Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

A few looked up when the Oatmans walked out and were surprised to see a dog coming onstage with a little woman in a white dress wearing sunglasses. What was going on, they wondered. Minnie sat down, stared straight ahead like she always did, started tapping her foot, and when the spirit hit her, off she went into their first number, "Glory, Glory, Clear the Road." Then something unexpected happened that surprised even the Oatmans. The sound coming out of the loudspeakers and wafting high across the auditorium was one they had never heard before.

Minnie knew at once they had something special. So did everyone else. Suddenly, the people in the audience that had been moving around shopping for seats stopped and sat down. Soon all the dressing rooms emptied as the other groups backstage started to gather in the wings to listen.

Beatrice singing alone was something. Minnie alone was something.

Betty Raye's voice had been soft and sweet but Beatrice's clear and powerful soprano blended perfectly with Minnie's equally powerful tenor. This sound, combined with Ferris's deep bass and the two boys' alto voices, was a sensation and set the audience wild. They stood up and clapped and cheered after each number. By the time they had finished their last song, "Sweeter as the Days Go By," their appearance fee had gone up from $75 to $150, and they would never sing before the intermission again.

As one of the Dixie Boys remarked later, "Them Oatmans got themselves a gold mine in that little blind woman." While Betty Raye was being given a new look and a new life, the Oatmans were getting a brand-new sound. The only person who had not been totally amazed at this phenomenon was Minnie. As she always said and believed with all her heart, "God never shuts up one door till He slings open another!"

After Anna Lee left for college, Dorothy was uneasy for a few days, until she received her phone call. Her mother knew she was all right and had arrived safely. Soon Dorothy was back to her old self again, happy to be busy with all the many details of getting Betty Raye enrolled in Elmwood Springs High School, making sure she had all the books and supplies she needed. They had had her tested a few weeks before and, to everyone's surprise, she scored high enough to be entered as a senior. It really was going to be like having Anna Lee back. They would be going through another senior year all over again, with so many wonderful things to look forward to.

But poor Bobby was getting ready to slug through another year of the sixth grade. It had been quietly decided between his parents and his teacher, Miss Henderson, that since his grades last year had been so bad, particularly in math and English grammar, it would be best to hold him back a grade now and not let him get so far behind in the future that he would never catch up. Between having to repeat the grade and not being able to climb the water tower again this summer, Bobby was not very happy. Now the only thing he had to look forward to before the holidays came around again was a double feature each Saturday at the Elmwood Springs Theater and then over to the Trolley Car Diner afterward. That was something, at least.

The Trolley Car Diner was a small, round, white building with glass bricks along the side. After the movie, Bobby loved to sit on a stool at the counter in the front window and eat chili dogs, drink an Orange Crush, and watch the rest of the world go by. Jimmy would watch him sitting there swinging his feet and hitting the wall each time. This meant a lot more work for Jimmy, cleaning the scuff marks, but he never said a word. He got a big charge out of Bobby with all his tall tales and was always glad to see him come in. Being a boarder with the Smiths for so long, he'd begun to think of them as his family. He had long since given up hope of starting a family of his own. Although his limp was not very noticeable to other people, he was embarrassed about it and it prevented him from ever asking a girl out for a date, much less asking one to marry him.

He had joined the navy at sixteen and was twenty-five when the Second World War began. But for him the war ended the same day it had started. Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, he had been aboard the battleship Arizona. After that he spent years in and out of veterans hospitals, learning to walk again, but no one ever heard him complain.

He had been luckier than most of his shipmates. He had just lost a leg; they had lost their lives. Jimmy had a steady and simple life that consisted of going to the diner every day, a week's vacation once a year, which he spent up in St. Louis visiting some of his buddies at the VA. hospital, and poker on Friday night at the VFW. He did not really need to work, with all the disability pay he got from the government, but the thought of not working never occurred to him.

When Betty Raye had first come to the house to live she had been shy but she'd liked him right away. He was not loud like the men in her family. She always felt anxious around most people, afraid they were waiting for her to say something, but not Jimmy. He was quiet and sweet and easy to be around. And he liked her as well. Dorothy could tell by the little changes in his behavior. Ever since Betty Raye arrived he'd started wearing a clean white shirt to dinner every night.

She also noticed that Jimmy often waited until Betty Raye left the porch, ashamed to get up in front of her. But Dorothy never said a word. Betty Raye did not know Jimmy had a wooden leg but if she had, it would not have mattered. She of all people knew what it was like to be different from the rest of the world around them.

They did not realize it but both were handicapped and afraid of life, only in different ways.

As much as poor Bobby dreaded repeating a grade, Norma dreaded her mother's next visit even more. On September 21, Ida had returned from her museum tour in Washington and her National Federated Women's Club meeting in Baltimore, and that afternoon was walking through her daughter's new little house, offering a running commentary.

"I'm not sure about those curtains, Norma."

"What's the matter with them?"

Ida did not go into specifics. "I just wish you would have let your father and me hire a professional decorator like we wanted to." She glanced around the room. "And where is your silver tea set?"

"In the closet."

Ida looked at her daughter in disbelief. "Norma, you display your tea set, it should be out so people can see it. A tea set is the earmark of a gracious home."

"Mother, I don't have enough room to display a teacup, much less an entire tea set I'm never going to use."

Ida sat down in the kitchen and took her gloves off. "I don't know why you and Macky insisted on buying this place; it's no bigger than a matchbox… and how you expect to entertain with no guest bathroom is beyond me."

Norma poured her mother a cup of coffee. "I don't expect to entertain and it's all Macky and I could afford."

Ida gave her a look. "I won't say it but you know how I feel. We offered to buy you a bigger place."

"Yes, Mother. How was your trip?"

"Wonderful… we heard the most enlightened talks from the most interesting women in all fields. Oh, I wish you would join the club, then you could have gone with me."

The fact that Norma would not join any of her clubs was a constant source of pain for Ida. Norma said, "Mother, please don't start up on that again," and brought her some cream.

"All right, all right, that's not what I came here to talk to you about anyway." Ida looked at the small, plain white cream pitcher her daughter had put on the table. "Norma, where is the pretty pitcher with the hand painted flowers that Gerta and Lodor bought you?"