The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “I’d get perfectly dizzy,” Beulah said, getting out the tray of metal curlers she kept at her station. “I believe I’d keep my eyes closed the whole entire time I was in the air.” She poured some of her homemade setting lotion out of a bottle and into a jar. Dipping a comb into it, she began combing it through Lizzy’s hair.

  “You and Verna are brave,” Bessie Bloodworth said, from her place under the permanent wave machine, where she was getting her graying hair electrically curled. Another Dahlia, she had been a big help in getting the garden vegetables picked and carted out to the festival grounds. She went on: “Honest to Pete, Liz, I’d chew my nails down to the wrists if I had to go up in one of those machines. It might fall right down out of the sky with me in it!”

  “The only thing that fell out of the sky was that wingwalker,” Aunt Hetty said. Completely covered by a pink cape, she was settled in the other barber chair, where Bettina, wearing an embroidered pink smock, was combing out her white hair after a shampoo and set.

  Bettina gasped and her eyes opened wide. “She really did fall?” Bettina had gone to her mother’s over the weekend and missed the air show. “She was killed?”

  “It wasn’t a she,” Aunt Hetty replied crisply. “It was a he, and he didn’t really fall, at least not all the way, because he was wearing a parachute.”

  “Oh, of course,” Bettina said, teasing out a fluff of white hair and patting it delicately into place. “This must be somebody who took Angel Flame’s place after she got arrested.” She picked up the scissors and snipped off a stray strand.

  “That’s right,” Verna said, leafing through a magazine while she waited for her turn in Bettina’s barber chair. “The new wingwalker was a guy named Wiley Tuttle.”

  Lizzy was watching in the mirror as Beulah deftly wound her hair around a fat metal roller and fastened the clip. “Wiley Tuttle is one of the members of the ground crew,” she said, handing Beulah another clip out of the bowl in her lap. “Neither Miss Dare nor Mr. Hart guessed that he had any experience as a wingwalker or a parachute jumper. But it turns out that he had been wingwalking with a flying circus that went broke a couple of months ago. He signed on with the Dare Devils, hoping to get a chance to strut his stuff.”

  “He had plenty of stuff to strut,” Aunt Hetty said admiringly. “One minute that young fella is way up there in the sky, dancing around on the airplane wing like it’s a ballroom floor. And then the next minute he flies off that wing like a bird with his arms out.” She raised her arms to demonstrate and Bettina put a hasty hand on her shoulder.

  “There now, Miz Little, you don’t want me to snip a bit off your ear, do you?”

  Aunt Hetty dropped her arms. “And he’s falling like a rock, falling and falling and falling.” She took a deep breath. “And then just when I think he is going to crash into the ground right in front of my very eyes, he pulls a cord and whomp! like a lily blooming, that big white parachute opens up. And he lands—splat!—right in the middle of Archie Mann’s mattress!” She shook her head, disbelieving. “How that young fella could pick out that little tiny mattress to land on is completely beyond me.”

  “Miss Dare says he’s a better wingwalker than Angel Flame,” Verna said. She looked up from her magazine. “Of course, his legs aren’t as pretty as hers, but he’s a lot stronger. He rode the wing through a loop and a spin. Imagine, hanging onto a wing while the plane is flying upside down! She said that Angel Flame could never have done that.”

  Beulah wound a curler over Liz’s left ear. “Upside down,” she murmured. “I just can’t believe these modern marvels. Why, next thing you know, folks’ll be wanting to fly to the moon.”

  “That’ll be the day!” Bessie Bloodworth hooted.

  “What I want to know,” Bettina said, “is what’s going to happen to Miss Flame. Is it true that she’s in jail in Pensacola?” Peering into the mirror, she patted Aunt Hetty’s white hair. “What do you think, Miz Little? Does it look all right to you?” She brushed the back of Aunt Hetty’s neck and took off the cape with a flourish. “Here. Tell me what you think.” She handed Aunt Hetty a mirror.

  “Looks just beautiful, child,” Aunt Hetty said, turning so that she could see the back of her head. “Real professional.”

  “Professional.” Bettina beamed. “Thank you, Miz Little. I just love to hear that word. I try so hard to be a professional!”

