The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

“There now, Miz Fannie,” Bettina said, rinsing her hands. “You just lie in that chair and relax and think beautiful thoughts, and then I’ll rinse you off.”


Bettina herself was no beauty. When she came to work for Beulah, she wasn’t even pretty. Her dark brown hair was thin and limp, she was as skinny as a flagpole, and flat as a board. She hadn’t been to beauty school, either. But Beulah (who always saw the beauty in everybody) spotted Bettina’s hidden talent with a comb and scissors and gave her a chance to put it to work. Under Beulah’s generous guidance (and with a few beauty tips here and there), Bettina was blossoming. She even had a beau, Lizzy had heard—Alice Ann Walker’s brother Lester.

Lizzy glanced at Fannie, her head still in the sink. “Getting all prettied up for the Kilgores’ party Friday night?” she asked. “From everything I hear, it’s going to be quite an occasion.”

Lizzy had always admired Fannie’s lovely complexion and light brown hair, which was short and softly curled. It was an attractive complement to the hats Fannie wore as an advertisement for Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux, the only milliner’s shop in Darling. If you admired the hat she was wearing, she would encourage you to try it on, to see if it looked good on you. If you liked it, she’d sell it to you right off her head, with a ten or fifteen percent discount because it was “gently worn.” And since every one of Fannie’s hats was an original, you didn’t have to be afraid that you’d end up in church on Sunday morning, sitting right next to (or right behind) the very same identical hat.

“The party?” Fannie asked. The mask completely covered her face and she wore a cucumber slice over each eye. She lifted one now to see who she was talking to. “Oh, hi, Liz. No, I wasn’t thinking about the party. I just like to look nice for Mr. Dickens.” Her voice softened. “He’s coming for supper tomorrow night. Wednesdays are our regular nights, you know.”

“Is that right?” Lizzy murmured, uncomfortable now. Should she spill the beans to Fannie, and let her know that one of Charlie’s old friends—a former lover, it seemed likely—was going to be in town this weekend? Or should she keep what she knew to herself and let Fannie discover whatever there was to discover? Of course, she didn’t like to interfere, but at the same time she hated to see Fannie build up her hopes. It was a difficult subject to get into, though. If she was going to give Fannie a hint of what was brewing, she’d have to have an opening.

There had always been something of a mystery about Fannie Champaign—where she had come from and why she had chosen their town as a place to live and set up her hat shop. Her hats were very attractive, but it was clear to anyone with eyes to see that she wasn’t selling a lot of them to the local ladies, maybe because the local ladies didn’t have a lot of money to buy hats—or maybe because Fannie’s hats had too much big-city style and made the Darling ladies (only a few of whom kept up with the latest style in hats) uncomfortable.

And Lizzy had her own questions. Fannie had once told her that her sister had a millinery shop in Miami and a cousin had a shop in Atlanta, so she was able to send her hats there for sale. But even that couldn’t bring in very much, Lizzy thought. Hats couldn’t fetch that much of a price, could they? So where was she getting the money to pay the rent on her shop and apartment and buy groceries and the stylish clothing she liked to wear?

Lizzy wasn’t the only one who wondered about Fannie Champaign, of course. Some of the Darling ladies—Leona Ruth Adcock, for instance, the biggest snoop in town—had made it a point to try to find out about her. To no avail, however. Fannie kept her business to herself and turned away with a polite smile from the (sometimes impolite) questions asked by nosey parkers like Leona Ruth. But no doubt their curiosity about Fannie was one reason why people were watching and wondering about her and Charlie Dickens.

Lizzy didn’t know Fannie any better than did Leona Ruth or the others. But she had found her to be such a sweet, modest person that she couldn’t help but like her—and besides, Fannie had given her mother a job making hats when no other work would have suited. So Lizzy felt as if she owed her a debt.

Fannie smiled again, as if to herself. “I don’t know if you’ve heard this, Liz,” she said softly, “but Mr. Dickens and I have been seeing quite a lot of one another lately.”

“I’ve heard something to that effect,” Lizzy said reluctantly, thinking that Fannie sounded like a schoolgirl with a crush.