he would tell her anything, which he might not. Too bad Ellery Queen wasn’t around. People always seemed to tell him everything they knew, as soon as he asked.

  “Duffy,” Ima Gail repeated thoughtfully. “Sorry. The name doesn’t ring a bell. But Jackie-boy goes around with some of that Delta Charter bunch. I can ask him.” Ima Gail was partying her way through a string of boyfriends, of whom Jackie-boy (who was several years her junior) seemed to be the latest. “Any special information you’re looking for? And how soon do you need it?”

  “The sooner the better,” Verna said. Diffidently, she added, “If Jack can find out anything about his . . . um, personal life, that might help.”

  “Ah-ha.” Ima Gail chuckled knowingly. “The plot thickens. Do I detect the sweet scent of romance in the air? Has this gentleman expressed an interest in you?” She gave the words a sly emphasis. “Has he proposed?”

  “Absolutely not.” Verna bit off the words with an emphatic firmness. “How about if I give you a call around noon tomorrow and see what you’ve found out?”

  “That might be too soon,” Ima Gail said. “But it won’t hurt to call. If Jackie-boy knows anything, I’ll pass it along A-S-A-P. Romance, huh?” She chuckled again. “I keep telling you, Verna, you are looking for the man in the moon. You’ve got to lower your sights. Nobody’s perfect. There are no knights in shining armor anymore. You need to learn to take the bad with the good. Settle for what’s available and stop holding out for Mr. Ideal Husband. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  Verna did not say what she thought of this philosophy. Instead, she replied, in a reasonable tone, “I am not looking for a husband, Ima Gail, let alone an ideal one. My interest in Mr. Duffy is a purely business matter. If you can’t help—”

  “Okay, okay.” Ima Gail chuckled. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Verna. I’ll see what Jackie-boy can find out about your Mr. Duffy.”

  “He’s not my Mr. Duffy,” Verna said crossly.

  “Whatever you say,” Ima Gail said. “Talk to you tomorrow, Verna.”

  Verna unplugged and took off her headset, feeling that—if nothing else—she had gotten the ball rolling. She was getting up from her chair when Rona Jean looked up and said, tentatively, “You were asking about Mr. Duffy?”

  Verna sat back down. “I thought you were too busy to listen.”

  Rona Jean, a thin, plain-faced girl in her early twenties, pushed her straggly brown hair out of her eyes. “I wasn’t listening,” she protested. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to listen. But you’re sitting right next to me. I couldn’t help but overhear it when you actually spelled his name.”

  “Okay.” Verna gave up. “So what about it?”

  “Well, I was just sort of . . . um, wondering. I mean, you know I live at Mrs. Brewster’s?”

  Verna hadn’t known, but she wasn’t surprised. There were only two places in Darling where unattached females could board—that is, unless they were wealthy enough to take a room at the Old Alabama Hotel. One was Bessie Bloodworth’s Magnolia Manor, next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse. Bessie catered to congenial widows and spinsters of a certain age who liked to play mah-jongg or sit out on the Manor’s front porch in the evenings, listening to the radio, with glasses of cold lemonade and their knitting.

  The other option for ladies was Mrs. Brewster’s, over on West Plum. That’s where the young working women—the two first-year schoolteachers and Miss O’Conner, the home demonstration agent—boarded. Mrs. Brewster, who wore long-sleeved black dresses with a ruffle of white lace around her throat and wrists, liked to promise the parents of her young ladies that she would act in loco parentis. This was supposed to mean that she would be just as strict as they were, although in most cases, her young ladies decided that she was twice as strict, and found another place to live as soon as they could.

  “Living at Mrs. Brewster’s can’t be much fun,” Verna said sympathetically.

  “It’s what I can afford,” Rona Jean said with a shrug. “I don’t go out at night much anyway, and I don’t have a boyfriend. But you were asking on the phone about”—she broke off and lowered her voice—“Mr. Duffy.” She gave Verna a meaningful look. “His personal life.”

  Verna’s skin prickled. What could Rona Jean Hancock possibly know about Alvin Duffy? He surely hadn’t approached her, had he? Why, she couldn’t be more than twenty-one!

  “What about his personal life?” she asked.

  “Miss Champaign is sweet on him,” Rona Jean said, with the excited air of someone who is holding on to a tantalizing secret. “You know—the lady who has the hat shop. She just got back from Atlanta a couple of weeks ago.”

  Verna knew that, of course, although she hadn’t seen Fannie since her return. She had no idea that Fannie even knew Alvin Duffy, let alone—

  “Sweet on Mr. Duffy?” she asked skeptically.

  Rona Jean nodded. “I don’t think it’s mutual, though. Because of the way he acted. And because of what Miss Champaign did afterward.”

  “Wait a minute, Rona Jean. How do you know all this?”

  “Because Miss Champaign wanted him to kiss her when he brought her home from the movie on Saturday night. But he only shook her hand and tipped his hat. Then I heard her crying in her room.”

  “In her room?” Verna asked, feeling confused. “You mean, she’s boarding at Mrs. Brewster’s? But Fannie—Miss Champai
gn has an apartment over her hat shop!”

  “She did,” Rona Jean amended. “While she was staying in Atlanta, she rented her apartment to Miss Richards, the supervisor over at the Academy. Miss Richards has the apartment until June, when the school year is over. Meanwhile, Miss Champaign is boarding at Mrs. Brewster’s.”

  “I see.” Verna frowned. “Well, how do you know she wanted him to kiss her?”

  “I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?” Rona Jean laughed shortly. “It was dark, but Mrs. Brewster always leaves the porch light on and they were standing by the gate where I could see them out of my window. She was leaning up against the fence and raising her face, the way they do in the movies. But he didn’t.”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Didn’t kiss her. Just shook her hand and thanked her for a pleasant evening and said good night. She said something about maybe seeing him again, and he said that would be nice but you could tell—I mean, I could tell—that he wasn’t going to be beating a path to her door. That’s when she came upstairs and started crying. I wanted to go in and ask her if she needed something, water or something. But I didn’t think she’d want me to.”

  The switchboard buzzer sounded and two lights began to blink at the same time.

  “Oops!” Rona Jean said. “Gotta get back to work.”

  Verna sat for a moment, thinking of Fannie, disappointed in love not just once (by Charlie Dickens) but twice (by Alvin Duffy), and counting her lucky stars that she had not been so foolish as to lose her heart to that insolent rascal.

  Not Charlie Dickens, of course.

  Alvin Duffy.

  EIGHT

  Lizzy Makes a New Start

  After Grady left on Monday night, Lizzy had sat in the dark for a long time, curled up on her sofa, holding Daffy in her arms and wetting his orange fur with her tears. When she went to bed, she cried herself to sleep. And when she got up on Tuesday morning, her throat felt raw, her eyes were swollen, and she looked like a wreck. It would be better, she decided, if she didn’t go to work, especially since there wasn’t anything terribly crucial on her desk. So she called Mr. Moseley at home, saying that she had a little cold and wouldn’t be in.