Magnolia Wednesdays (30 page)

30

F
OR VIVI, THE first half of February disappeared in a blur of unpleasant physical surprises as her body, which she now barely recognized, grew and stretched in its effort to nurture and protect the baby inside of her. Her legs cramped at will, her ankles and feet were more swollen than not, and her breasts had gotten so big that they no longer seemed real to her. Her brain seemed to have abandoned her, and she often walked into a room or began a task and then couldn’t remember why she’d gone there or what she intended to do. Plus she was tired all the time, but when she finally made it into bed at night, she couldn’t get comfortable enough to sleep. On those occasions when she did fall asleep she had to get up to go to the bathroom so many times that shutting her eyes in between seemed pointless. Even coughing, sneezing, and laughing were now fraught with peril; doing any of these put her bladder to a test that it was no longer able to win.

Her internal debate over what to say to Stone continued, making those few opportunities when they did get to speak without a whole cadre of network people on the line not only stressful but unproductive. She missed and worried about him constantly and then spent the few precious moments they had censoring herself so carefully that she was practically speechless. She heard in his voice that he suspected something was wrong, but the kidnapping had firmed her resolve not to distract or burden him with her pregnancy. Although she couldn’t completely control the way she sounded, she did her best to control what she said.

Especially annoying was Matt Glazer, who refused to disappear and who had taken to leaving her weekly messages asking her to call him.

On the bright side, which Vivi kept reminding herself did exist, there was no shortage of topics for Scarlett Leigh to tackle, and John Harcourt and his bosses were not only ecstatic about Postcards from Suburbia, they’d given her a raise. But each column she wrote left her feeling even more disloyal to Melanie. It wasn’t that the excesses she wrote about didn’t exist, because they did. It was just that once she’d exempted her sister due to her widowhood and working-single-mother status, she’d begun to realize that other denizens of suburbia also had their reasons. Her attacks began to feel more and more mean-spirited.

Nonetheless Scarlett Leigh lobbied for the surgical removal of cell phones from drivers’ and shoppers’ hands, bemoaned the demise of family dinners, and poked fun at suburban lawn wars, which encompassed secret watering in the near-drought conditions and the equally secret reporting of those who did. She also wrote a column on the buildup to high school proms and the fortune that was spent on them from the expensive gowns and tux rentals to the pricey limo and dinner out, as well as the kinds of behavior she suspected would take place afterward.

She’d never been more grateful that Melanie didn’t have time for newspapers than when she’d filed that particular column plucked from watching Shelby’s frantic preparations and the multi-mother conferences that went on in the weeks leading up to the big event.

Now she fingered her computer keyboard in hopes of building a column out of her first harrowing drive with the newly licensed Trip. But it was difficult to write when one’s hands were still trembling and one’s mind was still in shock. Deep in her heart, Vivi felt grateful to still be alive.

It had begun badly when Trip, who’d acted as if he knew exactly what he was doing, had turned the key in the ignition and failed to realize he was supposed to let go. Backing down the driveway was even more frightening because he executed this maneuver at the speed of sound and without ever actually looking over either shoulder.

Vivi had wanted to get out of the car then, but she hadn’t been able to catch her breath to say so before he’d slammed the Toyota into gear and mashed down on the gas so that they squealed away from the front curb.

Her heart raced again as she relived the experience. “The mailboxes!” she’d shrieked as they’d loomed up beside her, so close that she could see the dents in the metal and could have browsed through the catalogues inside them if she’d had a mind to.

“You’re too close!” The words had been torn from her throat as he’d driven, in strange surging motions that made the gorge rise in her throat.

“Why are you doing that?” she asked, looking down at his right foot, which was working the gas pedal like a musician might pump the pedal of a piano. “You’ve got to keep your foot on the gas to maintain a consistent speed.”

She’d held her breath until they’d surged their way to the stop sign at 120, where he’d put on his blinker as if he were going to make a left turn onto the buzzing highway.

“No!” she’d shrieked again. “We’re only making right turns today. No left turns! And definitely not here!” She could still remember the cars she’d beached on the median, and she’d been a professional driver in comparison to Trip, who really didn’t seem to be able to keep his foot on the gas for any length of time and was still trying to figure out which way to look as traffic whizzed by in both directions.

“Angle the front of the car to the right,” she’d said, and he’d surged right, then slammed on the brakes. This was when she’d truly comprehended that she’d put her life—and that of her unborn child—in the hands of a hormonally driven testosterone-charged beginner who didn’t know the gas from the brake.

Vivien, who was not a religious person, had prayed almost continuously for the full thirty minutes she’d spent strapped into the passenger seat of the multiton chariot of death. And in those moments when the prayers stuck in her throat and she was too frightened to even shriek directions at her nephew, she’d promised God all kinds of things. If only he’d allow them to get back to Melanie’s alive.

At the corner of Timber Ridge Road and 120, where Trip was supposed to make the next-to-the-last right turn of their endless journey, he’d surged past the actual stop sign before managing to get his foot onto the brake. He did this in full view of an idling police car.

“Sorry, Officer,” she’d begun before the face of the patrolman had come into view on Trip’s side of the car. “He just got his learner’s permit and . . .”

“You?” Officer McFarland had asked. “Someone is letting you teach a minor to drive?” His tone was as incredulous as the expression on his face.

