The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

by Susan Wittig Albert

  But these arguments were generated by another, more powerful force that Charlie Dickens would not allow himself to recognize. It was fear that kept him from taking that ultimate step: fear of being confined—no, trapped was a better word—in a situation from which he could not escape. This subterranean fear had pushed him out of every relationship that had ever engaged his interest—including his brief and unsatisfying intimacy with Lily Dare (who was every bit as afraid of confinement as he was). It pushed him now to search for a way out of his relationship with Fannie Champaign, some kind of strategy that would deflect any blame from the blameless Fannie and cast it all on himself. Charlie was just enough aware of his feelings to recognize this as a noble impulse and to begin to think seriously about finding that strategy.

  And that was where he was when the Texas Star agreed to bring her Dare Devil air show to Darling. This circumstance gave him an idea for a way to deal with what he now thought of as the “Fannie problem.”

  He didn’t at all like this idea when it first occurred to him and he kept on not liking it as the idea grew into a plan. To tell the truth, the plan was pretty scummy and he wished he could think of something a little less hurtful for Fannie and not quite so damaging to his own reputation. But while it certainly was not a pretty plan, he told himself that it sprang from the right motive and was the best he could come up with under the circumstances. He didn’t want to do it, but he had to. And the time to do it was now.

  Charlie and Fannie usually had supper together on Wednesday nights. One week, they would walk over to the Old Alabama; the next week, Fannie would cook for them in her apartment, upstairs over her hat shop and the small rooms that housed the Darling library. That was the plan for this Wednesday night, and Charlie was glad, since it meant that he could say what he had to say in private, which seemed infinitely better to him than saying it in front of the other diners at the Old Alabama—although thinking about feeling glad only made him feel even worse.

  The evening was quite warm and humid, and Fannie had put together a sandwich supper of cold meat, cheese, potato salad, and sliced tomatoes. To catch the breeze, she had moved a small table to the window overlooking the courthouse square, where people were still coming and going in the early evening quiet, most of them on their way to the Palace Theater to see the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business. The window was curtained in some sort of translucent white material that seemed to shimmer in the slight breeze, and the table was fresh and pretty, with a white tablecloth and flower-embroidered napkins and a bouquet of summer flowers from Fannie’s garden.

  Fannie wore flowers, too, a bouquet of tiny fresh white blossoms tucked into the lace-edged V-neck of her pretty blue dress. Seeing the trouble she had taken to make herself and the table attractive, Charlie felt like an even bigger heel. “Lower than a snake’s belly,” his father would have said, and his father would have been right.

  Fannie was not quite as bright and lively as she usually was when they were together, and Charlie thought he detected a darker thread of melancholy beneath her banter. For his part, Charlie did his best to keep up his end of the conversation while they ate. But it was hard, because he kept thinking about the thing he was going to say after they had finished eating and wondering what was the easiest way to open an unpleasant subject.

  The bright summer evening waned into a warm, dusky twilight, but Fannie did not turn on the light. Finally, when they had finished their dessert and were lingering over a cup of after-dinner coffee, she opened the subject for him.

  “You haven’t mentioned the Kilgores’ party, Charlie. I don’t usually go to country club parties—they’re a little rich for my taste. But I’m planning to be there, since the Dahlias are presenting a potted plant to the guest of honor, Miss Dare—the Texas Star. It’s a hibiscus.” She looked at him with a half-smile that seemed to him hopeful, expectant, vulnerable. It struck at his heart. “You’re going, too, aren’t you? Perhaps we could . . .” The invitation hung in the air between them like an empty comic strip balloon.

  “I’ll be there.” Charlie set his coffee cup into its saucer with a definitive click. “In fact, I’m escorting Miss Dare—if she’s able to come, that is. There’s a problem with one of the airplanes.” He paused, steeling himself against hurting her but persuaded that cruelty was the only way. “Lily and I are old . . . friends,” he said, putting a suggestive emphasis on “friends” and trusting that Fannie—who drew her own line with such deftness and grace—would hear it and understand.

