The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

“He’s Liz’s boss. And her friend. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.” Myra May began scraping at the threads with the point of her nail file. “Anyway, he said she’d be in tomorrow.”


Verna glanced at her wristwatch and stood up. “I have to get back to the office. If I’m gone too long, Melba Jean will run of out things to do, and Sherrie will start lining up committee meetings for her Darling Downtown projects. I’ll be back at four thirty to make the call I was telling you about. But just one today. If there are others, they’ll have to wait until my lunch hour tomorrow.”

“Okay by me,” Myra May said. “Listen, Verna, when you’re done with your call this afternoon, why don’t you go over to Liz’s with me? Just the two of us.”

“You think she’ll want to see us?” Verna asked doubtfully.

“Probably not. But she needs to. We can commiserate. We can cuss Grady out. We can make a Grady voodoo doll and stick it full of pins, or make a Grady target and throw darts.” Myra May swished the spark plug in the gasoline and began to dry it off with the rag. “What do you bet that the poor thing hasn’t eaten a bite all day? We could take a picnic basket.”

“We could,” Verna agreed, and then she thought of something else. “Listen, I’ve got an idea. Instead of just the two of us, how about—”

Myra May listened to her plan, then nodded. “Sounds right to me, Verna. When I get Big Bertha’s spark plugs back in, I’ll go make some phone calls. Not everybody will be able to come, but there’ll be some. And everybody can bring something.”

“That would be swell.” Verna picked up her pocketbook and headed for the door. “Look for me on the switchboard about four thirty.” As she passed the flower bed that Baby Mann was spading up, she paused to ask if he’d be available to carry some boxes into the courthouse basement later that afternoon.

She was rewarded with a wide grin and an eager “Be glad to, Miz Tidwell. I could do some sweepin’, too, like I done for Mr. Dickens.” He leaned forward. “I ain’t workin’ for Mickey no more, you know?”

“I heard, Purley. It sounds like a good move to me.”

He smiled beatifically. “Reckon so,” he said. “Reckon I’m on the Lord’s path now.” He began to sing a song that Verna recognized:

Drinking gin, drinking gin,

Ohhh it is an awful sin

Ragged old clothes and shamefaced kin,

All brought about by drinking gin.

“O’course,” he added, “it was whiskey I was makin’ out there for Mickey, and not gin. But it’s probably all the same in the eyes of the Lord, ain’t it?”

“I’m sure it is,” Verna said. “Come on over when you finish the flower bed and I’ll put you to work.”

“I will,” Baby said. He was still smiling. “I think the Lord’s gonna be glad of what I aim to do. To cleanse the earth of the scourge of drinkin’, I mean.”

Verna thought that might be claiming a little too much, but she nodded sympathetically. “No doubt,” she said.

Later, she would have reason to rethink her approval.

*

Years before, Verna and her high school chum Ima Gail Renfro had piled into Ima Gail’s Studebaker Big Six and driven to New Orleans for Ima Gail’s little sister’s graduation from Sophie Newcomb College. For Verna, the trip had been simply magical.

She had never forgotten the magnolia-scented evening when she and Ima Gail strolled down St. Charles Avenue in their floaty white dresses, arm in arm with the Newcomb college girls; the rich coffee-and-chicory au lait and sugar-dusted beignets at the old Café du Monde in the French Market, where you could hear the whistles and the chug-chug-chug of the riverboats; and the thrilling sound of the Bourbon Street jazz band playing “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In.”