The Darling Dahlias and the Unlucky Clover Page 5

  This morning, Lizzy didn’t have to search for something to distract her as she typed. Over the weekend, she had been confronted with a troubling personal dilemma that she couldn’t get out of her mind. She typed mechanically as she thought about it, remembering.

  On Saturday morning, Lizzy had gone shopping at Hancock’s Grocery, where she had been pleased to find a very nice pork roast for just sixteen cents a pound and enough fresh apples for an apple pie, perfect for the company dinner she planned to cook that evening for Captain Gordon Campbell, commander of the CCC camp outside of town. She had also scooped up some bargains: two cans of Van Camp pork and beans for six cents a can, a crisp head of lettuce for a nickel, three pounds of sweet potatoes for six cents, and a pound of bacon for a quarter—all good buys.

  Old Zeke usually delivered groceries for Mrs. Hancock’s customers, but he was laid up with a bad back, so that morning, Lizzy had to carry. Toting her two heavy shopping bags, she was walking past Grady Alexander’s house when (by accident or design she never knew, but suspected the latter) Grady came out of his front door. He caught up with her quickly and took both bags out of her hands. It had been an awkward moment.

  “Hullo, Liz,” Grady said quietly. “It’s good to see you. You’re looking … grand.”

  “Thank you.” Lizzy avoided his searching glance. “It’s nice to see you, too, Grady.” Fumbling for the right words, she said, “I’ve been meaning to drop you a note and tell you how sorry I am about your … your wife. It must be so hard for you.”

  They began to walk again, Grady falling into step beside her. “It is.” His voice was low and rough. “I can’t get used to it, Liz I keep thinking it’s just a bad dream. I’m going to wake up and find out that the last few months have never happened.”

  Not knowing how to answer, Lizzy slid him a quick sideways look, trying to see his face. Grady had never worn his brown hair slicked down the way other men did, and the breeze tossed it loosely across his forehead. He hadn’t shaved that morning, his dark eyes were troubled, and he had long ago ceased to flash the rakish, devil-may-care grin that had once lit his serious face.

  She looked away quickly and shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. This was the man whom she had once expected to marry. After all, that was every Darling girl’s dream, wasn’t it? Like all the other girls she knew, Lizzy had grown up thinking she would find a husband, have his children, keep his house neat as a pin, and live happily ever after.

  And why not Grady? He was tall and robust, good-looking, intelligent, and (she had thought) dependable. What’s more—as Lizzy’s mother repeatedly pointed out—he had a college degree and a steady job as the Cypress County agriculture agent. He would make a first-rate husband.

  “You cannot object to him in any conceivable way,” her mother had said, truly annoyed with her daughter. “You should catch him while you can, Elizabeth. You won’t be young forever, you know. Why, you’re almost an old maid already!” If truth be told, Lizzy very likely would have married Grady just to get away from her mother, a domineering woman who thought it was her job to manage her daughter’s life.

  But then the old man who lived across the street had died, and Lizzy had bought his house and renovated it, just the way she wanted it. It was too close to her mother, but except for that small flaw, it was a beautiful little house, so tiny that it almost looked like a dollhouse. It was just right for a single woman and her orange tabby cat—but too small for a daughter and her mother, and much too small for a married couple and their children.

  Lizzy loved her house, but even more, she loved living there alone, because living alone gave her the solitude she needed to write. Growing up, she had written stories and poems, and she had long dreamed of writing a novel. But somewhere along the way, she had come to understand that taking care of a husband and children would mean that she’d have to give up her writing—temporarily, anyway, while the children were young, but maybe forever. When Grady proposed again, she had to say she just wasn’t ready.

  They had gone along in that way for a several years—comfortable years, Lizzy had thought. And then ka-boom! Grady had dropped a bombshell. A year ago last spring, he had told her that he was marrying Archie Mann’s pretty young niece, Sandra. That he had to marry her because she was expecting his baby.