  She did. She stopped stirring cream into her coffee and sat quite still. A breeze lifted the curtain at her elbow, bringing the scent of fresh-popped popcorn into the room. Down on the street, in front of the Palace, somebody laughed.

  “I see,” she said, in a remarkably even voice. “It’s good for old friends to spend some time together. I hope the two of you will enjoy your reunion.” She spoke as if she had somehow prepared herself for his announcement, although he didn’t see how that was possible. She lifted her eyes to his and pinned his gaze, holding it steadily.

  There was a little leap in his stomach and a dull kerplunk, like a rock dropping into a deep well. The feeling shook him. He wasn’t a very good liar, but he replied with an attempt at nonchalance.

  “Yeah. That’s what it is, all right. A reunion. Lily and I have been talking on the telephone and it seems . . .” He stopped and glanced out the window at the darkening street, letting her imagine the conversation he might have had with Miss Dare. “I thought I’d better tell you before you saw us together at the party,” he added deliberately. “Or at the movie tomorrow night. There’s a special showing of Hell’s Angels. I’m taking her.”

  She turned away to look out the window, too, and he slid quickly into the explanation he had rehearsed. “Lily and I, we go back quite a few years. We met when I was working for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. At the time, she had a big ranch west of town where she liked to give parties. I’d spend weekends out there. We became quite good . . . friends.”

  Fannie seemed to draw back into herself, away from him, out of his reach. Still looking out the window, she said, “I suppose you’re telling me that you mean to renew your friendship with Miss Dare in an important or permanent way.” She turned to face him and added, quietly and evenly, “Is that it, Charlie?”

  He nodded again, although this time, he found that he couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sorry, Fannie. I mean, I’m really sorry. I didn’t know it was going to be like this, or I would never have—”

  He stopped, surprised and shaken by the pain he felt. It was as if he was putting a knife into her and feeling it slice through his own belly. The only thing that kept the thrust from being fatal was his knowledge that he was doing the right thing, the only thing, although with all his heart he wished it didn’t have to be done.

  He cleared his throat and tried again. “I shouldn’t have pursued you the way I did, Fannie. I’m to blame, especially since I knew all along that I couldn’t . . . that is—”

  He fumbled for the words and couldn’t find them. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Just . . . sorry.”

  “So am I,” she murmured, and he thought she was. She sat silently for a moment, and he thought she must be weighing whether to leave the knife there or let him twist it one more time. He could see her holding her shoulders straight, hardening herself against the pain of another brutal thrust.

  “I’m to understand that there was some sort of prior agreement between you and Miss Dare before you . . . before you and I started seeing one another.” It wasn’t a question.

  He hesitated. “Agreement is too formal a word,” he said, hedging against the outright lie. “But I guess it’ll do. Yes. That’s what I’m saying.” He leaned forward, meeting her eyes, now speaking God’s truth and willing her to believe him.

  “Look, Fannie. I have been a cad of the worst sort. You have every right to call me that in front of this whole
town, to tell everybody what I’ve done. I hope you will. I want you to. I’ve treated you very badly and I’m sorry for it. But I would feel even sorrier if I let you go on thinking that there’s a chance that we could . . . That I—” He had rehearsed this part, too, but now he found that he couldn’t remember the words.

  “That you could love me even a little,” Fannie said quietly, “when deep in your heart, all along, you have loved her instead. I suppose that’s it.”

  “Something like that,” he said, tasting the lie and feeling an abysmal self-hatred for what he was doing to her, unable now even to comfort himself with the knowledge that this was the right thing, the noble thing to do. And then, into the silence, crawled the ugly little worm of uncertainty. What if it wasn’t the right thing to do? What if he had just broken something very beautiful and fragile, something not meant to be broken? What if—?

  “Well, then.” Fannie picked up her napkin and began to fold it, neatly and precisely, lining up the corners so that they were absolutely square. “Well, then,” she repeated, her voice clipped and brisk, her shoulders still straight in her pretty blue dress. “I suppose we won’t be seeing one another again—not this way, anyway.”

