Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society

by Amy Hill Hearth

  “Do what?” Plain Jane said.

  “Kill him?”

  “Poison,” I said. “No—wait—I think she shot him. There was a rumor she used a twelve-gauge with both barrels but she seems awfully tiny to pull that off. So I would guess she used a pistol.”

  “Seriously?” Even Jackie seemed to be losing her nerve now.

  Priscilla surprised us by speaking up calmly. “Well, whatever happened, she served her time. They let her out of Lowell and sent her home, so I think we have to give her a chance, just like the Lord would. We should forgive.”

  “My goodness, Priscilla,” said Jackie, her voice full of admiration. “You are the youngest one here and you are leading the way! And you are so right.” She hit the gas and the car lurched forward.

  I was almost afraid to look at the house too closely as we came near. After all, this was a murder house, and as every good Southerner knows, it’s better not to come eyeball to eyeball with a murder house. Everyone knows that a ghost will leave you alone if you keep your prying eyes to yourself. But everyone else in the car was gawking, so I figured I might be able to get away with a quick look.

  The house was a tall, shabby, three-and-a-half-story Victorian. I wasn’t sure if it was a Queen Anne or a Queen Whatever, ’cause I never could get that straight. The house was wood that, at one time, might have been painted white. To have a wood-sided house in South Florida, you either have to be very rich or very crazy. Since the house was still standing and maybe a hundred years old, my guess was cypress wood. Most of the windows were boarded up. There was a huge vine—hopefully, not poison ivy—climbing up one side and lurking over most of the roof. You get a vine like that around here, the darn thing will grab hold and crush your house. It’s only a matter of time.

  Mrs. Bailey White must’ve been sitting on the veranda, just out of sight, because she popped into view, waving so enthusiastically that we all winced with shame. Truth be told, when she clambered down the steps, I was relieved, since I had no desire to leave the car and knock on that door.

  Priscilla bravely scooched over closer to me, making space for Mrs. Bailey White. With the bright light of day shining on her face, Mrs. Bailey White looked her age, which was probably around eighty, give or take a few summers. Being a tiny little thing—she reminded me of a sandpiper—Mrs. Bailey White had a bit of a tug of war with the car door. I was just about to get out and help her when she yanked the door open with a burst of strength that was a little scary. She greeted us with a broad smile, and as she settled into the seat, the distinct odor of mothballs hung in the air.

  “It’s been a long time since anyone’s been by here,” she said. “Well, other than the grocery boy who leaves my order on the bottom step. But he’s gone like a jackrabbit.”

  I bet. That’s what went through my head. And probably everyone else’s.

  “I know the house doesn’t look too good, but I’m working on it,” Mrs. Bailey White added cheerfully. She was wearing the same little pink suit, at least twenty years out of date, that she’d worn before, and her stockings sagged a little around her ankles. “It’s hard to get workmen out here. And when they’re here, they’re terribly disruptive. So I’m just taking things a little at a time. Right now I’m almost done with the parlor.”

  “Hon,” I said, “maybe you need to get some more work done on the outside. I’m a little worried about that vine there.”

  “Oh, I know,” she said. “But I’ve only been back home for eleven months and three days. And as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. I had to board it up before I left, and all my money was frozen while I was gone, so there wasn’t much I could do.”

  “No one bothered the house while you were gone?” Priscilla asked politely.

  “Not at all! Everyone was too scared to go near the place.”

  Jackie changed the subject. We had gotten to the main road. “I am lost!” she said. “All turned around! Someone tell me how to find Robbie-Lee from here, please.”

  The Sears Service Center was plunked down in the middle of nowhere, yet in a spectacular example of overkill, the out-of-town builder had included a paved parking lot and, incredibly, sidewalks. This had led to rumors that one day there would be an actual store there, but no one really knew one way or the other.

  Robbie-Lee was waiting outside, drinking a Coke and half-reclined on a small bench. Seeing us, he polished off the Coke and jumped to his feet with the slow-motion grace of a gazelle. With his Ray-Bans, pressed chinos, and short-sleeved shirt, he looked just like Rock Hudson or some other California movie star, especially when he tossed his sports coat over one shoulder and walked smoothly our way.

