Free Magnolia City by Duncan W. Alderson

pounds, the candles casting a monstrous shadow on the ceiling. He towered over Garret as he pumped his hand. “Mighty pleased, sir, mighty pleased,” he croaked.
    “I think I owe you an apology, Mr. Allen. For my blunder at the cotton carnival.”
    “You’ll learn our rules soon enough.” Kirb wielded a Citizen’s Bank cash envelope. “Here’s another one,” he said, unbuttoning Garret’s blazer and dropping the parcel into his vest pocket. “No pay-and-pet for my daughters. That should cover Esther’s dinner.”
    “Dad! Let us by, please.”
     
    Hetty’s irritation at her family soon evaporated into the open air over the Auburn as they glided along the esplanades of Main and arrived at the Rice Hotel. Twilight was dyeing the sky a deep blue, and streetlamps were warming up the flickering shadows all along the ornate wrought iron veranda. Garret tossed the keys to a colored attendant and came around to open the door for Hetty. A satin slipper stepped down to the sidewalk, and all the lights ran to the snowy feathers that frosted her shoulders. White, too, was the lobby they walked through, cool and immense, faced with Italian marble and lit by the sparkling wheels of crystal chandeliers. The elevator girl took them to the eighteenth level, where they ascended the wide steps to a dance floor that unfolded under the stars. As the maître d’ escorted them through the glamorous maze, Hetty felt a little airborne, as if she’d already had a glass or two of champagne, when in fact she’d only had a few strong whiffs of Garret’s lime-rich cologne. They wove between cages full of twittering canaries and widely spaced tables flowing with skirts of white linen. Hetty spotted a couple of Blue Birds and some oilmen with their wives. After pulling out Hetty’s chair, the maître d’ struck a match to three candles of different heights, protected from the night winds by hurricane lamps.
    They lit up and toyed with menus, settling on prime rib. They passed Garret’s flask under the table, laughed about Nella’s grape juice, and gazed at each other’s faces through a golden haze of candlelight. They discussed the future. And the past. She asked why Garret had left Montana.
    “There’s no future there,” he told her. “Over two hundred banks have failed.”
    “Two hundred banks! Whatever for? The rest of the country is flourishing.”
    “Years of drought and plague busted the homestead boom.”
    “You don’t seem like the Old Testament type.”
    “Nope. Not me. I came to the Promised Land.”
    “You mean the young man’s town?”
    He laughed and lowered his voice to imitate her father: “Mighty pleased, mighty pleased.”
    “I’m sorry about the pearls.”
    “That’s all right. I wouldn’t want you to be obligated to me.”
    “Oh yes, you would.”
    “It’s true. I admit it. I had my heart set on paying and petting.” A cigarette danced in Garret’s fingers. “So you want to go on dating me?” he asked, as he lit it.
    “I hope to tell you!”
    “Even though Mom and Dad don’t approve?”
    “I try to tell my mother nobody cares about that stuff anymore. It’s not modern. When I get stuck on the right guy, I’ll know it.”
    He smiled at her, a long sweet smile. “Are you feeling the least bit gluey tonight?”
    She looked away and raised one bare shoulder out of her evening wrap. “Yes, now that you mention it, a little sticky.”
    “Think we could get glued together on the dance floor?”
    “I think we could,” she answered and let the feathers fall in a whispering cascade to her chair as she rose.
    Their prime rib grew cold as they moved among the other couples, dancing number after number, letting it loose for the shimmy and pulling up tight for the slow dancing, when Hetty felt as though she were being ushered through low-lying clouds as she laid her cheek on Garret’s chest and looked up to see the faintest glimmer of stars spinning by as they turned.
    She’d always prided