Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man: A Novel Read Free Page B

Whatley Drugstore, where they make the best banana splits in the whole world. I was a petal in the recital called “Springtime in Greentime” with a special number by the Gainer Triplets, who played a three-leaf clover. Skooter Olgerson was cast as a weed, but his momma didn’t want him playing a weed and she yanked him out of the show. I didn’t do too good in the recital. I was not in step but once.
    Momma let me quit when I ruined all her hardwood floors practicing my shuffleball chain. Besides, Neva Jean said I was holding the whole class back. The only fun I ever had in that dance class was the day when Buster Sessions showed up in tap shoes that were too big for him. He is a real sissy and when his momma came to see him in the class, he got to tapping so fast, showing off, that one of his shoes flew off and hit the piano player, Mrs. Vella Fussel, in the back. Buster’s mother wasn’t even looking. She was sitting there in a fold-up chair, chewing a whole pack of Juicy Fruit gum and reading
Screen Secrets
.
    Daddy and I bought a record of Mario Lanza singing “Because of You,” as a surprise, and I learned the whole thing for Momma’s birthday. When she had some of her girlfriends over, Daddy put me in one of his jackets and a tie and painted a mustache on my face. He announced me and I came in the room and sang “Because of You” as loud as I could. Momma suggested maybe I should learn one of Patti Page’s hits.
    She was expecting a Mixmaster for her birthday, but Daddy got her a pair of expensive toenail clippers instead. I got her some Coty toilet water with sachet powder and two giant tubesof Colgate toothpaste and some Palmolive shaving cream for her legs. She tried to pretend she liked what I got her, but I know she didn’t. I’m too young to buy a Mixmaster and I don’t even know where they sell them.
    What I can’t figure out is, Felix is a calico cat and her kittens are black and white and real ugly.
April 12, 1952
    Well, you are not going to believe what happened. Daddy froze five cartons of English red worms and when we thawed them out, they were all dead as door nails! Nobody is going to buy dead English red worms. Rats! The only other way Daddy could get that $500 is to ask his daddy to loan it to him, but Grandfather Harper won’t do it because he is mad at Daddy and is never going to speak to him again as long as he lives.
    My granddaddy, Blondie Harper, is pretty well known around Jackson. When they used to have stage shows here, he ran the spotlight at the Pantages Theater. He was mean and if he didn’t like someone’s act, he would holler at them and turn the spotlight off. People used to come to the theater just to hear what he would yell at the Yankee comedians.
    When Granddaddy first started the stagehands’ union in Mississippi, he put stink bombs in theaters where they didn’t want the unions, and that is why he is president of the stagehands’ union to this day.
    He never liked my daddy from the beginning. He thought Daddy was too little and skinny, and worse, he wore glasses and did bird imitations. Grandpa thinks he is a sissy, which he isn’t.
    Grandpa bought me a blue suede cowgirl outfit with whiteleather trim and boots to match, so he’s all right in my book, but I feel sorry for Daddy. Grandpa calls Daddy a bad husband and father and all kinds of ugly things just because he happened to see him talking to a woman at Dr. Gus’s Beer Joint. Daddy explained that he was simply talking union business. Grandpa said there weren’t any women in the union. Daddy said that was exactly what he had been talking about at the time. If things weren’t bad enough already, last week he had to go and put a whiz bomb in Grandpa’s car.
    I’ll miss not seeing my Grandpa and Grandma Harper. I used to love to go see Momma Harper, because she and Aunt Helen would let me open their Miller High Life beers for them and have a sip.
    My Aunt Helen is real pretty. As a little girl, she used