The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

“Gee, Liz, this is a swell little place you’ve got here. Very pretty. All yours?”


“If you mean, do I live here alone,” Lizzy replied, guardedly, “the answer is yes.” It had been her experience that the less you told Coretta, the better.

Coretta’s giggle was mischievous. “Well, darn. I thought maybe you and Grady Alexander were—”

“No,” Lizzy said firmly. “We are not, and don’t you go telling people that we are. That just wouldn’t be true.” She paused as Coretta, uninvited, sank down in the swing. Then, remembering her manners, she added, “There’s cold lemonade in the refrigerator. Would you like some?”

Coretta shook her head. She had a sharp chin and chiseled cheeks, and her dark eyebrows were tweezed thin and arched over her Joan Crawford eyes.

“Thanks,” she said. “It’s sweet of you, Liz, but I can’t stay too long. My hubby promised to cook supper for us tonight, since it’s my first day back at work full time. He’s expecting me to come straight home.” She paused. “You know that Ted got laid off out at the Coca-Cola bottling plant, I reckon. He’s been out of work for a couple of months.”

“Yes, I heard,” Lizzy said. “I’m sorry, Coretta.” It was a true statement. You had to feel sorry for anybody who was out of work. In times like this, once somebody got laid off, it was nearly impossible to get another job, unless they wanted to leave Darling and try their luck in Memphis or Mobile or New Orleans.

“Thanks. I don’t mind telling you that Ted and I were looking at the bare bottom of the barrel when Mr. Scroggins called and told me I could come back to work full time. We’re so hard up, we haven’t been able to get the car fixed for months and months.” Coretta glanced at Lizzy’s bare feet, then down at her own high heels. “Do you mind?” she asked plaintively, batting her mascaraed eyelashes.

Without waiting for an answer, she bent over and pulled her shoes off, wiggling her toes in their silk stockings. “It’s the first time I’ve worn them to stand up in all day,” she said with a sigh, “and my feet are killing me.”

“No, of course I don’t mind.” Lizzy sat down on the other end of the swing, noticing Coretta’s silk stockings with a covetous feeling and wondering how somebody who couldn’t afford car repair could buy silk stockings and new shoes. And that great-looking gray suit, too. She had seen it on the manikin in the window at Mann’s for seven fifty, just a couple of weeks before.

Coretta took off her red felt hat and put it on the swing between them, patting her dark hair back into its sculptured waves. “To tell you the truth, Liz, I could hardly believe it when Mr. Scroggins called. Seemed like something I was dreaming, I’d been wanting it so bad. And Ted—well, you should have seen him. He was so relieved, he cried.” The words were tumbling out fast, as if they’d been stoppered up in a bottle and she was finally letting them out. “It’s not like I’m getting paid a fortune, you know. But we’ve got two boys, and we were hoping they could go to college. College is probably out the window now, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop dreaming. Me getting a regular paycheck again—well, it maybe means the oldest can go to Poly when he graduates high school.”

Lizzy listened, wishing that Coretta would get to the point. Why was she here? What did she want? She felt a bubble of hot resentment rise up inside her at the thought that this was the woman who had taken her best friend’s job. Had she come here to brag about it? To rub it in? Or was she trying to say that circumstances had forced her to do it and she was sorry?

“Look, Coretta,” she said, when the cascade of words slowed down. “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’re in a big hurry to get home and eat supper with Ted and the boys, maybe you’d better tell me why you’re here.”

Coretta turned her head away. She didn’t speak for a moment, then, instead of answering directly, she said, in a low voice, “I saw you this morning, in the diner. Sitting at the counter. Watching me.”