The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online Page A

Mummy,
with Boris Karloff. You know how people love horror films, and this one is supposed to be a jim-dandy. It’ll bring out a crowd and some of them will want to stop and eat first.”
    The bell over the diner’s front door dinged and Charlie Dickens stumbled in.
    “See?” Violet crowed. “There’s Mr. Dickens. The lunch crowd is on its way.”
    “Three customers hardly constitute a crowd,” Myra May muttered, frowning. She could tell from the rakish tilt of Charlie’s fedora that he was three sheets to the wind. Well, two and a half, anyway. It seemed that she’d seen him that way more and more often lately, after Fannie Champaign got fed up with his tomcatting around and took off for Atlanta. She wondered if he knew that Fannie was back.
    “I think things will pick up,” Raylene said serenely, and Violet nudged Myra May with her elbow.
    “You listen to your mama,” she said. “She knows what she’s talking about.”
    “Oh, I do,” Myra May replied, and swatted at the fly on top of the napkin dispenser. This time she got it. “I definitely listen.”
    Myra May did, too, for her mother had a special and rather surprising gift. She was psychic. Raylene knew what people wanted to eat and surprised them by having it ready when they walked in and sat down at the counter. She knew when certain things were going to happen, and when certain people had certain feelings that were going to cause them to behave in certain ways. She explained all this by saying that it was sort of like tuning a radio to a station that came through loud and clear. The signal was powered by people wanting, or planning, or hoping. It didn’t work 100 percent of the time, because sometimes there was static, when people were conflicted or guilty or apprehensive. And sometimes there were competing signals, and she had to figure out which was which and what it meant.
    Raylene didn’t advertise her gift, but she didn’t make any secret of it, either, and the people who knew about it didn’t think anything of it one way or another, especially the elders. Back in the old days, almost everybody knew somebody who had the gift, especially among the rural folk who lived along the edges of the swamps. Aunt Hetty’s opinion was that the gift was squelched by city life, so the more people who moved to the cities, the less of it there was. Pretty soon it would all be gone.
    Charlie tossed his fedora at the hat rack on the wall under the Dr Pepper clock, missed, and didn’t bother to pick it up. He took a seat at the counter, two stools down from J.D. He was barely settled when the bell over the door dinged again, and Mayor Jed Snow came in, dressed in his usual blue plaid shirt and wash pants. He raised his hand in greeting to Myra May, then picked up Charlie’s hat and hung it, with his own gray Ferguson Tractor cap, on the hat rack. A moment later, Jed Snow was followed by Alvin Duffy, who worked at the bank. Mr. Duffy was dressed in a brown business suit and white shirt and dark red tie and wore a natty brown porkpie hat, which he hung up beside Jed’s cap. Without saying a word, the mayor and Mr. Duffy went to the table in the far back corner of the room.
    “Three chickens,” Raylene decided, watching them. “Meanwhile, I’ll fry up some chicken livers for Mr. Dickens. He’ll be wanting some green beans, too. And Mr. Snow will have that last pork chop.” She snuggled Cupcake’s neck and the little girl giggled. “Baby play pots and pans while Grammy Ray does her cooking?”
    Cupcake batted Raylene on the head with
The Little Engine That Could
. “Baby read choo-choo,” she asserted firmly, and Myra May smiled. There was no stopping that child. Maybe she would grow up to be a famous writer.
    “Thank you for watching her, Ray,” Violet said gratefully. “I’m on the Exchange this afternoon and it’s hard to keep an eye on the baby when I’m trying to manage the switchboard.”
    “Absolutely thrilled,” Raylene murmured