The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose (18 page)

“Ten dollars!” she said excitedly. “
Ten dollars!
Oh, my goodness! Oh, my gracious sakes alive, that would be
wonderful
, Mr. Dickens. Just wonderful!” She straightened her shoulders and tried to put on a businesslike expression, obviously making a special effort to contain her delight. “I’ll see you first thing tomorrow.”

Charlie shook his head as she almost danced out the door.

TWELVE

Lizzy and Coretta Cole

Lizzy hadn’t been back from the post office for very long when she heard footsteps—heavy, lumbering footsteps, this time—coming up the stairs. The office door flew open and Mrs. Angelina Biggs burst through. Although the sun was shining brightly, her hair was dripping wet and her eyes were wild and crazy.

“I want to see Mr. Moseley!” she cried, arms flailing. “I’m going to hire him to sue Beulah Trivette and Charlie Dickens and Artis Biggs! I’m suing all three of them for every penny they’ve got!” She whirled around like a dervish. “Where is Mr. Moseley? When can I see him? Where? When? Where?”

“I’m sorry, but he’s not here,” Lizzy said, blinking at this unusual behavior. People sometimes were a little frantic when they came to consult Mr. Moseley, but she had never seen anything like this. “Please sit down, Mrs. Biggs, so I can take your information. When Mr. Moseley gets back, he’ll call you to schedule a consultation and—”

“I am
not
sitting down!” Angelina Biggs cried, whirling faster, her arms out, her green dress ballooning out around her pudgy knees. Her ample chins rippled and the flesh under her arms swung like loose sleeves. “No, no, no! If I sit down, the rest of my hair will fall out.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lizzy stared at the whirling woman.

“My hair,” Mrs. Biggs cried. “I have to keep moving or my hair will fall out.” She made a three-hundred-sixty-degree turn. “That’s why I am going to sue Beulah Trivette. It’s all on account of her. She’s ruined my beautiful hair.”

Lizzy didn’t scare easily, but the skin on the back of her neck was prickling. Something was very wrong here, and a lawsuit wasn’t going to solve the problem. But what should she do? What would Mr. Moseley do if he were here?

While Mrs. Biggs lumbered around the reception area like a half-crazed circus elephant, knocking over chairs and small tables, Lizzy picked up the phone. Violet Sims, who was working the switchboard, came on the line and she said, very low, “Violet, this is Lizzy Lacy. Listen, I need you to call Artis Biggs at the hotel and tell him to get over to Mr. Moseley’s office as fast as he can. His wife is here, and she’s—well, I can’t tell whether she’s drunk or having some sort of . . . um, seizure, I guess you’d say.”

Her eyes widened as Mrs. Biggs blundered into an end table and toppled a lamp, smashing the paper shade. “Tell him to hurry,” she added urgently. “And maybe he could ask Mr. Dickens downstairs in the
Dispatch
office to give him a hand. I think it’s going to take two strong men to handle her.”

Lizzy put down the phone. “May I fix you a cup of coffee?” she asked pleasantly, as Mrs. Biggs whirled against the magazine rack, splintering it.

“No, no, no!” Mrs. Biggs cried. “Mr. Moseley! I want Mr. Moseley!”

It seemed like an eternity, but it was only a few moments later when Artis Biggs raced up the stairs, with Charlie Dickens on his heels. At the sight of her husband, Mrs. Biggs began to shriek like a banshee.

“I’m suing you,” she shrilled, waving her arms wildly. “You better not lay your filthy hands on me! You lecherous old coot! You reprobate! I’ll see you in court!” She whirled on Charlie. “You, too, Charlie Dickens! I’m suing you, too, for assault with attempt to molest.”

Mr. Biggs sighed heavily. “Thank you for calling me, Miss Lacy,” he said with a grim look. “Mr. Dickens and I will take it from here.” He glanced around the office, seeing the smashed lampshade and the splintered magazine rack. “I’ll be glad to pay for any damage she’s caused. Just send me a bill.”

“I’ll ask Mr. Moseley, but I don’t think that will be necessary,” Lizzy said. “I just hope Mrs. Biggs will be all right.”

“So do I,” Mr. Biggs muttered, as he tried to hang on to a flailing arm. “I just wish I knew what ails her. She’s been like this for a couple of days now. It’s like she’s goin’ crazy. She’s drivin’
me
crazy, anyway.” He put his arm around his wife’s ample waist. “Come on, now, sweetheart. Settle down. Settle down, and we’ll get you home to bed.”

