Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel (33 page)

Ray is back singing with his group at this nightclub called the Jack O’Lantern that’s shaped like a pumpkin. They are wonderful, better than the Four Freshmen. I go over every night. I like the other guys a lot, but Goose is my favorite. He’s real silly! They kid Ray about being an old married man soon and will all be in the wedding party.

Grandmother Pettibone can’t come because of her sick husband, so the only two people I have to sit on the bride’s side are Daddy and Jimmy Snow. Daddy will have to give me away, so that leaves just Jimmy. But I invited everybody from the theater to sit on my side: Mr. Cecil and the ten Cecilettes, and Paris Knights. That should be plenty of people. I just want it to be over with.

Yesterday Tootie and Dolores asked me what my pattern was. I didn’t know what they were talking about. It’s what kind of silverware you want. I told them I didn’t want any silverware, but they said you have to have a pattern when you got married, and you must go down to the store and pick out the one you like. That way people can come in and ask what your pattern is, so I made Mr. Cecil go downtown and help me pick one. He’s crazy about silverware. His choice has grapes on the handles and is called Cornucopia. There is a lot to do in order to get married.

Jimmy Snow is acting like a grouch ever since I got engaged. All he does is sit around and drink and watch the television set Do you believe that a grown man’s favorite show is
Howdy Doody
? Jimmy may not have much education. He never reads or writes or anything. I am beginning to wonder if he can, but I would never ask him because I might hurt his feelings. He is very sensitive where I am concerned. He doesn’t have any family at all except for Daddy and me, which is why I am extra-nice to him on his birthday. I asked Daddy what was the matter with Jimmy lately and he said that Jimmy doesn’t think Ray is good enough for me.

I want to spend my honeymoon in the Wigwam Motel, out on Highway 42. There, are about six wigwams in the motel.

Mrs. Layne and I had a long conversation the other night when Ray was working. Since I didn’t have any women in my family, she wanted to talk to me. She asked me if I had a diaphragm.

I said, “Yes, of course I did.”

She seemed shocked and said, “When did you get it?”

I thought she had gone crazy. “I was born with one.”

But she wasn’t talking about that kind of diaphragm.

“I only had two children and my husband, who was much more religious than I am, never did know why.” She explained what a diaphragm is and what you do with it and told me not to
depend on Ray if I didn’t want any children. It was up to me to protect myself. She asked me if I had ever had a pelvic examination before, and I told her no. She insists I have one before I get married and made an appointment with this doctor next week.

I have never been so humiliated since I rode the mule down Highway 3! I went to see that idiotic doctor, and he told me to take all my clothes off but to keep my shoes on. Then he left. This nurse came in and said, “I’m Miss Skipper and I’m here to prepare you.” She made me pee in a paper cup and gave me this paper gown and told me to get up on the table. When I did, she said, “Now, scoot down towards me.”

I said, “What?”

She said, “I want you to scoot down here and put your feet in the stirrups.”

So there I was in brown high heels and earrings, with my legs up in the air. I should have left right then. The doctor came back in and sat down on a stool and started poking flashlights and all kinds of things in me. He even had the nerve to ask if it hurt. That was bad enough, but the nurse stood behind him watching everything. Then he started feeling my breasts all over and at the same time asking me how the weather was outside! Is he crazy? After he was done, I got on my clothes and left. The hell with the diaphragm! That doctor acted like he was a mechanic checking my spark plugs.

Ray and his group are going to Panama City, Florida, for a month’s engagement at the Lotus Club, but I’ll stay here so I can graduate. This is the first time we’ve been separated. It’s a big club and if they do well, they might get a record contract. It’s funny. All my life I thought it would be so great to be a senior and here I am about to graduate and could care less.

I hardly ever see Mr. Cecil anymore. I think he’s jealous of Ray. He shouldn’t be. I still like him as much as I ever did. I didn’t get mad when he found a boyfriend. People are funny.