  Verna took Aunt Hetty’s place in the barber chair and Aunt Hetty went to sit where Verna had been sitting. “To answer your question, Bettina, Buddy Norris took Angel Flame—Mabel Hopkins, her real name is—down to Pensacola on the Greyhound. They put her through the lineup and she’s been charged. And yes, she’s in the jail, for now.”

  “Mr. Moseley says that Angel will probably hire a lawyer who will try to get her some sort of plea deal,” Lizzy added, as Beulah wound another curler. “Whatever happens, she won’t be performing with the Dare Devils again. And Miss Dare said that if she has anything to do with it, Angel won’t be wingwalking with any of the other flying circuses. She’s going to spread the word that Angel can’t be trusted.”

  Roger and Mildred had already talked to Mr. Moseley about pressing extortion charges, but they hadn’t yet decided what to do. If Mr. Moseley could get Angel to give back the nine hundred dollars she got under false pretenses, they would probably let the matter drop. But of course, Lizzy didn’t say any of this out loud, since it was a legal matter and she never talked about what went on in Mr. Moseley’s office.

  “I thought Mildred’s party was a great success,” Bessie Bloodworth remarked, from her place under the electric permanent wave machine.

  “Yes, it was,” Verna agreed. “A complete success. The weather, the food, everything.”

  Beulah started on the hair at the back of Lizzy’s head. “You looked just beautiful in that gray dress, Liz. And your hair—well, it was just gorgeous, if I do say so myself. I got a really good do on you that time.” She smiled at Lizzy in the mirror. “It was a dang shame that Grady Alexander wasn’t there to see you.”

  Lizzy returned the smile. “Poor Grady. I can’t believe that DeeDee Davis did that to him—and she was Miss Congeniality, too!”

  “What did DeeDee Davis do to Mr. Alexander?” Bettina asked curiously. She unwound the pink towel from Verna’s head. “I don’t think I heard about that.”

  “Why, she stood him up for her old boyfriend, Tookie Turner,” Aunt Hetty said. She was leafing through Verna’s magazine while she waited for Bettina to do her manicure. “Grady showed up all decked out in his black tie to take her to the party and DeeDee’s mother told him that she had eloped with Tookie Tucker just that afternoon.”

  “Eloped!” Bessie Bloodworth exclaimed. “With Tookie Tucker?” She rolled her eyes. “She’ll rue the day she said yes to that young man, you all mark my words.”

  “Eloped,” Bettina murmured. “Poor Mr. Alexander. Must have spoiled his evening.”

  “Spoiled it so much that he decided not to come to the party,” Verna said with an ironic laugh. “Went home and took off his dinner jacket and sulked, was the way I heard it. Doctored himself with a big dose of Mickey LeDoux’s medicine.” Melba Jean, one of the women who worked in Verna’s office, lived next door to the house where Grady lived with his mother, and she and Mrs. Alexander were back-fence buddies.

  “A nice piece of humble pie won’t do Grady Alexander one bit of harm,” Aunt Hetty said firmly. “Don’t mean to be hard on him, but that young man thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”

  Lizzy wouldn’t have admitted it, but she was glad that Grady hadn’t shown up at the party with Miss Cotton of Monroeville. It would have completely spoiled what was an otherwise very nice get-together, with great food (the ladies from the Darling Diner had come up with an amazing assortment of tasty dishes), and pleasant company. There was even dancing, to the tune of the Kilgores’ Victrola rather than the band Mildr
ed had originally planned to hire. (The cost of the party had begun to worry her, apparently.)

  And those five shiners? By Friday afternoon, all five—Mildred’s, Lizzy’s, Verna’s, Miss Dare’s, and Roger’s—were quite spectacular and sure to raise questions. But just before the party, Mildred had come up with a scheme. She cut up a piece of black cloth and made five eye patches, giving them the rakish look of pirates.

  She also made five extras and persuaded Myra May, Raylene Riggs, Aunt Hetty, and Ophelia and Jed Snow to wear them. So there were ten people walking around with black eye patches, none of whom would offer a word of explanation (other than the expected “You should see the other guy”). The eye patches were a big mystery, and the other party guests seemed to be amused by it.