  The only room left was up front. Plain Jane slid over toward Jackie, and Robbie-Lee climbed in. “Hello, ladies!” he sang out, so cheerfully and warmly that the sound of his voice (not to mention the sight of him) put a temporary end to our uneasiness over Mrs. Bailey White’s past.

  Robbie-Lee was what my mama’s generation called “a doll”—handsome, charming, debonair, and absolutely useless in the romance department. “Are we ready, ladies?” he asked, as if we were headed to a Hollywood red-carpet gathering. Jackie laughed and put the car in gear. I knew what she was thinking—what we were all thinking. He wasn’t interested in any of us, not in the biblical sense. But sometimes it was awful nice to have a man along for the ride.

  Three

  We decided our first book should be something challenging, just so no one in town would be able to say we were a bunch of lightweights. I’m sure Jackie had all kinds of ideas, but she insisted Miss Lansbury make the first selection. Miss Lansbury chose a book by Rachel Carson called Silent Spring.

  None of us ever looked at the poor Everglades the same again. We’d been raised to think of nature as our enemy. But as we learned from Silent Spring, you couldn’t drain the swamps, or use DDT to kill mosquitoes, without a reckoning. The eggs laid by some birds were becoming so fragile—because of DDT—that they’d break under the weight of their mothers’ tiny bodies. One day soon, if we didn’t stop, we might wake up to the sound of nothing—no birds singing. A silent spring.

  We were stunned by the book. Jackie wrote a letter to the newspaper, begging parents to keep their children indoors with the windows closed when the DDT mosquito-spraying trucks passed through their neighborhood. One day I saw kids chasing the trucks on their bikes, darting in and out of the DDT fog. This made me so crazy, I ran after them, yelling, until they stopped.

  “It’s poison,” I said, out of breath.

  “It is not,” one boy said defiantly. “It’s just fog.”

  “It’s a chemical,” I said. “You shouldn’t be breathing that stuff. Think about it.” After that, I didn’t see them chase the DDT trucks anymore.

  Although we all felt passionate about the book, Miss Lansbury reacted the strongest. She talked to some of the local fishermen and learned they’d already noticed that fish in the canals and ponds had not been biting like they used to: fewer mosquitoes meant fewer fish. She wrote letters and sent them to the governor and the state legislature. Although she didn’t hear back, she kept trying. She even included some God-fearing scripture about the dangers of mankind’s arrogance, thinking that might get through to the old boys in Tallahassee.

  We spent a couple of weeks on Silent Spring. Since we were a salon, and not just a literary society, someone suggested we invite Mr. James T. Rahway to demonstrate the art of beekeeping.

  Mr. Rahway was a man in his eighties who was considered a little peculiar on account of his extraordinary devotion to bees. He brought his little traveling display and gave a talk called “Without the Brilliant Honey Bee, We Are Toast.”

  “I am spreading the gospel,” he told our little group, and for a moment I thought we were about to be evangelized. “The gospel,” he added, seeing our confusion, “according to Nature.” He then went on to explain all about bee pollination and how, without bees, we would eventually have no plants to eat.

  Mr. Rahwa
y made a huge impression on us, though to be honest, Miss Lansbury was not having a good night. She seemed eager to get the bees out of her library.

  Then we had to move on. Robbie-Lee wanted to know if we could show a movie, but there was concern all around that we’d upset the owner of the only theater in town. Theater was, frankly, a grand name for what was really an old Army Quonset hut, the most terrifying place on earth during an electric storm on account of its being made completely out of sheet metal. Still, the Quonset hut was enormously popular and locally famous as the first building south of Fort Myers to be air-conditioned. Miss Lansbury said she was not sure if the library could show a movie anyway, except for someone’s home movies, which didn’t sound too appealing.

  So the discussion veered back to books. Mrs. Bailey White was interested in mysteries and true crime. I don’t know if it was the topic or because she’s the one who made the suggestion, but nobody was taken with the idea.

  Miss Lansbury tossed out the idea of reading Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, who, after all, was our president. A good choice, you might think, and yet no one was particularly enthused.

  “I know what that book’s about,” Jackie said with a sniff. “It’s about eight men who showed great courage at some point in their lives. Why is it always men? He couldn’t find any women who showed great courage? That annoys me.”