  “I guess that would be best,” he said gruffly. Actually, he hadn’t thought about what would happen between them after tonight, after he had said what he had to say to give her a reason to break it off. Now, having said it, he felt a sudden, surprising void—not a cliff, but a void—open up at his feet. It was wide and so deep he couldn’t see the bottom.

  Still in that brisk voice, she asked, “Will you be going off . . . with her?” She put down the napkin, adding quickly, “Forgive me for asking, but I think I should know. People might ask, and I would like to have something to tell them.” She paused, waiting, and then said again, “Are you going off together?”

  He hadn’t thought of this question either, and found himself stumbling through a ham-fisted improvisation. “Actually, no. I mean, that’s not . . . it isn’t likely to happen. At least, it won’t happen any time soon. Neither of us has the money. And I can’t just walk away from the newspaper. There are debts.” There weren’t, luckily, but it was the best he could do on short notice.

  “But if you love her,” she pressed, “and she loves you—well, then, money shouldn’t be an issue. And if you can’t leave the newspaper, couldn’t she come here, to be with you?”

  The thought of Lily Dare staying in Darling was so absurd that Charlie almost laughed out loud. “No,” he said. “She couldn’t. But I’ll be seeing her, of course—as often as we can manage it.” He managed to wrap a chuckle around his next lie. “Maybe she’ll fly in for a weekend every so often.”

  “With that airplane, I suppose she gets around,” Fannie said.

  There was a long silence. Then she lifted her chin and he heard the hard, fierce honesty in her voice, truer than anything he had said to her.

  “Well, then, Charlie Dickens, all I can say is that I’m sorry. I thought . . . that is, I had begun to feel that I loved you. And I thought you cared for me in the same way. I knew we couldn’t expect to make a life together for a while, the way things are these days. But I let myself hope, very unwisely, that we might, when things got better.” She clenched her small hands, the knuckles white and hard, her hard, fierce voice becoming even fiercer. “I can’t believe I let you fool me this way, Charlie. I’ve been so foolish.”

  He wanted to say No, I’m the fool, Fannie, the biggest fool in the world. But of course he didn’t. This was what he had wanted, wasn’t it? It was better for her to be angry. Anger would dull the pain. Anger would shield her against the inevitable gossip.

  He lowered his head against her fierceness and said, with a contriteness that was agonizingly genuine, “I’m a louse, Fannie. I’m a jerk. I’m a damned two-timing heel. It’s better for you to know that now than to find it out later.”

  Outdoors, the last light was gone, and in the room there were only shadows between them. He shoved the rest of the words out roughly, as if he were pushing rocks uphill. “That’s what I want you to tell anybody who asks. Tell them Charlie Dickens is a louse, a rat. Tell them how badly he’s behaved.”

  She laughed then, a bleak laugh that was brittle with hurt. “What makes you think that people will have to be told? They have eyes, don’t they, Charlie? When they see you with her, they’ll know what kind of person you are. I won’t have to say a word. Not one single word.”

  “I suppose so,” he said, and the darkness grew darker. He had done what he set out to do. His plan had worked as he intended, although he wished that she were angrier, that she would lash out, would lay into him like a cat-o’-nine-tails, the way he deserved. That she would raise her hand and slap his face so hard that it would rock him down to the soles of his shoes.

  “Well, then.” She stood up, facing him in the dark, and he braced himself against her fury. But all she said was, “Well, then good-bye, Charlie.”

  Charlie looked into her face and she met his gaze quite steadily. He had expected that she might cry, and if she did, that he would feel sorry for her. But she hadn’t cried, and feeling her steadiness, he suddenly felt sorry only for himself—sorry and very, very small. He had been so sure he was doing the right thing. But now he wasn’t.

  He looked down into the black void at his feet and wasn’t sure at all.