It was only by promising that if they were lucky enough to get back to where they’d started in one piece, she would never do this again, that the officer had let them go with just a warning. And then provided a siren-screaming, light-flashing police escort the half mile back to Melanie’s. When they got there, Vivien had fumbled her way out of the car, then lowered herself to the ground to kiss the driveway. Officer McFarland was still laughing as he drove out of sight.

Now she sat in front of her laptop hammering out a lead for her column, which she followed with several paragraphs on what bargains parents might be striking with God as they taught their children to drive. When she’d delivered all the insults she could come up with, she took aim at the overindulgence that seemed so pervasive in Melanie’s patch of suburbia.
Almost as upsetting as the fact that these “children” are set loose on an unsuspecting populace is the kinds of vehicles in which these kids are set loose,
she wrote.
Because these teenagers are not driving what we used to call “beaters.” Far too few of them are driving ancient relics that serve only as transportation and for which the teenager is expected to feel grateful.

Like most things given to teenagers in this world in which I’ve landed, their vehicles are both flashy and expensive—a reflection of the position and wealth of the parents who purchase them.

Again, Vivien felt a faint flush of shame for lumping her sister in with everyone else and with such broad strokes. Melanie had not handed over J.J.’s BMW as many parents here might have. She had not bought Shelby a new car, or a fast one. Or passed down a practically brand-new Mercedes because its ashtrays were dirty. Nor did she allow Shelby to drive the car she did have once she’d demonstrated a lack of responsibility.

Vivien tuned out those truths and reiterated her point instead.
To what does a sixteen-year-old who begins at the top of the auto food chain aspire? How will they understand the satisfaction of earning and purchasing a car they can afford? Or appreciate the value of something they haven’t paid for?

She went on in this vein for a time before reaching several condescending conclusions, which she tweaked so as to give maximum offense. Then she sent the article to John Harcourt at the
Weekly Encounter
, closed and password-protected the file, and shut down her laptop.

As she did so she sent one last prayer God’s way. A thank-you for keeping Stone safe so far and for letting her live through her drive with Trip. She also expressed gratitude that no one suspected that she was the now-reviled Scarlett Leigh and apologized for making Melanie her unwitting accomplice. Then she promised herself she’d be long gone before anyone found out, though she had no idea where she might go.

THAT WEDNESDAY NIGHT, as she drove to the Magnolia Ballroom, Vivien kept a watchful eye out for Officer McFarland. The last thing she wanted to do right now was call attention to herself or provide any kind of photo opportunity for Matt Glazer, whose last message had warned that if she didn’t call him back soon, she’d be “sorry.”

At the studio Vivi climbed out of the RAV4 and hurried, as best she could, across the parking lot. The “decorating committee” had stayed after class two weeks ago to replace the holiday snowflakes and lights with Mylar hearts and mischievous Cupids, which Melanie insisted would provide an excuse for new classes and a Valentinethemed dance party.

The class was already lined up at the far end of the studio by the time Vivi made it onto the dance floor. She felt huge and unwieldy and was actually out of breath by the time she reached them. She was tempted to simply observe rather than participate, but one look from her sister and she kept that thought to herself.

As she followed Naranya through the opening stretches and into the isolation exercises, she studied those around her in the mirror and realized that she no longer saw them through a stranger’s eyes.

Ruth looked all fluttery and smiled more in that hour than she had in the whole first month of lessons. Between exercises and moves, she gushed about the trip to Mexico that had been booked and the private dance lessons she and Ira were going to take from Melanie. She flushed like a young girl when she declared that if she didn’t stop pinching herself she was going to be completely black and blue. And then she smiled at them all some more.

Melanie smiled more frequently, too, and Vivi sensed a lightness in her sister that hadn’t been there when she’d first arrived. Vivi wanted to believe that her being there had something to do with it. The chain of disasters that had brought Vivi here had not been welcome, but the growing closeness to Melanie was.

There was a good deal of laughter as they worked with the large rectangles of chiffon that Naranya passed out. She showed them how to hide behind them and twirl them seductively. Then she began to teach them a choreographed set of moves that involved lots of swirling the multicolored veils to music.

“Eef you learn this dance,” Naranya said. “You can come perform it with me at the Brown Camel, where I dance on Friday nights.”

“I don’t think so,” Vivi and Angela said at the exact same instant while everyone else chattered excitedly.

“We seem to be a minority of two,” Angela said, twirling the veil like a lasso.

“I have a reason. I’d scare people right out of the place.” Vivi considered her massive midsection, then looked at Angela’s trim one. “You’d look good in one of those two-piece harem outfits, and you’re the only one of us besides Mellie who can actually
do
a belly roll.” They’d celebrated Angela’s abdominal achievement just the week before.

“I don’t think so,” Angela said again, as if Vivi were making fun of her.

“At least I assume you can. If you wore a little less camouflage, it would be easier to tell what parts you were moving.”

Angela’s heart-shaped face kind of folded in on itself. One minute she looked perfectly normal; the next she looked as if she were searching for the emergency exit.

“What just happened?” Vivi asked. “What . . .”

“Nothing,” Angela said, not meeting Vivi’s eye. “Here, pass me your veil.”

Angela handed the veils to Naranya, but didn’t speak again.

“What did you say to her?” Melanie demanded after the veils were collected and the closing stretches began. “I’ve never seen anyone shut down so quickly.”