Divas Do Tell Read Online Free PDF Page A

interested in hillbilly husbands. Whatever happened to the last one you had?”
    They eyed each other like sumo wrestlers, clasped hands, then leaned forward and kissed the air next to each other’s ear. That ritual behind them, they squared off again while the rest of us held our collective breath.
    Somewhere in the next room Bill Murray was reliving Groundhog Day , but inside the lovely den full of Divas the movie Armageddon seemed about to replay. I hoped for détente. Instead, I got another exploratory skirmish.
    “If you’re talking about the senator,” said Bitty, lobbing the next conversational salvo, “he was killed while trying to bring industry to our area. Bless his heart. Are you still with the musician? The guy with the interesting beard who likes to dress in women’s underwear?”
    “That was my junior year in college, Bitty. I can’t even remember his name. And how is your first husband? Is he able to get letters to you from prison?”
    The breath hung in my throat. Gaynelle, Rayna, Sandra, Carolann, and I watched in fascination, rather like people do when watching a snake charmer and a cobra. Cindy still hovered in the background, and Cady Lee had found the wet bar. She splashed a little Jack Daniel’s in a glass and poured it down her throat without bothering with ice.
    “Why, yes,” Bitty replied to Dixie Lee with a feral smile, “Frank keeps in touch fairly often. So sad about your second husband dumping you. His new wife is a twenty-two-year-old stripper, isn’t she?”
    “Yes, Bambi is of legal age .”
    Dixie Lee’s inference was clearly a reminder that Bitty’s last husband, the senator, had picked an underage cheerleader to have an affair with. I felt it was time to end the reenactment of D-Day on a Normandy beach so took a deep breath and stepped into the fray.
    “Would you like a glass of wine, Dixie Lee? We have almost any kind you could want.”
    “Why, thank you, Trinket. Wine would be lovely.”
    While Dixie Lee took the opportunity to disengage from her opponent, Gaynelle succeeded in coaxing Bitty toward the table full of gastronomic offerings. Détente had finally arrived. I breathed a little easier. The old rivalry between Bitty and Dixie Lee seemed destined to continue. All we could hope for were moments of temporary truce.
    Once wine had the chance to soothe ruffled feathers, Gaynelle tactfully danced around the subject that had us all wondering and talking.
    “You’ve become quite the famous author, Dixie Lee. Whatever made you decide to write a book set in Holly Springs?”
    Smiling over the rim of her glass, Dixie Lee said, “There are some stories just begging to be told. Of course, I fictionalized so much. Dark Secrets Under the Holly became more a work of love and homage to the town of my childhood than anything else.”
    Since Bitty had reverted to Jack and Coke instead of a tamer glass of wine, I half-expected her to turn savage at any moment. She must just live to astonish me.
    “I have to say,” Bitty remarked, “that what happened to Susana Jones was a terrible thing. Why did you give such a sad story a happy ending?”
    “There are too many sad endings in real life,” Dixie Lee answered. “I gave it the ending it might have had in other circumstances. It was just too soon back in the sixties. These days it might get talked about, but no one would have to leave town over a bi-racial unwed pregnancy.”
    “Does anyone know what happened to Susana after she left Holly Springs?” Rayna asked. “Billy Joe stayed here and married Allison, but no one has ever said anything about Susana since it all happened. I think the family went up north to Illinois or Michigan.”
    Dixie Lee shrugged. “I didn’t research that far. My focus was more on the issues of the day, Civil Rights and race relations, how some people overcame enormous obstacles to not only survive, but thrive. I had to put in amusing anecdotes to lessen the tension, too. Most readers don’t