The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

She went to the dressing table, aimlessly turning things over. All of it was very much Bunny, she thought. A hair-brush with strands of bright blond hair, a cheap rattail comb, a pair of fancy tortoiseshell combs, bobby pins, spilled face powder, a bottle of fire-engine red nail enamel, an open inkwell, a pen. Several scraps of paper, as well, filled with a loopy, childish script. Eva Louise Woodburn, Bunny Woodburn, Mars, Maxwell Woodburn, Verna frowned down at the paper. Woodburn? She didn’t recognize the name. There were no Woodburns in Darling, so far as she knew.

There was a drawer in the dressing table, and she opened it, seeing that it was filled with emery boards, eyelash curlers, and the like. But in one corner, half hidden under a stack of cheap five-and-dime hankies, Verna saw a small wooden box, the polished top inlaid with colored mosaics and mother-of-pearl. Curiously, she picked it up, and then saw, beneath it, a small paper-bound savings account record book from the Darling Savings and Trust, with the name Eva Louise Scott written on the front. A small photograph was stuck inside the book: Bunny, squinting into the sun, wearing a lacy black teddy (probably the same one on the floor) and a pair of high heels. She was posed like a glamorous femme fatale on the front hood of a racy-looking roadster with an Alabama license plate. Her ample endowments were amply visible under the less-than-ample silk that barely covered them. The man taking the photo had cast a shadow in front of him. And yes, it was a man—or a woman wearing trousers and a fedora.

Verna (who didn’t shock easily) was shocked, and her estimation of Bunny shifted a point or two to the negative. She knew that women out in Hollywood posed for similar photographs—she had seen them in magazines. But this was Darling, and something like this was unusual.

Still thinking about the photo, she opened the deposit book and was surprised to see the amounts listed in the deposit column: regular deposits of ten dollars a week over the past six months. Two hundred and seventy dollars—not a huge amount of money, maybe, but pretty impressive for a girl who worked at the cosmetics counter at Lester Lima’s drugstore, where she probably earned no more than seven or eight dollars a week.

Verna put the deposit book back, her estimation of Bunny shifting a notch or two back toward the positive. She had pictured the girl as a spender, not a saver. But if she was saving ten dollars a week, how did she pay her board and room? Where was the extra money coming from?

The wooden box was still in her hand. Verna lifted the lid and was startled to see a pair of pearl earrings—real pearls, from the look of them—nestled against folds of blue velvet. In tasteful gold letters, inside the lid, was the name Ettlinger’s Fine Jewelry, Mobile, Her eyes widened at the sight. If the pearls came from Ettlinger’s, they had to be real. Where had Bunny gotten the money? Or if they’d been a gift, who in Darling could have afforded to give them to her? And then she thought of the bracelet Bunny had worn the other day. It had looked expensive, too. Where— Verna’s questions were interrupted by a light rap at the door. A young voice asked softly, surreptitiously, “Bunny? You in there, Bunny?”

Verna opened her mouth to answer, and then changed her mind. After one more knock, the door was pushed open. Verna swiftly pocketed the little jewelry box. Mrs. Brewster might be confident in the integrity of her girls, but it wasn’t a good idea to leave obviously expensive jewelry lying in an unlocked drawer in an unlocked room in a house where nobody had anything to hide.

Verna spoke crisply. “Hello.”

The girl jumped, and her hand went to her pretty mouth. “Oh!” she cried. “Oh, my goodness! Oh, Mrs. Tidwell!” It was little Miss Amanda Blake, the elementary school teacher, who had come from Montgomery at the beginning of the school year. Verna had met her at a Presbyterian ice cream social the month before. She was wearing a green wrapper and her hair was wet under a towel turban. “You startled me. I thought there was nobody here.” She gulped. “I mean, I thought Bunny was—”

“You were looking for Bunny?”

Miss Blake looked flustered, and her glance flew from one side of the room to the other. “Not exactly. I mean—Well, Bunny borrowed my red blouse last week. I thought, since she wasn’t here, I’d just come in and see if I could—” She pounced on a bit of filmy red fabric hanging over the seat of the chair. “There it is! Oh, goody, goody gumdrops!”

Verna suppressed a chuckle. Miss Blake had tried to appear so grown-up when they met at the social. At the moment, she looked as if she were fourteen. “When did you see Bunny last?” she asked.

“Bunny?” Miss Blake frowned and puckered up her mouth. “Well, I’m not sure. I suppose it was Saturday evening.” She thought for a minute more. “Yes. Saturday. She wasn’t here for breakfast or supper yesterday, or breakfast this morning.” She lowered her voice. “Mrs. B is fit to be tied. She says she’s throwing Bunny out.”