The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star (6 page)

Lizzy was about to follow Myra May and Ophelia as they went out the door. But she stopped when Charlie put out his hand and said, in a lower voice, “Hang on a shake, will you, Liz?” When the others had closed the door behind them, he turned back to her, his expression grave.

“I didn’t tell the full story just now. There’s more about this business with Lily Dare.”

“More what?” Lizzy asked. Her earlier apprehension about the upcoming festival—her worry that something was bound to go seriously wrong—was returning with a vengeance. Only this time, it had a sharper focus: the air show, and Miss Dare. “What is it, Charlie? What’s happened?”

Charlie reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes, and fished out a cigarette. “It’s not so much about what’s happened.” He opened a book of matches, snapped one with his thumbnail, and lit his Lucky. “It’s about what
might
happen. Take it from me, Liz. Lily Dare spells trouble. Serious trouble.” He motioned with his head. “Come around to my desk and let’s sit down for a minute.”

“Trouble?” Lizzy went around the end of the counter. “You’re talking about the airplane sabotage?”

“That, among other things. Lily has a way of . . . well, of making enemies. Plenty of them.” He sat down at his cluttered wooden desk and pushed a straight-back chair toward her with his foot.

“I guess I’m not surprised,” Lizzy said, sitting down. “You can’t become famous as the ‘fastest woman in the world’ without wounding a few egos. She’s got to be highly competitive, which likely doesn’t sit well with a lot of men. And judging from the photos I’ve seen, she’s beautiful. She’s glamorous. Most women probably envy her.” She sighed and made an honest confession. “I do—although I’m not sure I’d be very comfortable taking the risks she must take every single day.”

Charlie pulled on his cigarette. “You’re right about both, Liz. She’s competitive. And she’s certainly beautiful. It’s a potent combination. But she’s . . . well, she’s a schemer.” He shifted uncomfortably. “And pretty is as pretty does, as my mother used to say. By that definition, Lily certainly wouldn’t win any beauty contests.”

“A schemer?” Lizzy asked, puzzled. “You must know her, then.”

She studied Charlie. She liked him and respected his opinions, partly because (like Mr. Moseley) he had a wider view of the world than most Darlingians. He’d been to more places, Europe, even, and Baltimore and Cleveland. He had more experience. Still, she was surprised that he knew the Texas Star. It seemed almost too coincidental. But maybe it wasn’t a coincidence.

“Maybe you had something to do with the fact that she decided to come to Darling,” she guessed.

“Nope. Roger Kilgore did that all on his own hook.” Charlie looked away, frowning. “I offered to put in a word with her, if that would help. But he said she had already agreed.”

“I see,” Lizzy said thoughtfully, wondering at Charlie’s evident discomfort. “Well, however it happened, everybody’s really excited about her coming.” She paused, then said again, “I suppose you know her.”

He caught her glance and held it for a moment, as if he were trying to decide how much to tell her. Then he answered, slowly, “I met her when I was working as a reporter at the Fort Worth
Star-Telegram
. Her name wasn’t Lily Dare—not then. It was Henrietta Foote.”

“I see.” Lizzy suppressed a smile. Henrietta Foote’s Flying Circus—it didn’t have quite the right appeal.

Charlie nodded. “At the time, she had a big, fancy ranch house on three thousand acres of Texas rangeland west of town. That’s where she gave her parties. And when I say parties, I mean
parties
.” He picked up an empty Hires root beer bottle and tapped his cigarette ash into it. “Henrietta’s friends from the West Coast—Hollywood types, mostly—would fly their own planes in for a weeks-long, round-the-clock open-door, open-bar party. Her bar was stocked like a San Antonio bawdyhouse. There was enough offshore rum, bathtub gin, and south-of-the-border tequila to keep her pals drunk as skunks for a month. And she had a big swimming pool where everybody skinny-dipped whenever the spirit moved them—which it did, very often.”

“Oh, my,” Lizzy said weakly. She had never been to a party like that, of course, but she had read about them. The magazines on the rack over at Lima’s Drugstore—
Hollywood Life
and
Silver Screen
and such—were full of stories about the sensational goings-on at such parties.