  NINE

  “What the World Needs Is One

  or Two More Miss Marples”

  On Thursday mornings, Mr. Moseley always reviewed the files for the upcoming cases and sent Lizzy over to Judge McHenry’s office with any additional paperwork relating to a pending hearing. Lizzy enjoyed this little task, since she usually took the opportunity to drop in at the county treasurer’s office and catch up on the latest news with her friend Verna.

  Of all the Dahlias, Lizzy was closest to Verna, who—by virtue of the work she did in the probate clerk’s office—had developed the mistrustful habit of listening between the lines for whatever disagreeable truths people were trying to conceal. Verna liked to say that whenever she stubbed her toe on a rock, she just had to stop and peer under it to see what was hiding there. Lizzy almost never looked under rocks unless she absolutely had to, but she was always interested in what Verna found.

  This Thursday morning, Mr. Moseley had telephoned from Montgomery with instructions to take several folders to Donna Sue Pendergast, the clerk in Judge McHenry’s office. After that, he said, she could take the rest of the day off. He paused.

  “This is the Watermelon Festival weekend, isn’t it? And you’re in charge? Why don’t you close up the office today—and take Friday off, too.” With an apologetic chuckle, he added, “It’s the least I can do after standing you up for the Kilgores’ party.”

  Well, this threw a different light on the day, didn’t it? Since there wasn’t any office work to do, she could settle down to the garden club newspaper column, “The Garden Gate.” For this week’s column, she had chosen the topic “Summertime Beauty Ideas from the Darling Dahlias” and had collected tips from every club member. Working fast, she got everything typed up in a matter of thirty minutes. She would drop the pages off in the Dispatch office on her way to Judge McHenry’s office.

  The sky had looked threatening when Lizzy came to work that morning, so she had brought her umbrella. There was no sign of rain clouds now, however. So Lizzy put on her yellow straw hat (the color exactly matched her sunny yellow print dress), gathered her newspaper column pages and the folders, and went downstairs. Charlie Dickens wasn’t there, but she left the pages with Ophelia, who took them to her Linotype machine at once.

  As Lizzy turned to leave the newspaper office, she saw the stack of ready print pages that had just arrived on the Greyhound bus from the print shop in Mobile. These pages—which would be incorporated with the local news in Charlie’s print run—were already made up with the latest national and world news,
sports, comics, and women’s news. The headline: Roosevelt Promises New Deal.

  Curious, she paused and skimmed the article, but if the writer ever spelled out what a “new deal” was, she didn’t see it. She hoped it wasn’t going to be like the promises Hoover made when he was campaigning back in 1928, telling voters that presidents Harding and Coolidge (who also happened to be Republicans) had “put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot’ and a car in every backyard.” Hoover promised more of the same. “The slogan of progress is changing from the full dinner pail to the full garage,” he had said, back in 1928.

  A full garage, Lizzy thought a little wistfully—and she was still riding her bicycle. Not much progress, was there? As if to underscore that thought, as she went out the door, she glanced down Franklin Street and saw an old Keystone iron-wheeled farm wagon in front of Hancock’s Grocery. It was hitched to a scarred brown mule, patiently flicking its ears and tail against the flies. A woman wearing a slat bonnet and a feed sack dress waited patiently on the wagon seat, a baby in her arms, a diaper over the tiny face to shield it from the sun. A small boy, towheaded, barefoot, shirtless and dressed in ragged overalls, sat in the back of the wagon with a black and white dog.

  Parked beside the wagon was a rusty old Model T Ford. Mr. Betts, the Ford’s owner, had made it into a truck by the simple expedient of taking out the backseat and the whole back end of the car and adding a big wooden box that stuck out over the back bumper like the bed of a truck. The box was filled today with a wooden crate of live chickens, a goat with its legs trussed, and a bushel of shelled corn.

  And next to Mr. Betts’ old Ford was Mr. Elias’ older brown Packard, which lacked the passenger-side door, as well as both front and back bumpers. An old leather belt was slung across the missing door to keep Mrs. Elias from tumbling out when her husband turned a sharp corner.