The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star (25 page)

“You did?” Myra May gulped, still incredulous. She put out a hand to touch Raylene’s face. “You really . . . came back for me?”

Raylene nodded. “Once when you were six and again when you were eight.” A smile played across her mouth—a mouth, Myra May thought, that was very like her own. “The first time, I just stayed out of sight and watched. The second time, I got a room at the Old Alabama and walked past your house several times, watching you playing outdoors. When you ran off with one of your friends, I went into your daddy’s office to talk to him. I wanted to take you with me for a visit.”

“But you didn’t talk to me?” Myra May whispered. “You were that close and you didn’t talk to
me
?”

Raylene shook her head. “I couldn’t, Myra May. He had already told you I was dead.” Her muscles of her jaw tightened. “I can’t tell you how much that hurt. But I had to agree with him that it would be too confusing, too difficult for you to handle. And it looked like your Aunt Belle was taking good care of you—”

“Auntie Bellum,” Myra May said, and managed a tearful laugh. “Oh, she took good care of me, all right.”

Raylene threw back her head and laughed. “Yes. Antebellum. She was a Mosswell, that’s for sure—stiff and unbending and old-fashioned as all get-out. I am sure that woman wore a steel-boned corset until the day she died, bless her heart. But I stayed around for a while after I talked with your father, and watched you with Belle. You were such a beautiful little girl, and so strong and lively—a handful. Too much, I suspected, for your aunt. And too much, certainly, for your daddy. But they were taking good care of you. I was sure of that.”

“That might be true,” Myra May said somberly. “But I almost never saw him, you know. Not then. Not when I was a little girl. He was always away, taking care of other people’s kids. Auntie Bellum said it was because I reminded him of you, which I thought ought to make him happy, since he always said he loved you. It didn’t, though.”

“I’m sure it didn’t,” Raylene murmured, touching Myra May’s cheek. “But as I was watching you, it seemed to me that
you
looked happy. And I knew I couldn’t give you all the things your father could give you—a comfortable home, nice clothes, an education. Especially an education. What kind of an education would you have if you came with me? So I went away feeling sorry for myself and thinking I’d come back when you were older and independent. But things happened in my life and the years went by and—

She broke off, frowning a little. “You
were
, weren’t you, Myra May? You
were
happy, growing up? You seem so happy now that I think you must have been happy then.”

“Most of the time, yes, I suppose,” Myra May said, “except for missing you. All I had was your photograph, and a big empty hole where
you
were supposed to be.” She knew that her voice sounded petulant and whiney, a little girl’s voice, but she couldn’t help it. Yes, she was happy now. But there had been long stretches of her girlhood when she was pinned under the thumb of strict Aunt Belle and all she could do was squirm. Those years would have been much happier if she’d had her mother. Wouldn’t they?

“Don’t look so sour, Myra May,” Aunt Hetty said in a kindly tone. “You neither, Ina Ray. Doesn’t help to hold a grudge, y’know. Life’s too short for that.”

Raylene wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I remember something I heard you say once, Aunt Hetty. Something about keeping our faces to the sun so we can’t see the shadows.”

“And planting sunflowers and marigolds amongst the collards and sweet potatoes and okra,” Aunt Hetty added. “It’s true, too. Life’s too short to be bitter. Look on the bright side, is what I say.”

Raylene chuckled. “How could I be bitter,” she said, “when I have everything that’s wonderful and sweet, right here.” She bent over and cupped Myra May’s face in her hands. “Right here, right in front of me.”

Myra May caught at her hands. “You’ll stay this time, though? You’ll
stay
?”

“That’s why I’m here.” The tears were running down Raylene’s cheeks. “That’s why I’m here, my precious, my beautiful daughter.”

Charlie Dickens usually ran off the weekly
Dispatch
on Thursday evening, so he could take the papers to the post office for mailing on Friday morning. But this week, he had postponed the press run in order to escort Lily Dare to the special showing of
Hell’s Angels
,
and then he had spent the night at the airstrip in the company of Rex Hart. Having shared a companionable bottle of Mickey LeDoux’s white lightning with the fellow, Charlie was about ninety-nine percent certain that Hart had had nothing whatever to do with the sabotage of Lily’s airplane. He seemed to be concerned about the safety of the planes—as well he might be, since his job depended on it.

And as for the Texas Star herself—well, after that ridiculous little abduction stunt at the Kilgores’ house, Charlie was entirely disgusted with her. It didn’t matter what kind of a run-in she had had with Roger and Mildred, she wasn’t justified in doing what she did. Climbing out of the window was utterly stupid, and it was even stupider to make it look like she’d been kidnapped. Charlie had lost all patience with her—and she had lost any attraction she ever held for him. He’d be just as glad if he didn’t see Lily Dare ever again. He didn’t owe her so much as a second thought.

