The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

FIVE

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?”

“I’ve stopped buying lemons,” Lizzy said. “They’ve gotten expensive.” She added pointedly, “And I’ve been saving my money. I’m hoping to buy a car.”

“A car. I don’t know what you’d want a car for. That fine Mr. Alexander would be glad to let you drive his whenever you want.” Her mother put the glass down, hard. “Of course I’ve spoken to Mr. Johnson.”

“Well, have you tried to negotiate some kind of settlement?” Lizzy knew that George E. Pickett Johnson (a descendant of a Confederate War general) was considered a hard man, but surely he would listen to reason. There had to be a way to solve this.

“A settlement?” her mother asked indignantly. “I have begged him. I have pleaded with him. I have pointed out that he and his bank won’t look good at all if he snatches a God-fearin’ widow’s home away from her and puts her out on the street. But he won’t budge. He is a terrible man. Everybody says so.”

Lizzy turned away, not trusting herself to speak. She took the dish of potato salad out of the refrigerator and the meat loaf and green beans out of the gas oven, where they were keeping warm. The crust of her freshly baked peach pie, made from fruit she had picked from the tree in the backyard and canned right here in this kitchen, looked crisp and luscious, and there was almond-flavored whipped cream for the topping. But she had lost all appetite.

Still, she was not going to show her mother how hard she had been hit by news of the foreclosure. Smiling gamely, she put the food on the table and said, in as cheerful a voice as she could summon, “Let’s enjoy our Sunday dinner, Mama. I’m sure that things will look brighter after we’ve eaten.”

Her mother’s appetite didn’t seem diminished in any way by the awful prospect of her house being foreclosed in just a few weeks. She ate rapidly and with enthusiasm and helped herself to seconds. And when Lizzy poured coffee and served the peach pie (she had decided against going into the backyard), she asked for three large spoonfuls of almond whipped cream. The pie disappeared in no time.

Mrs. Lacy patted her lips with a folded napkin. “Well, now, Elizabeth, we need to discuss what we are goin’ to do. We’ve had our differences over the years, as I’ll be the first to admit. But I am sure that my only daughter-my only child-will not let her mother be put out on the street.” She put her elbows on the table and went on, not giving Lizzy time to respond. “You know, I hated the idea of your movin’ over here, but it looks like it’s turned out to be just a real good thing. You have fixed this place up so it’s neat as a pin and pretty as a dollhouse. I won’t have to go on the street at all. I can just move in here with you.”

“Oh, no, Mama,” Lizzy said firmly. “That’s not-”

“It might be a squeeze for a while,” her mother went on, as if Lizzy had not spoken. “But I’m sure we can find room for everything.” She regarded Lizzy’s G.E. Monitor refrigerator, humming quietly against the wall. “Not all my furniture, of course. Your stove is new, and your electric fridge is much better than my old icebox, which leaks water all over the floor.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Mr. George E. Pickett Johnson can have the musty old thing, if he wants it.”

“No, Mama.” Lizzy pulled in her breath and let it out. “I won’t let you be put onto the street. I’ll help you find someplace to live. But you are not moving in with me, and that’s all there is to it. Tomorrow I will go see Mr. Johnson myself and tell him that he needs to give you more time. He-”

“Absolutely not!” Mrs. Lacy snapped, throwing down her napkin. Her eyes were narrowed and her neck was blotched with red. “You will do no such thing, Elizabeth. I will not abide the humiliation of my daughter goin’ crawlin’ to that wretched bully. Sally-Lou will start bringin’ my things over here tomorrow. Mrs. Oliver’s colored man, Tiny, has promised to help with the heavy pieces. The parlor will be a little crowded, but we can manage. I’m sure you’ll agree that my chintz drapes will look much better in there than your plain ones. I’ve never liked that awful burlap weave, anyway.”

