Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society

by Amy Hill Hearth

  “You know what year this is, Mr. Toomb?” Jackie said, unstoppable now. “This is nineteen sixty-three! Nineteen sixty-three! This is not eighteen sixty-three. The Civil War is over. The world is changing whether you like it or not, Mr. Toomb. And in many different ways.”

  The veins in Mr. Toomb’s neck and forehead were showing through his crepe-paper skin. “I think you two should sit down for a minute and collect yourselves,” Ted scolded. They complied. Jackie lit another cigarette and puffed away furiously. Ted poured a glass of water from a crystal pitcher and gave it to Mr. Toomb.

  A full five minutes passed. The storm appeared to be over when Mr. Toomb suddenly looked at his watch and slapped his hand against his forehead. “Oh gosh darn it, I am supposed to be over at the Swamp Buggy Festival. It starts in less than half an hour.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll wait for you, Mr. Toomb,” Ted said kindly.

  “Oh, yes, the Swamp Buggy Festival,” Jackie said. “Oh dear, we should be getting over there too. Our children will be waiting for us.”

  “Well, I suppose I can give you a ride,” Mr. Toomb said, automatically going into southern gentleman mode. He sounded worn down, exhausted. “We wouldn’t want your children to be worried about you.”

  Mr. Toomb made a quick phone call to Mr. Hendry. “Jim, I’m leaving for the festival right now, and I’ll have two guests with me in the car.”

  “Mr. Toomb?” Jackie asked sweetly, in that kind of voice that disarms men as quickly as your brain freezes when you eat ice cream too fast. “I was just thinking—could you ask the sheriff to wait until after the festival to question me? I promise I’ll go straight home and I’ll meet him there. But I wouldn’t want anything to take away from the festival.”

  “Excellent idea,” Mr. Toomb said. “I’ll make that clear.” He made another call while they waited.

  “What exactly is it that you do at the festival?” Jackie asked as they hurried down the stairs.

  “I’m the master of ceremonies,” he replied, just as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “After the mayor gives a speech, I get to introduce the new Swamp Buggy Queen. And this year—that Miss Dreamsville woman, whoever she is. I get to announce her too. It’s sort of like the Oscars. They’ll hand me an envelope. Lots of suspense.”

  Jackie hoped that neither Ted nor Mr. Toomb noticed that she squeezed her eyes shut. What a mess. But since Ted had certainly lost his job already, she reasoned it probably made no difference.

  “So I am not taking Miz Hart back to her house?” Mr. Hendry asked.

  “No, we’re all going to the Swamp Buggy Festival,” Mr. Toomb said impatiently. Mr. Hendry gave Jackie a perplexed look, then shrugged. There was some confusion about where they would sit in the car. Mr. Hendry wisely stayed out of it. Jackie seemed to think that as the only woman, she should sit between the two men in the backseat. Ted intervened, though, and insisted on sitting between her and Mr. Toomb, maybe so he could referee if things got ugly again. Mr. Toomb didn’t really seem to care, as long as they got going in a hurry.

  “Don’t want to be late, Jim,” Mr. Toomb said to Mr. Hendry, who responded by stomping on the accelerator.

  “By the way, Mr. Hendry, I think Mr. Toomb should arrive at the festival by himself,” Ted said. “You can drop us off a block or two away.”

  Mr. Toomb would never have asked. But Jackie noticed he didn’t object either.

  In short order, they were at the edge of town. At Ted’s suggestion, Mr. Hendry dropped off Ted and Jackie at the Dairy Queen. They could walk the rest of the way to the festival from there.

  As the car pulled away, Jackie could think of two appealing alternatives: hitchhike to Boston or go into the Dairy Queen and order the biggest chocolate sundae known to mankind. How she had looked forward to this day, and now it was in ruins. She was in trouble with the law for the first time in her life. She had caused her husband—who had just stuck his neck out for her—to lose his job. On top of it all, she wouldn’t even get to savor the announcement that she was Miss Dreamsville, since she was either going to be a no-show or appear in her muumuu and ugly shoes, which was not exactly what she’d had in mind.

  “Come on,” Ted said. “We may as well go see what this damned swamp buggy thing is all about. We can tell our friends about it when we move back north.”

