Ya-Yas in Bloom: A Novel

  Kiss the baby for me, Baylor prayed, go ahead, Saint Joe, lean down and kiss his forehead. Kiss all the children. All the little ones in this crazy Louisiana town and all the ones all over the world, stepping on land mines or starving because their mothers are too malnourished to produce milk, the ones with cancer, the ones with AIDS, kiss the ones who can’t walk, Joe, the ones who will never get out of a wheelchair, kiss us all, man. We need it. We need your prayers. We can’t do it alone.

  He did not think about his sobbing. He simply let it come. He dropped his head and gave up. Ain’t no gun made can do what love can. How did I go so long without knowing this?

  On the way home, the slogan came to him: “Guns don’t save people. Parties do!” That’s when he decided that he would host the Ya-Ya Tribe Christmas gathering this year. He remembered Vivi leading them in singing “We Need a Little Christmas!” from Auntie Mame when he was little. Boy, that’s never been more true. Then he dialed Melissa on the car phone.

  “Hey, you fine-looking mama,” he said when she picked up.

  “God, I’m relieved, Bay. I feel like I can finally exhale,” she said.

  “God is good. How about pizza?”

  “We’re starving.”

  “Call it in, and I’ll pick it up on the way home. Thick crust for me, Baby. Thick with lots of cheese just oozing.”

  “Got it,” Melissa said. “Love you, Crazy.”

  “Love you, Melissa the Magnificent. Give the kids hugs for me. See you pronto wickie-wickie!”

  Baylor clicked off and dialed Sidda. “They found her unharmed.”

  Sidda let out a huge sigh. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, God.”

  “Thank you, Saint Joseph, too,” Baylor said.

  “Thank you, all angels and saints,” Sidda responded.

  “We sound like Catholic nuts.”

  “We are Catholic nuts,” Sidda said. “I wish I were there.”

  “Me, too. Come home for Christmas. I’m gonna host the party.”

  “I am up to my ears with this show. There is no way I can leave. It’s not healthy to be this busy.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Who knows if I’m okay?” she replied. “I stay so busy I don’t think about it. I’ll think about it next year.”

  “Okay, Scarlett. Love you. Hugs to Connor. Bye.”

  Baylor waited before calling Grove. He didn’t want to rush them. He could only imagine the kind of nesting Joanie and Grove would need with Rosalyn. Finally, the first week of December, he called.

  “Hey, it’s Baylor.”

  “Hey,” Grove said. “I haven’t had a minute to call and thank you. How you doing?”

  “No, how you doing?”

  “We’re all right. I’m going into the office half-days. Necie is with Joanie all the time. Joanie won’t let Rosalyn out of her sight. Well, actually, she won’t hardly let her out of her arms.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Maybe not. It’s a little scary. Joanie is petrified. By the way, thanks for giving my secretary all the info about your home security system. We’re in the process of building Fort Knox, Louisiana, at the house.”

  “I put all that shit in my house when I built it. Paranoid since birth, you know me.”

  “Really, man, thank you for everything.”

  “Would there be a good time for me to drop by? I have an invitation for yall.”

  “Sure. Let me talk to Joanie and call you back. She’s—uh—a little delicate. And I have to warn you, it doesn’t look like we’ll be accepting invitations if they mean stepping outside the house. Joanie has pulled up the drawbridge.”

  “She okay?”

  “She’s not having a nervous breakdown or anything. She’s just—well, overly cautious. Has to know who is coming and going all the time. Hears things outside at night. That kind of thing.”

  “I gotcha. Just let me know when I can visit.”

  Joanie agreed to see Baylor a few days later. When he walked into their house, which was in the Garden District of Thornton, on the bayou that ran through town, Joanie was sitting on the sofa with Rosalyn in her lap. She did not get up to greet him.

  Rosalyn said, “Unca’ Bay!” and started to climb down from her mother’s lap. Joanie stopped her.

  Baylor sat across from them in a wing chair.

  “I got something for you from Lee-Lee,” he said to Rosalyn.

  “Miss Lee-Lee! Miss Lee-Lee!”

