by Molly Harper
He scowled at me again. “What are you implying?”
“Nothing,” I assured him. “But I happen to know the Bothwell Corporation just announced a program that will assist in the restoration of dilapidated Bothwell libraries.”
“Why would they do that?”
I grinned. “Because it’s bad for the public image for the company name to be attached to a building that’s falling apart. I could help Miss Earlene find funding to fix up the library,” I said. “There are plenty of grant programs that could help Mud Creek, programs that would renew Main Street, provide before- and after-school care for the elementary school kids while their parents are at work, install an employment center here in town. The grants are harder to get since the economy tanked, but they’re out there. I could help you put together the proposals. Heck, I might be able to help Miss Earlene find some historical restoration funds to help rebuild town hall. You can’t operate out of a trailer forever.”
“Grant money can’t be your answer to everything!” he hissed, clearly trying to avoid being overheard. That’s when I realized this was probably not the best place to have this conversation. I’d gone too far, trying to ingratiate myself with Will’s political side by offering my help, and now his pride was smarting.
“That’s why those programs are there!” I whispered back.
“That money has to come from somewhere, ya know,” Will said, still glancing around the diner to make sure he wasn’t being overheard. “Grants don’t just appear out of thin air. Usually, they come from the taxpayers’ pocket. I’m not going to take money from some other poor sucker because I couldn’t figure out a solution on my own.”
“Government grants are funded through public funds, yes, but these are private corporate funds. If a company wants to help you, why not let it? There’s nothing wrong with asking for help,” I said quietly.
He leaned over the table and, in the most serious tone I’d ever heard him use, said, “People here, they won’t accept charity. Do you understand? We’ve got a food bank, but nobody uses it. We don’t get aid programs that most low-income counties get because a lot of those grants are based on the number of students receivin’ free school lunches through federal food programs. And the families around here refuse to fill out the forms for their kids to get the lunches because they don’t want the people in the school office knowin’ they need help. They’ll send their kids to school with oleo sandwiches rather than accept charity. Hell, Tommy couldn’t get the seniors to sign up for Meals on Wheels, and he’s related to a good number of them.”
“I’m not trying to say—”
“I know what you’re trying to say. You think you know better. You’re here to save us from ourselves, right? Heck, maybe if you try hard enough we’ll name something after you. Do-gooders love that sort of thing, right? Plaques and statues and—”
“I don’t even know why I’m trying to have a conversation with you about this,” I grumbled, closing my notebook.
“Where the hell do you come from, talkin’ like that?” he scoffed.
“I’m not from anywhere,” I told him, pushing up from the table. “And for the record, this is going to be the last word: Go to hell.”
“Well, you’re stubborn. I’ll give you that.” His lips twitched as he rose from the booth. “Tell your boss I said hello.”
Will’s parting shot didn’t make any sense until I got to the FrankenBug and my phone rang. I glanced at the screen and frowned, debating whether to answer it. Why was Sadie calling me? She rarely called when I was out of the office unless it was to get a progress report. And I hadn’t been in Mud Creek long enough to have made progress. If anything, I might have regressed a little. Or a lot.
I was so tempted to hit “Ignore.” But if I let it go to voice mail, she would know something was up, and then she’d just keep calling. And if she continued calling long enough, unanswered, she might get irritated enough to drive the four hours to Mud Creek and “visit” me. Her version of visiting sometimes involved lectures and reorganizing my supplies.
No sooner than I’d hit “Accept,” I heard Sadie’s cheerful “I’m making a public presentation” voice say, “Hey, Bonnie, how’s it going?”
I stuttered, “Uh, f-fine.”
“Great. Great. I’m glad to hear it. You know Kelsey worries about you when you’re in the field. And she says to tell you that you left your phone charger at her apartment,” Sadie gabbed, all politeness. Her voice sounded so normal, so bland and businesslike, that I relaxed. Maybe she was just calling to check in. It was possible. This was, after all, the farthest I’d worked from the Frankfort offices. And then I heard her shuffle something on her desk and clear her throat. “Oh, and would you mind telling me why I got the front page of the Mud Creek Ledger faxed to me this morning with the headline ‘State tourism official derails plan to save town’? Or why Ray got a call from a Mayor Will McBride demanding to know why our office sent a, quote, ‘idiot history lady who doesn’t know how to drive without setting a car on fire’ to destroy his town?”
“I can explain about the car,” I told her.
“What is going on down there?” she demanded. “Last I heard, you were submitting a rather fabulous proposal for a museum there in town. And suddenly, you’re about to be run out of said town on a rail? I thought the mayor’s name was McGlory. How could you have deposed a small-town political regime, installed a new one, and then pissed it off in just a few weeks? This isn’t like you, Bonnie.”
There went my hopes for a promotion. I would be lucky to keep my job after this. There had to be a way to spin this that didn’t lead to my immediate dismissal and deportation from the state by catapult.
