Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (26 page)

Vivi flew from the bed, careening in dizziness and fear. She clutched Delia’s pillow tightly to her chest, but her feet felt shackled to the floor. She could not make herself move. As the fire crept further up the bedclothes, Vivi could not take her eyes off her party dress, now being released from its solid material into air. She watched the flames in horror, but the warmth felt good against her naked body. She felt like she was witnessing a demonic, lovely ballet.

Although she didn’t see or hear anyone in the room with her, it felt like a pair of strong hands grabbed her from behind and pulled her out of the room. The next thing she knew, she was standing alone in the cold, dark hallway, naked. The door to the burning bed was closed. She heard the sound of feet running down the hall and a door slamming. She heard her own breathing.

She began to scream, and she did not stop. Not when the other students ran into the hall to see what was wrong. Not
when a flock of nuns arrived in a panic. Not after the fire was put out. Not when Mother Superior threw a blanket over Vivi’s bare body, saying, “Cover your naked self!”

They have incinerated my birthday dress, Vivi thought.
They want to burn me alive.

Jerking Vivi by the arm, Mother Superior shoved her into her office. Once inside, she took Vivi by the shoulders and shook her. The wool blanket scratched Vivi’s skin. Every part of her body itched.

“Stop shrieking this moment,” Mother Superior said. “Get control of yourself, Joan.”

Terrified, Mother Superior slapped Vivi across the face. She was determined to get the girl under control in the only way she knew how.

But Vivi could not stop screaming.

Sister Solange arrived in Mother Superior’s office without her veil, her hooded cloak hastily thrown over her nightgown. Ignoring her superior’s frown, she crossed to Vivi and took the girl in her arms.

“You must see to this student,” Mother Superior said, the light from the desk lamp reflecting in her glasses. “The girl is seriously disturbed.”

Behind Mother Superior’s desk was a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, bleeding. A crucifix hung to the right. Under the crucifix was the phrase “The Immaculate Victim.”

“Of course she’s upset, Mother!” Sister Solange said. “Her bed was set on fire with her in it.”

Mother Superior rubbed her fingers against the rosary beads that hung at her waist. “Joan could have set the fire herself. We will have to look into it.”

Vivi half heard their conversation. She had stopped screaming and now could only shake. Nuns came and went
out of the room, but she could not follow it all. There was discussion about calling in Father O’Donagan, the priest who came to say Mass and hear confessions at the academy.

“Mother,” Sister Solange said, “do you think it might be prudent to call her parents?”

“I do not think it wise to worry her parents about this,” Mother Superior said. “This is better handled here at Saint Augustine’s.”

“With all respect,” Sister Solange said, “as a nurse, I think it advisable to contact her family. Viviane Joan has been ill, and the shock of the fire may have her more troubled than we realize.”

“Sister Solange,” Mother Superior said, “I have made up my mind. Her parents will not be called.”

“Yes, Mother,” Sister Solange said, looking from Vivi to the image of the Bleeding Heart, then down at the floor. Her vow of obedience was a sacred one.

Sister Solange said, “Perhaps Mother might agree to letting Vivi spend the night in the infirmary so that I might observe her medically.”

Mother Superior crossed back behind her desk, folding her hands into the sleeves of her gown. “It is agreed. You may have the girl tonight.”

Then, raising the small crucifix of her rosary, Mother Superior kissed it. “Now, we have all had quite enough excitement for one night. It is time to return to bed. Pray, sisters, for the soul of this daughter of Mary.”

They only pray for your soul around here, Vivi thought. Your body could burn up, for all they care.

At the infirmary, Sister Solange dressed Vivi in a long oversized flannel gown. The sleeves were full and poufy and sat like clouds over her skinny arms. She arranged a cotton throw over Vivi’s shoulders, and placed a hot water bottle at her feet and one in her lap. Together, they sat in the small
infirmary office, their chairs almost touching. A vase of roses sat on the desk, and to either side there were glass-fronted cabinets containing various pills and tonics.

On the desk, the nun had placed a cup of tea and a small plate of ginger cookies. She observed Vivi closely. “Please have some, Viviane Joan.”

When Vivi raised the cup to her mouth, her hands shook so that she spilled tea onto her gown. She did not seem to notice. She stared at a few tiny yellow-gold chamomile flowers that floated in the cup.