Charlie eyed her, judging her response, then went on. “Some years ago, a guy—Pete Rickerts—died when he flipped his plane when he was landing on the airstrip on her ranch. It was a dangerous strip, too short and full of potholes. Her pilot friends had been telling her so, and warned her to do something about it before somebody got hurt. She laughed at them. She said
she
didn’t have any trouble landing there. It was a test of flying skill, she said. After Rickerts died, she went out and made a dozen landings, touch-and-gos, just to prove it could be done.”

He gave her a level, questioning look. Lizzy thought she should say something but she couldn’t think what to say, other than,
Is that why she calls herself a Dare Devil
? But she couldn’t make herself say it.

“Well.” He tapped his fingers on the scarred top of his desk. “You can bet your sweet life that Rickerts’ pals weren’t too happy about the way she was showing off.” He stopped and gave that some thought, then said, as if to himself, “Could be that something like that was behind what happened in Pensacola. The sabotage, I mean. Somebody trying to get even.”

By now, Lizzy was both intrigued and troubled. She wasn’t a risk-taker herself. She was by nature a cautious person, and anyway, you didn’t get many opportunities to practice taking chances in Darling, where nothing much ever happened. Still, she admired gutsy women, and Henrietta Foote wouldn’t have become Lily Dare if she wasn’t willing to take chances. But Charlie’s story about Rickerts’ death made it sound as if the Texas Star didn’t have much concern for the safety of others.

“You were there, I guess,” she hazarded. “At the parties, I mean.”

“I was. We were . . . friends, you might say.” Charlie gave a dry chuckle. “While it lasted. Her
friendships
never last very long.”

Hearing his tone, Lizzy’s curiosity mounted. What kind of friends had they been? she wondered. Charlie wasn’t a handsome prince, by any stretch of the imagination. But he had a certain cynical charm, a wide experience, and a sharp intellect, which made him attractive to some women—to Fannie Champaign, at least.

Fannie, the newest member of the Dahlias, owned Champaign’s Darling Chapeaux, on the other side of the square, and employed Lizzy’s mother to help her make hats. (The job, Lizzy felt, was a miracle, since it kept her mother busy and out of Lizzy’s hair.) Several months ago, Fannie and Charlie had become an item, at least in the minds of the Darling ladies. They were frequently seen at picnics and church suppers together and at the movies on Saturday nights. And the last time Lizzy got a shampoo and set at Beulah Trivette’s Beauty Bower, she had heard from Bessie Bloodworth (who was getting her hair permed in Beulah’s electric perm machine) that Fannie was expecting a marriage proposal. That bit of gossip had disturbed Lizzy, because Charlie Dickens did not seem to her to be the marrying kind. She sincerely hoped that Fannie wasn’t about to get her heart broken.

But she could understand why certain women found Charlie appealing, and she guessed that an adventuresome woman like Lily Dare might be more to his taste than quiet, sweet-natured Fannie Champaign.
Had Charlie and the Texas Star been . . . lovers, once upon a time?

It wasn’t a question that Lizzy could ask, of course. Instead, she ventured, “You said Miss Dare
had
a ranch. Past tense. She doesn’t live there anymore?”

“Henrietta—Lily, that is—is a big spender.” Charlie’s tone was matter-of-fact. “She married oil money, and when her husband died—he was nearly thirty years older and drowned in his bathtub—she got it all, every cent. There were people who thought that the drowning was a bit too convenient, and her stepsons were furious at being cut out of their father’s will. Still, the lawyers told them there was nothing they could do about it. Lily was rolling in dough, at least for a while. But the Crash hit her like a ton of bricks. She lost the ranch to the bank. And her record-breaking airplane—her Travel Air Speedwing, which cost her a cool thirteen grand—was repossessed. She started the circus to make some money. I doubt that it’s been a big financial success.”

Lizzy was struck into silence by the weight of the story. At last she managed a question, then another. “Her airplane was repossessed? Then what—I mean, she’s flying
something
, isn’t she?”

“She’s flying a Jenny.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

“A Jenny? What’s that?”

