The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush by Susan Wittig Albert

Author:Susan Wittig Albert
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780698144569
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2014-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Lizzy Makes a New Start

After Grady left on Monday night, Lizzy had sat in the dark for a long time, curled up on her sofa, holding Daffy in her arms and wetting his orange fur with her tears. When she went to bed, she cried herself to sleep. And when she got up on Tuesday morning, her throat felt raw, her eyes were swollen, and she looked like a wreck. It would be better, she decided, if she didn’t go to work, especially since there wasn’t anything terribly crucial on her desk. So she called Mr. Moseley at home, saying that she had a little cold and wouldn’t be in.

But she must have sounded pretty terrible, because Mr. Moseley became so concerned that she found herself telling him the real reason she wasn’t coming to work—and taking a perverse pleasure in the unkind things he said about Grady.

Then, when she realized how she was feeling, she said, “Oh, please, stop! Please, Mr. Moseley. It wasn’t Grady’s fault. He—”

“What do you mean, it wasn’t his fault?” Mr. Moseley demanded gruffly. “He could have— He shouldn’t have—Oh, hell, you know what I mean, Liz. Of course it’s his fault! It’s always the man’s fault.”

Was it? Lizzy wondered. Always the man’s fault? But that wasn’t what she had meant, anyway. She had meant that sometimes things just happened, and nobody was to blame.

Mr. Moseley’s voice softened. “You take as much time as you need, Liz. I don’t want you to come back to work until you’re feeling better.”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “I’m sure I’ll be feeling better tomorrow. I can catch up then.”

“Don’t worry about catching up,” Mr. Moseley said. “Just concentrate on . . . well, feeling better.”

Lizzy hung up, thinking how lucky she was to have such a wonderful employer. She would take the whole day to get used to the idea that Grady was now permanently a part of her past. Tomorrow, she would face her future. But first—

But first, she should go across the street and tell her mother that Grady was getting married, before her mother found it out from someone else. She shivered when she thought about it. This wasn’t going to be easy. Her mother had her heart set on Grady’s becoming her son-in-law.

As it turned out, though, her mother already knew. Ouida Bennett, who lived across the alley and two doors down, had hurried over right after breakfast with the news. Mrs. Bennett was Twyla Sue Mann’s second cousin, and had heard about the wedding the night before.

Sally-Lou met her at the kitchen door, wearing her usual gray uniform dress, nicely pressed, and a white apron. “She took it real hard,” Sally-Lou said in a half whisper. “She’s in her bedroom, layin’ down with a wet washrag on her head. She done tol’ Mr. Dunlap she ain’t comin’ in to work at the Five an’ Dime today. You can go in, if’n you want, Miz Lizzy, but it ain’t gonna be good. She’s gonna give you a right big piece o’ her mind.

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