Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (23 page)

“We can clip Vivi’s wings just as well here at home as they can in Alabama,” Vivi’s father had said. “Girls’ schools are strange breeding grounds.”

Buggy refused to be silenced. She didn’t back down to him as she usually did. Taylor Abbott didn’t so much agree to Saint Augustine’s as finally turn around, walk into his study, and close the door on the subject.

Just the night before, Vivi had gone to her father in the living room, where he sat in his chair listening to the war news on the radio.

She waited until a radio advertisement came on before she spoke. “Father, may I interrupt you?”

Everyone in the Abbott household always had to ask permission before speaking to Taylor Abbott.

“Yes, Viviane, you may,” he said, still half listening to the radio.

Vivi had meant to be controlled, present her case logically, in a way that would please her father the lawyer. Instead, she blurted it out, her voice quivering.

“Must I really go, Father? Do I have to? Must I get on that train tomorrow afternoon? Please, Father. You could stop this from happening. You know Mother has to do what you say.”

He looked at her for a moment, and Vivi felt some hope.

“It’s already arranged, Viviane,” he said. “You are going to Saint Augustine’s.”

Immediately Vivi adjusted her body so that she stood more erect. She grabbed control of her voice.

I have to compose myself, she thought, or he will not listen. If only I could be poised, if only I can smile in that way he likes, if only I can speak in the unruffled tone he admires, then Father might see me. One true glimpse is all I need. One true glimpse and he will understand that he cannot ship me away.

But when she opened her mouth, the words tumbled out in a desperate gush.

“Father, please, please,” she said, on the verge of tears. “I will do anything you want. Just please don’t make me leave.”

Taylor Abbott looked at his daughter as she stood in front of him, her blonde hair pulled back in a scarf, her pajama top slightly askew so that one freckled shoulder was partly revealed. Her lips quivered, her eyes brimmed with tears that had not yet spilled over. Her skin looked sallow, almost blue around the eyes; her sweet paleness now looked anemic to him, a gardenia bruised around the edges. He could not bear such raw emotion; it made him physically ill. It was what he hated about his wife, along with the sweat, the smell, the blood every month.

“Vivi,” Taylor Abbott said, “never beg.”

Then he reached to the radio and turned the volume up. Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes and resumed listening to the war news, as though his daughter were no longer in the room.

Vivi continued to stand there, studying the patterns of the
living-room rug. She listened to all the news of the British and Indian troops in Burma. Finally, Taylor Abbott opened his eyes and trained them on his daughter.

In a confident voice, he said, “You’ll do fine, Viviane. I don’t worry about you. Don’t have to. You take after the Abbotts.”

Then he stood up, turned off the radio, and started up the stairs. All Vivi could see was his back. All she could see was a pair of suspenders and a white shirt.

“Hurry up and get dressed,” Buggy said as she stood at Vivi’s bedroom door. “You have just enough time to make the train. Pete is taking you to the station.”

“What about Father?” Vivi asked. “Isn’t he coming? I want to tell him goodbye.”

“Your father asked not to be awakened, Viviane Joan. Please. Do not cause any more trouble than you already have.”

“But I won’t be able to see the Ya-Yas, Mother. I
can’t
leave without telling them goodbye. We had our goodbye all
planned.
”

“The four of you have been saying goodbye for a week now.”

“The Ya-Yas are my best friends, Mother. I
have
to see them.”

Suddenly, as though she could not contain her rage any longer, Buggy took the pillows and bedding she’d just stripped from the bed and flung them at Vivi.

“Stop it!” Buggy said, vehement, resentful. “I won’t hear one more word about the all-precious Ya-Yas! Are they all you think about?!”

“Mama,” Vivi said, dropping the more formal way she usually addressed her mother. “Don’t do this, please. They’re my best friends. I can’t just leave them like this!”

Buggy straightened the waist of her dress, then adjusted
her sweater. “Haven’t you caused enough suffering in this house? Enough is enough.”

As her mother left the doorway Vivi thought,
Enough is not enough, Mother. And it never will be.

The Buick was warm when Pete opened the car door for Vivi.

“Warmed her up so you wouldn’t freeze,” he said. “Buggy the Bitch still inside?”

“Checking on Jezie,” Vivi replied. “Maybe we’ll miss the train.”