  “No Negroes either,” added Priscilla.

  “That’s because the book’s about eight US senators, and there aren’t any Negroes,” Mrs. Bailey White said. “And not too many women, for that matter.”

  “That is beside the point!” Jackie exclaimed. “By focusing on the status quo, he perpetuated the idea that courage is something found only in white men.”

  “Well, the book won a Pulitzer Prize for History,” said Plain Jane.

  Jackie was really on a tear. “Of course that book won a Pulitzer Prize! That’s the type of book that always wins! Look at who chooses the Pulitzer Prizes! Why aren’t there more books about women, or by women, that win?”

  “Actually, quite a few women won the Pulitzer Prize—in the fiction category, at least,” Miss Lansbury replied in her authoritarian voice. “In the nineteen thirties, especially. But through the nineteen forties—after Ellen Glasgow won in 1942—the winners were men until Harper Lee won last year for Mockingbird.”

  “So there was an almost-twenty-year stretch when only men wrote novels worthy of the top prize in the country?” Jackie said bitterly. “When I was in high school, we weren’t assigned to read any books by women. I went to the city library, and some nice librarian introduced me to Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, otherwise I wouldn’t have known about them.”

  “Why does it matter?” Robbie-Lee asked.

  Our heads swiveled in his direction like a bunch of voodoo dolls. Poor Robbie-Lee.

  “It matters because women are different from men, and we have different experiences than men,” Jackie said icily.

  “Oh,” Robbie-Lee said miserably.

  “A book by a woman speaks to women,” she added, trying to get through to him. “When I read Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Nancy Drew books as a little girl, I could relate in a special way. Same thing with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.”

  “I thought you grew up in Boston,” Mrs. Bailey White said.

  “Yes, Boston,” Jackie said, thrown for a moment. “What, do you think because I lived in Boston, I couldn’t read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?”

  “I don’t know what I meant,” Mrs. Bailey White conceded. “I’m just not used to having conversations like this.”

  This discussion was sinking faster than a Yankee trying to traverse Blue Heron Creek in hip waders. Robbie-Lee made an end run around the subject by suggesting we try something light. “How about a book about Grace Kelly?” he asked, looking from one face to another around the circle, hoping for a consensus. Robbie-Lee was obsessed with Hollywood. The book he had in mind was called something like Princess Grace: The Woman. The Actress. The Legend.

  Plain Jane countered by putting serious poetry on the table. She suggested something by an up-and-coming poet, someone named Sylvia Plath. I had not yet figured out Plain Jane at all. Her accent did not place her as a local. She spoke little of herself, leaving few clues in ordinary conversation. And I was surprised that any woman would accept being called Plain Jane. Heck, it was worse than the Turtle Lady. And she wasn’t even all that plain. Nondescript, maybe, with gray hair and gray eyes, and a wardrobe of A-line skirts and blouses with Peter Pan collars. But not exactly plain.

  I was so lost in these thoughts, I was shocked when Jackie turned to me and asked, “What about you, dear? What do you think?”

  Well, I wasn’t accustomed to people asking me what I think. In fact, I’m not sure anyone had ever posed that question to me before, at least not so directly. I could be outspoken, like when I scolded Jackie for putting Priscilla in a bad spot. But I was pretty gutless about my own opinions.

  “You mean, which of these books do I think we should read next?” My voice sounded squeaky, like a cartoon character’s.

  “No, I meant, what book would you suggest?” Jackie said, giving me an encouraging smile.

  I couldn’t think of anything other than To Kill a Mockingbird, probably because Miss Lansbury had just mentioned it. I said the title apologetically and added, “Of course we’ve all read that.”

  Hands up around our little circle showed I was right—everyone had. “Well, let’s think of another southern woman writer,” Jackie said.

  “Eudora Welty!” I said with newfound confidence. “My mom named me after her. My full name is Eudora Welty Witherspoon.”

  Jackie gasped, which startled all of us. “Your mother named you after an author?”

  “Well, yes,” I said, adding, “is that good or bad?”

  “It isn’t good or bad! It is magnificent!” To our amazement, Jackie pulled a handkerchief from her purse and began to dab her eyes.