Ray won’t be back until a week after my graduation. Daddy and Jimmy Snow will come watch me graduate. I already bought a lot of funny cards to send Ray while he is in Panama City. I am going to be miserable while he’s gone and he said he would be too. How could people stand it during the war when they would be separated for years at a time?

I got a letter from Grandma Pettibone. The whole group of Italian women that hit her in the head with a piece of fruitcake and called Ollie an old bat at the VFW bingo party one time finally got their comeuppance. Two days ago they were all on a second-floor screened-in porch playing penny bingo when this big fat woman yelled, “Bingo,” and the whole porch collapsed. Grandma said if there is bingo in heaven, she knows Ollie Meeks caused that porch to fall.

I should have known something was wrong when Goose called from Florida. He was drunk and not making any sense. He kept saying Ray was a no good son of a bitch. I thought they had been fighting over the act until Ray’s letter arrived.

It seems that Ann, Ray’s old girlfriend, went to Panama City and they’ve gotten back together. He wrote he would always love me, but he had never really stopped loving her either. It wouldn’t be fair to me because I was so great and he is sorry and so on and so on and so on.

P.S. I graduated and got a watch.

Ray’s and Ann’s wedding picture was in the paper today. It was so strange to see it. I have a picture of Ray and me and he has his arm around me the exact same way and has the same smile as the one in the paper. Is that what love is all about? Just changing a face in a photograph? Very weird.

Mr. Cecil came over to the apartment and told me he was tired of me sitting on my behind feeling sorry for myself. He says he’s getting me to New York if he has to kill me, and he’s entered me in the Miss Mississippi contest, so I can try to win a scholarship to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Manhattan. We’re going to write the funniest talent number ever. If Mr. Cecil had the money, he would give it to me, but he spent it all getting the Cecilettes out of jail. He will find me a job so I can afford to get my teeth fixed. His greatest wish was to be a dancer, but he never had the nerve to try and he doesn’t want me to wind up like him, always wondering what would have happened.

Mr. Cecil is the bravest person I know. People say terrible things to him and he still goes to work every day and goes out of his way to make people laugh.

We sat down and figured out I need $500 to get my teeth fixed, buy a real pretty gown and bathing suit, and pay my way to Tupelo, where they have the Miss Mississippi pageant. One of the Cecilettes has a secret friend at the television station here, and he found out they are looking for a weather girl. The one they now have is pregnant and they don’t want a pregnant weather girl. He is going to set up an audition for me. Mr. Cecil wanted me to get contact lenses. He is sure we can buy them at a good price because another one of the Cecilettes has a friend who is an optometrist. Never underestimate the power of the Cecilettes!

I got the job at the TV station! I am the new weather girl on the morning show. All I have to do is to show up at 6:30
A.M.
, fix the weather map and stand there for three minutes to tell everybody what the weather is going to be. I don’t know a thing about weather, but the other weather girl said not to worry, just to remember it always moves to the east. I am surprised I got the job. There were a lot of girls trying out, but Mr. Cecil said he knew I would get it because, in the words of Miss Doris Day, “A certain party was afraid that their secret love would be no secret anymore.”

I make $50 a week. If I can get a few extra jobs entertaining somewhere, I will have all the money I need for the Miss Mississippi contest. I go to the eye doctor next week. Ray’s mother sent me a long, sweet letter. She hopes I know that she still loves me and she wants me to come over and see her anytime. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about Ray, but at least Jimmy Snow is his old self again. He’s even been dusting crops. Daddy just won’t stop drinking. He’ll give it up for a few days, but then he goes back. His girlfriend left him, but he uses any crazy excuse to tie one on.

The entrance form for the Miss Mississippi contest came in the mail today. In order to enter, you must be of excellent character and background, talented, ambitious, attractive and never married. Well, I am ambitious and I’ve never been married. A week of judging will start at the Dinkier Tutwiler Hotel in Tupelo on August 3, and the pageant will be held on the ninth.

