Roberta, still brooding, was left alone in her corner.
Standing by the piano, Drewena clapped her hands and the crowd grew quiet.
“First,” she said, “since Sophie is not ready, I’ll ask Daisy, who has come in her perennial form of the ‘Prairie Flower’ to sing for us.”
Docky sniffed and whispered to Beulah, “Look at her! She doesn’t even have to make up for the part! My dear, do I have to listen to that miserable dentist do her wild flower act again? It’s just been repeated and repeated till I could simply scream! Imagine, trying to carry on at her age when we all know she’s well into the menopause!”
Daisy, however, tripped across the floor, her black taffeta dress flouncing around her wide hips. After bowing to the somewhat bored and suffering crowd, she put her hands to her shoulders and bent her knees. In a stringy voice she sang—
“I’m a little Prairie Flower
Growing wilder every hour!
No one here to care about me—
I’m as wild as wild can be!”
Then she put one hand on the top of her head, and the other on her hip. Jigging up and down to the music of the piano, she began to rotate on her toes. The frayed voice continued—