“Bed!” Mrs. Biggs shrieked. “Don’t you talk to me about bed, you philanderer! You Don Juan, you!” She turned on Charlie Dickens. “And you, you . . . you Casanova!”

It required the combined efforts of both men to wrestle Mrs. Biggs down the stairs and get her headed back toward the hotel, lurching along between them like a drunk on the way home after a thirsty night on the town. Lizzy watched from the office window, shaking her head at the sight, which would have been funny if it hadn’t been so sad. Mrs. Biggs had always seemed like a quiet, thoughtful person. What in the world was making her act this way?

She was about to turn away from the window when she saw Beulah Trivette hurrying across the courthouse square toward the trio. The group paused while Mrs. Biggs struggled against the men’s restraint and Mr. Biggs listened, at first impatiently and then with growing seriousness, to what Beulah had to say. Then Beulah joined them and the quartet hustled toward the hotel as Lizzy puzzled over what it all meant. She’d have to ask Beulah for an explanation, first chance she got.

The rest of the day went by in the same first-one-thing-then-another manner, although without any more exciting whirling dervish episodes. By the time the old-fashioned grandfather clock had struck five, Lizzy was more than ready for the long work day to end. She had hoped to get a free hour to finish her “Garden Gate” column, but that hadn’t happened. So she walked hurriedly past the window of the
Dispatch
office, not wanting to catch Charlie Dickens’ glance. If she’d looked in, she might have seen Charlie bent over a library book instead of his typewriter, turning the pages with a rapt attention.

When Lizzy got home, she went straight to her bedroom, where she kicked off her shoes, unfastened her garter belt, and peeled off her stockings. As she did nearly every day after work, she washed them in the bathroom sink with a sprinkle of Ivory soap flakes. These were rayon service-weight stockings, reasonably sheer, and at fifty cents a pair at the Mercantile—forty-eight cents postage paid from the Sears catalog—you learned to take care of them. For another dollar, you could buy chiffon-weight silk stockings with the new slenderizing French heels. But Lizzy had only one pair of those, which she saved for very special occasions, like the monthly dances at the country club. Rayon was plenty good enough for the office—but then, it had to be, didn’t it? And anyway, she was lucky to have what she had. Some women couldn’t even afford rayon.

Stockings washed and dripping over the towel bar, Lizzy stepped into the blue cotton wrap dress with the white pique V-necked collar that she liked to wear around the house and padded barefoot into the kitchen. There, she poured a glass of lemonade from the pitcher in the refrigerator and took it into the grassy backyard, where Daffy was having his afternoon nap under a rosebush. He opened one eye, saw Lizzy, and closed his eye again.

When she’d first moved into her house, Grady had built a wooden garden swing, painted it white, and hung it from the limb of the live oak. Lizzy had made a seat cushion and covered it with orange and blue oilcloth. That’s where she sat now. She sipped her cold drink, pushed herself back and forth with one bare foot, and thought over all the things that had happened that day, especially Myra May’s report of Alice Ann Walker’s story about what happened at the bank and the sheriff’s subsequent appearance—with a warrant—at Verna’s house. Obviously, Verna was on Roy Burns’ wanted list. There was apparently enough money in her bank account to make her a suspect in the fifteen-thousand-dollar theft from the county treasury. Lizzy knew that Verna would never have stolen anything from the county treasury—but where had she gotten that money? Could she explain
that
to Roy Burns’ satisfaction?

Lizzy frowned and sipped her lemonade. She was wishing she had been able to talk to Mr. Moseley about this and wondering if she had done all she could when she heard a woman’s husky voice, a bit tentative, calling from the side-yard gate.

“Yoo-hoo, Liz. Liz Lacy. Do you, um, have a minute to talk?”

Lizzy stood up from the swing. “Hi. But who—”

Then she caught sight of her visitor, standing beside the gate. It was Coretta Cole, still wearing the same gray suit and red hat and heels that she’d had on that morning, when Lizzy had seen her having breakfast with Mr. Scroggins and Mr. Tombull.

“Coretta!” Lizzy exclaimed in great surprise. “What are you doing here?” And then, realizing that she sounded less than gracious, she added, “Push up the latch and come on in.”

Coretta did as she was told, walking across the grass on her toes so that her stylish three-inch heels wouldn’t sink into the earth. She was glancing around in a covetous way.

“Gee, Liz, this is a swell little place you’ve got here. Very pretty. All yours?”