Pete checked his wristwatch, then went around to get in on the driver’s side. He looked serious, his usual athletic swagger replaced by a heaviness.

He pulled the car door tight, then turned to his sister. “Want a smoke?”

“Yeah,” Vivi said. She watched as her brother lit two Luckies off a kitchen match, which he struck on his thumbnail.

“Sorry I’m the one that has to drive you, Buddy,” he said as he handed over a cigarette to his sister.

“Not your fault,” Vivi said, taking a deep drag.

Pete picked a speck of tobacco off his tongue. “Not
your
fault any of this shit is happening.”

“What do you mean?” Vivi asked.

“I mean nothing you ever did deserves getting crated off to the penguins like Goddamn freight, Vivi.”

Vivi tried to smile. “Mother ever knew we called nuns ‘penguins,’ she’d croak.”

“Nah,” Pete said. “She’d do penance for us. Shit, that woman loves doing penance.”

Pete patted his jacket as though he were checking for something. Then he inspected the rearview mirror, nervous. “She’s been wanting to punish you for years.”

Vivi counted the pieces of luggage that were in the backseat. She looked out at the yard, Buggy’s garden almost dead
in winter. The Rose of Montana and clematis vines on the porch were shriveled and brown.

“What’re you saying, Pete?” Vivi asked.

“Sis, I’m your bud, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Trust me, then. Look out for Mother. She’s gunnin’ for you. Keep your elbows out.”

She is my mother,
Vivi thought.
She loves me. Doesn’t she?

Pete reached over and took Vivi’s hand, squeezing it tightly. He looked at her with sad eyes and shrugged his shoulders. “Gonna miss you, Stinky.”

Then, pulling his hand away, he reached under his jacket and pulled out a flask. “For the trip. Swiped expressly for you from Father’s liquor cabinet.”

Vivi received the flask like a sign of love. She tucked it into her purse. “I’ll carry it with me like a friend.”

As she kissed Pete on the cheek, she could see her mother in her gray coat making her way toward the car.

“I will say nothing about the smoking,” Buggy accused her children, as she positioned herself in the backseat.

“Good, Mother,” Pete said. “Don’t.”

Once settled, Buggy began to hum softly. Vivi thought the tune sounded like “Salve Regina.” Pete began to whistle, to drown out the sound. As they rode, Vivi pulled down the vanity mirror, as if to see if there was something in her eye. But it was not her own face she wanted to see. She wanted to see the face of her mother as she sat silent in the backseat. Vivi did not know what she was looking for, but she thought that if the right expression passed over her mother’s face, then she would know the right thing to say, the right thing to do, the right way to
be
in order to sidestep this banishment.

I want to tell her to shut up her crazy humming, Vivi thought. I want to bash her in the head with one of my suitcases. I want to truss her up with ropes like a cow, and drop
her in a ditch on the side of the road. Then seize the wheel myself, whip this car around, blast the horn up and down the streets of my town, declaring my freedom from that woman in the backseat who thinks she’s a modern martyr.

But Vivi could not move. She was too sad.

It required all the strength she had to ask, “Can we just stop by Caro’s? They wake up early. Or could we swing by Teensy’s real quick? It’s on the way. Sometimes Genevieve reads all night long when she can’t sleep.”

“You do not barge into someone’s house at this time of day,” Buggy said. “Your father gave specific instructions that we were to go straight to the station.”

You are lying,
Vivi longed to say, but she could not. To say it out loud would be to admit her mother’s cruelty.

Vivi glanced down at her gold Gruen wristwatch, with its green dots glowing with poison. Four-fifteen in the morning. Nothing will ever be the same.

She studied her mother sitting in the high, rounded backseat of the Buick, fingering her rosary beads.

She is lying through her teeth, Vivi thought. She is lying and she is happy. Why is she so serene?

It was still dark when they reached the train station at Jefferson and Eighth streets. Pete climbed out of the car and went around to open Vivi’s door.

As she stood on the curb by the car Vivi could see her breath in the early-morning air. Watching as Pete ferried her luggage into the lobby, she pressed her purse to her side and thought of the flask of bourbon. The anticipation of its comfort kept her from crumbling to the ground.

Rolling down the window, Buggy said, “Aren’t you going to tell me goodbye?”