But Charlie couldn’t hold back the swarm of second thoughts that had continued to plague him since he had left Fannie Champaign on Wednesday night. The echo of her sad little sigh, the memory of her disappointment in him—these stung him now even more piercingly than they had when he had left her, wearing the noble righteousness of his lie like a badge of honor. Then, he had thought it was better to convince Fannie that he wasn’t suitable husband material and that he intended never to marry—and that the best way to do this was to get her to see him as a two-timing jerk. Lily Dare had happened along at exactly the right time to assist in this deception.

Now, giving the matter the second thoughts he should have bestowed on it in the first place, Charlie was beginning to think that he might have taken the wrong approach. He had shown himself to be a complete and utter cad with absolutely no redeeming qualities—and that, surely, was not the case. He certainly wasn’t an angel, but he wasn’t the devil with horns that Fannie now must think him. Maybe he shouldn’t have painted himself as an unregenerate louse who would two-time her with Lily Dare and humiliate her in front of her friends. After all, he hadn’t
really
two-timed her, had he? He’d just pretended to. To put it bluntly, he had told her a lie for the sake of the truth, but it was nevertheless a lie.

Now, giving it some second thought, he decided that instead of lying, he should have come straight out and told her that he wasn’t interested in matrimony—at least, not just now, at the moment when it seemed that everybody in town already had them standing at the altar. He should probably have added that he very much enjoyed being with her (which was true) and would miss their evenings together if they stopped seeing one another (also true) and as a matter of fact did not
want
to stop seeing her (most definitely true).

So, having given the matter due consideration, he decided that it would be best if he dropped in at Fannie’s hat shop today and cleared up any misapprehension she might have about the true nature of his character. That would allow them to continue seeing one another, but without any inconvenient expectations on her part.

This vigorous back-and-forth debate was going through Charlie’s mind on Friday morning as he put on his heavy canvas apron and a pressman’s hat made of folded newsprint, to keep the ink out of his hair. At the makeup table, he took one last, careful look at the type forms that made up the four pages of home print—the local news and advertisements that occupied half of the newspaper. The pages looked pretty good, he thought, considering. There was plenty of news, anyway, although he could have wished for a few more ads.

Headlining the local page was an article Charlie had written about Gene Ralston, a Darling veteran who had gone to Washington, D.C., to join the Bonus Army. Earlier in the spring, some 43,000 veterans of the Great War began to gather at the Capitol to demand the cash bonuses that had been promised to them back in 1924. Their hopes were fired up in June when the House passed a bill authored by Texas Representative Wright Patman, allowing them to collect their bonuses immediately, in cash—then dashed when the Senate defeated it a couple of days later. But the vets were still in Washington, still trying to pressure President Hoover to act on their behalf—a wasted effort, in Charlie’s estimation. Hoover had to hold on to his political base, the Republican loyalists who didn’t approve of any government-backed relief efforts. The president couldn’t afford to do anything that would make them angry enough to stay home come Election Day next November. Roosevelt’s promises of a “new deal” (whatever that was) appealed to a great many people, more than enough, Charlie thought, to elect him. Hoover was facing an uphill battle.

There were several other page one stories: the arrest of a couple of local moonshiners by the Revenuers; the monthly meeting of the American Legion; an article on a better way of feeding chickens that resulted in higher egg production, written by County Ag Agent Grady Alexander. Page four featured Elizabeth Lacy’s regular Garden Gate column and the article Ophelia Snow had written about the cooking auditions being held at the Darling Diner, although Charlie was pretty sure they were going to hire that woman who had just popped up—Raylene, her name was. He hoped so, anyway. He’d love to see pulled pork added to the diner’s regular menu. By golly, he’d eat every meal there, if that happened.

Charlie locked the type into the form, picked up the heavy forms, and carried them one at a time to the old Babcock flatbed cylinder press in the back of the room, where he set them in place. Then he inked the rollers, loaded the paper, and began running the home print pages—two and seven, four and five—on the backs of the ready print pages: one and eight, three and six. These came in on Thursdays on the Greyhound bus from a print shop in Mobile, already made up with the latest national and world news, a sports page, the comics, and the women’s page.

While the pages came off the press and went into the folding machine, Charlie took a short break to read the front page. One of the lead articles was about Roosevelt’s “new deal,” although the writer seemed to be as much in the dark about what that meant as everyone else was.

The other article was headed by a photo of men waiting in line for a bowl of soup in New York, where more than 750,000 unemployed men, women, and children were dependent upon city relief, with an additional 160,000 on a waiting list. For each person on relief, the city spent about $8.20 a month.

Below the fold, there was a follow-up story on the suicide of Violet Sharpe, one of the servants in the rural New Jersey home of Charles and Anne Lindbergh. The woman had killed herself after being repeatedly questioned by the police about the kidnapping and murder of little Charles Jr., whose body had been discovered in May, some two and a half months after the crime. According to the article, she had nothing to do with it; she was the victim of police bullying. The cops had no other suspects, and while some of the ransom money had turned up, they hadn’t been able to track down the rest.

