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.
She looked at me like I had a harelip.
“That luggage is your cross to bear,” she said.
Caro, I do not know whether I am in purgatory or just plain hell.
Love,
Vivi
It took Vivi a week at Saint Augustine’s to realize the girls hated her. It took her a week and a half to realize the nuns did, too.
She tried smiling at first, but it was a waste of face muscles. Nobody, not one person, would smile back. They looked her up and down and whispered malicious things she couldn’t quite make out. Vivi’s hair was too blonde for them, her eyes too bright, her language too jazzy, and above all, they hated the clothes she’d brought. She tried, but Vivi could not locate any other bad girls to become buddies with.
The hallways smelled like oatmeal with Lysol stirred in. The very air made Vivi cringe. Vivi lived by her sense of smell. She could tell when people were scared, or if they had eaten peaches, just by their scent. She could sniff and tell whether a person had gotten enough sleep the night before by breathing them in. She could smell the scent of tuberoses in a person’s hair days after they had been near those flowers. There weren’t any tuberoses at Saint Augustine’s.
Sister Fermin, who taught Religion, delighted in introducing lessons by looking at Vivi and saying: “For those of you girls who have been sent here because of sinful behavior, pay special attention. You do not deserve God’s love after the pain you have caused your families, but if you study hard and keep ever present in your heart the shame you carry, in time you may be welcomed back into the light of God the Father’s love.”
Then the other girls would turn around and gawk at Vivi like she was a child murderer or a Nazi. Vivi wanted to tell them all to go straight to hell, but it was not worth the effort.
Vivi set her footlocker up in her cell, and on top of it she placed the photograph of Jack and her at the Thornton High Mardi Gras Ball. Next to that, she arranged photos of the Ya-Yas at Spring Creek and at the Gulf Coast. The little basket of dried rose petals from the roses Jack sent her the day he left for boot camp sat in front of the picture of her family.
Lifting her blue velvet birthday gown from the trunk, she pinned it up on the wall of her cell, where it bloomed like a huge flower above the crucifix that was standard issue in every Saint Augustine room. She had to have something colorful in there or she would die. When she came back to her cell after the chalk dust and freezing cold classrooms and the cafeteria that smelled like green peas covered in mold, Vivi took little nips from Pete’s flask, and stared at that wall, trying to make a party.
Thank God she’d snuck Delia’s feather pillow from home. They do not sleep on pillows here. Pillows are against the rules. This scared Vivi more than the puke-green color all the walls were painted. Every morning she woke in that penitentiary, she had to actually hide her pillow so the proctor nun would not take it away from her.
Screw them, Vivi prayed. Screw them and the horse they rode in on. Don’t let them get me. I am Vivi Abbott. I am a member of the Royal Tribe of Ya-Yas. I am a cheerleader. I am going to play at Wimbledon someday. I have a perfectly wonderful boy who loves me. Where I come from, I am popular.
Holy Mother, full of gracious virtues, patient and well taught, give me strength against my enemies. Make these headaches go away. Send me a touch, a smoke, a kiss, a hug. Help me not to shrivel up and die.
March 1, 1943
Dear Caro, Teensy, and Necie:
It’s been five weeks and three days. I am entombed here. I cannot breathe. They wake us by pounding on the door of our cell at five in the morning. I am supposed to splash cold water on my face, take off my gown, put on my gray scratchy wool uniform, pull on the gray knee socks and the oxfords, tie my chapel veil on my head, and walk straight to the chapel without saying a word. A priest with bulging eyes says Mass and hears Confession. No singing, no music, no dancing at all. This is the longest I have gone without dancing since I was born. Even Mother never minded our dancing. When I take Communion, the host sticks to the roof of my dry mouth.
They only allow you to use two squares of toilet paper in this place because waste is a sin. They monitor you in the john. There are girls here who beg to be bathroom monitors. They think it is something great, like being elected class president. That’s how sick this place is.
No such thing as a bath here, only showers that feel like someone spitting on you. No Ya-Yas. No Jack. I would commit murder for the café au lait that Shirley brings us in bed at Teensy’s in the big bowls, sweetened with honey. I would commit double murder to see the three of you and Jack.
No one laughs here.
I am parched. I am drying up.
Please ask Pete to talk to Father about me. I’ve written to Mother, but have received no response.
I shouldn’t complain like this with a war going on. I don’t know why they want me so miserable.
Your Vivi
P.S. Get your hands on hooch and send it soon.