  At first, Lizzy felt as helpless and disoriented as if she’d been whirled off her feet and flung through the air by a tornado that came roaring at her out of the dark. Pregnant? She’d had no idea that Grady was even seeing someone else! How could this have happened, when the two of them had been so close for so long?

  But when she could think more calmly, Lizzy reflected that maybe it wasn’t so surprising, after all. She and Grady mostly saw things alike, but they had their differences, especially when it came to sex. He seemed to think that because they had been going out together for such a long time, he should be able to … that she should want to … that they should, well, go all the way.

  Now, Lizzy was by no means a prude, and she certainly enjoyed parking with Grady in his old blue Ford on the hill above the country club golf course, where they could watch the moon rise and the stars fall on Alabama, to borrow the title of a popular Guy Lombardo song. She enjoyed kissing Grady and she loved the feeling of his hands all over her—and she loved him, as well. She must, or she wouldn’t let him touch her that way, would she?

  But if Grady didn’t have a built-in sense of limits, Lizzy did. Inside her somewhere there was a warning sensor that flickered when enough was about to become too much. She made him stop the minute she knew that if she didn’t make him stop now she might stop wanting him to stop, which could be very dangerous. And it wasn’t just because she was afraid she might get pregnant, although that was part of it, of course. She knew that if she and Grady had sex, he would jump to the natural conclusion that she was ready to marry him. And that would be wrong, for she wasn’t. Not yet, anyway.

  But Sandra (who was barely out of her teens) hadn’t known how to make him stop, or maybe she hadn’t wanted to. It didn’t much matter whether Grady had insisted or Sandra had invited, however, for in the end it was all the same. Actions (especially that one) definitely have consequences. Sandra got pregnant and Grady, who was an honorable man, did the honorable thing. Right or wrong, like it or not, marriage was what Darling expected in a case like this, and the sooner the better. Grady married the girl.

  Poor Lizzy might have felt betrayed and terribly angry, and it says something about her character that she didn’t. Oh, at first she did, of course. For days, she was numb to everything but her own terrible pain. But it wasn’t long before she realized that she was more sorry than angry. She was sorry for herself, but she was sorrier for Grady. And for Sandra, too.

  For Grady, because he’d had to do what duty obliged him to do. He had married Sandra and he would take care of her and their baby. But Lizzy knew that somewhere deep down inside the dutiful husband and father there would be a doomed, dark center, like a fiery cinder grown cold and hard. Grady would become resigned and, yes, resentful. And she felt sorry for Sandra, because no matter how much she loved her husband, if Grady resented her, she would soon hate him and perhaps even his child. There would be no escape for either.

  Still, Grady’s marriage had come as an incredibly painful blow, and it took all of Lizzy’s strength to pretend to her friends and her mother and Mr. Moseley that it didn’t hurt. Darling thrived on gossip, and this little story of premarital lust and its consequences had tongues wagging all over Cypress County. The Dahlias were the only friends Lizzy could trust not to bring up the subject, and the garden was the only place she could get away from the gossip. To help her escape, Mr. Moseley had found her a temporary job with Mr. Jackman, a lawyer and friend in Montgomery.

  There, Lizzy had learned to live with her feelings and had put her spare time to use by writing a novel—a good one, too, even if it was her first. With the help of Mr. Jackman’s wife and some remarkable good fortune, she had found a lit
erary agent—Nadine Fleming—to represent her. Then (and even more remarkably, she thought) Miss Fleming had found a publisher for her book! Next week, she was scheduled to receive the galley pages of Sabrina, her historical novel about a wealthy, impetuous, and often imprudent young Alabama woman who lost her sweetheart at Gettysburg and was driven from her family plantation by marauding Yankee soldiers. “A rousing, romantic novel,” Miss Fleming had said. “In an ordinary market, it should do quite well. Sadly,” she had added, “this isn’t an ordinary market. The Depression has crippled the publishing industry. But of course, we’ll hope for the best.”

