Alma Mater (33 page)

"What a surprise. You finish
classes early?"

"Yes." Vic didn't lie.

Bunny fingered her binoculars. "I can see the expression on drivers'
faces when they drive by, and I can tell who's going to come onto the lot and who isn't. I swear." She smoothed out her skirt. "Had to help
with the books today. Lottie, Don's bookkeeper, took to her bed with
the flu. I think it was the flu. With Lottie, you never know. She's the
only nymphomaniac hypochondriac I know."

"Where's Uncle Don?"

"Service."

"Do you think he'd mind if I used his office phone?"

"No. Go right ahead." Bunny waved her toward Don's office, a cu
bicle with glass partitions halfway up.

Vic sat down and dialed Chris.

"Hello."

"You're home. I'm so glad." Vic breathed out.

"What happened?"

"Everything's okay. They aren't thrilled, but it's okay."

"I've been so worried." Chris's soothing voice sounded deeper.

"I think I was a little more worried than even I knew. Hey, I'll come
back over tomorrow. It will be our last weekend until after Christmas. It'd be kind of nice to spend it with you in the apartment, but after dropping the bomb on Mom and Dad I think I should be here this
weekend. Come home with me. It's kind of corny, but everyone decorates and I don't know, it's just fun."

"Sure it's okay? Your mom and dad aren't too upset to have a visitor?"
"It will be fine. I'll get you at two unless you cut your last class. I'm
not suggesting that you do."

"Two." Chris waited a moment. "I've been thinking about you
every minute. Really, Vic, I was so worried. I wish I could have done
the deed for you, but, well, I can't. I love you."

"I love you, too."

They said their good-byes. Vic pressed the disconnect button
and then called Charly's dorm. After going through three different
guys picking up the receiver, which was now off the hook, she finally
reached Charly.

"Hey, handsome."

'Vic, what happened?"

"It's okay. They're upset, but it's okay."

"I still think I should . . ."

"Don't. Now, come on. It's done. I called to tell you I'm staying
home over the weekend to kind of keep things cool and to Christmas-shop. I don't want you hanging around because I'll never be able to get
your present."

"The only present I want is you."

A little pang rippled through her chest. "Well, you're getting
something else, too."

He replied, "Guess I'd better do some shopping, too, huh? I'll miss
you. I hate being without you. I am so glad the season is over. You
don't know."

"I'll call you over the weekend—that is, if I can get through."
"I'll call you. You okay, for real?"

"For real. I feel bad for Mom and Dad, but it's okay."

"This will all work out. I promise."

"I know."

"Well, I feel like a heel."

"Charly, forget it. This just works out better
for everyone."
"I love you, Vic."

"I love you, too, Charly."

He lowered his voice, a light note creeping into the tone. "You
know I can't even think of you without my dick standing straight up.
You make me crazy."

"Charly, if I had a dick, it would be stiff, too." She laughed.

"That's a really weird thought." He sucked in his breath. "But I love
you."

"Love you, too. See you Monday."

"Okay. Bye."

"Bye." She hung up the receiver and walked out, nearly bumping
into Georgia Wallace, who had just come onto the floor. "Miss Wal
lace, I'm sorry. I wasn't looking where I was going."

"Young people never do." She smiled. "You're always in a hurry to go somewhere, and then you discover there's nothing there."

"Hey," Hojo called out, dispensing with the formality of calling
the older woman by her last name.

"That Hojo" —Georgia shook her head— "up to no good and
loving it. Oh, for a little bit of that energy. I am just ragged out be
cause Poppy's going senile. Yolanda's in the kitchen, Sissy's being
a real pissant about it" —the corner of her mouth turned up— "and I
told her `Leave Yolanda alone. It makes him happy. How much longer are we going to have him with us?' And I can scoop up cow dung with
the best of them. Sissy is so spoiled." Her voice dropped an octave
on "so."

Hojo flashed her fingers. "Do you love it?"

Both Vic and Georgia studied the fingernails now drooped over
the side of the command post. Mignon was next to Hojo, fiddling with
the computer.

"Hojo, sugar, you are celestial," Georgia intoned.

"Got my nails done, got my push-up bra, Georgia, I'm ready for
life. Let's go out tonight."

"Hojo darlin', you're too wild for me. You're more Sissy's cup
of tea."

"Oh, come on, Georgia, you can't be but so good," Hojo wheedled.

"Well . . . not tonight, but go out with you sometime. You
know, I'll have to get my hair done, and I'll have to lock Sissy in the
basement. She'd kill me if I went somewhere fun and she had to stay
home."

"Lock her up, then." Hojo threw up her hands, her many bracelets
sounding like castanets.

