The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady (8 page)

“The CCC camp,” Verna mused. “I wonder . . . Did you recognize him?”

Lizzy shook her head. “I only got a glimpse of him, but he seemed older than the other CCC boys. An officer, maybe.”

Ophelia leaned forward. “Let me get this straight, Liz. You're saying you went to the movie with Mr. Moseley? On a
date
?”

Ophelia sounded so incredulous that Lizzy had to chuckle. “I guess you could call it that. But don't go thinking romance, Ophelia. The movie starred Spencer Tracy, and we're both fans, that's all. You know that Mr. Moseley is involved with that girl in Montgomery.”

That girl's name was Daphne. She was a very pretty socialite, very rich, and very divorced (twice). Sometimes Lizzy felt a stirring of jealousy—an unreasonable stirring—when she thought about Daphne. But she always reminded herself that while she and Bent Moseley were friends, as well as employee and employer, the two of them inhabited very different universes. Daphne was in
his
universe, and Lizzy definitely wasn't.

“This CCC guy,” Verna said, frowning a little. “Did you get a look at him?”

“Or a name?” Ophelia put in eagerly. “I work at Camp Briarwood three days a week, you know. Maybe I've met him.”

Lizzy shook her head. “No name, and not even a very good look. But I can tell you that they weren't there to watch the movie. They were . . . I think it's called petting.” At first, it was amusing, but after a while, the kisses got so passionate that Lizzy had been embarrassed. She thought of finding different seats, but she was afraid that Bent—Mr. Moseley—would think she was being silly. She was glad when the movie ended and the lights came up.

Verna blew a stream of blue smoke into the air. “When did this happen?”

“Maybe three weeks ago?” Lizzy hazarded. “The movie was really worth seeing—
The Power and the Glory
. If you're curious, you could check the
Monroe Journal
movie ads and see when it was showing.”

Ophelia glanced at her wristwatch and pushed her chair back. “Oh golly. Can we adjourn? I've got Sam's baseball team coming for a picnic tonight, and Sarah's birthday is tomorrow. I promised I'd take her to Monroeville shopping this afternoon. I have to stop at Camp Briarwood, too, and pick up a couple of things I left on my desk.”

Verna banged her glass in lieu of a gavel. “Meeting adjourned,” she pronounced.

“Sarah's birthday?” Lizzy asked. “I've lost track. How old is she?”

“She'll be fifteen—can you believe? She's asking for a new bathing suit, and heaven knows she needs one. She's getting . . .” Ophelia gestured with her hands. “Curvy. I'll help you two clear up, and then I've got to run.”

“Go now,” Lizzy commanded, pushing her chair back. “We'll clear.”

“And take the cookies with you,” Verna said. “They're scrumptious. Sam's team will love them.”

Verna and Lizzy Make Plans

A few moments later, everything was put away and the kitchen was in order for the next Dahlia group that would be using it. Verna stuck her treasurer's ledger in her handbag and went toward the door. “Are you headed home, Liz?”

“Going to the post office first. I'm hoping for a letter.” Lizzy put on her straw hat, turned out the kitchen light, then followed Verna out the back door and waited while she locked it. “From Nadine Fleming—my agent.”

“I've got a favor to ask you, so I'll walk with you,” Verna said. “And I have to go to the grocery.” She put the key under the rock beside the back door and looked up with a smile. “The letter—you're hoping for news about your novel, then?”

“Yes.” Wishing it would cool off, Lizzy fell into step beside Verna as they walked up Rosemont in the direction of the courthouse square. The weather had been hot and sultry the past few days, and the gardens were in need of moisture.
But if the storm in the Gulf blew ashore, it might cool things off and bring them some rain. She hoped so.

“Nadine has promised to tell me whether the manuscript is ready to send out,” she added, as they stepped around a pair of young girls skipping rope on the sidewalk. “I have my fingers crossed that it is.”

As Lizzy said the words, she found herself not quite believing them. Ever since she was a teenager, she had been promising herself that she was going to write a book, and now she had done it. She wrote it during the months she'd been working in Mr. Jackman's law office in Montgomery—“in exile,” as Lizzy had thought of it at first. But now, she had to admit that if she hadn't gone into exile, she probably wouldn't have written the book.

It was Mr. Moseley who suggested the job to her, with the idea that it might be better if she got away from Darling for a while. The suggestion was especially kind and generous, for it came right after she had received the shock of her life, when Grady Alexander—Lizzy's longtime all-but-fiancé—had told her that he had to marry Sandra Mann, because they were expecting a baby. In fact, the wedding was planned for that very weekend. To make matters even worse (if that was possible), Lizzy had discovered that Grady and his new bride would be moving into the old Harrison house, just down the block.

