The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Actually, Myra May had said she was glad to lose Olive, who was inclined to be talky. She needed somebody who could be trusted to keep secrets, since every telephone conversation in Darling went through the Exchange. The operators knew who’d been arrested for drunk and disorderly on Saturday night, whose aunt had her appendix out over at the hospital in Monroeville, and whose daughter had eloped with a man twice her age. They weren’t supposed to listen in, of course, but everybody understood that this was pretty much unavoidable, since it was too much to ask any human being to sit in front of that switchboard for eight hours a day with her headphones on without overhearing something.

But Myra May held her operators to a very strict code of ethics. She told them that if she heard so much as a whisper of gossip that could have come from the switchboard, she would fire the offending person on the spot, no ifs, ands, buts, or maybes. Of course, it might be hard to tell the difference between gossip that came from the switchboard and gossip that came from somebody’s party line, but Myra May was a hard woman when it came to loose lips. She didn’t mind holding the threat of firing over her operators’ heads.

“Coffee, Liz?” Myra May asked, picking up the mug in one hand and the pot in the other.

Lizzy considered, then shook her head. “I’ll have one of Euphoria’s doughnuts to take to the office, if you’ve got any left.” She looked at the doughnut plate, covered by a clear glass dome, and saw two doughnuts, shiny with sugar glaze. They were two for a nickel. “What the heck,” she said. “I’m treating myself this morning. I’ll take both of them.” She opened her handbag and fished out a nickel.

Myra May bagged the two doughnuts, then leaned over the counter, her face grave. “Heard anything from Verna in the past day or two?” she asked in a lower voice.

“Verna?” Lizzy took the bag. “I saw her on Saturday afternoon, when we worked at the Dahlias’ garden together. Why?”

Myra May straightened, rearranging her face. “Oh, no special reason,” she said, with studied casualness. “Forget I asked.” She glanced at the man seated on the stool next to Lizzy’s and picked up the coffeepot. “Mr. Gibbons, you ’bout ready for another cup of java?”

“No, really,” Lizzy persisted, beginning to feel alarmed. “Is Verna sick or something? Has she had an accident?” She knew that Myra May was on the switchboard on Saturdays and Sundays and even some nights, until she could find a replacement for Olive. What had she heard?

“Shhh,” Myra May said quickly. “Don’t talk so loud, Liz.”

She was looking past Lizzy with a strained expression on her face, and Lizzy turned to see Coretta Cole sitting at the nearest table, dressed in a close-fitting gray suit, white blouse with a floppy white bow, red hat, and red high heels. Her shiny black hair was as stylishly waved as if she had just stepped out of the door of Beulah’s Beauty Bower, and her large, luminous eyes were carefully made up. She looked a lot like Joan Crawford, whom Lizzy had recently seen in Our Blushing Brides.

Lizzy had known Coretta since high school, although they had never been what you’d call close friends. In fact, Lizzy had learned through a couple of painful tattle-tale experiences that Coretta couldn’t be trusted. Tell her a secret and she’d blab it all over school, exaggerating and twisting it to make you look bad and herself look good. It was like that game of telephone that people sometimes played at parties—or worse. By the time you heard your secret again, you scarcely recognized it, and you wanted to go off and hide in a corner somewhere.

Coretta had worked full time in Verna’s office until the county budgets were slashed and Mr. Scroggins cut her hours in half. Verna didn’t have a very high opinion of her, Lizzy knew. She complained that Coretta didn’t pay careful attention when she was given instructions, so that she messed things up and somebody else (usually Verna) had to spend valuable time making them right.

And now here was Coretta, big as life and twice as natural, having breakfast with Earle Scroggins, the county probate clerk and treasurer, and Amos Tombull, the chairman of the county board of commissioners. Mr. Scroggins and Mr. Tombull (who was decked out in his summer seersucker suit, although it was only April) had their heads together, talking in low voices, while Coretta perched uneasily on the edge of her chair, sipping coffee and looking fidgety and uncomfortable, as if she herself wasn’t sure what she was doing there.

And then, at that moment, Coretta turned and saw Lizzy. Her eyes, already wide, widened still further, and she squirmed uncomfortably. Yes, actually squirmed, like a catfish snagged and dangling on a fishhook, while the color rose in her cheeks. She caught Lizzy’s glance, held it for a measurable moment, then turned back to her coffee and the conversation at the table.