  “And where is this incredible mother of yours now? Wouldn’t she like to join our group?”

  The others looked at me sadly. “Well, Mama died,” I said. “She’s buried at the Cemetery of Hope and Salvation, the one that’s flooded all the time. Near the Esso station on the Tamiami Trail. You know where that is?”

  “Well, no,” Jackie said. “I’m sorry, Dora.” We were all silent for a moment until Jackie added, “Did she tell you why she named you after Eudora Welty? I assume she was your mother’s favorite writer.”

  “Yes, Mama loved her writing. But there was more to it than that. They knew each other somehow. My mother was raised here in Florida, but her people came from Jackson, Mississippi.”

  “Really! How fascinating! Now tell us, which is your favorite Eudora Welty story?” Jackie said, while everyone else stared.

  I felt my cheeks burning. “Well, I haven’t really read many of them. I started reading one about a bridegroom when I was about thirteen, but I thought it was kind of peculiar. So I didn’t finish it.”

  Miss Lansbury spoke up. “You must mean The Robber Bridegroom. That particular book is a little fantastical for most people’s taste.” We agreed to let Miss Lansbury research all of the Welty books and make a recommendation.

  We were about to wrap up when Jackie said she had an announcement. We had been meeting on Wednesdays, when most of the town was at Baptist evening services and would leave us alone. But Jackie asked if we could switch to Tuesdays. “The reason is—I have a job!” she said proudly.

  A job? White, middle-class, married women didn’t have jobs. Unless, of course, they fell on hard times, like me, after my divorce. White women joined Junior League or volunteered at church. They went to lunch. They baked pies. Some of them played tennis.

  “My kids are in school, my husband is busy, and I am not going to let my mind rot!” Jackie declared. “But don’t worry, I will always have time for our salons.”

  In a way it was a relief, because we all could see that Jackie didn’t ha
ve quite enough to do. A few weeks before, she had come up with this idea she was going to learn how to fish. She went down to the old fishing pier with a hat and sunglasses, looking like Ava Gardner. She watched the old-timers until she was ready to try. But when she hooked a stingray, and the scary beast yanked the pole from her hands, she lost her nerve.

  Then she started going to the flower-arranging club run by Miss Beulah Babcock. But this ended in disaster when her last-minute entry to the annual flower show was picked by out-of-town judges as “best arrangement.” The other women—especially Beulah Babcock—couldn’t live with the fact that a Yankee carpetbagger with a big bosom and red hair had walked off with the most coveted prize.

  “Well, what kind of job did you get?” Mrs. Bailey White asked. She had disbelief, and maybe a pinch of envy, written on her face.

  “I am going to be a part-time copy editor at the Naples Star,” she said, referring to the local newspaper.

  “What’s a copy editor?” Robbie-Lee asked.

  “Oh, just a person who reads the stories and edits them and fixes the typos, checks the spelling, things like that,” Jackie said.

  “How did you come across this . . . job?” Plain Jane asked.

  “Well, I wrote a letter to the editor of the paper—remember that? The one about children playing in the DDT fog? And the editor called and asked me to stop by. You know him? Mr. Tarleton. He said my letter was well written and that he needed someone to help out on the editing desk. I said yes without even thinking.”

  “Your husband doesn’t mind?” Mrs. Bailey White asked. Just her saying the word husband made several of us cringe slightly.

  “He has no say in the matter,” Jackie replied firmly.

  “I want to find a husband like that someday,” Priscilla said softly.

  “Well, I don’t know if you want one just like Ted,” Jackie said crossly. “He’s on the road all the time with his new job. He doesn’t pay enough attention to me, and neither do my darn kids. My son drives me crazy—he has this idea he’s going to be a minister someday! I don’t know who put that idea in his head. When he’s not blowing up the carport with his chemistry set, he’s reading the Bible! And my daughters—the twins—I won’t bore you to death about them. They don’t do anything but fight. I thought twins were supposed to get along! I love my kids. But I should have waited. I should have finished college, maybe gone to law school. I had applied to go back to school when Ted accepted this new job, and we had to move. And naturally, I wasn’t even consulted.”