The Darling Dahlias and the Poinsettia Puzzle Read online

“I’ll stay where I am and work on the border,” Aunt Hetty said. “Once I get the corners, the rest will go faster.”

  “I’ll sort the sky and the grass,” Bessie said. “Looks like those are mostly greens and blues.”

  “I’ll work on the windmill.” Verna pointed to the picture on the box cover. “Orange, brown, black, and a little yellow.”

  “I’ll look for the girls’ pieces,” Liz said, and made a note of the time on Verna’s watch. “On your mark, ready, set, go.”

  You’re probably curious about the Dahlias’ clubhouse and gardens, so while the Darling Divas are working on their puzzle, we’ll have a quick look around.

  The Puzzle Divas are meeting in the little four-room frame house that Mrs. Dahlia Blackstone bequeathed to Darling’s garden club. Last year, the club members—who call themselves the Dahlias, in honor of their founder—tore down the wall between the two front rooms to make a bigger space for their meetings and other get-togethers. They stacked up several brick-and-board shelves in the back room for their gardening library and seed collection. And they installed new linoleum in the kitchen, where they make jams and jellies and can homegrown vegetables. The Depression has been hard on everybody, so they donate their canned goods to the Darling Blessing Box, to help folks who can’t garden and need a little help putting a meal on the table.

  Behind the house, a wide lawn—brown now, after the early-winter frosts—sweeps down toward a clump of woods, a large magnolia tree, and a clear spring smothered in ferns, bog iris, and pitcher plants. There are curving perennial borders on both sides of the lawn, and several “island” gardens of lilies and roses. The garden had once been so beautiful that it was featured regularly in magazines and newspapers across the South. But as Mrs. Blackstone grew older and infirm, the more self-assertive plants had taken advantage, crowding out their smaller, meeker neighbors and (as you might expect) turning the garden into a jungle.

  When the Dahlias inherited the garden, they launched a salvage operation. They pulled the weeds (mostly dog fennel, henbit, ground ivy, and Johnson grass) out of the perennial borders, permitting the scruffy phlox, larkspur, iris, asters, and Shasta daisies to shake themselves, take a deep breath, and begin their new lives. They disciplined the roses—the climbers, the teas, the ramblers, the shrubs, and a charmingly frowsy yellow Lady Banks—and more. They dug and replanted the unkempt Easter lilies and the orange ditch lilies, which had leapfrogged over the spider lilies and landed in the oxblood lilies’ bed. They restrained the rowdy cardinal climber and cross vine and mandevilla on the fence and repaired the trellis so the confused Confederate jasmine could stretch up and out. Gardens are always a labor of love, and every time a Dahlia set foot on the place, she saw something new to love. As Aunt Hetty likes to say, when its sleeves are rolled up, love can always find something else to do.

  And that’s what happened. Once they got the garden beds cleaned up, the Dahlias hired Mr. Norris to bring his old horse Racer and plow up the large empty lot on the corner. In the early spring, they planted peas, carrots, green onions, and lettuce. A month later, it was time to plant green beans, eggplant, okra, sweet corn, watermelons, squash, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes. As the summer wore on, people from all over town came to work in the garden, watering, hoeing, and pulling weeds in return for all the vegetables they could pick. Mrs. Blackstone, the Dahlias thought, would be pleased—and there was always more than enough okra to go around.

  In the house, the Divas were still at work, each one paying attention to her own sections of puzzle but occasionally putting a piece or two in elsewhere. They were so engrossed that they didn’t speak much, except to say things like “Here’s another windmill piece for you, Verna,” or “Liz, I think this must be part of the little girl’s apron.”

  They even forgot to check the time until finally, Bessie plugged in the last piece of green grass. “Jigsaw!” she exclaimed—which, according to Miss Rogers’ rules, was what you were supposed to say when your team put in the very last piece. “How long did it take us, Verna?”

  Verna consulted her wristwatch. “One hour and thirty-two minutes.”

  “That’s quite an improvement over last time, girls,” Liz said encouragingly. “We’re getting faster.”

  Aunt Hetty frowned. “But we still need to shave off—how much?”

