The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

by Susan Wittig Albert

  “Aren’t those lilies pretty?” Lizzy said admiringly. “Or Lycoris radiata, as Miss Rogers would say.” Miss Rogers, the town librarian and its leading intellectual, always insisted on calling plants by their Latin names, an insistence that drove everybody crazy.

  “Yes. But not half as pretty as those naked ladies in front of old Miss Hamer’s house.” Verna pointed across the street, where a two-story frame house, weathered gray with green shutters and in need of a coat of paint, was fronted by a few rosebushes and a mass of leggy lilies in a rainbow of colors: pumpkin orange, sunshine yellow, sizzling scarlet, as well as the quieter mauve, blush, and white. Verna chuckled and imitated Miss Rogers’ high-pitched voice. “Lycoris squamigera, girls. ‘Naked ladies’ is not a respectable name for a plant.”

  “My mother calls them ‘resurrection lilies,’ ” Lizzy said, and laughed a little. “When I was a girl, I always thought they were sort of magical, the way the leaves died in the summer and then the stalks poked up out of the ground, all of a sudden, and in the next day or two, here came the blooms-poof!” She waved her hand. “Maybe the new people will clean up the front yard a little,” she added. “Those naked ladies deserve a place to show off. You can hardly see them for all that grass and weeds.”

  “The new people?” Verna asked, raising her eyebrows. “You mean, somebody has moved in with old Miss Hamer?”

  Miss Julia Hamer had to be eighty if she was a day and probably older, although nobody knew for sure, except possibly Bessie Bloodworth, the town’s unofficial historian and genealogist, who knew everybody’s family tree as well as she knew every branch of the flowering dogwood just outside her kitchen window. Bessie, who lived next door to the Dahlias’ clubhouse, had written up Miss Hamer’s family story in the collection of local histories she had gathered years before. Miss Hamer’s father had been among Darling’s early settlers, and the old woman had lived in the house on Camellia Street, across from Mrs. Blackstone and Bessie Bloodworth, since long before Lizzy was born.

  There were other women in town who didn’t go out much, but as a recluse, Miss Hamer without a doubt took the cake. She hadn’t been to church for forty years, which was scandal enough to raise all the Darling eyebrows, and when the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist preachers made their annual round of visits to inquire about the state of her eternal soul, the door was always shut in their faces, and not very politely, either. Miss Hamer’s colored maid, DessaRae (an aunt of Lizzy’s mother’s maid, Sally-Lou), took the weekly grocery list to Hancock’s Groceries, but the household’s milk, eggs, and ice were of course delivered right to the door and the bills regularly paid by mail. Old Zeke was employed to mow and trim the yard twice a year, not often enough to keep it neat but just enough to keep the weeds from taking over. And if Miss Hamer sat outside on a warm summer evening, as most folks did in Darling, she sat in her daddy’s old pine rocker on the back porch, where she couldn’t be seen because the backyard was entirely enclosed by a holly hedge so dense that not even the neighborhood children could peek through it. Nobody except Bessie Bloodworth, Doc Roberts, and DessaRae had so much as laid eyes on the old lady for a very long time, except as a pale shadow moving slowly behind the drawn window shades in the evening, after the kerosene lamps were lit.

  And now she was no longer living alone.

  “They moved in last Saturday,” Lizzy replied, in answer to Verna’s question. “Two ladies. Miss Hamer’s niece and her friend, Miss Lake. Miss Jamison-that’s the niece-is doing some legal business with Mr. Moseley. He’s handling the sale of her house back in Illinois, and he’s been corresponding with her. I met her when she came into the office right after she and her friend arrived, and she’s been back a time or two.” Lizzy wrinkled her nose. “She’s kind of a cool customer.”

  “Two women, moving into Miss Hamer’s house?” Verna said, shaking her head incredulously. “Don’t you find that a little surprising, Liz? After all, she’s lived by herself-with DessaRae to help out, of course-for decades.”

  Lizzy shrugged. “Miss Jamison told Mr. Moseley that her aunt invited them. Maybe Miss Hamer needs more help than she’s getting from DessaRae, who has a bad back, Sally-Lou says. And Miss Jamison is family.” Which of course explained it, Lizzy thought, since family usually pitched in to help when things got difficult.