“If you mean, do I live here alone,” Lizzy replied, guardedly, “the answer is yes.” It had been her experience that the less you told Coretta, the better.

Coretta’s giggle was mischievous. “Well, darn. I thought maybe you and Grady Alexander were—”

“No,” Lizzy said firmly. “We are
not
, and don’t you go telling people that we are. That just wouldn’t be true.” She paused as Coretta, uninvited, sank down in the swing. Then, remembering her manners, she added, “There’s cold lemonade in the refrigerator. Would you like some?”

Coretta shook her head. She had a sharp chin and chiseled cheeks, and her dark eyebrows were tweezed thin and arched over her Joan Crawford eyes.

“Thanks,” she said. “It’s sweet of you, Liz, but I can’t stay too long. My hubby promised to cook supper for us tonight, since it’s my first day back at work full time. He’s expecting me to come straight home.” She paused. “You know that Ted got laid off out at the Coca-Cola bottling plant, I reckon. He’s been out of work for a couple of months.”

“Yes, I heard,” Lizzy said. “I’m sorry, Coretta.” It was a true statement. You had to feel sorry for anybody who was out of work. In times like this, once somebody got laid off, it was nearly impossible to get another job, unless they wanted to leave Darling and try their luck in Memphis or Mobile or New Orleans.

“Thanks. I don’t mind telling you that Ted and I were looking at the bare bottom of the barrel when Mr. Scroggins called and told me I could come back to work full time. We’re so hard up, we haven’t been able to get the car fixed for months and months.” Coretta glanced at Lizzy’s bare feet, then down at her own high heels. “Do you mind?” she asked plaintively, batting her mascaraed eyelashes.

Without waiting for an answer, she bent over and pulled her shoes off, wiggling her toes in their silk stockings. “It’s the first time I’ve worn them to stand up in all day,” she said with a sigh, “and my feet are killing me.”

“No, of course I don’t mind.” Lizzy sat down on the other end of the swing, noticing Coretta’s silk stockings with a covetous feeling and wondering how somebody who couldn’t afford car repair could buy silk stockings and new shoes. And that great-looking gray suit, too. She had seen it on the manikin in the window at Mann’s for seven fifty, just a couple of weeks before.

Coretta took off her red felt hat and put it on the swing between them, patting her dark hair back into its sculptured waves. “To tell you the truth, Liz, I could hardly believe it when Mr. Scroggins called. Seemed like something I was dreaming, I’d been wanting it so bad. And Ted—well, you should have seen him. He was so relieved, he cried.” The words were tumbling out fast, as if they’d been stoppered up in a bottle and she was finally letting them out. “It’s not like I’m getting paid a fortune, you know. But we’ve got two boys, and we were hoping they could go to college. College is probably out the window now, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop dreaming. Me getting a regular paycheck again—well, it maybe means the oldest can go to Poly when he graduates high school.”

Lizzy listened, wishing that Coretta would get to the point. Why was she here? What did she want? She felt a bubble of hot resentment rise up inside her at the thought that this was the woman who had taken her best friend’s job. Had she come here to brag about it? To rub it in? Or was she trying to say that circumstances had forced her to do it and she was sorry?

“Look, Coretta,” she said, when the cascade of words slowed down. “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’re in a big hurry to get home and eat supper with Ted and the boys, maybe you’d better tell me why you’re here.”

Coretta turned her head away. She didn’t speak for a moment, then, instead of answering directly, she said, in a low voice, “I saw you this morning, in the diner. Sitting at the counter. Watching me.”

“I wasn’t
watching
, exactly,” Lizzy replied evenly. It sounded like Coretta was accusing her. “But I will admit to wondering why you were having breakfast with the county treasurer and the chairman of the county board of commissioners.” She frowned. “Doesn’t that strike you as a fair question?”

“It was just supposed to be Mr. Scroggins,” Coretta said, her voice defensive. “He was going to tell me some things I needed to know about the office. Mr. Tombull happened to come in to get his breakfast, so Mr. Scroggins didn’t have any choice but to invite him to sit down with us. It definitely wasn’t my idea. And Mr. Scroggins never did get around to telling me what I was supposed to know, so I’ve been flying blind all day. The other two women in the office—well, they don’t know beans about anything. You ask one of them a question and she just stares at you with a blank face. I mean, I know they probably don’t like me very much, given the situation, but that’s not my fault.” She stuck out her lower lip. “Between them and my shoes killing me, it’s been just awful, all day long.”