I Still Dream About You

department. Boots was just thrilled and said she would have her guys pick them up first thing Monday morning. When Maggie hung up, she felt good about giving them the clothes. Hazel would have been so pleased. Hazel had always just loved the theater.

The Night-Before Preparations

BRENDA WAS BUSY ROOTING AROUND IN HER FAT AS A HOG SECTION, looking for just the right thing to wear to the theater tomorrow night. She had already picked out her wig. Something simple and stylish, but with a flip. Maggie would look drop-dead gorgeous as usual, but Brenda’s intent, since she was planning ahead for her political career, was to start now to affect a bold look. An outfit that screamed confidence. She settled on a smart button-up dark green number she had picked up in the Ladies Plus Size department at a dress shop at the mall.

ACROSS TOWN, MAGGIE was packing up the last of her jewelry when she found a penny Hazel had given her years ago. She couldn’t help but smile when she remembered the day.

Hazel had just received an award as Woman of the Year from the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, and as she and Maggie pulled out of the parking lot of the Downtown Club she said, “You know, Mags, I’m smart as a whip and a darn good businesswoman.”

Maggie laughed. “Well… yes, I agree… even if you do say so yourself.”

Hazel laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way. What I mean is that besides being naturally smart and working hard at it, there’s another reason I’ve been so successful in my life, something I’ve never told anyone before.”

“What’s that?”

“Luck.”

“Luck, really?”

“Oh, yes. You know, honey, when I was pulling weeds for a living, I found an awful lot of four- leaf clovers. Why, over the years, I must have found thousands. Imagine how much good luck that is!”

“Quite a lot, I would say.”

“You bet. Plus finding all my lucky pennies, and you have to admit, aren’t I just the luckiest person you know? And what amazes me is that most people don’t even bother to look for lucky pennies. I look for them everywhere I go, and I find them, too. It never fails. If I find a lucky one, wham! I get a check in the mail the next day.”

“But, Hazel, don’t you think you would still get that check even if you didn’t find a penny?”

“No, it’s the pennies. Don’t you look?”

“I thought if you ran across one by accident, it was lucky. I didn’t know you were supposed to look for them.”

“Sure you are! Listen, babe, you have to search for your luck; it’s nice if it just falls in your lap, but I look for my lucky pennies. Last year, I found three brand-new pennies, heads up, out at the mall, and the very next day, we got the Park Towers account. Biggest sales of the year!”

“What do you do with all your pennies?”

“I give them away. It’s good to spread your luck around, and it always comes back to you. Here, I want to give you something.” She reached inside her purse and handed Maggie a brand-new penny. “This is for you; stick it in your bra, and something good will happen.”

“Do you think so?”

Hazel looked at her with a twinkle in her eye and patted her hand. “You keep that penny, and I guarantee you someday, when you least expect it, something good is going to happen; you just wait and see. And when it does… think of your lucky penny, and just remember I told you so.”

“What’s going to happen? Tell me now.”

“Oh no,” she said, looking up in the air innocently, “that’s for me to know and you to find out. Just stick it in your bra, and don’t ask questions.”

“Hazel, you are a real character.”

Hazel broke out in a big grin. “I am, aren’t I? Sometimes, I just get the biggest kick out of myself. I just never know what I’m liable to do next. Little Harry said he thought I was the most interesting person he ever met. And I don’t even try. I just am, I guess,” she agreed as she slid her huge car into a parking space that Maggie couldn’t have parked in if her life depended on it. She had failed Driver’s Ed in high school, twice in a row.

The only reason Maggie even had a driver’s license in the first place was because of Hazel. Hazel’s cousin Jimmy worked at the DMV, and the day she’d taken her driving test, Hazel had come along. When Maggie parked at least three feet from the curb, Hazel opened the back door and looked down and declared, “Close enough.” Jimmy must have agreed, because he passed her with flying colors.

Why Ethel Hated Babs

IT CERTAINLY APPEARED AS IF NOTHING EVER BOTHERED HAZEL; SHE said she never got depressed. Still, Maggie always wondered. Hazel’s life couldn’t have been easy. One day, Maggie had asked Ethel if she thought Hazel was really as happy as she seemed to be. Ethel had sat back in her chair, thought it over, and said, “Frankly, I think Hazel is not only happy being who she is, I think she’s just tickled to death over it. In fact, I’ve never met a person-man, woman, or child-who has such a high opinion of herself. Hazel Whisenknott thinks she hung the moon.” Then Ethel had shrugged. “And who knows? Maybe she did. The point is, don’t ever feel sorry for Hazel-she doesn’t.”

And it was true; in all the years she’d worked for her, Ethel had never heard Hazel complain or get upset about anything… except once, a few years before she died.

Hazel was busy trying to get an account, and after she’d put in months of hard work, preparing presentation after presentation, flying back and forth to Chicago in the dead of winter and again a few days before the deal was to be finalized, the company called and said they were sorry, but they had decided to go with another firm. A week later, Hazel found out that Babs Bingington had gotten the account.

Within a few days, Hazel was sick in bed (with what would later turn out to be pneumonia) and called Ethel over to her house. She told her to close the door of the bedroom, then asked in a worried whisper, “Ethel, tell me the truth. Am I over the hill? Am I losing my touch?”

“No… you haven’t lost your touch. It’s that Babs Bingington that’s causing you to lose those accounts. It’s not you.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes. I don’t know what she’s doing; she could be sleeping with the entire board of directors, but she’s doing something underhanded.”

“It could be she’s just a better businesswoman than me.”

“Listen, Hazel, I’ve been working for you for over forty years, and I wouldn’t lie to you. You have not lost your touch.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely, I swear it on my purple hair.”

Hazel laughed, and after that, she never mentioned it again. But to this day, Ethel blamed Babs Bingington for helping wreck Hazel’s health. The doctor said later that the pneumonia had weakened her little heart.

Ethel was right, of course. When Babs had found out that Hazel was just about to close the deal, she had pushed and shoved and manipulated her way into a meeting with the company’s three head men and