The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Violet came downstairs with Cupcake on her hip when the radio began to play Lee Morse’s catchy version of “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby!” Violet was wearing a pretty blue cotton print dress, and her taffy-colored hair was smoothed back from her face and tied with a blue ribbon, with a matching ribbon in Cupcake’s strawberry blond curls. She was just in time to take the second batch of biscuits out of the oven and sugar-glaze Euphoria’s doughnuts, smiling so cheerfully all the while that Myra May just had to smile back at her.

Which was saying something, because before Violet came along, Myra May hadn’t found much to smile about. She had even thought seriously of leaving dumpy little Darling and going off to live in a big city. She was glad now that she hadn’t, for if she had gone to Mobile or Atlanta, she might have missed meeting up with Violet Sims, which would have been such a sad thing that Myra May didn’t like to think about it.

Of course, it worked the other way as well, for until Violet met Myra May, she had been what her mother called flighty, never able to settle down to one thing in one place for any length of time. Every so often, she’d get what she called itchy feet, so she’d pack her suitcase and go down to the Greyhound station and buy a ticket for who knows where, just to be on the move.

But when Violet got off the bus that morning a couple of years ago, it hadn’t taken her more than a few days to discover that Darling was the place she wanted to stay and that her new friend Myra May Mosswell was just as steady and solid as an anchor holding a boat in a fast-moving current. No matter how hard the current might tug or how crazily the boat might bob up and down in the water, the anchor always held. And when Violet brought her niece Cupcake home after her sister died and the baby’s totally worthless drunk of a daddy tried to give the newborn away to strangers, Myra May proved to be as dependably steady and reliable for the two of them as she had been for Violet alone. So it wasn’t any wonder that Violet always felt like smiling as she came downstairs in the morning, or that Myra May turned from the big copper pot of grits with a spoon in her hand and a grin on her face.

“Yes, sir, that’s my baby,” she sang, and waved the spoon at Cupcake and Violet. “No, sir, don’t mean maybe. Yes, sir, that’s my baby, now.”

The breakfast hour was always too busy for any kind of talk except “eggs over easy” and “double up on the gravy” or “more java over here!” The railroad and sawmill workers left and the people who worked around the courthouse square began to show up—they didn’t have to be on the job until nine, when the shops and offices opened. (That was when Earle Scroggins and Coretta Cole and Mr. Tombull had come in.) The table and counter traffic usually got lighter after the courthouse square gang left, and Myra May and Violet finally had time to fill their plates and coffee cups and take them to the table in the back corner beside Cupcake’s bassinet, where they could relax and talk about the work that had to be done that day.

Breakfast was out of the way, but there would be another two meals to cook and serve, shopping to do, and the Exchange to keep an eye on. Myra May and Violet would be pretty busy, especially since they had cut back on the afterschool help. The breakfast traffic was still brisk but the lunch bunch had slimmed down—more folks were packing peanut butter and jelly, it seemed. And the supper business had definitely dropped off. People were holding on to their money. They just weren’t eating out as much as they used to, even on Friday and Saturday nights. In the Montgomery Advertiser, Myra May had read that dozens of restaurants had closed their doors in New York City—this, next to a photograph of the brand-new forty-one-million-dollar Empire State Building, the tallest building in the world, which was scheduled to open in a couple of weeks. In Myra May’s opinion, there wasn’t any justice in the world.

This morning, Myra May sat down with her grits, eggs, and coffee, but she didn’t say much. For a while, they ate in silence, Violet watching out of the corner of her eye. At last, she said, lightly, “Cat got your tongue, Myra May?”

Myra May frowned. “I’m not liking this one bit, Violet. Feels pretty serious to me, especially after I saw Earle Scroggins and Amos Tombull with their heads together this morning and Coretta Cole sitting there looking smug as a puppy with two tails.”

She didn’t have to say what this was. Violet knew. She and Myra May both worked the switchboard, and while the other operators were sternly instructed not to listen in, the two of them had long ago given themselves permission to break what they always thought of as the Rule, with a capital R. The other operators were also forbidden to talk to one another about things they heard when they were on the switchboard. But Myra May and Violet broke this rule, too—only with one another, of course, and only in private.