After Vivi took a sip, Sister Solange said, “Good, now have a cookie, please.”

Sister watched Vivi as she stared at the cookie without taking a bite. “Now you must talk to me, Viviane.”

Hearing her true name caught Vivi the way sun unexpectedly glinting off a buckle or a piece of tinfoil might catch the eye. She looked at the nun, unsure.

“What name do they call you at home?” Sister Solange asked.

Vivi thought the nun looked tired. She stared at the nun’s blonde hair, and looked down at Sister’s hands. The nun was squeezing her fingers tightly together and then releasing them. When Sister saw Vivi notice this, she folded her hands underneath her cloak.

“At home,” Vivi said, “at home they call me Vivi.”

“Vivi,” Sister Solange repeated, “what a lively name.”

The nun lowered her head for a moment, in prayer or deliberation. When she lifted it, her eyes looked even more tired. “Vivi, I want you to try to pay attention to what I’m saying, please.”

Vivi was listening to the tones of Sister Solange’s voice. It was a mossy, quiet sound, the perfect green-blue.

The nun took Vivi’s hands in hers. She watched Vivi closely.

“Vivi?” Sister Solange said. “Squeeze my hand.”

Vivi looked up at Sister Solange, but she did not appear
to have heard her. She began to shake violently. The nun took the teacup from the girl’s hands. She did not want Vivi to hurt herself.

Sister Solange stood, took out a key from her desk, and opened one of the cabinets against the wall. She chose a bottle of tablets and shook two of them into her palm.

“Will you swallow these, please, Vivi?” she said. She had wondered earlier if the girl needed something stronger than tea to help her shock, but she dared not suggest it to Mother Superior. But Vivi was in
her
office now.

Vivi swallowed the pills as she was told. The nun knelt back down at Vivi’s side. “Vivi,” she said softly, “tell me who I can call at home to come and help you.”

At first Vivi thought she might have dreamed the words. So many times in the past four months she had imagined someone saying these very words to her. She studied the nun’s face. Was this some kind of trick? Was she about to be trapped and then punished?

Sister Solange waited patiently for a response. Slowly she lifted her hand and placed her palm tenderly against Vivi’s cheek. “Vivi, dear, tell me who to call.”

The touch of Sister Solange’s hand against her skin revived Vivi.

“Call Genevieve Whitman at Highland 4270 in Thornton, Louisiana,” she said. “Don’t talk to Mr. Whitman, only talk to Genevieve.”

“Is she a relative?” the nun asked.

Terrified that the nun might not call, Vivi lied and said, “Yes, she is my godmother.”

“Thank you, Vivi,” the nun said. “You are a dear girl, a blessed girl.”

Vivi slept again that night in her old infirmary bed. She dreamed that she and Teensy and Jack were sitting on the sea wall at Biloxi, the sun caressing their faces.

* * *

The next day, Sister Solange helped Vivi dress in an outfit that she scrounged together with bits and pieces from the Lost and Found. The ensemble was mismatched, ugly, and scratchy, and the nun apologized as she handed the items to Vivi. “These garments are those of a match girl,” she said, laughing, “not a tennis player.”

Vivi buttoned an off-white blouse with stains under the arms. Over that she pulled a nondescript brown jumper that hung loosely on her thin frame. Wool socks and a pair of uniform oxfords were on her feet.

“How did you know I was a tennis player?” Vivi asked Sister Solange.

“Oh,” the nun said, “you spoke of tennis many times in your sleep. Tennis and someone named Jack Ya-Ya.”

Vivi gave a tentative laugh that turned into a cough.

“Anyway,” Sister Solange said, “there is no reason for such a pretty girl to look like a penitent. But this clothing is the best I can do.”

“What about my own clothes?” Vivi asked.

The nun bit her lip before she spoke. “Vivi, they are all too damaged.”

“All of them?” Vivi asked.

“Yes,” the nun said. “What wasn’t burned was ruined by smoke.”

“Except my pillow,” Vivi said.

“Except your pillow,” Sister Solange replied. “Your pillow survived, and so will you.”

The sight of Genevieve and Teensy standing in Mother Superior’s office was almost more than Vivi could bear. She longed to run to them, to hold them and smell them, to soak in all of the life that they carried. But she could not make herself take a step forward. She stood frozen, clutching Delia’s feather pillow in her hand, looking far younger than her sixteen years.