  “At least a half hour,” Liz replied. “How about if I return this puzzle and rent another from Mr. Lima. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Would you be able to practice again then?”

  “If we do it in the afternoon.” Aunt Hetty began to take the puzzle apart. “I have choir in the morning—we’re practicing carols for the Christmas Eve service.”

  “I promised to help Mrs. Bechtel with her recitation for the Ladies Club,” Bessie said, “but I can squeeze in a couple of hours in the afternoon.” Bessie owned and managed the Magnolia Manor, next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse. Mrs. Bechtel was one of the four elderly ladies who rented rooms from her.

  “Works for me,” Verna said cheerfully, scooping up the puzzle pieces and putting them back in the box. “Al and I are going to the movies, but that’s later.” Alvin Duffy, the president of Darling Savings and Trust, was Verna’s more-or-less-steady boyfriend. Verna’s friends sometimes wondered why they didn’t get married, but when they asked her, she just smiled.

  “What do I want with a husband?” she would say with that faintly ironic smile of hers. “My job pays the bills, I have plenty of books and time for reading, and Clyde snuggles up next to me in bed. What more could I want?” Clyde was Verna’s bossy black Scottie. He and Al got along about as well as two bulls in the same pasture, which might be one reason for Verna’s hesitation.

  Bessie folded her chair and leaned it against the wall. “What I want to know is when Earlynne and Mildred are going to open their new bakery. Has anybody heard?”

  “Before Christmas, Mildred said.” Aunt Hetty reached for her cane.

  “They’d better hope for a Christmas miracle, then,” Verna remarked, folding up Aunt Hetty’s chair. “The last time I looked through the front window, AdaJean’s old shop was a mess. Must be wall-to-wall spiders and mice, not to mention cockroaches.”

  “Well, you know Mildred,” Aunt Hetty said, winding her scarf around her throat. “If anybody can whomp up a miracle, she’s the one. I never did see such a fine organizer.”

  Bessie reached for her coat. “You don’t think it’ll snow, do you?” She paused, looking doubtfully out the front window. “It’s awfully dark. And downright chilly.” It rarely got very cold in southern Alabama, but the last week had seen nighttime temperatures near freezing.

  “Snow?” Verna pulled a bright red knit cap over her dark hair. “The last time it snowed in Darling was the year Calvin Coolidge got elected. Nineteen twenty-four.”

  “That was the second time women could vote for president,” Bessie said. She liked to keep up with politics.

  “Such a pretty snow that year,” Aunt Hetty said reminiscently. “That was the winter my little granddaughter Rosie was born.”

  Liz raised her voice to get people’s attention. “Puzzle practice here tomorrow at one?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Verna said, taking her mittens out of her pocket.

  “I’ll be here,” Bessie replied, “unless something happens.”

  “It won’t,” Aunt Hetty said, starting for the door. “Nothing ever happens in Darling.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “WHAT WE NEED IS A MIRACLE”

  Monday, December 17

  Mildred Kilgore wrung out her mop into the bucket and straightened up slowly against the kink in her back. “I don’t care what you say, Earlynne. I can see the handwriting on the wall. We are not going to open this bakery next week. Or the week after that. Or maybe even by Christmas.” She pushed her dark hair out of her face and propped her mop against a wall. “What we need is a miracle.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Earlynne Biddle said airily. Moving easily in her blue denim coveralls, she
climbed down from the ladder, a paintbrush in her hand. “Anyway, I just painted over that handwriting on the wall, so you can stop worrying about it.” She stepped back and gazed at her handiwork. “White paint really brightens this old room. Don’t you think?”

  Mildred took another look. The painted walls helped, and now that the linoleum floor was scrubbed and waxed, AdaJean’s old shop didn’t look half bad. But in her opinion, its best feature was the big glass front window where they could arrange an attractive holiday display. She could already see how charming it would look, with tiered plates of Christmas cookies and little gingerbread houses surrounded by green pine boughs crusted with artificial snow (Ivory soap flakes whipped up with starch and hot water) and decorated with Christmas tree ornaments. Charming enough to take first place in the Merchants’ Association Holiday Window Contest.

  But Mildred never liked to agree too readily with Earlynne. “White walls are so stark, Earlynne,” she said. “I still prefer green.”