  “Well, I’m sure there’s room,” Verna said in a practical tone. “That house must have at least three bedrooms upstairs. So you’ve met them. What are they like?”

  Lizzy raised her eyebrows. “Well, I haven’t met Miss Lake, so I couldn’t say about her. But when it comes to Miss Jamison, you’d really have to see her to believe-”

  But just at that moment, the front door of the house opened and a woman came out onto the porch. She was dressed fit to kill in a stylish fire-engine red dress with a dropped waist and a pleated skirt that came just to the knee. A filmy red scarf was wrapped several times around her neck, the ends flowing loose. A chic red felt hat with a floppy red bow on one side perched on her platinum blond hair. She was wearing black gloves and red suede high-heeled shoes with four-inch French heels and narrow ankle straps, and carried a red-and-black pouch handbag big enough to stuff a live chicken into.

  “That’s her,” Lizzy said. “Miss Jamison.”

  “Jeepers,” Verna muttered, staring.

  The woman came down the steps, looked up and saw them, and gave a little wave before she turned away. Even from a distance, it could be seen that Miss Jamison’s face and eyes were heavily made up, that her mouth was painted bright red, and that she was generously endowed in the bosom department. Very generously.

  But as Lizzy waved and smiled in return, she couldn’t help thinking that, unless Darling’s newest resident changed her style, she was going to find it difficult to fit into the local scene. For one thing, while one or two of the smartest ladies might wear a red dress and makeup to an evening party, particularly around the winter holidays, red was not considered an appropriate choice for afternoon shopping. And nobody-not even the younger women-wore that much makeup, ever. If Lizzy knew anything about the residents of Darling, she’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Miss Jamison would cause a titanic stir in Hancock’s Groceries or Mann’s Mercantile or Lima’s Drugs, wherever she was going. In that red dress, she would be as noticeable as a big brown June bug in a plate of grits. Tongues would be wagging around Darling’s supper tables tonight.

  Verna’s eyes were wide. “Jamison?” She turned to Lizzy. “Is that the name she’s using?”

  “Well, yes. Nona Jean Jamison. As I said, she’s Miss Hamer’s niece. She-”

  “I heard what you said. But Nona Jean Jamison has another name, Liz. She is Lorelei LaMotte. Lorelei LaMotte! She’s a Broadway star! A vaudeville dancer!”

  Lizzy frowned doubtfully. “Are you sure? She didn’t say a word about a dancing career or being in vaudeville or anything like that. What Miss Jamison told Mr. Moseley was that her mother was Miss Hamer’s younger sister and that she grew up over in Monroeville and visited here in Darling. But that was years and years ago. She said she’d never been back since she was a little girl. She came here from Chicago-one of the suburbs, actually.”

  “She didn’t mention being Lorelei LaMotte?”

  “Nope.” Lizzy shook her head. “If you ask me, she’s had a rough life, Verna. She’s definitely well preserved and still very pretty, but up close, you can tell that she is definitely looking over her shoulder at forty. I’m not doubting your word, but if she’s a dancer, she-”

  “Doubt my word?” Verna was sputtering. “I am right, Liz, and I have a souvenir playbill to prove it. A photograph of Lorelei LaMotte, nearly naked, with her actual signature on it! I’d know that face and figure anywhere. She’s the naughty half of the Naughty and Nice Sisters. They’re dancers.”

  “Nearly naked dancers?” Lizzy’s eyes got big, and she turned to look as the woman in red, hips swaying, walked down Camellia Street toward Rosemont. “Where was this, Verna? And when? And
wouldn’t you think she’d mention it to Mr. Moseley?”

  “It was the Ziegfeld Frolic, back in 1920. Ten years ago, but it seems like yesterday. I remember every minute of it.”

  “The Ziegfeld Follies?” Now Lizzy’s mouth fell open. “Seriously?”

  “No, not the Follies, the Frolic. The Midnight Frolic. The Follies were designed for a more refined audience.” Verna gave her a wicked grin. “The Frolic was naughtier. The girls were more… um, naked.”

  “More naked than the Follies?” Lizzy stared at her, remembering the scanty costumes she had seen in photographs. “But how in the world do you know about this, Verna?”

