Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

Dorothy was happy that Anna Lee and Betty Raye were spending so much time together but after a while she began to be a little concerned for Betty Raye. She told Mother Smith, "She is dragging that poor girl around town like she was that Raggedy Ann doll she used to have." And she was.

One afternoon Anna Lee said to Betty Raye, "I know you are real religious and all that but would it be a sin for you to go to the movies? Ginger Rogers is from Missouri and I'm just dying to see Kitty Foyle again. It wouldn't hurt you to go just once, would it?"

Betty Raye thought for a moment. "I don't know. I've never been."

When Dorothy found out, she said, "Now, Anna Lee, I don't want you to be pushing Betty Raye into doing things she might not want to do." Anna Lee, who was busy at the moment braiding Betty Raye's thin brown hair into pigtails, said innocently, "I'm not, Mother. She wants to go, don't you? "

Betty Raye, sitting at Anna Lee's dressing table, said, "Yes, ma'am."

The next night Anna Lee took her to see Kitty Foyle and she loved it.

That Friday Dorothy drove the two girls over to Poplar Bluff to get Betty Raye some new glasses. When they got home Dorothy said to Mother Smith, "You should have come with us you would have gotten the biggest kick out of Anna Lee. You would have thought she was Betty Raye's mother, the way she was carrying on."

Mother Smith said, "Did she get a new pair?"

"Finally," said Dorothy, sitting down on the sofa. "They should be here next week. Anna Lee picked them out. Blue plastic with sort of wings on the end. It's not the pair 7 would have picked but that's the pair Anna Lee wanted and that's what she got. Betty Raye is the sweetest girl; she just sat there and let Anna Lee stick every pair of glasses they had in the store on her and she never said a word."

It was true, Anna Lee was enjoying her newfound project, pushing and pulling at poor Betty Raye, trying to make her into a version of herself.

If she had had another few weeks she might have even taught Betty Raye to jitterbug. But the day finally came when she had to leave for nursing school. That night the whole family went down to the train station to see her off. On the way over, Dorothy talked too much and tried her best to be brave, but at the last minute, when Anna Lee, looking so smart and grown up in her brown hound's-tooth suit and hat to match, climbed on the train and turned around and waved, she could no longer control herself. She put her hand over her mouth to hide a sob and watched the train pull away and she broke down completely. Doc put his arm around her. "Come on, now," he said, "it's not for that long. She'll be back at Christmas."

"I know," Dorothy said, "but she just looked so little on that great big train," and she almost broke down again. She knew she was being silly but she couldn't help it. It hurt just as much to see her daughter go off as it had on her first day of school twelve years before.

Bobby was also sad to see Anna Lee go but he didn't know what to say, so he said, "That was a dumb hat she had on." When they got home Dorothy went to bed, Bobby went to his room and listened to the radio, and Mother Smith helped Betty Raye quietly move her things into Anna Lee's room as she had promised. Hanging up Betty Raye's dresses in the closet, Mother Smith said, "Betty Raye, you just don't know what a godsend you are to Dorothy right now. If you weren't here, I'd hate to think what she would do. She lost one child and I know how it hurts her to lose another, even if it is just for a short time."

Doc and Jimmy sat out on the porch and did not say much. But after a long silence Doc finally offered, "I just wish Dorothy wouldn't act like it was the end of the world. She'll be back at Christmas, for heaven's sake." He then looked at Jimmy and shook his head. "Women… the way they carry on, you'd think a few months was ten years."

"Yeah, they get pretty upset over things, don't they?" Both men sat there in the dark and smoked, trying to pretend that they were above such silly emotions as missing Anna Lee. But they weren't. Anna Lee had been on the train about two hours when she found the envelope Doc had sneaked into her purse without telling Dorothy. Inside was a brand-new shiny nickel and a short note.

If for any reason you don't like it up there, call me and I'll come and get you.

Daddy Doc did not know it but Jimmy had already slipped a twenty-dollar bill into her coat pocket before she'd left. "A little spending money," he had said.

The other set of parents that had to deal with being separated from their daughter that year was Minnie and Ferris Oatman. From the moment they had driven away and left her behind in Elmwood Springs they had been kept busy, rehearsing songs quietly with Beatrice all the way to Little Rock, and had been traveling ever since. They both missed Betty Raye terribly. Ferris worried that without his daily preaching and Bible readings she might wander off from the Lord and fall prey to the wicked ways of the world. Minnie, on the other hand, was more concerned that Betty Raye fit into her new life and try to be happy.

Before she left she told Betty Raye not to pay too much attention to her daddy's strict Pentecostal ideas. She said this in private.

Ferris would have a fit if he knew she was now wearing lipstick and had gone to a Ginger Rogers movie. But as Minnie said to Betty Raye on the phone, "Baby, what your daddy don't know ain't gonna hurt him one whit."

Their lives had been changing almost as fast as Betty Raye's, ever since that first night when they arrived in Little Rock for the all-night sing. By the time they got to the auditorium all the other groups were already there, dressed and ready. It was going to be a big night. The Spears, the Happy Goodmans, the Lester-Stamps Quartet, the John Daniels Quartet, the Melody Masters, the Dixie Boys, the Sunny South Quartet groups from all over the country were backstage visiting before the show, happy to see one another again and catch up on heart attacks and gallbladder operations since they were last together. Also, they compared notes on who was having trouble with the IRS, a constant problem with gospel groups, who, it seems, were always being harassed by the tax people over income taxes.

It was only a half hour before the show started, so Minnie and Beatrice went straight to the dressing room while the boys got ready in the men's dressing room downstairs. Floyd was in charge of the Oatman sound system and was busy getting it out of the car and ready to set up. The halls were buzzing with excitement, as they always were, and the auditorium was filling with hundreds of people. This all-star affair had the Oatmans in high cotton, as Minnie said. It was not a good night to break in a new member of the group. But it could not be helped. They had taken time to get Betty Raye to Elmwood Springs at least a few weeks before school started and they needed the money. Seventy-five dollars for an all-night sing was the highest they had ever been offered. They were to go on third, after the Dixie Boys.

When the time came, Minnie led Beatrice and Honey to the wings and as Beatrice heard all the noise and excitement going on backstage as well as onstage she grabbed Minnie's arm and squeezed. Minnie patted her hand. "Don't be scared, darling, I'm right here with you."

Beatrice said, "Oh, Minnie, I'm not scaredI just can't wait to get out there."

After the Dixie Boys had finished their last number, "Many Thrills and Joys Ago," the audience continued to fill up, a lot of people arriving late because they knew the really good groups did not come out until after intermission. When Hovie Lister came out to announce the Oatmans, a few hundred were still wandering around looking for good seats.