  “Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” Jackie asked, trying to be funny.

  He put out his arm for her to hold and she took it as if they were on a date and going for a stroll.

  Unfortunately, Jackie and Ted didn’t know that the worst place they could ask to be dropped off was near the Dairy Queen, since the recent spring rains had left a layer of extrathick mud along the aptly named Lake Drive. Worse, some kind of tiny, hopping creatures were swarming the area—lime-green frogs, not more than a half inch in length. Trying not to step on the little critters while avoiding the deeper mud holes made for some tricky walking. Jackie was screeching, clinging to Ted. As Mama used to say, all you can do in a situation like that is laugh, which is exactly what they did.

  But when they got close enough to Fifth Avenue to see the crowd starting to assemble, it didn’t seem funny anymore. “We should just go home,” said Ted. “Look at me. Look at my suit.” Ted’s expensive Florsheim shoes were encased in mud the color of mocha frosting. The same clotted mess clung to the hems of his pant legs. Jackie’s bare legs were filthy, and the mud had worked its way inside her shoes. She could feel it squishing between her toes.

  “We look like refugees,” Jackie said.

  “I don’t want to be seen like this,” Ted muttered. “Let’s go home.”

  Jackie hesitated. Now that she had seen the size of the crowd, and the jerry-rigged platform someone had constructed earlier in the day, she wanted to be up there.

  “What about the kids?” she said. “We said we’d meet them there.”

  “Like this?”

  “Well, we don’t have time to go home and change. We can just say we had car trouble. I think it would look worse to Mr. Toomb if we didn’t show up at all.”

  This line of thinking appealed to Ted. “True,” he said, “but I’m not sure anything will make a difference. Not after what happened today.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t make any difference, why not go? Like you said, this may be our one and only chance to see a swamp buggy festival. Or a swamp buggy queen.” She tried to sound playful and flirty.

  Ted smiled. This was the fun side of Jackie, and he hadn’t seen much of that lately. “Okay, Jackie, you’re right. But what are we going to do later?”

  Jackie didn’t want to think about that. “You could stay here with the kids. Or do something else to keep them away from the house. I don’t want them to be there when the sheriff interviews me or takes me to the station. Or whatever.” Her voice trailed off.

  “But I want to be with you! I’m not letting you face this alone!” Ted pulled her closer.

  “Wait, the swamp buggy race is after the opening ceremony, and the kids will want to walk there with the crowd and see that.”

  They were both relieved at the thought. “Ted, do I need a lawyer?” she asked softly, as if saying it too loud would make it real.

  “Of course you need a lawyer. I’ve already been thinking of who to ask.”

  They walked glumly toward the crowd, which had tripled in the previous five minutes. “I didn’t know there were that many people in this whole town,” Ted said, surprised.

  “Well, I think they come from other towns to be here. And the newspapers. See the photographers?”

  “And television too! From Fort Myers,” Ted exclaimed. “They have a new station there—CBS.”

  Television? That got her attention. She’d been thinking of a way to bow out—maybe find Bill McIntyre or Charles from the radio station, the only two people who knew. Bill was supposed to write down her real name on a slip of paper and seal it in an envelope, to be opened and read aloud by someone, and then she would dash up
to the stage. She now realized the “someone” who would make the announcement was Mr. Toomb, which sent her stomach into contortions. If she could find Bill or Charles, maybe she could persuade them to postpone the Miss Dreamsville announcement.

  But to be on television? This was a temptation neither mud nor muumuu could discourage.

  “Look,” Ted was saying, “there’s Mr. Toomb up on the platform. See those chairs? Near the microphone?”

  “Ted,” she said solemnly. “I want to thank you for saying what you did today—for sticking up for me with Mr. Toomb.”

  Ted sighed. “Jackie,” he said slowly, “I should never have brought you down here.”

  “Oh no, don’t say that.” Jackie was starting to panic. Despite all the awful things that had unfolded that day, oddly enough, her marriage seemed back on track for the first time in years. But now what? Maybe the surprise of learning she was Miss Dreamsville would prove too much. She didn’t want to embarrass Ted. It dawned on her that she hadn’t considered his reaction at all. She’d been so mad at him, she hadn’t cared. Judd, she knew, would be momentarily humiliated, but he was a survivor and would bounce back. The twins—well, she figured they hated her anyway. But her husband—how would this affect him?

