The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“Oh, really?” Violet turned away and began wrapping silverware in paper napkins for the tables. She usually called him Baby, like everybody else. “Sorry, but I don’t think we—”

“Just maybe an hour or two a day? He could sweep and mop.” She cast an eye at the wall, which was beginning to look a little grimy. “And he’s real handy with a paintbrush. Hammer and saw, too, if you’ve got any repair work you need done.” Twyla Sue leaned forward. “I’m awful glad he’s leaving Mickey LeDoux. He’ll have more of a future here in town.”

Violet couldn’t disagree with that. Between accidents and armed revenue agents, moonshining was a risky business. And since Earlynne Biddle’s boy Bennie had gone to Atlanta to look for a job, she and Myra May hadn’t had any help with the heavier work. They were short on cash, but maybe—

“He’s found Jesus,” Twyla Sue added piously. “And he says he wants to do work that the Lord won’t frown at.”

“I don’t know that we could pay him,” Violet replied slowly. “Would he consider working for meals, at least until things pick up a little? Or maybe a pie, or something he could take home for the family?”

Twyla Sue beamed at that. “I’m sure he would consider it.” She finished her coffee. “Want me to tell him to stop by this afternoon and see what you’ve got in mind?”

Violet nodded. It wouldn’t be any trouble for Raylene to bake an extra pie. She began making a mental list of things that needed doing, like digging up the flower bed along the sidewalk and planting a few flowers, and painting the front door—purple would catch people’s eye. And fixing the back porch step, so she or Myra May didn’t fall down and break a leg on their way to the clothesline with a basket of heavy wet laundry.

Twyla Sue was barely out the door when Myra May burst out of the Exchange office, shaking her head incredulously. “Violet, you are not going to believe what I’ve been hearing on the switchboard,” she said breathlessly. “Grady Alexander is getting married! And he’s not marrying Liz! Everybody in Darling is talking about it.” She ran her fingers through her hair until it stood up on end. “Oh, poor Liz,” she moaned. “Somebody ought to tell her. But I can’t, because I heard it on the switchboard.”

It was a rule of the Darling Telephone Exchange that the switchboard operators were not to repeat anything they happened to overhear, and Myra May insisted on holding the girls who worked the board to a very strict code of ethics. She was on record as saying that if she got wind of so much as five words of gossip that could have come from the switchboard, she would fire the loose-lipped offender on the spot, no excuses accepted.

But while repeating what you heard was an unforgivable sin, it was also understood that listening in was pretty much unavoidable, since it was too much to ask any human being to sit in front of the switchboard for eight hours a day with her headphones on without overhearing something. And occasionally, since Myra May and Violet owned the switchboard (well, half of it, anyway), they gave themselves permission to discuss what they heard. But just between themselves, never with anyone else. Which was why Myra May was so upset. She was thinking that she couldn’t tell Liz about Grady because she heard it on the switchboard.

“Don’t worry about it,” Violet said reassuringly. “The word is already out there, so you could have heard it anywhere. In fact, I just heard it from Twyla Sue Mann. It’s her niece he’s marrying. She’s put an announcement in the newspaper, so everybody will know.”

Myra May pushed her hair out of her eyes. “I can’t believe it of Grady,” she said. “The idea that he—” She bit it off.

“Got that girl pregnant.” Violet finished the sentence sadly. “Yes, I know. It’s going to be very painful for Liz. Humiliating.”