Grady's betrayal had come as a terrible blow, and it took all of Lizzy's strength to pretend that it didn't hurt (although of course it did). For several days, she went around making excuses for Grady, holding her head high and wearing an artificial smile that fooled nobody, least of all Mr. Moseley. But at last, she decided to follow up on his suggestion that she take the temporary job with Mr. Jackman in Montgomery.

This decision was made a little easier when it turned out that Ophelia was eager to fill in for Lizzy in Mr. Moseley's
office, in addition to her part-time work for the
Dispatch
. At the time, Snow's Farm Supply was barely holding on and money was tight in the Snow household, so every extra dollar was a big help. If Lizzy went to work in Montgomery, Ophelia could take Lizzy's place in Darling.

The interview went well, and Mr. Jackman immediately offered Lizzy the job. She said yes, closed up her house, and set off for Montgomery, the Alabama state capital and the first capital of the Confederacy. There, she began looking for an apartment for herself and her cat, Daffodil, whom she couldn't bear to leave behind.

The adventure turned out much better than Lizzy could possibly have anticipated. She enjoyed her new job, where there was always something different and challenging going on. Mr. Jackman's practice was wide-ranging, and once he learned how competent she was, he delegated more and more tasks to her. He often went out of town on business or spent long days at the legislature, leaving her in charge of the office. Self-confidence had never been Lizzy's strong suit, but working for Mr. Jackman changed that. She couldn't explain it except to say that it was like finding yourself suddenly promoted two grades ahead in school and discovering—to your delighted surprise—that you could do the work with no trouble at all.

What's more, the three-room furnished apartment that Mrs. Jackman had helped her locate suited her to a T. It was at the back of one of the large old homes on a quiet Montgomery street. It had its own private entrance, decent furniture, a bookcase full of books left by the previous tenant, and a cute little kitchenette with a door that opened onto a splendid garden, where she and Daffy could enjoy warm evenings and quiet weekends. Mr. Moseley (now that they weren't working together, he asked her to call him Bent)
drove up on weekends to visit Daphne Stewart, with whom he was romantically involved. Occasionally, he would drop in at Jackman's office to ask Lizzy to go out to dinner with him, or to a movie or a concert, and she always said yes. After all, she wasn't working for him, she did enjoy his company, and Grady was out of the picture. Lizzy (who had always treasured stability and predictability) was learning to be comfortable with the idea of “temporary,” and it felt temporarily right to spend a few hours every couple of weeks with her former boss.

But aside from seeing Bent, Lizzy didn't go out. Instead, she gave herself permission to do something she'd been wanting to do for a very long time. With her second paycheck (her first went for two pretty dresses, a pair of summer shoes, and a new red leather collar for Daffy), she bought a reconditioned Royal typewriter. She put it on a little table in front of a window overlooking the garden, equipped herself with a comfortable chair, and began to write about the characters who had been living in a corner of her mind like a group of silent friends and neighbors.

Lizzy had always been a good writer. For years, she had written the weekly “Garden Gate” column for the
Dispatch
, including notes about plants in local gardens and wild plants from the woods and fields and streams around Darling. Her readers began sending clippings to their friends in other cities, and it wasn't long before she was receiving letters from all over the South, asking gardening questions or telling her about the writers' experiences with the plants she had written about.

Gardening wasn't Lizzy's only subject, though. She occasionally wrote a feature story for the
Dispatch
, and she kept a small notebook in her purse where she could jot down vignettes of people she met, places that seized her
imagination, and events that piqued her curiosity. While nothing very big or exciting ever happened in Darling, there were always more little things to notice than you might expect, surprising crises that poked up unexpectedly out of the quiet surface of everyday life. She cherished the people who lived in her imagination, and deep in her heart, her secret heart, she half believed that if she wrote about them, if she told their stories, they might actually become real. And the only way to find out if this was true was to
do
it.

Writing a book, however, took a more sustained effort than Lizzy had ever devoted to her writing. It simply wouldn't have been possible if she hadn't left Darling and moved to Montgomery, where she had much more time to herself. She didn't have to be in the office until ten each morning, and she was free after five o'clock every afternoon. Somebody else took care of the garden. There were no meetings of the Dahlias to attend, no Grady to go out with, no friends to telephone or people to see—and (best of all, even though she hated to say it) no interfering mother to casually drop in for an hour every single evening, just to see what Lizzy was doing.

Instead, there had been long, lovely stretches of time with no one around but Daffodil and nothing to do but sit at her typewriter and immerse herself in the world of her story. When she had been working for several months, she rather shyly mentioned what she was doing to Mrs. Jackman, who clamored to read the first three chapters. When she did, she was impressed.