  “Green would make you look like a corpse,” Earlynne retorted briskly. She put down her paintbrush and tucked her brown hair back into its bun. “White makes people cheerful. Cheerful people spend more money.”

  Mildred couldn’t come up with a clever rebuttal (although she knew she would, within the next five minutes). Anyway, there was no point arguing for green walls when she had already given in and told Earlynne to paint them white, if that’s what it took to make her happy. But she didn’t want to be seen as yielding too easily.

  So she said, “Well, people can’t buy anything until we get a display case of some kind in here. The best thing would be something with glass shelves and a glass front and glass top, with sliding doors at the back.” She pointed. “It needs to go right there. Along the back wall. With enough space behind it for us to work.”

  Earlynne fished in the pocket of her coveralls, took out a compact, and peered into the mirror to see if she had paint on her face. “I’ve already thought of the display case,” she said in a superior tone, and closed her compact. “Henry is having it built for us, out at the plant. It’ll be delivered tomorrow.” Henry was Earlynne’s husband. He managed the Coca-Cola bottling plant outside of town.

  “But it doesn’t go on the back wall,” Earlynne added. She pointed. “It goes there. Along that side wall. With the sales counter and the cash register at the end nearest the door.” She pointed again. “Right there.”

  “No, that’s all wrong, Earlynne,” Mildred said flatly. “The counter has to go in front of the back wall, because that’s where the door to the kitchen is. We have to be able to carry trays of pastries in and out without getting in people’s way.”

  “The counter ought to be where people can see it the minute they walk in,” Earlynne declared. “We’ll have shelves on the back wall.”

  “No, the shelves go there,” Mildred said firmly, pointing to the side wall.

  What followed was a snappy back-and-forth argument about where they should put the display case, the cash register counter, and the shelves, with each of them arguing for her idea, until finally Earlynne heaved a dramatic sigh and gave in.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she said, drawing it out. “Have it your way if you must, Mildred. We’ll put it against the back wall, if that will satisfy you.”

  Now, if you didn’t know Mildred and Earlynne, you might think that a business belonging to two women who argued about every single little thing was doomed to failure before it began. But this pair had been disagreeing vigorously since second grade. Earlynne had a barbed wit and Mildred had a sharp tongue. Each was as stubborn as an Alabama mule, and they rarely saw eye to eye. But they had managed to remain close friends in spite of their differences, which must be some sort of testimony to the fundamental perversity of the human spirit.

  Still, there were signs that their partnership was not going to be a piece of cake. For instance, while Earlynne and Mildred had more or less agreed that they wanted to start a bakery (as opposed to, say, a tea shop or a florist shop) they had disagreed about when to launch it.

  Mildred had argued that Darling was still suffering the lingering effects of the Depression and that it was a bad time to go into business. “Just look around the courthouse square,” she said. “Most of the merchants are still having a tough time. How are we going to make it with a new bakery when they’re having so much trouble?”

  But Earlynne had dreamed of owning a bakery since she was big enough to climb on a kitchen chair and roll out a crust for a pecan pie. Since she could now glimpse forty just over the horizon, she was convinced that this was the right time.

  But just as importantly, she felt that the Darling economy was due for a turnaround, what with the Vanity Fair plant opening up after the first of the year over at nearby Monroeville. The new plant meant that Darling people who had been without jobs for a while would be working again. Especially women, since Vanity Fair was a lingerie company and they would be hiring anybody who could run up silk panties on a sewing machine. When women had paying jobs away from home, they needed somebody to do the baking, didn’t they? They couldn’t let their families go without bread.

  Mildred had been willing to listen to Earlynne’s proposal because she had a little extra money of her own to spend. Her uncle (who managed her deceased father’s substantial estate) had been more generous than usual this year. But she had been in the habit of saying no to Earlynne’s ideas, so she put off saying yes for quite a while—until her husband Roger told her that he had heard a lot of stupid business ideas in his time, but opening a Darling bakery took the cake. It was (he said) the most ridiculously idiotic idea anybody had ever dreamed up.

