Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [69]
Minnie knew at once they had something special. So did everyone else. Suddenly, the people in the audience that had been moving around shopping for seats stopped and sat down. Soon all the dressing rooms emptied as the other groups backstage started to gather in the wings to listen.
Beatrice singing alone was something. Minnie alone was something. Betty Raye’s voice had been soft and sweet but Beatrice’s clear and powerful soprano blended perfectly with Minnie’s equally powerful tenor. This sound, combined with Ferris’s deep bass and the two boys’ alto voices, was a sensation and set the audience wild. They stood up and clapped and cheered after each number. By the time they had finished their last song, “Sweeter as the Days Go By,” their appearance fee had gone up from $75 to $150, and they would never sing before the intermission again.
As one of the Dixie Boys remarked later, “Them Oatmans got themselves a gold mine in that little blind woman.” While Betty Raye was being given a new look and a new life, the Oatmans were getting a brand-new sound.
The only person who had not been totally amazed at this phenomenon was Minnie. As she always said and believed with all her heart, “God never shuts up one door till He slings open another!”
Jimmy and the Trolley Car Diner
AFTER ANNA LEE left for college, Dorothy was uneasy for a few days, until she received her phone call. Her mother knew she was all right and had arrived safely. Soon Dorothy was back to her old self again, happy to be busy with all the many details of getting Betty Raye enrolled in Elmwood Springs High School, making sure she had all the books and supplies she needed. They had had her tested a few weeks before and, to everyone’s surprise, she scored high enough to be entered as a senior. It really was going to be like having Anna Lee back. They would be going through another senior year all over again, with so many wonderful things to look forward to.
But poor Bobby was getting ready to slug through another year of the sixth grade. It had been quietly decided between his parents and his teacher, Miss Henderson, that since his grades last year had been so bad, particularly in math and English grammar, it would be best to hold him back a grade now and not let him get so far behind in the future that he would never catch up. Between having to repeat the grade and not being able to climb the water tower again this summer, Bobby was not very happy. Now the only thing he had to look forward to before the holidays came around again was a double feature each Saturday at the Elmwood Springs Theater and then over to the Trolley Car Diner afterward. That was something, at least.
The Trolley Car Diner was a small, round, white building with glass bricks along the side. After the movie, Bobby loved to sit on a stool at the counter in the front window and eat chili dogs, drink an Orange Crush, and watch the rest of the world go by. Jimmy would watch him sitting there swinging his feet and hitting the wall each time. This meant a lot more work for Jimmy, cleaning the scuff marks, but he never said a word. He got a big charge out of Bobby with all his tall tales and was always glad to see him come in. Being a boarder with the Smiths for so long, he’d begun to think of them as his family. He had long since given up hope of starting a family of his own. Although his limp was not very noticeable to other people, he was embarrassed about it and it prevented him from ever asking a girl out for a date, much less asking one to marry him.
He had joined the navy at sixteen and was twenty-five when the Second World War began. But for him the war ended the same day it had started. Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, he had been aboard the battleship Arizona. After that he spent years in and out of veterans hospitals, learning to walk again, but no one ever heard him complain. He had been luckier than most of his shipmates. He had just lost a leg; they had lost their lives. Jimmy had