  “Because I was there, you goose! Walter’s cousin Gerald was living in Brooklyn at the time. He took Walter and me to see her do the shimmy.” Walter was Verna’s husband. He’d been killed when he walked out in front of a Greyhound bus on Route 12. “We rode the train to New York and Gerald showed us the sights. The Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square. And the New Amsterdam Theater, where Mr. Ziegfeld had his shows.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been to New York.” Lizzy was impressed. She had never been any farther than Atlanta. “And you’re saying that Miss Jamison starred in the Frolic? She’s the one you went to see?”

  “And how!” Verna nodded vigorously. “Only her name was LaMotte, not Jamison. The show was in the rooftop theater at the New Amsterdam, on West Forty-second Street. Fanny Brice and W. C. Fields headlined, and the Naughty and Nice Sisters did this swell song-and-dance act.” She rolled her eyes expressively. “Boy-o-boy, that woman could kick up her heels. And shimmy? You wouldn’t believe it, Liz. She did this song called ‘Shimmyshawobble.’ ” Verna held her arms out straight and shook the rest of herself. “‘I can’t play no piano,’” she warbled, “‘I can’t sing no blues, but I can shimmyshawobble from my head down to my shoes.’”

  “Oh, my stars,” Lizzy said, wide-eyed at the sight of Verna doing… what Verna was doing. “Is that what the shimmy looks like?”

  She had heard “Shimmyshawobble” on the radio, of course, but she’d had to use her imagination when it came to the shimmy itself, as well as the Turkey Trot, the Bunny Hug, the Texas Tommy, none of which she had ever seen. She had seen the Charleston, though. Vaudeville acts featuring singers, dancers, and comedians sometimes came to the Dance Barn, out on Briarwood Road. Last year, a pair of girls had danced the Charleston. It had caused quite a sensation. The Baptist preacher (who had dropped in to make sure that there were no “licentious acts” that might sully the souls of his flock) even called the sheriff. When Sheriff Burns got there, he asked the girls to give him a private performance, just so he could see what the preacher was complaining about. He declined to press charges.

  Verna dropped her arms and stood still. “That’s what the shimmy looks like-except that I’m not any good at it, compared to her. She shook everything, Liz. And I do mean everything, top to bottom and all parts in-between. Walter was bug-eyed. Gerald said he went to the Frolic whenever he could afford it, just to watch a hometown girl do the shimmy.”

  “But how did Gerald know that she was a hometown girl?” Lizzy asked reasonably.

  “He said he went to school with her. He and Walter both grew up over in Monroeville, you know. Of course, I had no idea that Lorelei LaMotte had an aunt here in Darling, and I’m sure Gerald didn’t, either. He just thought it was a really swell joke. He got a big kick out of seeing her up on stage, all made up and beautiful, shaking her chassis and belting out those songs. He said he’d never in the world have recognized her.”

  “Shaking her chassis?”

  Verna laughed at Lizzy’s shocked look. “Well, that’s what she was doing. And you should have seen her costume-what there was of it! For all practical purposes, she was naked. After the show, we went backstage and she signed the playbill for me. ‘For Verna,’ she wrote, ‘with all my love. Lorelei LaMotte.’ This is the same person, Liz. Believe me.”

  “What about her sister?” Lizzy asked, by now completely convinced. “The ‘nice’ part of the act. Did she shimmy, too?”

  “No, she mostly played the mandolin and sang-not very well, but I think her mistakes were on purpose-and made remarks about how naughty Lorelei LaMotte was and how it was going to get her into trouble if she didn’t watch out. She was funny and everybody laughed. She wasn’t really Lorelei’s sister, though. That was just the way they were billed.” She paused, frowning. “What’s the name of Miss Jamison’s friend? The one who’s moved in with her and Miss Hamer?”

  “Miss Lake. Lily Lake, I think she said.”

  “Of course!” Verna snapped her fingers. “That was her-Lily Lake! The ‘nice’ half of the Naughty and Nice Sisters. She was pretty, too-a brunette. But Lorelei LaMotte was the famous one, because of the shimmy.”

  “If she’s so famous,” Lizzy replied thoughtfully, “how come folks around here don’t know who she is?” She frowned. “For instance, Mr. Moseley had no idea. I’m sure that if she’d told him that she was a Ziegfeld Girl, he would have mentioned it to me.”