  Well. When Roger said that, Mildred naturally had to stand up for herself. Setting aside for the moment that the bakery was really Earlynne’s idea, she told him loftily and in no uncertain terms that it was her money and her time and she couldn’t think of a better way to put both to work than to invest them in a business that was hers. Well, half hers, anyway. She and Earlynne would contribute equally to the bakery’s success and split the profits down the middle. If there were any. Profits, that is.

  The partnership responsibilities were fairly clearly divided. Earlynne could contribute the baking expertise but no money, and while Mildred was no baker, she could contribute some money. She agreed to pay six months’ rent on AdaJean LeRoy’s old cake shop and buy what they needed to get started—the electric refrigerator they absolutely had to have and the newfangled electric Sunbeam Mixmaster that Earlynne craved. Then there were the basic baking supplies: flour, sugar, shortening, yeast, and so on.

  Mildred had some experience in management, so she would handle the purchasing, the shop sales, and the advertising as well as keeping the books. Earlynne would do the actual baking. Mildred didn’t argue about that. Earlynne had turned out gorgeous baked goods—pastries, pies, rolls, fancy cakes—ever since she was a girl, and her sticky buns were absolutely beyond compare. She promised Mildred she would get to work and whip her recipes into shape for commercial baking just as soon as they banished the mice and spiders and cockroaches, made sure the oven was working properly, got the new refrigerator installed, and fixed the leak under the sink.

  But above all, they needed a name, and they were still arguing about that. Earlynne had narrowed her list to Darling DeLites, The Cakewalk, and The Upper Crust. (Her husband Henry liked The South Is Risin’ Again, but Earlynne viewed that as a joke.) Mildred’s list was topped with two names: The Doughnut Depot and Pie in the Sky. Her husband Roger threw in Two Tarts, but that was a joke, too. And not a very funny one.

  They couldn’t agree, of course. Earlynne objected that Mildred’s favorite names wouldn’t work since they were going to sell much more than just doughnuts and pies. Mildred, on the other hand, argued that DeLites was misspelled, cakes weren’t the only things they were selling, and The Upper Crust made it sound like they were catering to rich people, of whom there were precious few in Darling.

  After an extended and
rather acrimonious debate, Mildred threw up her hands and said, “Why don’t we just call it The Flour Shop? That way, everybody knows what it is. And we can sell anything we like.”

  “The Flower Shop?” Earlynne snorted. “You’re saying we should give up the bakery and turn ourselves into florists?” Another snort. “I imagine the Dahlias might like that, but I wouldn’t.”

  Mildred had to find a piece of paper and a pencil and write it down, but finally, Earlynne got it. “Good grief. Flour Shop.” She gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes, although Mildred could tell that she thought it was a pretty good idea. She pretended to mull it over, and said, with pretended reluctance, “Well, I guess it’ll do until we think of something better.”

  But they hadn’t. So The Flour Shop it was, and The Flour Shop it stayed. Mildred hired Pinkie Parsons, Darling’s resident sign-painter, to paint it on the front window, in big black letters in a classy script that Mildred loved and Earlynne said made her feel cross-eyed:

  At which point people began to stop in front of the window, cup their hands to the glass, and peer inside, hoping to find out what was going on. And both Mildred and Earlynne began taking their project a little more seriously. Now that it finally had a name, it began to seem that The Flour Shop was really going to happen. Maybe.

  But first they had to decide what they were going to sell. Earlynne felt that she was the expert on this subject. “I have recipes for the most wonderful French pastries—beignets, croissants, éclairs, petit fours. That’s what I’ve baked all my life. People will love our pastries. And cakes.” She clasped her hands and added dreamily, “Wedding cakes, birthday cakes, anniversary cakes, special-occasion cakes. Chocolate cake, sponge cake, cheesecake, angel food cake—”

  “Bread,” Mildred interrupted firmly. “Nobody can have their baloney sandwiches or toast and jelly without it. And right now, all they can buy is Wonder Bread or Butter-nut, which by the time it gets to Mrs. Hancock’s grocery shelf is already three or four days old. What they buy from us, on the other hand, will be fresh.” She wrote down just-baked bread at the top of her list. “What else? But not all that fancy French stuff, please. Let’s give people something familiar to start with.”