Rushing to her side, Teensy and Genevieve enveloped
Vivi in hugs. The suddenness of it disoriented Vivi, and she could not respond. She felt as though they were onlookers and she was a wreck on the side of the road.

“Mrs. Whitman,” Mother Superior said, “I cannot release this child to you. You are not her mother.”

“You are not her mother either,
cher
,” Genevieve shot back.

“Do not speak to me in disrespect,” the nun said.

“
Cher
is not a sign of disrespect,” Genevieve said, changing her tone so that she might charm the nun. “It’s French for ‘dear.’ ”

“Then do not call me ‘dear,’ ” Mother Superior said.

Leaving Vivi’s side, Genevieve stepped in closer to Mother Superior’s desk. Teensy gave Vivi’s hand a squeeze, then let it go as she stepped close to her
maman
.

The light coming in through the windows seemed extraordinarily bright to Vivi. From where she stood, she could see Genevieve’s Packard parked outside near the curb. The car seemed like a car in a dream, and Vivi thought that at any moment it might shift shape into a boat or a bird.

“If you continue to disregard my wishes, I will have to call Father O’Donagan,” Mother Superior told Genevieve, as though the arrival of the priest were a deadly threat.

“Call anybody you like, Sister,” Genevieve said, taking Vivi’s hand. “But, Vivi, she comin home with me.”

“Drop that child’s hand,” Mother Superior commanded.

Ignoring the nun, Genevieve walked Vivi out of the office.

“Let go of Joan!” the nun said, following them.

“Her name isn’t Joan,” Teensy said. “Her name is Vivi.”

Genevieve led the girls down the long, dark hall. Vivi could hear Mother Superior’s footsteps as she followed them; she could hear the rustling of the nun’s gown. The footsteps sped up, and then the nun was upon them, her
bone-dry hand reaching down to pry Vivi’s hand away from Genevieve’s. Vivi’s fear was so strong she could taste it in the back of her throat. So strong it caused her to pee ever so slightly in the borrowed boxy panties she wore.

Genevieve flung Mother Superior’s hand away. The nun stumbled backward, so that when Vivi looked at her it seemed a wind had lifted her black veil and spread it out in all directions. The nun was no longer Mother Superior, but a shuffling black vulture.

“I am responsible for saving this girl’s
soul
!” the nun shouted.

“You’ll be lucky if you can save your own!” Genevieve said. “Now, get out of here! Go on! Get!”

Genevieve put one arm around Vivi and one arm around her daughter, and the three of them walked fast, but did not run, out of the building. They walked down the stone steps and into the waiting Packard. Genevieve climbed behind the wheel, and Teensy shoved Vivi into the front seat and then climbed in herself. As the car sped out of the grounds of Saint Augustine’s, not one of them looked back.

Still clutching Delia’s feather pillow, Vivi thought she could detect the scents of oranges and pine needles and shrimp boiling in a big iron pot. She thought she could smell October in Louisiana during cotton harvest on crisp Friday nights. She thought she could smell life.

She looked at the dress Teensy wore underneath her plum jacket. It was the garnet wool jersey with the peplum waist they’d picked out together at Godchaux’s on a trip to New Orleans with Genevieve. Reaching down, Vivi rubbed her fingers across the fabric. The material seemed to come up and meet the flesh of her fingertips.

Teensy placed her hand over Vivi’s. “
Bébé,
that outfit you’re wearing has
got to go
.”

“Got to go,”
Vivi repeated after her, trying for the old Ya-Ya tone.

“Got to,” Genevieve said, and lit a cigarette, tears in the corners of her eyes.

They rode along in silence for a mile or so before Genevieve spoke again.

“Ecouté, femmes,”
she said, her voice like the slow-moving rich bayou itself, her tone wavering somewhere between tears and ferocity. “God don’t like ugly,
Mes Petites Choux. Ça va?
No matter what they’ll try to tell you,
Bébés!
God don’t make ugly, and God don’t like ugly.
Le Bon Dieu
is a god of loveliness, and don’t yall forget it!”

“Yes,
Maman,
” Teensy said.

“Yes,
Maman,
” Vivi said.