  Now, Lizzy was back in her old life and on the job at Mr. Moseley’s office. She had already started working on a second novel. It was proving to be more difficult than the first, but she felt that she was well on her way to becoming a writer—and a published writer, at that! She likely wouldn’t make much money, but that didn’t matter, really. Just seeing her book in print was reward enough.

  But it was hard not to be painfully aware of Grady’s new life as a married man, for he and Sandra had moved into the old Harrison place just down the block from Lizzy’s house. She couldn’t help noticing the attractive changes he was making in the old house (paint and a new roof had made a big difference), and the flower garden Sandra planted, and Grady Junior’s freshly washed diapers hanging on the backyard clothesline and his little wooden baby swing in the oak tree in the front yard. She supposed this was good, in a way, and even healing, for it required her to come to terms with the fact that Grady’s life was moving on, just as hers was. She was more or less back on an even keel when something else happened—something so inexpressibly dreadful that she could still scarcely bear to think of it.

  Late in the previous winter, the Darling grapevine had reported that Grady’s young wife was pregnant again. This news was met with a universally cheerful anticipation, for Sandra and Grady were legally married now and all Darling celebrates every Darling baby with enthusiastic delight. And since there had been no baby showers for Baby Number One (couples who had to get married didn’t get a shower), Darling made up for it with Baby Number Two, which by the law of averages ought to be a girl. Sandra’s sisters gave a shower, her aunt-by-marriage Twyla Sue Mann gave a shower, and the ladies at Sandra’s church generously forgave her for her earlier moral lapse and gave a shower, too. Of course, times were tough and most of the gifts were hand-me-downs (with a little added lace and some embroidered bunnies), but it was the thought that mattered. Sandra must have been delighted.

  As it turned out, though, Sandra wasn’t carrying a baby. Tragically, what was growing inside her was an especially virulent cancer. First the Darling doctor, then the doctor in Monroeville, and then two more doctors in Mobile had said there was nothing they could do for her, and apparently, they were right. In the middle of September, all Darling (including Lizzy) attended the funeral and went with Grady to bury his young wife in a pleasant corner of Darling Cemetery, out on Schoolhouse Road. Everybody said she looked very pretty, laid out in her wedding dress with her hair beautifully done and Grady Junior’s little wooden horse in her hand. All agreed that Cecil Prudhorn (who engraved all the Darling headstones) had done an outstanding job with her monument—pink marble with a little angel carved on one corner. They left flowers on her grave and went home.

  That had been a month ago. Now, on this Saturday morning, seeing the man she’d once loved for the first time since he became a widower, Lizzy was having a hard time finding the words to comfort him, for the truth was that it wasn’t a bad dream. The past few months had happened, and there was nothing he could do to escape them. What could she say that would help?

  Finally, she settled for something she knew to be inadequate. “I know this must be terribly, terribly hard, Grady. Sandra was so young and pretty, and everybody is saying that she was a wonderful mother.” This was true, for the Darling grapevine, quick to accuse but also quick to forgive, had found much to admire in the way Grady Junior’s young mother had doted on her little boy. She added, “You must miss her. And little Grady—he must be bereft.”

  Grady nodded. “He’s staying with Sandra’s mother right now, over in Monroeville.” He cleared his throat. “He’s a pretty big handful for her, but I can’t … well, I’m working, you know, and I can’t take care of him.” He brightened. “I’m going to pick him up later this morning, though. I’ll have him for the rest of the weekend. It’s good for me. He’s such a sweet little guy, and it gives his grandma a break.”

  By this time, they had reached Lizzy’s house and she took the shopping bags out of his hands. “Thanks for carrying my groceries, Grady. I appreciate it.” She hesitated, still fumbling for words. “I hope you and your little boy have a nice weekend.” She turned to go.

  “Wait, Liz.” Grady thrust his hands into his pockets. “Hey, listen, I was wondering. Would you …” He took a breath. “Would you like to have supper with Junior and me tonight? Nothing special, of course. The kid likes hotdogs and canned beans, so that’s what we’re having. We might even cook them over a fire in the backyard, with marshmallows on a stick.” He grinned. “For him, that’s a big adventure.”