  “Ted,” she said, as they continued walking, “did you really mean those things you said about how you love me for who I am, and that you wouldn’t want me any other way?”

  “Of course.”

  They had reached the back of the crowd. The people nearest them turned and stared at their filthy clothing. “Car trouble!” Jackie said. “But we came anyway! Couldn’t miss this!”

  She started searching the crowd for the kids. Finally she spied Judd leaning out a second-floor window of the five-and-dime, the only two-story building in town. Judd loved the five-and-dime and spent considerable time there, along with the hardware store, which had a wonderful warped wood floor that the owner refused to fix.

  You couldn’t miss that red hair, just like hers. He had binoculars (only Judd would have thought to bring them), and she waved until he honed in on her and Ted. A few moments later Judd was by their side, flushed and happy.

  Jackie was wondering why the twins hadn’t shown up yet. Charles from the radio station was testing the microphone. Just as he said, “One, two, three,” the girls appeared miraculously. As soon as they got a look at their mother’s clothes, though, they fled back into the crowd. The sight of Jackie in the dreaded muumuu—muddy, no less—was beyond redemption.

  Jackie was beginning to think she’d rather be with us, her faithful literary group, and started scanning the crowd. Finally, she saw Robbie-Lee and knew we’d be clustered near him—Plain Jane, Miss Lansbury, Mrs. Bailey White, and me. We were all there except Priscilla, who couldn’t attend since she was Negro.

  Meanwhile, we were on the lookout for Jackie. Plain Jane and I spied her first, standing with Ted and her kids. She did not look like she was having a good day. We waved but at that moment the ceremony began.

  “Howdy, y’all!” the mayor screamed into the microphone. “This is a great day for Naples! Let me introduce our visiting dignitaries.” Usually this would mean the Collier County dogcatcher and the president of the local mosquito spraying commission, but for once, some muckety-mucks had come all the way from Tallahassee. Not the governor, mind you, but the state’s insurance commissioner, a man named Jonah Jones, and the top tourism official, Tyvee W. Walker III, who was as good at promoting himself (some said better) as he was the state.

  Mr. Toomb was up next. He needed no introduction, but the mayor plunged ahead, not wanting to miss an opportunity to fawn over one of our wealthiest citizens. Mr. Toomb’s job, in turn, was to announce the Swamp Buggy Queen and place the crown on her head. This year’s queen was a blue-eyed bottle blonde named Janey Sue Underhill. Since the queen’s identity was announced beforehand in the newspaper, the event was lacking in drama. Still, we could usually count on someone in the crowd to pretend that there was, in fact, suspense. There was much cheering and applauding when the new queen appeared—Houdini-like—from behind a curtain near the back of the stage.

  Sometimes the queen was nice, but I couldn’t work up much enthusiasm for Janey Sue. I’d had a few encounters with her at the post office and thought she was a little too confident for someone only seventeen years old. She wasn’t too bright either, and she had a relentless quality that made me want to get out of her way. Like an amoeba, one of those tiny creatures you can see under a microscope that keeps moving in circles, Janey Sue was brainless but determined to survive. While she couldn’t be bothered to be polite to other females, she found her friendly side the second a man walked into the room. The men didn’t pick up on it but the women always did.

  Surprisingly, she was wearing what appeared to be a very expensive gown. No homemade dress for this year’s queen, no sir. Janey Sue wore a strapless silver concoction, either silk or satin, with sequins in all the right places. Dang, that girl looked like she’d been sewn into that dress, and maybe she had. Not wanting anyone to think—heaven forbid—that she might be trying to look sexy, she wore demure white gloves that went all the way past the elbow. Well, at least that way she saved on a manicure.