I like my job at the TV station. It’s pretty early in the morning, but Jimmy drives me in his truck when he’s home and the rest of the time I take the bus. At the station they have a big weather board that has these cardboard pictures of things like snow and rain and clouds you can move wherever you want. The job is easy. All I do is move the five o’clock weather girl’s weather a few inches to the right. When it all winds up on the East Coast, I start it back in California. The only bad thing is the gospel show that’s going on in the studio while I am fixing my weather board. When I come in in the morning, you should see those gospel singers making out on the couch in the makeup room. How they can do that so early in the morning is beyond me. No wonder there are so many Baptists in the world.

I’m in the next play at the theater,
Oklahoma!
, and I get to sing a song entitled “I’m Just a Girl Who Cain’t Say No.”

The eye doctor gave me some contact lenses and showed me how to put them in. I can only wear them one hour. They hurt like the devil, but I am going to stick it out come hell or high water and will wear them two hours tomorrow. Pretty soon I won’t even know they are there. Right now they feel like I have two garbage can lids in my eyes. These are just temporary lenses. I ordered blue-tinted ones. And guess what? Today when I was in the drugstore, a woman came up to me and asked if she hadn’t seen me on television. Then she asked for my autograph. How about that? I guess it will be pretty hard for me to go anywhere without being recognized. Now I know how movie stars feel. I like this television work.

Oklahoma!
opened last night and here is my review:

I am up to eight hours of wearing time with my blue contact lenses.

Mr. Cecil and I are busy with my talent number for the Miss Mississippi contest. I came up with a character who’s a cross between Mrs. Dot and Grandma Pettibone. I call her “Susie Sweetwater.” I wear a funny hat with flowers and some funny glasses with jewels all over them. I pretend she has a TV show and use an exaggerated southern accent and act real ditsy.

I make believe I am in a TV studio putting on my lipstick and powder when the camera comes on and catches me. I am real surprised and say, “Oh, hi there. Good morning. And how was your morning this morning? And welcome to
The News in the Morning
, your friendly morning news program. Remember, here you get all the news while it’s still news. Anything else you may hear is just plain gossip. Well, I have a happy wedding announcement. You know people used to get married in June, but nowadays they get married whenever they have to … uh, want to … Mrs. Mosell Hicks announces the engagement of her daughter, Quantia, to Seaman Fourth Class Curtis Johnson. Miss Hicks, who attended Central Lee High School, is employed by the Roxy Theater as a candy girl and part-time ladies’ room attendant.
Mr. Johnson attended New Mercle Grammar School.” I pretend to look for a name of a high school but can’t find it and give up. “The wedding will take place in the home of the bride and the bride will enter from the kitchen and Curtis and his father, Mr. Willis T. Johnson, will enter from the front porch. The bride will wear a white net ballerina-length dress, with shoes, hat, purse, gloves and ankle bracelet to match. After the ceremony, a reception for the happy couple will be held at the Trailways bus station, where the bride’s mother is an employee. After a short honeymoon trip to see Rock City, the couple will reside in the Orange Grove Trailer Park near Mr. Johnson’s naval base. Mr. Johnson plans a career in the Navy or one in the trailer park. Well, that’s all the time we have for today. And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for
Dateline Divorce
and, as always, I leave you with a thought for the day: Protect your heart as you would your other vital organs. Bye bye.”

I just hope Amy Jo Snipes doesn’t hear my number. I took a lot of the stuff out of her wedding announcement.

It says in the Miss Mississippi brochure that if you get in the finals, you would be judged all over again, so I need two numbers. They judge you on talent and bathing suits and personality. I am too skinny to look good in a bathing suit and my personality is questionable after having been around Daddy all these years, so Mr. Cecil says we should concentrate on talent I asked Mr. Cecil if I couldn’t do my famous death scene from
Yellow Jack
for one of the talent numbers, and do you know what? He said no, because we only have three minutes for our
talent numbers, not forty-five! Smart alec! Boo! Hiss! So I am going to do the one about the woman who gets shot as a second number.