Nope, Sadie was the mistress of spin. She would see through any excuses or slick stories. And she would be insulted that I even attempted. The best course of action was to fess up and hope that she would be merciful, or that her catapult was in the shop. So I gave her a quick and dirty summary of events so far, including the newspaper disaster.
“Look, sweetie, I understand you wanting to save the place. You’re one giant bleeding heart. There’s no way you could resist. And that would have been fine if you hadn’t done something sneaky and underhanded and alienated an entire town in the process. Leave the sneaky and underhanded stuff to the people who are good at it. Like Kelsey.”
I heard a thump of something breaking in the background of Sadie’s office. “Kelsey just throw something at you?” I asked.
“Post-it holder,” Sadie supplied.
On the other end of the line, I heard her take a deep breath. “Bonnie, I value your work and your contributions to the commission. But you will figure out a way to make this work. You will work with the locals. You will try to find some compromise. You will do whatever you can to convince them that this museum is the best thing that ever happened to their town. You will create the best possible outcome for this situation. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I mumbled, not bothering to mention that I’d promised something remarkably similar to Will earlier. Because I didn’t think that would improve things for me.
“Because if you don’t fix this, I am having Kelsey pull a press release from my doomsday file.”
I cringed. Sadie only pulled her prewritten, fill-in-the-public-relations-disaster press releases from the worst-possible-scenario doomsday file when she was really nervous. Her potential scenarios included “misfired cannon at state-sponsored historical reenactment,” “governor hits senior citizen in face with shovel during park groundbreaking,” and “zombie outbreak at Kentucky Derby.” This did not bode well. No KCT employee whose work had led to a doomsday file release had stayed employed.
“I’ll fix it, Sadie, I promise.”
11
In Which I Discover the Many Layers of Miss Martha
I sat in Miss Martha’s living room surrounded by Brenda’s photos, trying to
arrange them into a timeline marked with dated Post-its. Despite the fact that the landmark designation was moving right along in the approval committee, it had not been a good week for me.
The sponsors who had received Will’s letter responded at every point along the spectrum from blacklisting my proposal to “We find your actions unprofessional and embarrassing—don’t contact us again. Ever.” Will had followed up his initial volley by sending copies of his anti-Bonnie letter to the state commissioner of tourism, the state parks department, and the governor’s public relations office. Needless to say, after the amount of tap dancing she’d had to do to shield me from bureaucratic wrath, Sadie was none too pleased with me. And Miss Martha still seemed to think of me as her surrogate cat.
The cat lover in question shuffled into the room, beer in hand, and glanced over my shoulder.
“Actually, honey, the Blue Notes played at McBride’s in June 1962. The Wilson Morris Band played there four months later. They had such a similar sound that George wanted to space them out. He was smart that way, knowing people didn’t want too much of a good thing at the same time.”
I glanced up at her. “You knew Mr. McBride?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, carefully lowering herself into a mauve wingback chair. “I was George’s booker.”
“And by that, I guess you don’t mean that you did his accounting for him.”
She snorted into her beer bottle. “The only math I do is measurements and seam allowances.” She reached into her workbasket and held up a small green satin piece covered in black lace. “I was the one who helped George book all of his acts the first few years.”
My mouth fell open so wide that my chin seemed to be resting on my collarbone. I was not proud of myself. I normally had more dignity than this during research interviews. “And how did you have connections to the music industry?”
Miss Martha drained her beer and gave a discreet, noiseless belch before hauling herself back out of her chair, saying, “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
Slowly but surely, Miss Martha led me upstairs to a guest room two doors down from my bathroom. The door had been closed since I’d moved in. I’d assumed it was a storage closet or something. But when Miss Martha opened the door, it felt like stepping into a historian’s wonderland.
As long as that historian specialized in ladies’ undies.
Every wall was decorated with black-and-white eight-by-tens of pinup girls posing in fancy corsets and fishnet stockings. Miss Martha had arranged shadow-boxed corset sets in between the frames. They were older, but beautifully maintained. The embroidery was still brilliant against the rainbow of satins and silks. While a few were just gorgeous examples of needlework—silver scrollwork over lilac, black floral stitches over ice blue, and gold flames over red silk—others had themes. A patriotic corset looked a little like Captain America’s costume, only there were two stars on the chest instead of one. And those stars were stitched on the bra cups instead of the shield. My favorite was a mermaid costume with seashells over the breasts and rows of tiny stitched starfish leading to the waistline.
I picked up an old black-and-white picture of a sleek blonde lying across a sofa and winking over her shoulder at the camera. She had perfectly executed eye makeup and a tiny little beauty mark at the corner of her lips. I looked over to Miss Martha, who had a not-so-tiny-anymore black mark at the corner of her mouth.
“This is you?” I exclaimed.
“The surprise in your voice is a little insulting,” she muttered.
