Mrs. Dryver

Mrs. Dryver’s importance in the story lies in the connections she sustains: her Dolly Parton impersonation links her to Lucy, while the friendship between her daughter Ellen Dryver and Willowdean Dickson began through the same music. A performer with a recognizable public image, she is also remembered through the photographs and stories that reveal how much Lucy valued her.

Identity and Introduction

Mrs. Dryver is described as perhaps the best-known Dolly Parton impersonator in her part of Texas. She has the petite physique and voice to match the singer. Her Dolly persona is not just a look: for Lucy, Willowdean, and Ellen, Dolly’s confidence mattered too—the example of someone who did not change herself to satisfy people who thought she looked ridiculous.

Her connection to Willowdean began before the girls started first grade. During the summer, Mrs. Dryver and Willowdean’s aunt Lucy bonded over their shared devotion to Dolly while drinking sweet tea in the dining room. Their daughters sat together watching cartoons, at first unsure what to make of one another. When Mrs. Dryver’s stereo played Dolly’s song Dumb Blonde, Ellen tapped her foot as Willowdean hummed; soon the girls were spinning and singing together. The song began a friendship that, the narrator stresses, grew deeper than their shared enthusiasm for one track.

Lucy and Dolly Parton

Mrs. Dryver and Lucy had more than a passing musical connection. Lucy had been vice president of a regional Dolly Parton fan club until a few years earlier, and their involvement brought them into one another’s lives regularly. Willowdean imagines that this history somehow prepared the way for her friendship with Ellen, as though Ellen were a gift Lucy had meant for her. That sense of inheritance makes Mrs. Dryver a living link between the girls’ childhood bond and the older women’s friendship.

A photograph Mrs. Dryver gives Willowdean makes that bond tangible. It shows the two women years earlier in front of the neon sign at The Hideaway, amid a large, smoke-filled crowd. Mrs. Dryver wears fitted overalls and a tight red shirt; Lucy, usually associated with sack dresses, wears one of them with blue eye shadow. Willowdean understands that Mrs. Dryver drew out parts of Lucy she might not have shown otherwise, and calls her a lifeline to Lucy. The image brings comfort, but also pain: Willowdean sees the contrast between Mrs. Dryver’s polished Dolly look and Lucy’s appearance, and feels conflicted about judging her aunt through that comparison.

Family and Remembrance

Mrs. Dryver’s relationship with Ellen is glimpsed in an affectionate exchange while they sort scrapbooking supplies at the dining-room table. They look through snapshots of Mrs. Dryver as different versions of Dolly, including one in a suede coat with fringed sleeves and a fitted denim skirt, with smooth, rounded hair styled to evoke Dolly’s earlier years. When Willowdean says she likes the picture, Mrs. Dryver shares that it is also her favorite hairstyle and recalls that a drag queen in Odessa spent a week styling the wig. Ellen teases her mother, who tickles the back of her neck; their closeness also appears in small shared habits, such as twirling their hair, chewing their bottom lips, and whistling through straws.

The pageant is another point of connection between Mrs. Dryver and Ellen: while looking at the photographs, Ellen asks why her mother never entered it. The excerpt leaves the question unanswered, but its presence places Mrs. Dryver’s performed Dolly image alongside the town’s pageant culture. Through her, performance is both a practiced public likeness and a way of carrying relationships forward: the Dolly photographs preserve Lucy’s memory, while the music and stories around them help explain how the next generation’s friendship began.