“And, Vivi,
Ma Petite Chou, écouté voir ici:
life is short, but it is wide. This too shall pass.”

With those catechism lessons, Genevieve drove Vivi, mile by mile, all the way back home.

22

T
he girl in the photo on the front page of
The Thornton High Tattler
, from May 21, 1943, was so thin and drawn-looking that at first Sidda did not recognize her mother. My God, Sidda thought, she looks like a war orphan.

Accompanying the photo was the following item:

T
HORNTON
F
AVORITE
R
ETURNS
H
OME

Vivi Abbott, sophomore cheerleader, beauty, and varsity tennis player, has returned from Saint Augustine’s Academy in Spring Hill, Alabama, where she spent almost all of the past semester. Sorely missed by the entire student body, Vivi is welcomed back by everyone, from the football team to the Red Cross Canteen. Have a great summer, Vivi! Even with Jack gone, we know you and the Ya-Yas will be in high form!

Sidda ached for more information. Searching the scrapbook, she examined each pressed corsage, each ticket stub,
willing
there to be more information about her mother’s departure and return from Saint Augustine’s. She tried to imagine what her mother’s life had been like during the summer of 1943. Shoes were rationed, along with meat and cheese, but what else was rationed? Was her return difficult,
or did Vivi “rise above it” as she’d always told her children to do?

When she could find no other information, Sidda began to make it up. Say Mama flourished that summer. Say she was safe and loved. Say the newspaper clipping tells the whole story: golden girl, universally welcomed home. Say Mama watched
Casablanca
when it first came out, and necked with whatever boy she was with. Say she was beautiful and blonde and more popular than I ever was. Say Mama did not know what lay in store for her and woke every morning grinning. Say there is no truth. Say there are only scraps that we feebly try to sew together.

Vivi Abbott Walker lay on the table in the small rose-colored room with the piped-in music at Chez Health, ready to let Torie, the massage therapist, touch her body. Necie had been the first to discover Torie, and now all the Ya-Yas made appointments to lay their aging bodies on her table, and indulge in a sensual pampering that the Church they grew up in would have labeled a sin of indulgence, if not a near occasion of sin.

Once a week, Vivi took off her clothes, lay down, and babbled nervously for ten minutes. Then, as her breathing grew deeper, she gave over to the stroking she craved. Never in her life had Vivi been showered with such physical attention, no strings attached.

“A bargain at
any
price, Torie Dahlin,” she said at the end of each session as she handed a check, complete with generous tip, to the massage therapist.

Now, as Torie massaged her feet and toes, Vivi felt herself sink down into the table. She found herself, as she had many times in the past week or so, thinking about Jack.

Vivi had done her best to reclaim her old life when she returned from Saint Augustine’s. She had tiptoed back onto
the tennis court, where her weight loss and exhaustion embarrassed her no end. She had hung out at Bordelon’s Drugs and drunk Coca-Colas with peanuts plunked into the bottles. She wrote Jack cheery letters at least every other day, and she tried to stay out of her mother’s way. Buggy had refused even to speak to her for the first month Vivi was back home, but as the summer passed, things began to return to what passed for normal life in the Abbott house.

Vivi said regular novenas for Jack, and tried to get excited about the other boys she still dated. But even after she began to eat again, to rediscover some of the energy she’d lost, there was something about her that hesitated, that held back, that hedged her bets. Now she did not know who she was or what she was supposed to do. And she did not know exactly when she had stepped away from herself. She did not know if she would ever stop feeling tired. She learned to camouflage her exhaustion with a slightly forced vitality. She became a high priestess of self-presentation, and was rewarded for it at every turn. The town of Thornton, Louisiana, extolled self-presentation. It was a sort of religion.

It had been a Sunday afternoon, the third week of June, 1943, not long after she’d returned from Saint Augustine’s. Jack was home for a visit before departing for a bomber base somewhere in Europe. Buggy had suggested that the gang come back to the Abbott home that afternoon for some homemade ice cream.

All week long, there had been swimming parties, barbecues, and get-togethers to celebrate Jack’s visit. Vivi, Jack, Caro, Necie, and Teensy had just walked over from the Whitman house, where Genevieve had prepared a meal that included every one of her son’s favorite foods—from Saint Landry crayfish bisque to mayhaw jelly rolls.