  Halfway through the evening, Mildred announced the presentation of the beautiful Texas Star (Hibiscus coccineus, as Miss Rodgers’ would say), decorated with a big green bow. Lizzy did the honors, Miss Dare gave a polite acceptance speech, and everybody clapped. The next morning, the Texas Star was kind enough to go with a group of the Dahlias to the garden behind their clubhouse, where they planted the Hibiscus coccineus and put up a wooden sign, handpainted by Beulah herself, commemorating the grand occasion.

  Charlie Dickens came to the ceremony to snap a couple of photographs for the newspaper, but he left as soon as he finished. He seemed silent and unusually out of sorts. He hadn’t come to the party, either. Lizzy privately wondered whether his mood had anything to do with the CLOSED sign on Fannie Champaign’s hat shop and the blinds that were drawn at Fannie’s windows in the flat above the store.

  Aunt Hetty turned a page of her magazine. As if she had read Lizzie’s mind, she remarked, “Charlie Dickens could do with a slice of humble pie, too.”

  “Why do you say that, Aunt Hetty?” Beulah asked. She dipped a fluff of cotton into the setting gel and began patting it along each curler, saturating Lizzy’s hair. She held the bowl close to Lizzy’s head to catch the drips.

  “It’s because of the way Mr. Dickens behaved at the picture show with Miss Dare,” Bettina said severely. She tch-tched with her tongue. “Scandalous, if you ask me. And poor Miss Champaign sitting home all alone.”

  “Does anybody know where she’s gone?” Lizzy asked. She closed her eyes as Beulah worked around her forehead with the setting lotion and the cotton. “I’m worried about her.”

  “She has a sister in Miami and a cousin in Atlanta,” Bessie Bloodworth said. “She might have gone there.” She sighed. “I can’t believe that Charlie Dickens would act like such a louse. Why, he and Fannie were as good as engaged, from what I heard. Why did he do it?”

  Nobody knew the answer. But that mystery was eclipsed by a much greater one, which had stunned everyone when they heard about it. It was Myra May Mosswell’s introduction of her mother, whose cooking was such a huge hit at the diner: Raylene Riggs, aka Ina Ray Mosswell.

  “When I heard that,” Bettina said, combing Verna’s hair down in the back and trimming with her scissors, “you could have knocked me over with a feather. Imagine finding out that the cook you’ve just hired is really your long-lost mother!”

  “Long dead mother,” Verna corrected her. “That’s what Myra May thought, anyway. That’s what her father told her—and the aunt who raised her.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Lizzy said, “is why some of the older folks around town didn’t recognize her.”

  “Charlie Dickens’ sister Edna Fay thought she looked familiar,” Verna said. “Myra May told me that. But she didn’t recognize her.”

  Beulah set the lotion on the counter. “Of course,” she said, considering, “Ina Ray left Darling thirty-some years ago. It’s hard to remember what a person looks like if you haven’t seen her for thirty years.”

  “Especially if your memory isn’t very good.” Bessie Bloodworth laughed a little. “Like mine.”

  “Especially,” Bettina said, “if you think she’s been dead all that time.”

  “Especially if her husband and her sister-in-law have both insisted that she’s dead,” Verna said. “Not once but dozens of times.”

  “But you saw through all that, didn’t you, Aunt Hetty?” Lizzy said, catching Aunt Hetty’s glance in the mirror. “You recognized Ina Ray right off.”

  “Not right off,” Aunt Hetty admitted, closing the magazine on her finger. “It took a minute. But the more I looked at that lady, the more like Myra May she looked, and then I had it. But of course, I had the advantage of knowing that Ina Ray wasn’t actually dead. Belle Mosswell confessed that to me years ago and made me swear never to let on. Poor Belle. She felt guilty about that lie right up to the day she died, but of course her brother made her do it.” Aunt Hetty narrowed her eyes. “Belle Mosswell never could stand up to that man—she let him walk all over her from the time they were children. I don’t blame Ina Ray for leaving. A pity she didn’t take her baby with her, but I understand. Times were hard back then, almost as bad as they are now.”

  “I hear that Myra May’s mother is a real good cook,” Bettina said, fluffing her fingers through Verna’s hair. “Is she going to stay in Darling and help out at the diner?”

