“The London Times is writing a story about Gulf Shores?” he asked, impressed.
“Very confidential,” I said. “Sorry.”
“What a shame,” the man said. “A pretty thing like you.”
“Pretty is as pretty does,” I said.
The man went away.
I polished off the oysters, then ate a salad, and ordered bread pudding for dessert.
“We are known for it,” the waiter said.
“Lovely,” I said. “And a snifter of brandy, for a nightcap, if you’d be so kind.”
I sat at the table with plenty of room to breathe. Nothing tight on my waist. I should’ve dressed like that all the time. I should’ve shredded my girdles with a potato peeler. My belly was full and rounded, and I was very sleepy.
My sobbing woke me.
The smell and taste of bananas and peanut butter was in my mouth. Our favorite snack on that summer trip to the coast. Necie and Caro and Teensy and I sitting on the beach eating bananas smeared with peanut butter. The softness of the fruit, its sweetness, the nutty flavor of the peanut butter, the caramel color against the pale flesh of the bananas. The sun on my skin, my toes dug into the sand, the sound of our laughter. Jack’s arrival. Turning cartwheels, climbing up onto his shoulders, wading into the Gulf. My body, agile, in constant motion. Eating when I was hungry, sleeping when I was tired. Being kissed when I wanted. Never having to beg for anything.
I flicked on the light in the room and lit a cigarette. When I opened the window, I could hear the Gulf. Cold air hit my face.
I put out my cigarette and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the heater full blast, stood in front of the mirror, and looked at my body. There was my body. Do not cry. Nobody likes a woman with saddle bags under her eyes. But I could not stop sobbing. My breasts would never be firm again.
I did not feed my babies from my breasts. Nobody but coloreds did. It was the 1950s. I had thought I might breast-feed the twins. I had wanted to breast-feed the twins. But after my baby died, my milk dried up.
I was dried up. I could not go back to that house full of hungry mouths. I would start over in a new town, get myself a newspaper job. People did these things. People started over.
I hugged myself around my waist. I had to hold on to myself. I had to hold my own body so I would not dry up and blow away.
In the bed I kept holding myself. I tried to concentrate on the smell of the salt air coming in through the open window. Empress of the Heavens, I prayed, Gracious Mistress of the Singing People, send me a sign. Otherwise, I will drive my car as far as my money will take me, then I will stop and report the news in an unknown town. Sweet Lady, who carried the Divine, give me a signal.
In my sleep, my twin boy came to me, my precious one, the one I lost, the one whose body was not sturdy enough to stay. Melinda held him in her arms. She wore blue robes and a crown. When she saw me, she smiled, and gently set my baby down. He was only an infant, but he stood by himself.
He took a breath, locked me with his eyes, and began to sing. No accompaniment, just one perfectly pitched, bell-like voice singing a lullaby and love song rolled into one.
When the Deep Purple falls
Over sleepy garden walls,
And the stars begin to flicker in the sky,
Thru the mist of a memory
You wander back to me,
Breathing my name with a sigh.
In the still of the night,
Once again I hold you tight,
Tho’ you’re gone, your love lives on
When moonlight beams.
And as long as my heart will beat
Lover, we’ll always meet
Here in my Deep Purple dreams.
When my boy twin finished his dream song, he stepped forward and raised his arms to me. I bent down and took him in my arms. His gaze was steady and so was mine. I held him to my breast for a moment. I did not need anything else. After a while, he climbed down from my arms and started to walk away. Just before he disappeared, he turned and said, loud and firm, “Wake up!”
I obeyed.
I woke and walked to the window. It was light outside, and my body felt rested and hungry. My itching had stopped. My nipples were party-girl pink.
Picking up the phone, I said, “Good morning, Room Service, how are you? Could you be so kind as to bring me up two poached eggs, biscuits, and a side of bacon? With a tall orange juice and some coffee? Oh—and what day is it?”
“Friday, ma’am.” I had slept for days.
“Wake up,” the baby said.
I picked up my coat off the floor and reached into the pocket. The card read “The Lucky Pawn Shop, Fultonville, Louisiana, Telephone 32427.”
I picked up the phone. “Front desk? Will you get me the long-distance operator? Thank you, Dahlin.”
“This is Vivi Abbott Walker,” I told the pawn man. “Do you still have my diamond ring? I sold it to you for five hundred dollars.”
“Yes, lady, we still got the thing.”
“It’s not a thing. It’s a twenty-four-carat diamond ring that was a gift from my father, the lawyer Taylor Abbott.”
“Look, lady, I don’t wanna know where my merchandise comes from—”
“Oh, shut up, and listen to me. Don’t you part with that ring. I’m coming back to get it.”