It was early summer, not yet unbearably hot. The clematis vine was in full bloom, and blackberries trailed along the fence
in wild profusion. Some of the berries, picked and washed by Buggy, were already gathered in a big yellow bowl that sat on the steps.

Vivi’s baby sister, Jezie, quiet for once, leaned against her mother’s leg as Buggy stood cranking the ice-cream freezer. Buggy wore the lilac-and-gray housedress she changed into every Sunday after Mass. Her hair was caught up in two combs at the side of her face, and her cheeks were slightly flushed from the exertion of the cranking. Pete was draped over the porch railing with a couple of his buddies.

Vivi sat on the swing, between Teensy and Necie. Caro leaned against a column, her feet kicked out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.

Jack sat in a straight-back chair in the middle of all of them, his fiddle in his lap. Not just any fiddle, but the handmade Cajun fiddle his Uncle LeBlanc had made for him when he was nine years old. The fiddle his father forbade him to play inside the house because it smacked of the bayou, of a world unacceptable to the prosperous banker.

But, oh, Jack played on every single visit to Genevieve’s people in Marksville, on the bayou. And he played it at all his friends’ houses. And he played in the middle of fields when Genevieve loaned them the Packard and they’d head out to Spring Creek with picnic blankets and a couple of six packs.

Jack’s French fiddle joined with the music of Harry James to break Vivi’s heart in those days. Once, after she’d sprained her ankle on the tennis court and was laid up in bed in the foulest mood, Jack had played under her bedroom window, making her feel like Juliet. Another time, she put him up to playing during a basketball game half-time in the Thornton High gymnasium. There Jack Whitman stood, waving that bow across the strings, his long legs flowing out of his gold-and-blue-satin basketball uniform, his head tossed back with the music, a wide grin sweeping across his face.

And now he was home again, his father’s pride. Never had Vivi seen Jack so contented. His father had bragged about him all week long. Mr. Whitman, in fact, had been the one to arrange several of the parties. His son was going to fly bombing raids over France. Jack was proud that his father was proud.

Vivi was delighted that her mother was making ice cream. It was the first outwardly kind gesture Buggy had made toward her daughter since Genevieve had talked Mr. Abbott into not sending her back to Saint Augustine’s. As Buggy cranked the ice-cream freezer, Vivi hoped this was a sign things would get better between them.

The sunlight hit Jack’s jet-black hair. His skin was tanned, and he was thinner than usual. Chiseled down to his essence. He tucked his fiddle under his chin and raised his bow. But before beginning to play, he paused. He glanced at Vivi and smiled. Then, for some sweet Jack reason, he looked over at Buggy.

“Madame Abbott,” he said, “how bout I play this little waltz for you?”

It was the most gentlemanly thing Vivi had ever witnessed. As she watched her mother’s face, she understood for the first time that no one—ever—had dedicated a song to Buggy Abbott. She watched as her mother raised her hand to her mouth, shy, embarrassed, and utterly delighted. Buggy let go of the ice-cream crank, and the grinding sound of ice against wood gave way to silence.

Then Jack began to play.

He struck up “Little Black Eyes,” a waltz he knew Vivi loved.

There was no war on the Abbott front porch that afternoon. Just an overflowing of Cajun fiddle music, sweet, plaintive, from the heart. The notes danced through the June air; Vivi could feel them dust her hair and shoulders. She could feel the notes enter her and settle deep into her
bones. Jack’s notes tumbled over all of them that afternoon, as if there were an endless supply of music somewhere, waiting to be called forth.

As Vivi listened to the music, she glanced at Buggy, and she noticed a smile she had never before seen on her mother’s face. It was the smile of a girl with her own longings, her own pleasures. It was a smile smiled for no one else. It was a smile that forgot about motherhood and the Catholic Church and the child clutching at her leg. For that one moment, Vivi saw Buggy as a person. The music and the fading afternoon light and the berries in the yellow bowl and the sun on Jack’s face, Vivi’s own bony body sitting in the swing surrounded by her friends and family, and the expression on her mother’s face—all of this seared Vivi’s heart for an instant, and she was filled with love.

She credited it all to Jack. That is what Jack could do: he could crack her wide open to more love; he could transform the face of her mother.

