The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

And now that Lizzy had met her, the idea that Miss Dare might have had an off-screen love affair with Douglas Fairbanks didn’t strike her as at all far-fetched. By this time, she was deeply curious about this person. Who was Lily Dare, really?

Feeling that she had already been forgotten and that she might learn more if she didn’t call attention to herself, Lizzy pulled a chair into a corner of the newspaper office and sat down to listen. On the other side of the plate-glass front window, the rain pounded down in a tropical torrent, while inside, it was hot and steamy. Charlie had taken off his seersucker jacket, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and turned on the small black electric fan, aiming it toward his desk. He opened the lower right-hand drawer and took out a bottle and two glasses.

Lizzy smiled a little. The bottle contained Mickey LeDoux’s corn whiskey, manufactured in a still hidden on Shiner’s Knob, in the wooded hills to the west of Darling and retailed by Archie Mann, Mickey’s second cousin, from a secret shelf behind the horse harness and saddles in the back room at Mann’s Mercantile. The stuff packed a wallop. Was Charlie aiming to get Miss Dare a little drunk?

“This place smells like the inside of an airplane hangar,” Miss Dare said, wrinkling her nose.

“Printers ink and the gasoline I use to clean the press,” Charlie replied. “Gets into the blood.” He lifted the bottle. “Join me in a little drink before lunch? It’s no sippin’ whiskey, but it’ll do the trick.”

Miss Dare seated herself across from Charlie, where she could get the breeze from the fan, and accepted the glass, which she tossed off with a quick swallow and a shudder. “That’s the real thing,” she said. From her bag, she took out a small brown cigar and an elegant gold lighter, and lit it, stretching her legs and sitting back with a sigh.

Lizzy blinked. It was considered risqué for women to smoke cigarettes, and Verna was the only one of her friends who dared to do it in public. But a cigar! Lizzy had never before seen such a thing.

“Still fond of those little Cubans, I see,” Charlie said. He added wryly, “Nothing but the best for Lily Dare.”

Miss Dare made a face. “Too true,” she said in her low, sexy voice. “I may be dead broke but I still have one or two expensive habits.”

“But you’re flying a Jenny.” Charlie gave her a sideways glance. “Not a real crackerjack of a plane, is it?”

“It’ll do for these gigs in the boonies,” Miss Dare replied shortly. “Another few months, I’ll have the money for something better. I’ve got my eye on another Travel Air. Walter Beech is saving one for me, out there in Wichita.”

Listening, Lizzy thought of Roger Kilgore’s nine hundred dollars and wondered what other sources of money Miss Dare was tapping to finance another plane. Were there other men, like Roger, who were eager to help her out?

Charlie opened his reporter’s notebook and picked up his pencil. “Well, Jenny or not, that was quite a show you put on at the airfield this morning. You impressed the natives.”

“I wanted to give them a little taste of what they’ll see over the weekend,” she replied, slipping into what sounded to Lizzy like a practiced pitch, one she had developed for newspaper interviews. “Rex and I will do much more of that, of course, including a mock dogfight just like the one I flew in Howard Hughes’ film Hell’s Angels.”

“Dogfight,” Charlie said, writing fast. “That’s good.” He looked up. “Oh, before I forget—there’s a special showing of Hell’s Angels here in Darling tonight. It would be great if you would attend.” He looked up, adding carelessly. “Roger’s not available, so I’ll take you.”

Poor Fannie, Lizzy thought. Everyone would see Charlie with Miss Dare and wonder (as she was doing right now) how Fannie felt about it.

Miss Dare nodded and went on with her spiel, rattling off the number of airplanes they were flying (three, sometimes four), the number of people on the team (six, including herself), the number of shows they’d put on in the past month (eight), and the big crowds they’d entertained (thousands!). When she was finished, she peered across the desk at Charlie’s notebook. “Did I go too fast, hon? You got all that?”

“Got it,” Charlie said. “Sounds exciting.”