From that depressing news, Charlie turned to page six and the lighter side: “Out Our Way” and “Our Boarding House,” with the comically big-headed Major Amos Hoople, two comic strips that always gave him a chuckle. But even though things weren’t as bad in Darling as they were on the east coast, there wasn’t a whole lot to smile about. Charlie was practically giving the newspaper away (twelve cents a week, including two cents for postage), but the circulation kept on going down as people cut back on their expenses—only 427 subscribers as of this month. Ophelia was working hard to bring in more advertising and print jobs, but both the ad revenue and the printing business were declining as well. The local merchants couldn’t afford to put money into advertising when they could barely pay their other bills.

Charlie didn’t like to think about what was likely to happen when the cost of the paper and ink and ready print and Ophelia Snow’s twelve bucks a week amounted to more than the little bit he took in every week. Maybe he’d just lock the door and hang a big
CLOSED
sign on it. If people wanted newspapers, they could subscribe to the
Monroe Journal
,
over in Monroeville.
Yes, he had lied to Fannie Champaign when he told her that the newspaper was in debt. (Why had he done that? He couldn’t remember.) But there wasn’t any money, either. Not one extra red cent, and Charlie was still fighting his way up a steep mountain of personal resentment for having been saddled with his father’s business in the first place. It wasn’t what he had expected or wanted and he still hadn’t reconciled himself to it.

His father, Randolph Dickens, had been owner, publisher, and editor of the Darling
Dispatch
for four decades, along with running a small job printing business on the side. Charlie had taken the newspaper over when the old man died of lung cancer several years before—not so much because he wanted to, but because he couldn’t think of anything else he wanted to do instead.

That was the way Charlie had lived most of his adult life, floating from here to there as possibilities and opportunities presented themselves, doing first one thing, then another. Some people were driven by desire, but Charlie wasn’t one of them. He was driven by nothing at all. He drifted along with whatever current pulled him, and Darling was just another backwater he’d gotten stuck in—temporarily. As soon as the spirit moved, finances improved, and he could unload the
Dispatch
, he’d be on his way again. In the meantime, the ordinary tasks of putting out the weekly paper were a kind of crutch to get through the days and weeks and months, limping along, managing to keep himself and the business going, with the help of liberal doses of Mickey LeDoux’s bootleg medicine.

Printing 427 newspapers plus a couple of dozen extra for the boxes in front of the hotel and the diner didn’t take long. The press run finished, Charlie stopped the Babcock, shut off the motor, and raised the ink rollers. He pulled off the forms and carried them to the makeup table, where he washed the ink off the type with a gasoline soaked rag, then went back to the press and cleaned it off, as well. He carried the folded papers to another table, where he took out the long galleys that held the names of the dwindling numbers of his subscribers. He inked each galley, placed it into the mailing machine, then fed the folded newspapers into the mailer. Each one came out with the name and address of a subscriber printed at the top and went into a large cardboard box.

The last paper labeled, Charlie cleaned the mailing machine and then took off his canvas apron and his printer’s cap and washed his hands at the sink in the back corner of the room. He glanced at the old octagon Regulator clock on the wall—nearly noon, he saw. It was time for lunch, and he thought hungrily of the possibility of a pulled pork sandwich on the noon menu at the diner. But he had two things to do, and decided that he’d better take care of the first—getting the papers to the post office—before Mr. Stevens closed for lunch.

He picked up the box of newspapers, hefted it onto his shoulder, and took his straw boater off the peg. Jamming it on his head and kicking the door shut behind him, he headed for the small frame building that housed the post office. It was just down the block on Franklin Street, past Hancock’s Grocery and the Palace Theater, then a right turn onto Rosemont.

But in front of the Palace, he ran into Don Greer, the owner and operator of the theater, who was sweeping the dust off the sidewalk with a straw broom. He paused in his work, leaned on his broom, and gave Charlie a knowing wink.

“Hello, you sly old dog, you,” he said, and chuckled. “Saw you last night with that Texas Star. Quite some gal, ain’t she? Looked like you two was havin’ yourselves a high ol’ time, back there in the next to the last row, in the dark.”

Charlie paused, frowning. “Don’t know what you mean, Greer,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, yeah?” Greer’s chuckle became a broad leer. “Just remember that folks are lookin’ over your shoulder, and one or two of ’em might carry tales.”

“Carry tales?” Charlie asked, and immediately regretted his question.

Greer lifted both eyebrows. “To that other lady you’re sweet on. The one that makes hats. The missus told me she heard that you and her are figurin’ on gettin’ hitched sometime soon.”

Charlie, who was normally pretty swift with a comeback, found that he had no ready answer to this. The best he could do was a muttered “Don’t believe everything you hear, Greer.”

“I’m just repeatin’ what folks’re sayin’,” Greer replied cheerfully. As Charlie walked away, he began pushing his broom with a greater energy, whistling the tune to “Falling in Love Again.”

Gritting his teeth, Charlie rounded the corner and went into the post office. “Here’s this week’s batch of newspapers,” he said to old Mr. Stevens, the post master, and slid the box over the counter.