  The two girls had spoken on the phone, but had not seen each other since the day before the kidnapping. A long time for the two Très Petites Ya-Yas.

  Baylor started to hand Rosalyn a wrapped gift, but Joanie reached out and took it first. “Mama will open it for you,” Joanie said.

  Oh, shit, Baylor thought.

  Turning away from her daughter, Joanie opened the package and pulled out a little red felt hat with reindeer antlers.

  “Mine!” Rosalyn said, grabbing it from her mother and putting it on her head. Then she jumped out of her mother’s lap and began to do a little dance like Baylor had seen her and Lee-Lee do a million times. The little girls were born prisses.

  “Mirror!” Rosalyn said, and took off in the direction of the downstairs guest bathroom. Joanie ran after her.

  “I told you to stay by my side, Rosalyn!” Joanie called out.

  Grove gave Baylor a look that was worth a thousand words.

  “It’ll pass,” Baylor said.

  “Yeah,” Grove said. He was quiet for a moment, then offered Baylor a drink.

  “Sure,” Baylor said.

  “The regular?” Grove said, referring to Baylor’s usual bourbon and water.

  “Uh, no—no thanks. Yall got any beer?”

  “Yep. Heineken okay?”

  “Fine,” Baylor said.

  When Joanie and Rosalyn were back in the room, Baylor laid it out.

  “I’m hosting the Ya-Ya tribe Christmas party this year, and I want yall to come.”

  There was silence except for the sound of Rosalyn gibbering to her Barbie doll.

  “We’re going to stay close to the house for the holidays,” Joanie said finally.

  Grove lowered his head.

  Baylor opened his briefcase. He was prepared for this.

  “Look, I know yall are putting in a security system similar to mine, and I just thought I’d show you how my house is protected.”

  Joanie leaned forward.

  Baylor spread a plan of his house and grounds on the large coffee table as Joanie moved books and magazines out of the way. Painstakingly, he pointed out how the electronic gate worked.

  “I got the ten-foot one, solid, with grill work and points at the top. It’s the most secure.”

  Then he showed Joanie where each door and window in his house was and how it was protected. He was especially careful to show her where the panic buttons were, and to explain how the motion sensor lights and alarm for outside worked.

  She seemed to relax. “That’s just the kind of thing we’ve been putting in. But the damn electronic gate is taking forever.”

  “Please come?” Baylor asked.

  Grove looked at Joanie. Joanie looked at Rosalyn, who looked up.

  “Me call Lee-Lee now to say thank you, okay?”

  “It’ll be a drag without yall. Mama will be disappointed. She and your Mama and Teensy and Caro have gotten this idea in their heads that they are staging a Christmas pageant. Caitlin has been p.o.’ed because the nuns at Divine Compassion haven’t cast her as Mary yet. So Mama said, ‘How dare them not cast Caitlin? We’ll have our own g.d. pageant!’ I think your Mama is doing the costumes.”

  “Okay,” Joanie said, and dialed Baylor’s number, handing the phone to her daughter.

  The grown-ups were silent for a moment as they heard Rosalyn singing on the phone. To the tune of “Jingle Bells,” she sang:

  “Jink Hotel

  Jink Hotel

  Jink Hotel, OK!”

  “Were you that bad as a three-year-o
ld?” Grove asked Joanie.

  “I was that good,” she replied. “And I sang my duets with Sidda.”

  “So,” Baylor said, taking a sip of beer. “Yall will come, right?”

  Joanie hugged herself. She leaned closer in to Baylor.

  “I don’t think so, Bay. I can’t. I can’t leave the house. I have to keep my eyes open every moment. I need her in my sight. If I blink, she could disappear. I can’t handle leaving the house and keeping my eyes on her all the time. It’s just too much.”

  “Joanie,” Baylor said softly. “You will have four Ya-Yas, three Ya-Ya husbands, an ex-Ya-Ya husband and his lover, all your sisters, your brother if he can make it from Atlanta, Shep, me, Melissa, the rest of the Petites Ya-Yas, and eighteen other Très Petites with their eyes on Rosalyn. Believe me, there is no place safer. Nobody in that room will let anything happen to her. You know us all. The house will be locked. Hell, I won’t let Santa come down the chimney. It’ll just be us. We’ll be safe. I promise, Joanie. I promise.”