When the tune ended, everybody clapped. Jezie, who had been mesmerized, called out, “Do again, do again!” Pete and his buddies whistled and cheered. But it was Buggy who surprised Vivi most.

She stepped over to Jack and gave him a kiss on the cheek, something she never did, not even with her own children. “Thank you, Jacques,” she said.

Then she took the corner of her apron, wiped her eyes, and resumed cranking the ice-cream freezer.

It was a small thing. Nobody noticed it but Vivi. Even if they had, they might not have thought it special. But Vivi loved her mother for it. On the day Buggy died, almost forty years later, Vivi remembered the kiss her mother had given her beloved on that day and the tear she had wiped away, and she loved her mother for it. She didn’t forgive her mother for never loving her the way she needed, but she loved Buggy for that one kiss.

In late October of 1943, Vivi Abbott was playing a mean game of singles against Anne McWaters. Back in shape but still not at the top of her form, Vivi was to have played Caro that afternoon, but Caro had had to stay late at a yearbook meeting.

Anne McWaters, Vivi’s old rival, was beating her three to two, and it was driving Vivi crazy. Ever since coming home from Saint Augustine’s, she had devoted herself to tennis, and even though she was still a bit underweight, she’d picked up a lot of her old strength. But Anne McWaters could always throw her. The girl had a killer serve, and she knew how to keep her opponent running.

Vivi was determined to close in on her, and thought she saw her chance, when she noticed Pete ride up on his bicycle. Usually the arrival of a spectator wouldn’t faze Vivi—on the contrary, she preferred to play most any game in front of an audience. But Pete’s showing up anywhere without two or three buddies tailing along was unusual.

“Viv-o,” Pete called out, his voice sounding strained.

When Vivi didn’t respond, Pete came closer to the fence that surrounded the city-park courts. He was wearing a brown baseball cap over his auburn hair, and his nose was sunburned. It was October 19, 1943, around five in the evening. Teensy and Vivi had a double date planned that night to see Orson Welles’s
Jane Eyre.
A green parks department truck with a bad muffler passed by. Vivi’s body was perfectly poised, ready for her opponent.

Anne McWaters served hard and Vivi returned it down the line. She’d worked extra hard at her backhand since coming home, and she knew how to keep her eye on the ball. She was training herself, once she stepped onto the court, to think of nothing but that ball. In the past few months, with Jack away, she’d devoted even more time to
her tennis. She still dated, of course, still had at least three boys at any one time who claimed to be in love with her, but Vivi never gave them a thought unless they were standing right in front of her. She thought more about Pauline Betz winning the U.S. Singles than she did about any of those boys. Vivi thought about tennis, the war, and Jack Whitman.

As Anne McWaters lobbed a high return, Vivi’s mind was with the ball. Her body responded easily as she stepped back to get under it, in perfect position to take the point.

At that moment, though, a bird flew close to the ball. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and it stole Vivi’s attention. Never in her life had she seen a bird fly quite so close to a tennis ball. The bird mesmerized her for a second, causing her to forget about the ball, forget about the game, forget about everything but the bird’s gray-blue wings against the October sky.

Signaling a time-out, Vivi strode off the court to Pete. “Darn you, Pete! What do you want?”

Pete looked at his sister for a moment, then turned away.

“What do you want?” she asked again.

“Why don’t yall call it a game, Viv-o?” Pete said.

“With McWaters leading? You gotta be kiddin.”

“Yoo-hoo!” Anne called out, twirling her racket.

“Just a minute,” Vivi called back. “I’m in the
middle
of a game, Pete. Either tell me what you want, or let me get back on the court.”

She waited for Pete to respond. When he didn’t, she started back toward the court.

As though it were easier to speak now that Vivi’s back was to him, Pete said, “Teensy asked me to come get you. She wants you over at their house.”

“Great,” Vivi said, bouncing the ball with her racket, smiling at her opponent. “Tell her I’ll be there soon as I beat McWaters.”

“I think you better come right now, Stinky,” Pete said. He shook a cigarette out of a Lucky pack, and lit it, his face pale in the fading light.

“Is something wrong?” Vivi asked, turning back to him.

Unable to meet her gaze, Pete said, “Why don’t you just come on with me? You can ride on the handlebars.”

“No,” Vivi said. “I don’t
want
to come now. I want to finish this game.”