The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Mrs. Biggs stopped talking. Her eyes flew open and she caught sight of the horrified look on Beulah’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Beulah was so dismayed that she almost couldn’t answer. But true beauty could never be served by a lie. She took a deep breath and uttered the terrible truth.

“It’s your hair, Miz Biggs. It’s falling out!”

Mrs. Biggs screamed and struggled to sit up. “My hair? My hair is falling out? What have you done, Beulah Trivette? What have you done to my beautiful hair?”

“I . . . I just shampooed it the way I always do,” Beulah said in a small voice, knowing that a beautician worth her Montgomery College of Cosmetology certificate of achievement should never find herself in such a terrible position. “Honest, Miz Biggs, all I did was—”

Wet hair dripping, Mrs. Biggs boosted herself out of the shampoo chair and ran to the mirror to examine the bare spot on the side of her head. “Just look at what you’ve done!” she shrieked wildly. “Just look!”

“But I didn’t do anything,” Beulah protested. “I only washed your hair the way I always do and—”

“I will sue you!” Mrs. Biggs cried. She ripped off her cover-up cape, threw it on the floor, and stamped on it. “I will tell everybody in town that you’ve ruined my hair! I will destroy you. You will never have another customer!”

Beulah looked down at the hair in her hand, remembering something she had learned in cosmetology school. A suspicion began to form. “Miz Biggs,” she said, “those diet pills you’re taking. What did you say they’ve got in them?”

“My diet pills are none of your beeswax!” Mrs. Biggs cried hysterically, searching around for her handbag. “And don’t you try to change the subject, Beulah Trivette. I am going to sue you, do you hear? I’ll take you for every penny you’ve got!”

Beulah carefully laid the hair aside and took a deep breath, thinking that Mrs. Biggs’ response was totally out of proportion. Put it together with the story about her husband fooling around and Mr. Dickens trying to kiss her, and it was beginning to sound as if the poor woman had finally and totally lost all her marbles.

Was it the Change, which had driven Beulah’s great-aunt Clarice to pick up a butcher knife and attempt to amputate an important feature of great-uncle Abner’s anatomy?

Or was it an inherited malady? (Beulah had heard that Mrs. Biggs’ mother, Lucretia Dupree, had once spent six months in the State Hospital for the Insane.)

Or was it—

Beulah straightened her shoulders. Whatever it was, she had no doubt that Mrs. Biggs, who was well liked and well connected, could do a great deal of damage to her and to the business of beauty to which she had devoted her life.

“Please sit down, Miz Biggs,” she said as soothingly as she could. “Let’s just get you pinned and dried and try to figure out what’s goin’ on here. I’m sure I can style your hair so nobody will ever know—”

“So nobody will see that you’ve made my hair fall out?” Mrs. Biggs cried. She picked up a magazine and threw it violently against the mirror. “So nobody will notice that you’ve ruined me forever?”

“But I didn’t,” Beulah insisted, trying to be reasonable. “I just shampooed you, the way I always do. Please, let’s just—”

“Let’s just nothing.” Mrs. Biggs located her handbag and snatched it up. “I am leaving! And don’t you try to stop me, Beulah Trivette. I am going to hire myself a lawyer!”

And with that, she flung open the door and stormed out of the Bower, her hair limp and dripping wet over her shoulders.

Bettina came running into the room. “Oh, my goodness, what happened?” she asked anxiously. “Where is Miz Biggs going? Is everything all right, Beulah?”

“No,” Beulah said miserably. “Everything is all wrong, Bettina.” And then it all hit her like the ceiling caving in on her head and she began to cry.

Bettina put an arm around her and sat her down in the shampoo chair that Mrs. Biggs had so recently vacated. “There, now, you just rest yourself for a minute and cry, honey. A cry will do you a world of good. You just have a good one while I fix us some nice cold lemonade.”

Bettina was right. Twenty minutes later, after a nice long cry and a cold glass of lemonade, Beulah had a plan. She left Bettina in charge of the Bower and set off to Lima’s Drugstore, on the southwest corner of the courthouse square. There, she went to the pharmacy counter at the back of the store and asked Mr. Lima if he had any of Dr. W. W. Baxter’s diet pills in stock. He took a slender cardboard package off the shelf and handed it to her. Peering at the contents, which were printed in the tiniest of letters, she saw that the pills contained strychnine, arsenic, caffeine, and pokeberries.