“A Curtiss JN-4. It’s the plane most barnstormers fly. It’s a bi-wing and stable at low airspeeds, which makes it ideal for stunt flying and aerobatics. But believe you me, it’s nothing like the Travel Air. That’s the plane she flew when she set the woman’s speed record back in 1930. It had a Wright J-6-7 engine and racing wings. The fastest plane ever designed, at that time. And nobody could figure out what made it go fast. Was it the engine? The wings, the cowling—what? The specs were so secret that the press dubbed it the ‘Mystery Ship.’” He stubbed out his cigarette, hard. “Lily Dare flew that plane faster than anybody, faster than Amelia Earhart, even, at 197.6 miles per hour.”

“Amazing,” Lizzy murmured. “Almost 200 miles an hour! It’s hard to imagine anybody going that fast.” What was just as amazing, she thought, was Charlie Dickens’ enthusiasm. Normally, the man was as cool as a cucumber. Obviously, Lily Dare, whatever her faults and failings, had a place in his heart. Was Miss Dare’s visit likely to rekindle Charlie’s former feelings for her? What effect would this have on his relationship with Fannie?

Charlie’s grin was crooked. “Of course, that record has already been broken, numerous times. Lily loves to fly fast, but closed-course racing—where the speed can be clocked and the records set—is too predictable and repetitive for her. She refuses to fly in circles, even if it means giving up her main claim to fame.”

“I see,” Lizzy replied thoughtfully. She could understand that, and the knowledge made her like Lily a little more. She herself wouldn’t enjoy setting speed records if it meant flying in a circle, hour after hour, like a yo-yo at the end of a string. Where was the fun and adventure in that? But if she listened between the lines, Charlie seemed to be saying something else.

“What you’re telling me,” she said slowly, “is that Miss Dare isn’t the big star that people in Darling think she is. She’s not the fastest woman on earth.”

“Well, she may not hold the current speed record, but she’s still a star. She flew for Howard Hughes as a stunt pilot in
Hell’s Angels
,
and followed that up with Howard Hawks’
The Dawn Patrol.
” He fished in his pocket for another Lucky, lit it, and blew out the match.
“Of course, she was flying as a stand-in. The fans think the leading man was in that cockpit.” He chuckled wryly. “The anonymous Miss Lily Dare. Unsung star of the silver screen.”

“Gosh,” Lizzy breathed. She preferred romantic comedies, especially now that most of them were talkies.
But Grady was a big fan of adventure movies and they saw every one that came to town. “
The Dawn Patrol
?
Wasn’t that the one with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.? Miss Dare was in it?”

“That’s right,” Charlie said. He pursed his lips. “From what I heard, Lily and the dashing Douglas played quite a few scenes together—off the set, that is. After hours.”

Lizzie imagined she heard jealousy in his voice. “But I thought Douglas Fairbanks was married to Joan Crawford,” she ventured. Was Lily Dare the kind of woman who fooled around with another woman’s husband? Then she thought of what Grady had told her about the barbershop gossip about Roger Kilgore and Lily Dare. Could it possibly be true?

“Don’t be so naïve, Liz,” Charlie said with an ironic laugh. “A little thing like a wedding ring never stops Lily Dare.” His voice hardened. “When something’s off-limits, it just adds to her fun.”

Now, Lizzie knew for certain that Charlie was jealous. So there
had
been something between him and Miss Dare! Was he still carrying a torch for her? How did she feel about him? What did this mean for Fannie? But she couldn’t ask those questions.

Charlie broke the silence. “When she can get work,” he went on after a moment, “she still flies stunts for the movies. But times are tough. Up until the last couple of years, the studios were paying good money for stunt pilots. Fifty dollars for a single spin. A hundred for flying upside down. Once, Lily agreed to crash an airplane into a tree—she got twelve hundred dollars for it.” He blew out a stream of blue smoke. “But she never does that stuff for the money. She does it for the thrills. The riskier the better, as far as Lily Dare is concerned. She burns the candle at both ends, as they say.”

Lizzy was still trying to figure out why Charlie was telling her all this. “I guess I don’t quite understand,” she said. “If stunt flying is what Miss Dare loves to do, does it matter that she sometimes—?”
She hesitated, trying to find a way to say it, then settled for the word Charlie himself had used. “That she’s a schemer?”