  Joanie started to cry while Baylor was still talking. Grove sat next to her and took her hand.

  “I think it’s safe,” he said. “You’ll be wrapped up in the Ya-Ya cocoon.”

  “It’s just—,” Joanie said, wiping tears back, “it’s just that I messed up once. How do I know it won’t happen again? I looked away, and she was gone.”

  “Joanie,” Baylor said gently. “Trust us. Rosalyn will be secure, and if you blink, there will be so many eyes on that little girl that nothing could happen. I don’t think I can handle what Lee-Lee would do if Rosalyn didn’t come. The kid thinks she’s Mick Jagger. She thinks she’s Supergirl. She’ll destroy everything I’ve worked for if ‘Ra’lyn’ isn’t at her Christmas party.”

  Joanie was silent for a moment. Then she nodded. “Okay. Okay, we’ll give it a try.”

  Rosalyn let out a peal of laughter at something Lee-Lee had said on the phone, and she began talking so fast and intensely that the three adults were certain she was speaking another language entirely. They listened, fascinated.

  “Hey, Joanie,” Baylor said, “you think our mothers sounded like that when they were little?”

  “Probably,” she replied. “I bet Sidda and I did too.”

  Baylor got up and touched Joanie lightly on the shoulder. “May the sisterhood be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by.”

  A STAR’S A SEED A SEED’S A STAR

  December 1994

  On Saturday, December 17, three minivans full of Ya-Yas and their offspring’s offspring pulled up to Baylor’s house, blowing their horns to beat the band. Baylor thought he had been ready to host this party, but at the sight of them he realized he might have overstepped himself.

  “Merry Christmas!” Melissa said as she came out on the porch. She was dressed smartly and warmly in a pair of navy wool slacks, a white silk shirt, and a red blazer that set off her dark hair and beautiful complexion.

  As Vivi stepped out of the van, Baylor could see that she was wearing a black wig and heavy black eye makeup. She kept her coat pulled close around her as though she were hiding something. Her eyeglasses were missing. In fact, his mother now had different-colored eyes.

  “Help your mother!” Caro rasped loudly from the third van. “She can’t see a damn thing through those violet-colored contact lenses she bought so she’d look more like La Liz.”

  Baylor hurried to take his mother’s arm.

  “I’m ever so slightly thrown off by the lack of my trifocals. The violet only came in bifocals, so I was forced to cut out my dance number. Lord, it’s cold out.”

  “Mother,” Baylor asked, “what in the world are you dressed like that for?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m a Wise Woman, dummy. I am Visiting Royalty, a queen from afar traveling to bow before the Baby Jesus. The Baby Jesus loves visitors. By the way, adore your red vest. Very English country gentleman.”

  “Shoulda known you couldn’t resist a chance to go full-tilt boogie,” Baylor said.

  Another pack of kids spilled out of the next van. Then Teensy stepped down, another Wise Woman, more Visiting Royalty. Just how Teensy had managed to attach the long blond wig, which was done up in a ponytail, was testament to her creativity and determination. They had gone all-out.

  Baylor went over to help Caro out of the third van. Her oxygen tubes and tank were hooked up as always, but she looked bulky in a long camel coat, which bulged out as though she wore a huge garment underneath. Baylor didn’t want to ask. It was cold—cold for Thornton. The morning had started off sunny and frigid, with cornflower-blue skies. A high, even cloud cover had formed over the afternoon, and the light had become pale and washed out. The temperature stood at thirty-three degrees, with a forecast of it dropping even lower.

  A wild assortment of eighteen children bundled up in coats, scarves, hats, and gloves continued to scramble out of the vans, the littlest ones being helped by the older ones, and all of them helped by Necie’s son. Frank, who was recently divorced, now asked to be called by his given name, Francis. He’d flown home from Atlanta the week before to be with Joanie and to help Necie sew costumes and organize the pageant. Under his gray wool Armani coat, he was dressed swell-elegantly as the Little Drummer Boy, complete with tights and bloomers.