Then she wrote her mother a variation of the same letter she had written several times since she arrived at Saint Augustine’s:
March 1, 1943
Dea
r Mother,
Please forgive me. I am not sure what I have done wrong, but I am sorry. I never meant to hurt you. If you let me come home, I will not disappoint you. Please, Mother. Please let me come home. I miss you, I miss everyone so very much.
Love,
Vivi
After she’d been at Saint Augustine’s a little over a month, food began to repulse Vivi. Everything tasted too salty. For four days straight, she became nauseated after eating the oatmeal served at breakfast, and after that she simply sat and pushed the oats around in the stained bowl. She sipped her juice and pushed the oats around.
At lunch, the soup was as salty as the oatmeal, so she stopped eating that as well. In the evenings, the limp cabbage smelled like her baby sister Jezie’s diapers. The only food Vivi ate with relish was the apple they were given with supper. She took it back to her cubicle, opened the window, and set the fruit on the windowsill until it grew chilled with the night air. Then she took out Pete’s pocketknife and divided the fruit into tiny slivers, placing them in her mouth one at a time. She’d have given anything for a full flask of bourbon.
After she ate the apple, Vivi lay on the hard bed, with the core of the apple on Delia’s feather pillow, next to her head, so she could smell it while she slept.
She ached for her girlfriends, for Jack, Genevieve, Cokes and po-boys, and Gene Krupa drum solos. She missed the sweet strains of Harry James and talking every day with the Ya-Yas and lying next to them on the rug in front of the fireplace or out on the porch. She missed attention and music and laughter and gossip. She missed playing cards with Pete in the kitchen at night. She even missed her mother and father. She missed home so deeply that she finally began to give up.
She stopped writing letters, and when letters came, she dreaded reading them because they reminded her of what she was missing. The war news only made her sadder, made her worry about Jack. She felt like she was slipping away, but trying to hold on wore her out. As the weeks passed, she grew exhausted just walking up a flight of stairs.
One afternoon in April she received the only letter her mother wrote her at Saint Augustine’s. It read:
April 24,1943
Dear Joan,
I am glad to hear they now call you by your saint’s name. It was your father and Delia who named you Viviane, not me.
Mother Superior wrote me about her session with you last week. Because she is concerned with your spiritual welfare, she has decided it is God’s will that from this day forward you will be known only by your saint name: Joan. The other girls have been instructed to use only that name. You will only answer to Joan. Any mail sent to Viviane or Vivi will be returned, unopened, to the sender.
It is hoped that by invoking the name of Joan of Arc you may be more successful in battling the demon that plagues your soul.
Mother Superior also reported how you defied her, how you tried to joke and say you were relieved your saint name was not Hedwig. She also told me that you referred to her as a “warthog.” I can only say that I agree wholeheartedly with Mother Superior that public school has damaged your respect for sanctity and for authority. You are in grave need of discipline.
No, I cannot let you come home. You will get used to Saint Augustine’s. It will simply take time. You must offer up any discomforts to Our Holy Savior, who died for our sins.
You wrote that you are sorry for hurting me. You need to understand that nothing you do can hurt me. It is the Blessed Virgin and the Baby Jesus who you hurt. They are the ones you should get down on your knees to and beg forgiveness from. May the Lord our God bless you and may the Virgin Mary guide you in everything you do.
Love,
Mother
That afternoon Vivi fainted during gym class. Her legs buckled underneath her and she drifted to the ground, her knees hitting the old varnished floor. It felt almost pleasant to simply let go like that.
The nun who taught physical education was terse, businesslike about the event, seeming almost to blame Vivi for such weakness.
Vivi was allowed to return to her room for the rest of the day, where she plunged into a feverish sleep. When she woke, she was sweating so profusely that her sheets were wet against her skin. The headache that had been circling for weeks settled in like a conquering enemy. She tried to get out of bed, but the room and its sparse furnishings were reeling. She could not make anything stay solid or still. Not inside or out.
Alternating waves of hot and cold washed over her, and she knew she needed to get herself to the bathroom. Vivi forced herself to get out of the bed, but her legs would not hold. Remaining on her knees, she crawled to the door. Shaking violently, she tried once again to stand. This time her legs stayed under her, but she could not get her equilibrium. She felt as though some central ball bearing inside her that made balance possible had been knocked loose.
Vivi slowly made her way down the hall by leaning against the wall, the door knobs to the other girls’ rooms jabbing into her side. It took all she had to make it to the bathroom stall. Never had she been this sick before. Kneeling with her head over the commode, she was so violently ill that the contractions sent pain into her neck and back. Her head throbbed so that she no longer saw shapes, only patches of gray and black. She felt as if she were being turned inside out, as if she were being scoured.