  “She says she’s going to settle down here,” Aunt Hetty replied. “She and Myra May are getting acquainted. She loves Violet. And she downright adores little Cupcake. Says it’s like having a grandbaby.”

  Beulah put the rest of the curlers in a drawer. “But where’s she going to live? I’ve been in Myra May’s flat. It’s pretty small, especially with the baby. They couldn’t put a mouse in there.”

  “You haven’t heard?” Lizzy asked. “Raylene and Pauline DuBerry have struck up a friendship, and Pauline has asked her if she’d like to live upstairs in the DuBerry house. Raylene is going to pay rent, which will give Pauline enough extra money so she can hire somebody to help her clean the cabins and do the laundry. Pauline’s getting on, you know. She doesn’t have any children and with Floyd gone, it’ll be good for her to have somebody living in the house. She’s even agreed to let Raylene use her car to drive to work.”

  “Raylene,” Verna said thoughtfully. “So we’re not going to call her Ina Ray?”

  “Raylene says that Ina Ray’s dead,” Aunt Hetty said flatly. “She doesn’t want to be Ina Ray anymore. Everybody’s supposed to call her Raylene—except for Myra May, who can call her Mama any time she wants. Violet, too. And Cupcake is already calling her Grandma.”

  Beulah unbuttoned Liz’s pink cape and took it off. “There, Liz—you’re all done. Let’s put you under the hair dryer.” Lizzy followed her to the chair and sat down, while Beulah adjusted the big metal bonnet over her head and flicked the switch. The machine began to hum and warm air swished down around Lizzy’s ears. “And I just made something I want all you ladies to try out,” Beulah added. She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.

  “I think it’s so sweet about Myra May and her mother,” Bettina said softly. “Such a lovely reunion—especially after so many years apart. A happy ending, don’t you think?” She swiped at one eye with the back of her hand. “Makes me tear up just to think of it.”

  Verna clucked her tongue. “Bettina, you are just so sentimental.”

  Bettina’s forehead puckered in a puzzled frown. “Well, what’s so bad about being sentimental? I mean, if you’ve got feelings in your heart, you should show them, isn’t that right?”

  “But you can’t know if this is an ending,” Verna said in a practical tone. “I mean, as far as Myra May and Raylene are concerned, maybe it’s a beginning. Or somewhere in the middle. And maybe it won’t be so happy. Maybe they won’t like each other as much as they think. Maybe—”

  “Verna, Verna,” Aunt Hetty said, shaking her head darkly. “You are the most distrustful person the good lord ever allowed to walk on this green earth. Isn’t she, Lizzy?”

  “What?” Lizzy smiled at Aunt Hetty. “I c
an’t hear a thing with this hair dryer going.”

  Beulah came out of the kitchen with a spoon and a small crockery bowl of a fluffy white mixture. “All right, ladies,” she said. “I want you to hold out your hands. I’ll give you each a spoonful of my new magic hand cream. I want you to rub it in and tell me how it feels.” She went around to each of them with the bowl and the spoon.

  It was cool, Lizzy thought as she rubbed the mixture into her skin. “It feels smooth,” she said. “And rich.”

  “Good on these old hands,” Aunt Hetty agreed, rubbing.

  “Not at all sticky,” Verna said in an approving tone. “So many of the hand creams I’ve tried feel sticky.”

  Bessie sniffed her hands. “Smells good, too. Smells like Blue Waltz.”

  “You guessed it, Bessie,” Beulah said happily. “I added just a couple of drops of Blue Waltz, from the five-and-dime, to make it smell pretty. But before you leave, you’ll want to rinse it off.”

  “Rinse it off?” Verna wanted to know. “But why?”

  “Because you might attract flies,” Beulah said. “It’s mostly mashed potatoes.”

  “Mashed potatoes!” the Dahlias cried in unison.

  Beulah nodded smiling. “Well, you know my motto, ladies. We may not have much, but we get beautiful when we use what we’ve got.”

  The Garden Gate

  GETTING BEAUTIFUL FOR PENNIES

  BY MISS ELIZABETH LACY

  DARLING DISPATCH FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1932