  “Brrrr Rabbit, Bay! I’m freezing my balls off out here.”

  “Well, get in the house and warm up—and make it quick before the neighbors see you. I’m a professional in this town, you know.”

  “A professional what, though, that’s what inquiring minds are asking.”

  “Merry Christmas, Frank—I mean Francis—I’ve been thinking about you. Is that getup what folks are wearing in Atlanta these days?”

  “Certain ones of us are thusly attired when it’s time to deck the halls.”

  Baylor was one of the few who had not been surprised in the least when Francis and his wife of two years divorced. He’d known Francis all his life and was happy to see him let his true self out. He wasn’t all the way out of the closet, but Baylor figured it would happen any day.

  “Come on,” Francis said, “I’ve got to help the Divas and their grandchildren inside and ‘backstage.’ You did set up a full dressing area for us all, didn’t you, babe?”

  “The bedroom, bathroom, and hallways of my home are at your disposal. As long as no blood is shed, do anything you want.”

  “I just want to get the kids back there before they ruin their costumes. Fingers crossed that Joanie will show up. Any sight of her and her Grove and her Rose?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, we’re all praying.”

  As Baylor swung open the front door, he cleared his throat and loudly announced in his most magisterial, faux British accent, “Children, ladies, scoundrels, please welcome His Royal Highness, the magnificent, splendiferous Count Viscount with no discount, Uncle Francis, Royalty from the East, and a cast of thousands!”

  Everyone (except George, who took one look at his son and then turned the other way) smiled and applauded and yelled, “Here, here!”

  Baylor realized now why Big Shep had come over even earlier than usual to put a pork loin on the BBQ pit. “I thought I’d give the pageanteers a little more room out at the house to get the show together,” Big Shep had said. What he hadn’t said spoke volumes.

  The Ya-Yas had been at Pecan Grove, trying to have a run-through of the pageant. They’d managed to hold approximately one rehearsal, if you counted the break for the variety acts that several of the children and three of the Ya-Yas tried to insert into the pageant over Necie’s attempt to “keep this thing something sweet and holy.”

  Once the crowd arrived, Big Shep came inside and took off his barn jacket (with the liner zipped in) to reveal a new red flannel bathrobe over a pair of green pants out of which one could see his best dress-up cowboy boots. “Meet Shep the Shepherd. I’ve been waiting fifty goddamn years to wear my bathrobe to one of these Ya-Ya shindigs. I figure now was my chance.”

>   Inside the house, a fire was roaring in the fireplace, and Christmas lights and pine boughs greeted the Ya-Ya tribe. The pageant scene had been set up earlier in one corner of the big living room with the high ceilings and tasteful but comfortable furniture. Shep and Baylor had built the set, a small ramshackle lean-to stable, out of wood they’d found down by the old oak tree at Pecan Grove. They’d also built a small manger, and spread hay around everywhere. Melissa had insisted that plastic be laid underneath everything, and they’d done a good job hiding the plastic, but the two brothers had agreed that women could get in the way of verisimilitude. Melissa also insisted that the hay be clean hay, which cracked Big Shep up.

  “All my hay is clean hay. You don’t find Shep Walker dealing in any dirty hay. Against The Code.”

  The dishes cooked by the Ya-Yas had been delivered the day before, and were warming in Melissa’s sparkling kitchen. Teensy’s “Down on the Bayou Gumbo,” chicken and shrimp to be served with rice and lots of homemade filé. Vivi’s “Tipsy Sweet Potato Fluff,” with lots of marshmallows—and laced with bourbon. Caro’s ex-husband’s boyfriend, Richard, had cooked for her, and the scent of his jambalaya, made with chicken, sausage, and lots of spices, could be smelled from the back burner where it was simmering, to be served later from the buffet table in the dining room from a big crockery bowl he and Blaine had bought in Provence. Necie had to be talked out of cooking because she was handling the pageant. Her daughters Melanie, Rose, Lissa, and Annie more than made up with their own more contemporary cooking.