The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“Mr. Mann’s brother’s daughter Sandra,” Mrs. Mann replied. “From the other side of Monroeville, out by Rocky Bottom.” Smiling, she patted her wiry gray curls, which looked as if they’d been stiffened with lacquer. “The wedding is on Saturday, two in the afternoon. It’s just the family, but since Grady is from here, Mr. Mann and I thought his friends ought to know, and I wasn’t sure that Mrs. Alexander would think to put it in the paper.”


Charlie heard the smugness in her voice and could guess why. Hooking Grady Alexander into the extended Mann family was something to brag about, since Grady had been to college and had a paying job as the county ag agent—steady, too, as long as government money held out. The Manns might own the Mercantile, but the family had something of a questionable reputation, darkened by their association with Mickey Ledoux’s moonshine business and the fact that their oldest boy, Leroy, belonged to Tiny French’s notorious gang of bank robbers. No wonder Mrs. Mann wanted to make sure that the wedding announcement ran in the Dispatch. It was an advertisement that the Manns had come up in the world. They were becoming respectable, if only by marriage.

But Charlie was also thinking of Liz Lacy, who worked upstairs in Bent Moseley’s law office. She and Grady had been going together ever since Charlie returned to Darling. What had happened to break them up? What had sent Grady rushing into marriage with somebody else? But the minute he asked himself that question, he thought he had the answer.

“Saturday,” he mused speculatively. “That’s pretty quick, now, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Mann’s averted gaze confirmed his suspicion. “Well, they’re both of ’em grown-ups,” she replied defensively. “I reckon if they wanted to get married this afternoon, they could do it.”

“Reckon they could,” Charlie said. He thought again, regretfully, of Liz, whom he knew quite well. She wrote the “Garden Gate” column for the paper—a good writer with a talent worth developing. And a sweet girl.

Well, not a girl, exactly. Liz was in her thirties, what some unkindly people in this town would call an old maid. She was the one who was going to suffer over this, and Charlie felt unexpectedly sorry for her.

Then, just as unexpectedly (for Charlie had never thought of himself as even remotely sensitive to the feelings of others), he made the connection. Fannie Champaign had suffered when he had so brutally rejected her. He remembered Fannie’s hurt with great remorse and was deeply sorry that Liz had to feel that same pain—and perhaps even a worse pain, if Grady and his wife-to-be were expecting, as they likely were. If not, why the rush? Grady’s betrayal would be a terrible humiliation for Liz. He wondered if the fellow understood this, and doubted it. Grady Alexander was amiable enough and smart in his way, but he wasn’t (in Charlie’s opinion) a very deep thinker.

On the other side of the counter, Mrs. Mann shifted from one foot to the other, began to speak, then thought better of it and stopped. Then, finally deciding, came out with a change of subject.

“I was wondering,” she said tentatively, “if you’d have any work for Purley, or know where he might could find some.”

For a moment, Charlie was stumped. “Purley?”

Reddening, Mrs. Mann clutched her pocketbook. “Baby. Maybe you call him . . . Baby.”

“Oh, yes, Purley,” Charlie said. Baby was six feet tall and two-hundred-plus pounds, but he was more like a little kid than a grown man. “Sorry. Of course I know Ba—er, Purley.”