At some point, the stall door opened, and Vivi almost cried with relief. Someone is coming to help me! she thought. Someone kind is coming to pull my hair out of my face, and lay a cool cloth on my forehead like Mother does when I am sick.
“You have been in there for too long,” the voice said. “I am going to report you to Mother Superior for being wasteful with toilet paper, Joan Abbott.”
Vivi lay on the floor and could not respond.
When she first began to stir, it was to the sound of tree branches scratching lightly against a window. It sounded like her bedroom at home, and the belief that she was back in her own bed rushed through her sore body. For an instant Vivi felt like laughing out loud. The bed was soft, and she lay back on not one but two pillows. For some reason she felt utterly convinced that if she didn’t jump up immediately she’d be late for a tennis game with Caro.
When she opened her eyes, Vivi expected to see the armoire and dresser that sat in her bedroom at home. She expected to see the chintz curtains with the roses and green trailing leaves. Instead, what she glimpsed was a white curtain stretched along one side of the bed in which she found herself. On the other side was a bank of windows with shutters closed tight.
For a moment, she felt dazed. And then it struck her: she was not at home at all. She did not know where she was, but she knew it wasn’t home.
She began to cry until tears soaked her face, her hair, her gown. She did not remember putting on the gown she wore, did not recognize it. She needed terribly to blow her nose, but she did not have a handkerchief. She could not bear the thought, but she decided she was going to have to blow her nose on the sheets.
God, she sighed. I do not want to lie in a bed of snot. I want to die. I want to fall back asleep and never wake up.
Then the white curtain that ran alongside the bed was pulled back, and Vivi looked up to see a round, smiling face, young and almost pretty. A pair of rimless glasses sat on a small, upturned nose. The gray-blue eyes were slightly almond-shaped, with the lightest lashes and brows. Around the edges of the veil, Vivi thought she could see a light dusting of the same light hair.
“How are you feeling, Viviane Joan?” the nun asked, smiling.
It was the first time anyone had called her by her real name in over a month. It was the first smile anyone had given her since the porter when she’d got off the train.
“Are you a Saint Augustine’s nun?” Vivi asked, her voice hoarse. Her habit and veil were different from the rest of the sisters at the school, and the fact that she was smiling was something of a shock.
“I’m from a different order—a nursing order,” the nun replied. “My name is Sister Solange.”
/> A French name, Vivi thought. The small interaction had already tired her. She closed her eyes.
“Are you ready for a little nourishment?” Sister Solange asked.
The nun’s kind voice astounded Vivi. It has been so long since anyone treated me with kindness. In my old life, I had so much kindness. I took it for granted, like sugar before the war.
Trying to hold back tears, Vivi sniffled loudly.
“Forgive me, please,” Sister Solange said. “The first thing you need is a clean handkerchief.”
The nun disappeared for a moment, and when she returned, it was with two white cotton handkerchiefs that had been pressed and neatly folded. She placed them on the bed next to Vivi’s right hand.
Vivi grasped a handkerchief and brought it to her nose. It smelled just laundered, with a lingering smell of flowers. It was the first lovely fragrance she had smelled since she left home. Slowly, she unfolded it and wiped her eyes. Then she wiped her face and blew her nose. She started to reach for the second one, but pulled her hand back, as though afraid.
“May I use the second one, Sister?” Vivi asked cautiously.
“Of course you may,” the nun said. “Perhaps you need a whole stack of handkerchiefs.”
When Sister Solange disappeared again, Vivi did her best to clean her face. Her skin felt sticky, unattractive. She could feel the residue of old tears, along with the wetness of new ones.
Back at her side, Sister Solange placed a stack of freshly laundered handkerchiefs on the bed. There was a time when such a gesture would have gone unnoticed by Vivi. But the presence of those cotton cloths folded at her side, ready for her to use, seemed so extravagant that her first instinct was to hide them before they were snatched away.
As the nun turned away from the bed again, Vivi thought, She does not hate me.
When she returned this time, Sister Solange carried a large white bowl filled with hot water. Setting it on the table beside the bed, she dipped in a washcloth, wrung it out, and then leaned over Vivi. “Close your eyes, please,” the nun said. Then she laid the warm wet cloth over Vivi’s eyes. Vivi took a deep breath that filled her whole body. She could feel the warmth entering the space behind her eyes. She could feel the kindness entering the bruised space around her heart. She drifted back to sleep.