Izzy wasn’t known to keep secrets.  As a matter of fact, she loved being the center of attention any time she could share some juicy gossip, so it wasn’t long until most of Pittsville heard Jo’s ‘arrival’ story, and when I was older, parts of it trickled back to me as well, so I may as well include that in this journal, along with a fairly accurate account of what Izzy blabbed.

        “I suppose you’d like to know jest how Pat and I took up with each other,” Jo asked Izzy.  She had invited that witch for a ‘chit chat’ on a Thursday evening when my dad was working.  This was her first opportunity to get to know any of the neighbors, and she had seen Izzy sitting on her front steps having a smoke.  She called to Izzy and asked if she had time to come over for a drink.

          Izzy, probably thinking she had nothing better to do with her evening other than scream at her kids, sauntered over.  After pouring each of them a hefty Wild Turkey straight up, Jo began to regale her with bits and pieces of  “mah rather grand courtship:” 

           There were four criteria for receiving the envious title of “Operator of the Elevators”  at Pitts Department Store, she told Izzy.  The girl had to be pretty and shapely. she must be smart enough to memorize the merchandise located on the various floors, she had to understand the mechanics of making the elevator go ‘up’ or ‘down’, and lastly,  she had to put up with the sexual advances of Mr. Landers, the man who was in charge of hiring the girls.  “Let’s face it, Iz–between us girls, I scored a hundred percent in all four categories, if’n you get mah drift!”

          She confessed these intimate details to Izzy.  “Get this, Izzy–on the very first day after I was hired, I smiled at the assistant manager of the Ladies Fashion Salon, chattin’ him up, and in no time at all, ah was smugglin’ him into my room at the Y.W.C.A.  You probably know him–his name’s Mike and he lives down our street with his brother Joseph.  You know–that house with all the flashy flowers?  Five years later, it dawned on me that Mike was always gonna batch it.   I knew that dog wuzn’t gonna hunt when somebuddy tol’ me he said “Why should I own just one filly when I can have the whole damned stable.””

          Evidently Jo proceeded to tell her new-found friend that for the next five yeaars, she was still smuggling men in and out of her YWCA room–confirmed bachelors, and unfortunately, some married men as well; however she was beginning to realize she just might end up an ‘old maid’.  Then fate stepped in– the day my dad, Pat Tucker entered her elevator.

         She concluded her story to the gossip-monger that  he had gone to Pitts Department Store to purchase a few dresses and some underwear for me.  It just so happened that the elevator he chose was being operated by Miss Jo.  He inquired as to where he might find clothing for a child whose mother had died the previous year, and she was now in need of larger-sized clothing.

          I kind of imagine she had an epiphany, envisioning herself in a white wedding dress as gossamer as cotton candy, a ten-foot train, eight bridesmaids, a magnificent reception, and a most romantic honeymoon, (or at the very least, a meal ticket or two.)   “Izzy, I jes lowered muh eyes, batted them lashes and whispered in a sultry way, Why ah’d be evah so happy to take you personally if you’all kin wait ’til muh half-hour break.” 

          “Well, Iz, he waited and we dated for two years–and get this, I never slept with him, and he still thinks I wuz a virgin all that time.  Guess it worked, ‘cuz he finally popped the question. He knew he wuzn’t gonna get any unless we wuz married.  That ‘s when he took me to meet his worthless little brats. Now you understand, this is jest between us girls?”

          “Jeez–that’s some life you’ve led,” Izzy sighed in admiration, “and I won’t breath a word to anyone;” however as Izzy was promising Jo her cofidentiality, she was mentally ticking off just who she would spill the beans to first.

          Izzy later related to a few of her drinking buddies, “At that point, Jo knocked the ashes off her cigarette and squashed it in the ashtray with the other half dozen she’d smoked while telling me her life history, drained the rest of the Wild Turkey, and then dragged me by the arm up to their bedroom.  She pushed her clothes apart on the closet rod, and proceded to pull out what she said were her two most prized posessions:  a stupid fake jeweled tiara, and her gabardine operator’s uniform.  And then, guess what?  She looks at me with a big frown and says “Damn, I came that close to gettin’ those gold epaulets!”

          I know my dad fell in love with those enormous brown eyes with the mascaraed lashes, her perky bosom, teensy weensy feet, and that fake southern drawl.  She kept telling him, according to Izzy’s gossip, that “it’s important for me to remain a virgin until mah weddin’ day.”  Oh, brother!

          Jo fell in love with his handsome face, his fairly new car, and our little house with the paid-up mortgage.  She also fell in love with his wallet, and she feigned falling in love with Teddy and me.  Once she moved into our house, she immediately quit her operator’s position at Pitts, and became a ‘lady of leisure’.