“You were a stripper?” I marveled.
She gave my shoulder a none-too-gentle nudge and scoffed, “The term is ‘burlesque dancer.’ Smart-ass. And I couldn’t dance at gunpoint. The girls made me take that photo. They said it was unfair that I did all of the work and never got to have any of the fun.”
And suddenly, those undersize pieces of silk and lace scattered around the house made a lot more sense. “You made their costumes.”
“Every stitch,” she said proudly. “My mother was a seamstress, taught me everything she knew. We were living up in Newport, near Cincinnati. You wouldn’t believe the scene back in the late forties. The girls from the clubs all needed costumes that wouldn’t fall apart at the first turn. I had what you might call a cottage industry. And then I met my Hiram and moved here to be closer to his family.”
“Aw, that’s sort of sweet.”
“He was an idiot, from a family of idiots,” she said drily.
“Oh.” I bit my lip as she began to search among the scrapbooks stored on a nearby shelf. “Sorry.”
“Well, I kept in touch with the girls and when they needed new costumes, they’d come for a visit,” she said, flipping through one of the albums. “I had to sneak them into the house when Hiram was at work. He said they were a bad influence. But I kept sewing, the girls kept coming, and Hiram pretended not to see. The extra money saw us through some hard times, even if Hiram didn’t want to admit where it came from. Things changed over the years, though. I knew it was time to get out of the business when a woman named Peaches wanted me to make her what looked like an eye patch out of lime-green spandex,” she grumbled.
“It’s important to know your limits,” I said, patting her shoulder.
“Nowadays, I stick to corsetry. There’s all kinds of people out there who want a good-quality custom corset. Historical reenactors, cosplayers, costume companies, people who make their living in ways I don’t ask about. I get the orders and measurements off my Web site.”
“You’ve got more layers than an onion, don’t you, Miss Martha?”
“Don’t you forget it, kid.” She smirked up at me, turning the album around so I could see it. The pages were filled with shots of the McBride’s stage.
“The girls traveled the same circuit as the musicians. In fact, some of them performed right here in town, at some of the seedier boardinghouses where the musicians stayed. George wouldn’t allow burlesque at McBride’s, of course. But if he saw them in town, he always treated the dancers like the ladies they were. So they were more than willing to refer people from the music circuits to me, and I would pass that information on to George. Eventually he just cut out the middleman and gave me my own desk in the office.”
“But how did you make connections with so many different types of bands?”
“Burlesque dancers traveled the chitlin circuit and the country circuit. I didn’t realize it was such a big deal until our first few integrated concerts. There was a quick-rigged balcony, where the black customers were supposed to sit. And it never occurred to me that this was anything but normal. But there was only one set of bathrooms. George wasn’t about to tell a bunch of ladies that they had to walk down the road to the Texaco station just to powder their noses.
“So everybody was allowed to use the same johns. And that little bit of unusual became normal. There were very few black folks at the country shows, but a lot of people wanted to attend the R&B shows. Originally, the white kids would stay up in the balcony while the black folks danced to keep the crowds separated. Slowly but surely, some of the white boys drifted downstairs and asked some of the black gals to dance. Sometimes there was a fight, sometimes it was just an embarrassing display of bad dancing. But that smoothed out eventually, too. And the strange thing was, that ‘new kind of normal’ started spreading around town. Suddenly it didn’t seem so unusual to see black people sitting at the counter at the Dinner Bell or sitting in the same row at the movie theater. So when it came time for integrating the schools and everything, we didn’t have nearly the same problems that other towns did. George McBride set Mud Creek ahead about twenty years in terms of race relations.”
I could practically hear Miss Martha’s voice repeating this information over a video slide show of the photos I’d found of white and black customers dancing together at McBride’s. It was like she was gifting me historical copy. “
I sort of want to hug you right now, Miss Martha.”
“Resist the urge, sweet pea.”
“And you took all of these photos?” I asked.
“Some of them. Mrs. McBride took the rest and shared them with me. I’ve got about four more albums over there, filled with pictures of the singers. You’re welcome to make copies with that little printer thing and use them. It’d be nice to know someone was enjoying them.”
“She was a busy little shutterbug.” My historian heart beat with a greed I can only compare to that of those Nazis in the Indiana Jones movies every time they swiped his artifacts. “I’ve been living here for weeks, and you didn’t mention this?”
Miss Martha shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
With general renovations started and my timeline perfected, thanks to Miss Martha, I could start organizing the exhibits in earnest. I loved connecting the learning process with the interesting data I’d collected. But now came the fun part: standing in the museum space and moving things around in my head, figuring out how to communicate that information. When creating a display, I liked to engage as many of the senses as possible. I used recorded music, video, and news clippings, and when I was lucky, I got real artifacts. I loved picking out which facts would make a museum-goer say, “Huh, I’ll probably never get that weird factoid out of my head.”