“Goodbye,” Vivi said.

Then Buggy opened the backdoor. She turned her body slightly, as though she might climb out of the car and go to her daughter.

Vivi longed to run to her mother and bury her head in Buggy’s lap. She longed to hold on to her mother and not let go. Leaning into the car, touching her mother’s hand, she asked, “Mama, what are you praying for?”

Buggy placed her hand on Vivi’s cheek. In a gentle voice, she said, “I’m praying for you, Viviane. I’m praying for you because you’ve run out of grace.”

Then Pete’s hand was under Vivi’s elbow, pulling her upright, all but tucking her under his shoulder.

“Ma,” he said, “get the hell off my sister’s back.”

Then he slammed the car door, leaving his mother in the backseat with her rosary.

Inside, the lobby was empty except for four sleeping soldiers, their feet propped on duffel bags. The sight of them made Vivi think of Jack.

After buying her ticket, she and Pete sat on one of the long wooden benches. Vivi tried to imagine she was in a movie.
The beautiful young girl misses her lover,
she thought. The camera comes closer.
She sits in a train station with her brother, waiting for the war to end. Heartsick and lonely, she reaches for the only comfort she has.

Checking the door to make sure her mother had not decided to come in, Vivi took out the flask and offered it to Pete.

“You first, Buddy-o,” he said, and Vivi took a swig.

The bourbon went down smoothly. She waited a moment, then took another swig, feeling the warmth spread through her body, associating the taste of the whiskey with good times, with being desired, with what little she knew about sex. At her third sip, Vivi was wishing she had yet another flask—no, a bottle or two—tucked into her luggage.

She passed the flask to Pete, who took a sip and handed it back to her.

“Gimme your hand,” he said.

Vivi put out her palm. Into it Pete slapped a compact, weighty little object. Vivi looked down to see his pocketknife, a prized possession of his she’d always admired. She could feel the knife’s red-and-silver heft. She held it to her nose and smelled the handle. It smelled like Pete. It smelled like
boy
.

“A buddy should never be without a pocketknife, Viv-o. It can get you out of all kind of jams. If one of those penguins sits on you, stick her in the battookus with your pocketknife, and run like hell!”

Vivi tried to smile. “Thanks, Pete-o.”

Then, with the time she had left, Vivi carved her name into the wooden bench where they sat.

“V-I-V-I A-B-B-O-T-T,” she gouged into the wood.

“The Vivi Abbott Memorial Bench,” Pete said.

“Now nobody can forget me,” Vivi said.

Pete boarded the train with her, carrying her train case. When Vivi was settled into her seat, he gave her a rough hug. “Love you, Stinky,” he said.

“Love you, Pete.”

Pete turned to the black porter who was squeezing by at that moment. “Yall take care of my little sister, you hear? You’re traveling with precious cargo.”

“Yassir,” the porter said, giving Vivi a smile.

After Pete climbed down from the train, Vivi reached for the flask, took two swallows of bourbon, then began to cry.

Viviane Joan Abbott, age sixteen, sat on the Southern Crescent wearing a baby-blue angora sweater over a cream-colored pleated skirt. She pulled her navy wool coat with the lovely fox collar tight around her body. She tried to believe that her own arms were Jack’s holding her close. She tried hard to believe that everyone adored her.

January 26, 1943

Dear Caro,

Every single girl at this school is ugly. I do not mean plain, I do not mean homely. I mean
ugly
. This is one of those schools where there are two types of girls: (1) the daughters of Catholic nuts; and (2) bad girls who they want to punish. I guess I fit in both categories.

They’re all ugly and they stink. The whole joint reeks like sauerkraut and old men’s socks. The odor alone is enough penance for eighty-four thousand mortal sins. Obey the Church, confess your sins, and die, that’s the plan. It all comes down from the Mother Superior, the Boris Karloff of the nun world.

My room here is not a room. It’s not even a cubbyhole. It’s a pen, a hole, a cell. It has a cot, a chair, and a water basin on top of a small chest of drawers. Hooks on the wall, no closet.

I asked the nun who brought me here where my closet was. She said, “You have no closet.” Like I had asked for a suite at the Grand Hotel.

“I
need
to hang my dresses,” I said, pointing to my suitcases and footlocker.