The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

“Good-bye, Myra May,” Lizzy said with great firmness. “Thank you for coming to tell us what you know.” When Myra May just sat there, looking puzzled, she added sweetly, “It’s really time for you to go now, don’t you think? You must have a lot of work to do this morning.”


“Oh, sure,” Verna said, suddenly understanding. “Yes, thank you, Myra May. We don’t want to keep you any longer. But you will keep us posted, won’t you? If you happen to hear anything else, I mean.”

Myra May got the hint. Smiling, she stood and pushed her chair back. “Yeah. You’re right. I’ve got to get Euphoria’s groceries back to the diner, and then I’m headed over to the Beauty Bower to get a shampoo and a haircut.” She bent over and gave Verna a quick kiss on the cheek, then lifted her hand to Lizzy. “Hope it all turns out okay. You two be good now, you hear?”

“We hear,” Lizzy said, and grinned. “We’ll try.”

“No, we won’t,” Verna put in, and managed a small smile.

A moment later, Myra May could be heard clattering down the stairs. “Well?” Verna asked, as the footsteps faded away. “You obviously have something in mind, Liz. What is it?”

“Hang on.” Lizzy was reaching for the telephone. “I’ve got a couple of calls to make. Then we can figure out what to do.”

A few moments later, both conversations concluded, Lizzy put down the telephone and turned back to Verna.

“How would you like to spend a few days in the country?” she asked.





EIGHT

Ophelia



When Angelina Biggs telephoned that Monday morning and asked if she could stop in for a few minutes, Ophelia Snow was glad to say yes. Angelina was a dozen years older, so they hadn’t been friends in school. But they liked each other, and since Darling was a small town and both were heavily involved in community affairs, they bumped into one another quite often, although never quite as violently as Angelina had bumped into Bessie earlier that morning.

Over the years, Ophelia and Angelina had come to share several common interests. They were good cooks, and they both liked to sew. Ophelia’s layer cakes always took the blue ribbon at the Cypress County Fair, and Angelina made up the menus and supervised the kitchen at the Old Alabama Hotel, where her husband was the manager. Angelina had taught Ophelia her three personal secrets for 100 percent successful meringues. (“Let the egg whites warm up to room temperature after you’ve separated them from the yolks—and be sure there’s not a speck of yolk in the whites. When you’ve beat up a good, strong froth, add a quarter teaspoon of cream of tartar to stabilize it, then add the sugar a tablespoon at a time, not too fast or it’ll get syrupy.”) Ophelia, an expert seamstress, had shown Angelina how to make her own dress patterns using newspapers for the pattern paper. This was a good thing, for Angelina was large, with big hips and a heavy bust, and Ophelia had noted lately that she was getting even larger. Ready-made dresses didn’t fit her, not even the stout ladies sizes in the Sears catalogs.

There were other connections. Both Jed Snow and Artis Biggs were on the Darling town council. Jed was in his second term as mayor, and Artis had been mayor previously and would likely get elected mayor again, when Jed’s term ran out. The men were good friends, so the two families got together every so often for Sunday dinner or a picnic at the park. And just last year, Ophelia and Jed had thrown an anniversary party when Angelina and Artis celebrated their thirtieth anniversary.

After Ophelia hung up the phone, she went to the kitchen and put on another pot of coffee, then got out the last two of the freshly baked sticky buns they’d had for breakfast—Angelina had a sweet tooth—and put them on a plate. It was wash day and Florabelle, the colored help, was working in the washhouse in the backyard, so Ophelia and Angelina could have a good, quiet talk.