The two women inspected the property and discussed the matter upside down and backward. In the end, they decided to buy both the diner and Mrs. Hooper’s half-interest in the Exchange, which meant that they now owned half of the town’s telephone system. They imposed only one condition: that Euphoria Hoyt (who was still known as the best chicken fryer in southern Alabama) would continue to cook and manage the kitchen. Myra May traded her house for her share of the business, and Violet put up all the cash she had and some she borrowed from her sister in Memphis, and the deal was done and everybody was happy-including Euphoria, who took a shine to both of her new bosses. And before long, the customers at the diner (who had been a little skeptical about the new management) were very happy, too, because Myra May kept the food moving efficiently from Euphoria’s skillet to the customers’ plates and Violet kept on smiling in her sweet and friendly way.
It was a good situation all the way around.
Before Lizzy went into the diner that evening, she paused to read the headline of the Mobile Register on the wire newspaper rack beside the gray-and-red-painted pay telephone booth that had recently been installed outside the diner.
HOOVER SET TO CREATE COMMITTEE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF, the newspaper headline announced. Lizzy shook her head doubtfully. She was no fan of the president, who had come into office before the Crash and seemed to be stuck on the idea that any “relief” for the unemployed ought to come through volunteers and private charities. Would this committee be any different from the others that had tried to mobilize volunteer efforts? Lizzy had no problem where charity was concerned-everybody ought to pitch in and help out where they could. But it was high time that government stepped up and did its part, too. Happily, there was another headline, much more appealing, and she bent over to read it: SIXTH GAME SERIES WIN FOR PHILLY ATHLETICS OVER ST. LOUIS CARDINALS. That would make Grady smile. He was an Athletics’ fan.
Myra May was behind the counter when Lizzy opened the door and went in. Since it was Saturday night, Euphoria was frying catfish instead of chicken, and the plates were heaped with mashed potatoes, cream gravy, and a choice of beans, cabbage slaw, or fried okra, along with hush puppies and sweet tea or coffee-all for thirty cents. A slice of pecan pie (the usual Saturday special) was another dime, but Euphoria cut her pie into sixths, rather than the usual eighths, so it was worth the extra money.
And since it was Saturday, you had dinner music at no extra charge, for the radio was tuned to the National Barn Dance, on WLS in Chicago (the initials stood for “World’s Largest Store,” because it was originally owned by Sears and Roebuck). Gene Autry-new to the Barn Dance-was singing a cowboy ballad, but the four men at the counter weren’t listening. They were talking about the poor cotton yield due to the drought, the rising unemployment rates, and the latest exploits of Chicago’s notorious gangster and mob boss, Al Capone, who ran the city’s speakeasies, bookie joints, gambling houses, brothels, racetracks, and distilleries.
“Hey, Liz,” Myra May called out from behind the counter. “We’ve got the table in the corner. I’ll be with you and Verna in a minute. Fredda’s taking over for me this evening.” Fredda was the youngest Musgrove girl, capable but not always dependable-which probably accounted, Liz thought, for Myra May’s frazzled look.
Lizzy waved to Myra May, then turned and threaded her way between the tables, stopping to say hello to Ophelia Snow, vice president of the Dahlias, and Ophelia’s husband Jed, the conservative mayor of Darling. They were eating supper with Charlie Dickens, the editor of the progressive Darling Dispatch, and his sister Edna Fay. Seeing Mr. Dickens, Lizzy was tempted to stop and mention her idea for a human interest feature about Miss Jamison’s Broadway career, but she thought it would be better to approach him in the office, where they could sit down and discuss the details.
Anyway, Jed and Mr. Dickens were having their regular Saturday night argument about politics and the economy, with Jed making his usual passionate defense of President Hoover’s conservative “leave-it-alone” approach: the notion that the federal government should stand back and let individual communities deal with their own individual problems. It was Jed’s belief that the Darling volunteers-its fine churches, the Ladies’ Club, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Merchants’ Association-could handle anything that came up, and it was ridiculous to think that the bureaucrats in Washington would have any better idea of what needed to be done than the folks right here at home. He wasn’t in favor of the new committee for unemployment relief and thought that Mr. Hoover had gotten pushed into creating it because some in the Republican party were afraid that they would lose more Congressional seats in the upcoming midterm elections if the president wasn’t seen as doing something.
Mr. Dickens, on the other hand, took a more liberal (but equally passionate) approach, arguing that Washington needed to do more to help out. The British government, for instance, had for some time funded an old-age pension, so its elderly citizens didn’t have to go to the poorhouse when they could no longer work. And with unemployment growing every day, he argued, the federal government ought to provide some kind of relief. There were lots of jobs that needed doing. Government ought to be organizing the effort to pair jobless men to work. Between the drought of the last few years and the old sharecropping system that turned so many-black and white-into de facto slaves, Southern farmers were in dire need of help. Huey P. Long, governor of Louisiana, could clearly see the scope of the problem and was offering a whole bushel of solutions. Why couldn’t President Hoover?
Lizzy generally agreed with Mr. Dickens, although she wasn’t so sure about Governor Long, who had just been charged with kidnapping a pair of witnesses in a fraud investigation. People called him “the Dictator of Louisiana,” and with good reason. But as she passed the table, she caught Ophelia’s eye and gave her a sympathetic smile. Ophelia and Edna Fay were trying to have their own conversation, on the subject of Edna Fay’s efforts to organize the Darling Quilting Club, of which she was the president, to produce quilts for needy families. But they had to do it under the menfolks’ loud discussion, which had already gotten to the table-pounding stage.
So Lizzy just said hello and headed for the table in the corner, which was covered with a red-checked cotton cloth. Verna Tidwell was already seated there, wearing a pretty brown and gold two-piece silk shantung dress and a brown felt hat. Lizzy’s hat was blue (the one her mother had refurbished) and her blue crepe dress had a separate sleeveless jacket, a jabot tie and a belt, and a pleated and flared skirt. Women in Darling liked to dress up when they went out to supper and the movies, even if they weren’t going on a “date.”
As Lizzy pulled out a chair to sit down, Verna leaned forward, her brow furrowed. “I talked to Miss LaMotte after you went home,” she said, without preamble. “I swear, Liz. Something about this situation is really fishy. She denies being who she is.”
Lizzy blinked. “You mean, she isn’t Nona Jean-”
“No, no, no, the other way around. She denies being Lorelei LaMotte. She swore up and down that she’d never been on Broadway, doesn’t know Mr. Ziegfeld, and has never been a dancer.”
“When did you talk to her?” Lizzy pulled off her blue gloves and folded them into her lap. “Where?”
“This afternoon, just outside the drugstore. She was trying to get a prescription for Veronal filled but Mr. Lima wouldn’t do it because the prescription was out of date. She was really upset-said it was a matter of life and death. He sold her some Dr. Miles instead.”