Susan Albert - The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

Verna gave her a sharp look. “You okay about walking home alone, Lizzy?”

“Of course,” Lizzy said. Home was just a couple of blocks away. Daffodil would be waiting for her, and her own sweet little house, and the companionable screech owl that lived in the live oak outside her bedroom window. “And this is Darling, you know.”

“Yeah, it’s Darling,” Verna said. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful.” She pushed her hands into the pockets of her skirt. “Wonder what Myra May will do if Violet decides to stay in Memphis to take care of that baby.”

“I don’t know,” Lizzy said, shaking her head. “I’ve been wondering that, too. Times are tough. People have to make hard choices. But we have to look on the bright side. Whatever Violet does, it’ll be the right thing. I hope.”

“Yeah,” Verna said again. “I hope so, too. But the right thing for some folks is sometimes the wrong thing for others.” She let that hang in the air for a moment, then said, “Don’t forget. We’re talking to Bessie Bloodworth right after the meeting tomorrow. About Miss Jamison.” She grinned. “Also known as Lorelei LaMotte.”

“I won’t forget,” Lizzy said. “Good night, Verna.” She turned and began to walk down the street.

Verna turned to go the other way, took a few steps, then stopped and flung out her arms. “Don’t take it serious,” she called. She did a little soft-shoe shuffle. “Life’s too mysterious.”

Lizzy laughed and waved, then headed home, feeling a little lighter. Life might not be a bowl of cherries, but you could always find something that would cheer you up-as long as you lived in Darling, anyway.

Lizzy’s ample mother couldn’t fit comfortably into the narrow dining nook and Lizzy’s small house didn’t boast a dining room, so they would be eating at the kitchen table. Lizzy dressed it up for their Sunday dinner, spreading an embroidered tablecloth and setting it with her favorite yellow china plates, rimmed in green and decorated with decals of flowers and fruits. Her napkins were green, and in the middle of the table, she added a vase filled with pretty asters and cosmos and a few sprigs of autumn honeysuckle.

Lizzy stood back and surveyed her work, feeling satisfied. She and her mother would have a pleasant dinner and talk over whatever it was that her mother wanted to discuss-probably something trivial, like that green straw hat. She just wanted some attention, that was all, and Lizzy thought guiltily that she probably hadn’t visited her mother often enough the last few weeks. She would make it a point to drop in on her every few days. Then, when they had finished dinner, they would take their pie and coffee into the backyard, where they could enjoy the hollyhocks and morning glories still blooming along the fence and the marigolds and four o’clocks bordering the vegetable garden. And at one thirty, Lizzy would tell her mother that she had to leave for the Dahlias’ meeting. She had given quite a lot of thought to the way she would handle that worrisome business about the door key, and had a little speech already planned.

“Please stay and finish your coffee,” she would say, “but be sure and leave your key on the table when you go home. Otherwise, I’ll have to change the locks.” She would say it casually and sweetly but firmly, and then walk out the door and leave her mother to consider her options. Unlike her mother (by nature an argumentative person), Lizzy did not like disagreements. She always tried to think of a way to avoid unpleasant encounters.

But that wasn’t exactly the way things happened, for Mrs. Lacy delivered her news the moment she set foot in the kitchen, even before she took off the black gloves and wide-brimmed black straw hat with fanciful fuchsia flowers that she had worn to church. When she heard her mother’s announcement, Lizzy felt as if the roof had just fallen in on her, or the earth had opened up and swallowed her. In fact, she could think of nothing worse, unless it was cancer or tuberculosis, and even then there was sometimes a cure, and always hope, until the very end. But there was no cure for this, and no hope, either, as far as she could see.

Mr. Johnson, at the Darling Savings and Trust, was about to foreclose on her mother’s house.

Lizzy put her hand to her mouth, scarcely able to get her breath. “Foreclose!” she gasped. “But-”

“The fifteenth of October!” Mrs. Lacy cried dramatically. She was a large woman with a pillowy softness that was belied by her habit of sharp, petulant speech, which not even her Southern drawl could soften. Between her physical size and the power of her vocal chords, Lizzy always felt small and squeezed, as if her mother took up all the space and sucked up all the air, leaving almost no space and no air at all for her.

“October! But that’s just a few weeks away!” Lizzy protested, bewildered. “He can’t do that! Why, how long have you known?”

Her mother looked away. “Only since April.”

“April!” Lizzy exclaimed in disbelief. “But that’s… that’s over five months! Why didn’t you tell me earlier, Mama? We might have been able to work something out.”

“Work what out? There’s no workin’ out something like this where Mr. George E. Pickett Johnson is concerned. That man is just bound, bent, and determined to be as heartless as he can be.” Mrs. Lacy whipped a lawn handkerchief out of the lace-trimmed bodice of her purple rayon chiffon dress. “He says I have to move all of my furniture and belongings out by the fifteenth. But where am I goin’ to go?” She sniffled and dabbed at one eye. “Where, I ask you?”

It was a calculating question, and Lizzy refused to answer it. “But how… how could this be?” she asked wonderingly. “Daddy left the house to you free and clear, with a little annuity-enough money to make you comfortable for the rest of your life. What on earth could have happened?”

Mrs. Lacy dabbed at the other eye, then tucked her hankie back where it came from. “Yes, that’s what your daddy did,” she said in a defensive tone. “Your daddy was a good man. He took care of us. As for the annuity-” She lifted her broad shoulders and let them fall in a gesture of resignation, implying that it, too, was gone.

“But what could have-”

Mrs. Lacy lifted her chin. “The stock market was blazin’ away like a house afire, and I couldn’t stand to be left out. So I borrowed some money to invest and put the house up. Collateral, is what it’s called.”

“Oh, Mama, you didn’t do anything so foolish!” Lizzy exclaimed despairingly. “You didn’t put the money into the stock market!”

Mrs. Lacy bristled. “Well, I don’t know why not. Everybody was doing it. Every time I opened a newspaper or magazine I read about people makin’ a fortune on Wall Street. So I asked Miss Rogers for the name of her broker and I invested-”

“You didn’t invest , Mama,” Lizzy cut in grimly. “You gambled. You gambled with your house and you lost.”

Mrs. Lacy pulled out a chair, examined it to be sure there was no dust, and sat down. “Well, there’s no point in givin’ me one of your lectures, Elizabeth,” she said in a huffy tone. “What’s done is done, and that’s all there is to it.” She picked up her glass. “Are we goin’ to have something to drink, or did you put the glasses out here just for show?”

Lizzy opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of cold water. “Have you talked to Mr. Johnson?” She poured water into her mother’s glass, and then into her own.

Her mother picked up the glass and wrinkled her nose. “No lemonade?”