“I think this is simply splendid, my dear,” she exclaimed. “Coincidentally, my favorite cousin, Nadine Fleming, has her own literary agency in New York City. Please do let me share these chapters with her.”

This wonderful coincidence paid huge dividends. After Miss Fleming had seen the first three chapters of Lizzy's
book, she asked to see more—and then more, and then more, until finally she had seen the whole thing.

“Surprisingly good, for a first effort,” Miss Fleming acknowledged, when she telephoned—long-distance!—to discuss her impressions with Lizzy. “I was involved with your characters from the very first page. I'd like to send you a few suggestions to help you tighten up your narrative and . . .”

Entitled simply
Sabrina
, Lizzy's book was about a young woman who lived on her family's Alabama plantation during the difficult years after the War Between the States. Her young lover had been killed at Gettysburg, and she was being courted by an older man, a neighbor who seemed to offer her freedom from the burden of keeping the plantation going. Marriage was tempting, but—and in that
but
, of course, lay the story.

Lizzy did her best to incorporate the agent's suggestions into what she hoped would be a final draft. When she was finished, she typed it one more time (with two carbons) and sent the manuscript off to New York. Now, Lizzy was waiting for a letter that might tell her whether Miss Fleming liked it or didn't like it—or might like it better if Lizzy revised it yet again.

She was about to ask Verna what it was she wanted to ask when a bicycle bell jangled behind them. “Hello, ladies,” came the shouted greeting. “Pretty day, isn't it?”

“Hello, Charlie.” Lizzy lifted her hand to wave at Charlie Dickens, who was catching up to them on his old blue bicycle. He was dressed in his summer seersucker suit and straw boater, a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth. Charlie, the editor and publisher of the
Dispatch
, was a rather different man since his marriage to Fannie Champaign. He still wore his newsman's cynical skepticism like a hair shirt,
but he no longer hung out at Pete's Pool Parlor, he was home most evenings, and he even mustered the occasional smile.

Charlie slowed his bicycle. “Just letting you know that I'm putting out a special edition of the
Dispatch
early next week,” he said, raising his voice. “If your garden column is ready, Liz, there'll likely be room for it.”

“The special is for Rona Jean's murder?” Verna asked with interest. The
Dispatch
was a weekly, but if there was a big story, Charlie was known to publish an extra edition, which his readers very much appreciated.

“Guessed right the first time,” Charlie said cheerfully.

“What's the scoop on the autopsy?” Lizzy asked. “Has Edna Fay heard anything from the hospital?” Charlie's sister, Edna Fay, was married to Doc Roberts, and she sometimes gave her brother the inside story—her version, anyway. Since Charlie was coming from the direction of the Roberts' house, it was a good guess that he had been visiting his sister.

Charlie gave her a crooked grin. “No comment,” he replied. He lifted his hat and pedaled away.

“He knows something we don't,” Lizzy said, frowning. “I wonder what it is.”

“He knows that murder sells newspapers,” Verna remarked, waving at Mrs. Donner, who was deadheading her roses.

“You're right about that,” Lizzy said. “He doesn't do that many special editions. The last one was back in December, wasn't it?”

Verna nodded. “When the country went wet.” The Twenty-first Amendment had finally ended Prohibition, only months after Roosevelt and the Democrats rode into office on a wet ticket. Michigan had been the first state to repeal in April 1933, and Utah was the thirty-sixth in December, making it official. Alabama had ratified in August, although
the legislature had played safe and gone for a local option. Cypress County was still dry, of course (the Temperance movement was strong), but that was only on paper. Everybody knew that Bodeen Pyle was making shine down at Briar's Swamp, in the southern part of the county. And now that Mickey LeDoux had finished serving his sentence at the Wetumpka State Penitentiary (where he had been sent after Agent Kinnard broke up his still and busted him for bootlegging), he would likely be in business again shortly.

Verna went back to what they had been discussing before Charlie came along. “I've got my fingers crossed for you, Liz.
Sabrina
is a very good book—and I'm not just saying that to please you.”

“Of course, you're not at all prejudiced,” Lizzy said wryly. “But it would be silly to get my hopes up. According to Miss Fleming, the publishing business is terrible right now. People don't spend money on books when they don't have enough to buy food or pay rent. Even established writers are having a hard time. They're finding work wherever they can—ghostwriting, movie scripts, advice to the lovelorn.”

“I don't know about that,” Verna said. “I just finished reading
Murder Must Advertise
.” Verna loved to read mysteries more than anything else, and while the Darling library didn't have much of a book budget, Miss Rogers, the librarian, bought as many as she could. “It's Dorothy Sayers' eighth book.”