  Verna shrugged. “If she hasn’t been back to Darling since she was a girl, there’s no reason for people around here to make the connection. Please forgive me for besmirching Benton Moseley, but I seriously doubt that he pays any attention to show business. In fact, he’s probably never even heard of Mr. Ziegfeld.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Lizzy conceded. For years, she had carried a secret torch for her boss, but even when she was so head-over-heels she couldn’t see straight, she hadn’t been blind to his limitations. Mr. Moseley was nice-looking and very smart, but he was not the most scintillating man in the world. He almost never went to the movies, and while he subscribed to newspapers like the Sunday New York Times (which came on the bus from Mobile every Thursday), he mostly read about national politics and international affairs, not the entertainment section. Mrs. Moseley said he was a “stuffy old stick-in-the-mud,” and Lizzy suspected that this had something to do with her recent decision to get a divorce.

  “Anyway,” Verna went on, “the Naughty and Nice Sisters may have been a big hit back in 1920, but that was before Prohibition. Lots of clubs folded, and I read that Mr. Ziegfeld himself hasn’t been doing so hot lately. It’s no surprise that nobody in Darling has ever heard of Lorelei LaMotte or the Naughty and Nice Sisters.” She narrowed her eyes at Lizzy. “But I’ll show you that playbill, and you can see for yourself who Nona Jean Jamison is. Who she really is, in the flesh, so to speak.”

  “Well,” Lizzy replied with a little laugh, “I guess they’ll hear about her now. In that red outfit and those high heels, she’ll be the talk of the town.” In Darling, gossip was everybody’s favorite recreation.

  “Oh, golly, Liz!” Verna snapped her fingers. “I have just got the most incredible idea!”

  “Idea? What idea?” Lizzy asked cautiously. Verna was very intelligent and eminently practical, but she could be too smart for her own good. Sometimes she outfoxed herself.

  “About the talent show.” Sponsored and organized by the Dahlias, this annual event was held at the Darling Academy gymnasium in late October. It was always a mixture of the melodramatic (Mrs. Eiglehorn reciting “Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight”) and the comic (Mr. Trubar clowning around with his shiny trombone and his dancing dog, Towser). It was the highlight of Darling’s fall social season. Everybody in town looked forward to it with a great deal of anticipation.

  “Uh-oh,” Lizzy said. Mildred Kilgore was putting the talent show program together, and she was a very detail-oriented person who liked everything to turn out just the way she planned. Where Mildred was concerned, the only successful program was the one where even Reverend Trivette, the minister at the Four Corners Methodist Church, could go away saying what swell family entertainment it had been. The Naughty and Nice Sisters would give Mildred Kilgore heartburn.

  “No, no,” Verna protested. “It’s a good idea, Liz! Let’s ask Miss LaMotte and Miss Lake to d
o an act for the talent show. I’ll bet they’d really bring in a crowd. We could put up posters and advertise-”

  “Verna! You know Mildred wouldn’t think of inviting those ladies to perform. Why, the audience would be scandalized! Most of them would get up and walk out, and the ones who stayed would cause a riot.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of asking them to do their Ziegfeld Frolic act,” Verna replied hastily. “It would be different-something suitable for a Darling audience. If they’re planning to be in Darling for any length of time, it would be a perfect way for them to get acquainted. I’ll bet the Dahlias would be delighted to have their help with the show.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Lizzy said, shaking her head warily. “From what you say, they sound like an intriguing pair, but they’d probably feel more at home out at the Dance Barn. You’d better talk it over with Mildred before you get all excited about the possibilities.” She thought of something else. “Listen, Myra May and I are having supper at the diner tonight, and then we’re going to see The Saturday Night Kid. Clara Bow is in it, and Jean Harlow. Want to come with us?”

  “I’d love to,” Verna said. “But what about Grady? How come you’re not going out with him?” Grady Alexander, the county agricultural extension agent, was Lizzy’s more-or-less steady boyfriend.

  “He drove over to Auburn for an ag meeting. He’ll be gone through the middle of next week.” Lizzy sighed. “To tell the truth, Verna, I’m glad to get a little breathing space. I’m trying to put off-” She turned down her mouth. “Well, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Verna said sympathetically. She grinned. “But it’s a nice problem to have, in my opinion.” The courthouse clock began to strike. It was several blocks away, but its booming note could be heard all over town. The people of Darling always said they didn’t need watches. They had the courthouse clock, so there was never any excuse for being late.