  After Mr. Toomb stuck the crown on the new queen’s head, she was expected to burst into tears, and Janey Sue did not disappoint. She carried on so loud that Big Bert, the half-deaf bird dog, started howling, and you could hear his flea-bitten self a whole block away. You’d think that would be enough to get her away from the microphone, but no. She had a few remarks to make first. She thanked her daddy for working a second job to pay for her dress. She thanked her mama for raising her to be a proper young lady in the southern tradition. She thanked God in heaven (twice). She thanked Mr. Toomb for no reason at all. By the time she was thanking her grammar school teachers, one by one, I was almost in a trance from studying a blade of grass that was tickling my big toe. When I finally looked up, Robbie-Lee winked at me, shrugged, and grinned. Yeah, he seemed to be saying, this is corny and awful, but hey, just think how much fun we’ll have talking this to death later on. My spirits were raised too at the thought of the big surprise that was unique to this year’s festival: the long-awaited introduction of our town’s very own radio star, Miss Dreamsville.

  But darn it all, our theatrically inclined Swamp Buggy Queen would not leave the stage. Only her parents were applauding at this point. Finally, the mayor and the chamber president corralled Janey Sue and herded her toward the back of the stage.

  Just when we thought it was time for the big announcement, we realized there was one more item on the agenda: the crowning of Little Miss Swamp Buggy. This year’s little princess was, surprisingly, a brunette. Going back as far as I could remember, I think they were always blond. She was a sweet-looking child who curtsied and giggled and seemed to enjoy herself despite the starchy-looking dress, pale blue tights, and patent leather shoes, which made me squirm on her behalf.

  At last, with a practiced and quite charming salute, Little Miss Swamp Buggy departed from the stage. Our mayor, with the chamber president, Mr. McIntyre from the radio station, and Mr. Toomb, stepped forward, forming a semicircle around the microphone. They looked so much like a barbershop quartet that for half a second I expected them to burst into song. There was an awkward moment while they looked at each other, unsure what was supposed to happen next. Finally, Mr. McIntyre took the lead, whether he was supposed to or not. “This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for!” he called out joyfully. “The best-kept secret in town!” He stepped back and gestured to Mr. Toomb.

  “It is my pleasure,” Mr. Toomb dragged out the words, “and an honor to announce the identity of Miss Dreamsville. No one knows who she is except Mr. McIntyre at the radio station and, of course, Miss Dreamsville herself. Mr. McIntyre, hand me the envelope, please.”

  Mr. McIntyre checked one pocket of his sport jacket and then another. Finally he found it—a small, cream-colored envelope—and waved it in the ai
r triumphantly. With an exaggerated flourish, he handed it to Mr. Toomb.

  The crowd surged forward, shoulder to shoulder. Thunder rumbled far away, soft and soothing like an old man talking to himself about days gone by.

  Mr. Toomb adjusted his glasses. He opened the envelope slowly, using his finger as a knife. As he removed a small, thin sheet of paper from the envelope, children stood on tiptoes and adults leaned forward. But instead of reading the name aloud, as we expected, he stared at it. He wiggled his glasses around on his nose and stared again. Then he held the sheet of paper up to the sky, peering at it. But God was mischievous at just that moment and sent a little whirl of wind across the stage, maybe just to remind us who was really in charge. The thin piece of paper broke loose from Mr. Toomb’s hands and fluttered delicately as if it had wings.

  Someone shouted, “Grab it!” In what was surely the most athletic move he’d made in forty years, Mr. Toomb leaped into the air and snatched it, crumpling it in his hand.

  A few people applauded. A few laughed, and thunder rumbled again, as if joining in.

  Mr. Toomb caught his breath. He readjusted his glasses, smoothed the slip of paper, and seemed to struggle for composure. Could there have been a mistake? Maybe the slip of paper was blank? Or had the wrong name? Then Mr. Toomb did something very surprising: he turned his back to the crowd. Yankees did things like that, and maybe poor whites down here in the South, but not a southern gentleman like Mr. Toomb. But there he was, at the center of the stage with his back to us, whispering something urgently into Mr. McIntyre’s ear. “Yes,” Mr. McIntyre seemed to be saying, or at least, his head was nodding up and down.

  When Mr. Toomb turned his attention back to us, his face was sour as Polk County wine. Then he remembered the newspaper photographers and the television camera and managed a weak smile. The thunder spoke up again, this time more insistent. Finally, in a pinched voice, Mr. Toomb said the impossible:

  “Miss Dreamsville is . . . Mrs. Jacqueline Hart.”