Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [135]
One day in the middle of the afternoon, the phone rang at Neighbor Dorothy’s house in Elmwood Springs. It was Betty Raye.
“Well, hello, honey, what a nice surprise.”
“I didn’t want anything,” Betty Raye said. “I was just thinking about you and thought I’d call and say hello.”
They chatted for quite a while. Betty Raye asked about everyone and wanted to know how Jimmy was doing and said to tell him hello. When Dorothy asked how she was enjoying being the first lady of the state, Betty Raye said, “Oh fine.” She did not tell Dorothy but she often thought about them and her time in Elmwood Springs. And lately, there were times when she wished she had never left, but then one of her boys would run in looking for her and she’d be happy again.
The Dancing Storks
LUCKILY FOR Bobby and Lois, Charlie Fowler was a man of his word and as the company began to grow, so did Bobby’s salary. Within a year after their son was born they were able to buy themselves a nice house and a new car. They found that they loved living in Kentucky and even brought Doc and Dorothy and Mother Smith and Jimmy over for the Kentucky Derby. Dorothy had just lost Princess Mary Margaret to old age and the trip did his mother good. It was especially wonderful when she met her new blond, blue-eyed grandson, Michael.
That year Poor Tot had lost her mother as well. Literally. While she was at work her mother had wandered off from the house and apparently had gotten into a car with strangers, who drove her all the way to Salt Lake City, where she wound up living in a Mormon home for the aged. By the time they found her she said she did not want to come home, but Tot still had to pay for her room and board each month.
On July 6, 1962, Macky and Norma Warren were celebrating a special day and early the next morning Norma called Aunt Elner, even before Elner had called, which was a first.
Aunt Elner wiped the flour off her hands on her apron and picked up. “Hello.”
“Aunt Elner, it’s Norma. Do you have your hearing aid on?”
“Yes.”
“You are not going to believe what Macky got me for our anniversary. It is the cutest thing I have ever—”
“What did he get you?”
“Well, remember how mad I got at him last year when he gave me that stupid Rainbird sprinkler for the lawn?”
Aunt Elner laughed. “I remember. Poor little Macky.”
Norma said, “Poor little Macky? Of course, I was upset. Can you blame me? Our thirteenth wedding anniversary and he buys me something for the lawn. He takes me outside, turns on the water, and says, ‘Happy Anniversary.’ I said, ‘Macky Warren, after thirteen years of marriage I get a sprinkler?’ And not only that, he got it out of his own hardware store. He didn’t even shop for it. After I had driven all the way to Poplar Bluff and bought him all those cute boxer shorts, remember, with the little hearts on them, and baked him a cake. I could have killed him on the spot. Well, anyhow, this year he made up for it. Wait till you see what that crazy fool bought me. I’m looking at it right now.”
“What is it?”
“It is the cutest thing you have ever seen. It is these two storks, at least I think they’re storks—aren’t they the birds with the long beaks? Anyway these two storks are all dressed up and are dancing. The male stork has on a tuxedo and the female is all dressed up in a green evening gown with a red headdress and they are dancing on this pedestal, and you turn it over and it’s a music box. When you wind it up, it turns around in a circle and plays ‘The Sheik of Araby’ while they dance. I said to Macky, ‘This is the cutest thing I have ever seen.’ Listen, I’m going to wind it up for you.”
Norma put it close to the phone while it played. Aunt Elner sat and listened. After about a minute Norma came back on the phone. “Can you hear that? Is that not the cutest thing you ever heard?”
Aunt Elner agreed. “Yes it is. I always