"Mignon, what are you doing?" Vic asked.

"Pulling up inventory, see?"

Vic stepped onto the dais. "Which car do you want?"

"Yours. I just like playing with the computer."

"Come on. Hey, let's get some takeout so Mom doesn't have to
cook." They drove to a nearby Chinese restaurant.

As they waited for their order, Mignon inquired, "Are the Wallaces mental?"

"Not in Surry County."

She whispered, 'Do you think there are a lot of gay people in
Surry County?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Well, you'll find out. I mean when you come out, won't they tell
you who they are?"

"I don't know. Mignon, I don't think of these things."

"When they tell you, tell me."

"Why?"

"Because it's exciting."

"For Christ's sake." Vic grabbed her by the back of the neck with
one hand. "Gossip queen."

"I didn't say I'd tell, I just want you to tell me."

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't."

Mignon poked her finger in Vic's ribs, making her release her neck.
"If you don't, I'll bring a cow in the kitchen."

"That's a moo-t point."

"Oh, lame!" Mignon switched back to wanting to know who was
gay. "Really though, tell me."

"Mignon, that is a confidence. A person might be scared. I can't
violate a confidence."

"You're not scared." Mignon said as they carried the white cartons
in a cardboard box out to the car.

"I haven't told anyone yet but you. I didn't exactly tell you
_;
you
figured it out. And I am scared. I just don't think too much about it,
that's all."

"Are you really afraid?" Mignon couldn't imagine her big beautiful
sister being afraid of much.

"Of course, I am."

Mignon grew solemn. "I don't want you to shut me out."

Vic opened the back door, Mignon put the cardboard box on the

floor of the car and then Vic hugged her. "You're my sister, I'm not go-

ing to shut you out."

"I don't want things to be different. Like you're moving to a differ
ent world and I'm not."

"Ah, honey, that's not going to happen. It's not like I'm on a

different planet." She then opened the passenger door for Mignon. "I
don't know what's going to happen, but no one does . . . about tomor
row, I mean."

"Think there are books about what you do if you have a gay
sister?"

Vic shook her head, shutting the door, and then walked around to
her side, getting in the car. "No. Know what I think?"

"What?"

"All those books about controlling this or understanding that—
it's all crap. There are no rules. Think about it. The rules we're told
to live by were all made up by dead people. People we'll never know
and people who don't know us. Like America. All written up by white men with property. I'm not saying it's all bad, I'm just saying no one
thought of us."

"Women?"

"Kind of. But mostly what I wonder is why everyone is so ready to
believe dead people."

Mignon gave this her ripe consideration as they drove home.
"What about the wisdom of the centuries?"

"Okay, there is wisdom, there is stuff that needs to be passed
along, but my point, if I have one" —she laughed— "is that every sin
gle person has to examine everything. You can't just believe something
because someone tells you to. Hell, what do they know? It's not their life."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, what?"

"I see your point. Do you see mine?"

"Which is?"

"I don't want to be left out of your life."

"You won't be left out."

Vic thought for a while as they passed Boonie Ashley's store.
"When you think about what a needy mess the human animal is for
such a long time, it's a wonder anyone has children."

"It's all that poop, puke, and pee." Mignon wrinkled her nose in disgust. "If God were so smart, you think he'd have come up with a
better solution."

"Men don't think of those things." Vic laughed. "Maybe God is a
man, after all."

"That's why people pray to the Virgin Mary." Mignon folded her
arms across her chest.

"Look what happened to her . . . Mary's barbecue."

_I

n Williamsburg, candles glowed in every window, garlands adorned
the horns of the much photographed oxen down in the his
toric area, mistletoe hung over doorways, and trees filled the big

shop windows. The tramp tramp of tourist feet reminded each resident
what side his or her bread was buttered on, too. Despite the con
stant traffic, shopkeepers and shoppers smiled, doing their best to
please.

A frazzled Vic was also doing her best to please. Packing up her
apartment didn't take much time. She'd never advanced beyond the
bed and the kitchen table. She left the bed, moved the kitchen table to
Chris's, sold her textbooks with a twinge of sadness, and paid her land
lord, whom she liked, an extra month's rent.

Charly, overflowing with energy, was as happy as she'd ever seen
him. She thought no longer having her apartment would end the pos
sibility of making love with him. But he wanted to find another place.
She put him off, felt terrible, and drove over to see Jinx.

Jinx sipped from her steaming mug of hot chocolate. "Whoever in
vented this stuff should be sitting at the right hand of God." The steam
rising from the drink made her blink. "Sorry, no religious talk around you.

"Hail Mary, Mother of .....Vic blew over her own cocoa.