  Lizzy was nonplussed. How could he? Why, his wife had only been gone a few weeks! She herself had never been a person who paid much attention to what people might think, but this would be … well, unseemly. And anyway, she couldn’t, even if she wanted to. She raised her eyes to his. “I’m sorry, Grady. I have other plans.”

  Because she spent her evenings and weekends writing, Lizzy didn’t have much time for socializing. But she and Mr. Moseley went to the movies occasionally, the new editor of the newspaper in Monroeville had taken her out to dinner twice, and last week, she had gone horseback riding with Captain Campbell. That had been fun, and she had reciprocated with an offer to cook dinner for him that night, which is why she had bought the pork roast and was planning an apple pie. Afterward, they were going to the Palace Theater to see Katherine Hepburn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., in the new movie Morning Glory.

  But that wasn’t the whole story, and she hurried to add the rest. “Even if I didn’t,” she said, “I don’t think it would be a very good idea.”

  His lips thinned in the way she knew so well. “I don’t see why not,” he said stubbornly.

  “I think you do.” She took a deep breath and said what had to be said. “It’s too soon, Grady.” And then, since that still wasn’t the real reason, she said, “And anyway, we can’t turn back the clock. What’s done is done. We’re not the way we were when we were … together. We’re different people now.”

  He put his hand on her arm, his voice harsh, entreating. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Liz. I’ve never stopped loving you, in spite of … in spite of Sandra and little Grady and all the rest of it. We can start over again. It will be better this time, because we know what’s important. We—”

  “No,” she said, pulling away from his hand and turning rapidly so he wouldn’t see her tears. “We can’t.”

  He gave her a searching look, and his voice grew even harder. “You’re not getting off so easily, Liz. This is important. I won’t allow it.”

  She had not known what to say to that, so she had simply turned and walked away.

  And even though she and Captain Campbell had spent a very nice Saturday evening together and made plans for another date, Lizzy couldn’t forget the pain in Grady’s voice or the undisguised pleading in his eyes. How truly terrible it must be for him, she thought, to lose his wife and be left with the care of his motherless little boy. By Sunday morning, her compassion had threatened to overrule her common sense, and it was all she could do not to reach for the telephone and invite Grady and little Grady to come over for Sunday lunch. She could make sandwiches out of the leftover pork roast and they could eat outside at the picnic table, where anybody who walked past could see them and know that there wasn’t any … well, hanky-panky.

  She had steeled herself against the impulse. But the tho
ught of Grady had tugged at her heart all through Sunday.

  Now, on Monday morning, she was still thinking of about Grady as she finished typing. She took Mr. Moseley’s notes out of the typewriter, carried them into his office, and dropped them into the green “In Progress” folder in his desk drawer. She adjusted the venetian blind at his window, brushed a fly off the windowsill, and then pulled open his closet door so she could see herself in the full-length mirror.

  Today, she was wearing one of her favorite work outfits: a slim-fitting gray wool and silk noil tweed skirt with kick pleats and a white silk crepe blouse with a pretty cowl neckline and the puff sleeves that were so popular—together, a bargain for only $3.49 plus postage from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. (When you had a Monday-through-Friday job and were trying to write a book on the weekends, you didn’t have time to drive to Mobile or Montgomery to go shopping.) She fluffed her loose brown hair, licked her little finger, and smoothed an eyebrow. She leaned forward, examining the wrinkles between her eyes—age wrinkles, surely—and frowned, thinking once again of Grady. What was she going to do?

  Then, with a sigh, she went back to her desk in the reception room. The Moseley law office, a longtime fixture in Darling, was located on the second floor of the Dispatch building. If she worked late on a Thursday night, when Charlie Dickens was printing the Friday paper, the old Babcock press ran like a locomotive, rattling the windows and shaking the floors. But all was quiet now, and she took a deep breath and looked around.