“But, Mama-”

Mrs. Lacy held up her hand. “Hush, Elizabeth, until I’m finished. I’ll take the front bedroom upstairs. It will be a tight fit gettin’ my bed up those narrow stairs, but I measured yesterday, and it’ll go. We can put a cot in the storage room for Sally-Lou until you and dear Mr. Alexander are married, and then she can have your bedroom.”

“Married!” Lizzy was incredulous. “What on God’s green earth are you talking about? I have no intention of getting married anytime soon. In fact, I have no plan whatsoever to get married-to Grady Alexander or anybody else!”

As she spoke, she realized that this foreclosure business must have been the moving force behind her mother’s puzzling reversal on the question of Grady Alexander. And all of a sudden, the whole scheme became crystal clear. Faced with the market crash, Mr. Johnson’s foreclosure order, and the need to find somewhere to live, her mother had come up with a plan. She had started urging Lizzy to marry Grady so she could have Lizzy’s house. She got the key copied so she could come over while Lizzy was at work and decide where to put her furniture. And she had put off all discussion of this awful business until the very last minute, when there was no time to have a reasonable conversation about alternatives.

At the thought of having her perfect little house invaded by her quarrelsome, outsize mother, Lizzy felt sick. But she felt even sicker at the thought that her mother was so carelessly, so cruelly manipulative that she would push her daughter into getting married just so she could take over her house!

“Oh, gracious me. Not gettin’ married?” Mrs. Lacy heaved a dramatically disappointed sigh. “I am so sorry to hear that, Elizabeth. I think you and Mr. Alexander make the most marvelous couple. And of course I never raised my daughter to be an old maid.” Another sigh, this one of long-suffering forbearance. “But there’s no point in gettin’ all upset about that part of it. Sally-Lou won’t mind sleepin’ on the cot. Of course, it would be nice if this house was just a teensy bit larger, but we can manage.” She leaned over and patted Lizzy’s hand. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, dear. We’ll be a tad crowded, but we’ll make do. And maybe, in a few months, after you’ve had time to ponder, you’ll see your way clear to marryin’ that fine Mr. Alexander, who loves you so very much. As I do, of course. You know I do.”

Lizzy stared at her for a long moment, and then the sick feeling suddenly turned into something else, a searing, volcanic anger at her mother’s manipulations.

“Mama!” She stood up, clenching her hands. “Mama, you listen to me and you listen hard. I do not know the answer to your predicament, but I am telling you one thing for certain. You are not moving into my house, not now, not later, not under any circumstance. You are going to give me that key you had made, right now, or I will be changing the locks first thing in the morning. Furthermore, you will not step foot in my house again without my express invitation. Do you hear me, Mama? Do you hear?”

“Not moving in-” Mrs. Lacy turned pale and her eyes were wide, staring. Her hand went to her bosom. In a quivering voice, she cried, “You’d let me be put out on the street?”

“I have no idea what’s going to happen about that,” Lizzy replied stonily. She could feel herself shaking. She had never before spoken to her mother in this way. “But I do know that you are not moving in here. It is simply out of the question.” She held out her hand. “Now, you give me that door key you had Mr. Musgrove copy for you at the hardware store.”

Mrs. Lacy widened her eyes. “Key? What key?”

“The key that you used to come in here so you could measure for your furniture, Mama.” Lizzy hardened her voice. “I want it. Now.”

Her mother pushed out her lower lip like a pouting child. “I don’t have it with me.”

“Then I will go to the hardware store first thing tomorrow. I will tell Mr. Musgrove that my mother copied my door key without my permission and I can’t trust her to stay out of my house. I will ask him to put new locks on the front and the back doors.”

Mrs. Lacy looked aghast. “You wouldn’t tell him that, Elizabeth! Why, Mrs. Musgrove is a terrible gossip. She’ll tell everybody in town that I-” She swallowed. “That you-”

Lizzy folded her arms. “Try me,” she said icily.

In the end, Mrs. Lacy surrendered the key.