“The piece is my property now,” the jerk said. “Someone walks in ready to fork over the right amount, it’s gone.”
“Listen to me. You sell that ring and I’ll swear you stole it from me. I’ll drag your butt into court so fast your head will spin. I know the city judge. I know all the judges. Do you hear me?”
Finally, the jerk said, “I don’t want any trouble. I run a clean operation. When you gonna come get this item?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Maybe the next day. You hold on to it until I get there.”
“I’ll hold it till the end of the day today. That’s it, lady. Don’t waste my time. I got a business to run.” Then he hung up.
I was thirty-one years old. I was still alive. I would take chunks of myself and store them in a root cellar. I would take them out when my children were grown. My twin boy gave me a sign.
Life is short, but wide. Genevieve told me that.
When I get home, I thought, I will give my Givenchy coat to Willetta. It has served its purpose. Willetta deserves a luscious cream cashmere. She deserves a Goddamn mink. When I get home, I’ll tap dance for Sidda and Little Shep and Lulu and Baylor and feed them peanut butter and bananas and we will talk about summer. We will talk about Spring Creek, where the sun beats down so hot on the pine needles that when you step on them they release a fragrance so pungent that you want to pick them up off the earth and tuck them inside your clothes, just to bring that piney smell in closer to yourself. I will roll on the clean rug with my babies and tickle their backs, and I will tell them stories about sailing through raging storms in a boat I built myself. We will play Columbus and journey together to worlds unknown. When I get home, I will dump that Goddamn Ford sedan. By hook or crook, I’ll have a new Thunderbird. When I get home, I will hug my four babies. I will hug the man I have married. I will do my best to give thanks for gifts, strangely, beautifully, painfully wrapped.
26
To say that Sidda was startled by the sight of the three Ya-Yas pulling into the drive of the Quinault Lodge in a teal-colored Chrysler LeBaron convertible would be an understatement. She had just stepped out of the front door of the lodge, where she’d been on the phone with her Jungian analyst in New York. Having recounted several mysterious dreams, having analyzed her latest feelings about marriage, her mother, and the frustration of finding no answers, she was hardly prepared to be hit head on with the sights, sounds, and scents of Caro, Teensy, and Necie.
All three women wore sunglasses. Necie and Teensy wore hats; a New Orleans Saints baseball cap sat on top of Caro’s short silver hair. Teensy wore a pair of black linen slacks with a crisp white linen blouse. On her feet she
wore a pair of little Robert Clergerie sandals, which probably cost more than her airfare from Louisiana. Necie was clad in a light-blue-and-white-striped skirt and blouse, looking very Talbot’s. Caro wore khakis and a white shirt—she could have been in a Gap ad.
The backseat of the convertible was loaded with the kind of luggage that one does not normally see at park lodges in the western United States. It was the kind of luggage one associates with Southern women of a certain era who believe that it is their duty to make sure that doormen and porters make a good living, and that it is impossible to arrive in a new place without a pair of shoes to match every possible change of clothes.
For a moment all Sidda could do was stand and stare. Two young male cyclists had already stopped to ask Teensy if she needed any help with the luggage. Necie was already chatting with a young mother carrying an infant in a pack. Caro was examining a rain gauge that was built into a totem pole. Sidda shook her head in amazement as she witnessed the unselfconscious way these women interacted with strangers. She knew that later, when they saw these same people in the lodge, the Ya-Yas would greet them like the oldest of friends.
Stepping toward the car, Sidda lowered her sunglasses.
“Excuse me,” she said, “don’t I know yall from somewhere?”
“Mon Dieu!” Teensy exclaimed. Then, quickly dismissing the two young cyclists, she said, “Pardon me, boys, the reason I’m here is here.”
Then she embraced Sidda with a quick, intense clutch, before releasing her to Necie’s more gentle, lingering embrace. Caro put her hands on Sidda’s shoulders and studied her closely before she gave her a warm hug.
“You’re as beautiful as ever,” Teensy said.
“You’re so thin,” Necie said.
“You look pretty good for someone in the middle of a midlife crisis,” Caro said.
After catching her breath, Sidda said, “I suppose yall were just in the neighborhood?”
“Exactement!” Teensy laughed. “We figured as long as we were out of the house . . .”
“I don’t want to sound rude,” Sidda said, “but what in the world are yall doing here?”
“We are,” Necie explained, reaching into the backseat for a red-and-white ice chest, “here on a matter of Ya-Ya diplomacy.”
“It’s four P.M. Pacific time. Does my mother know where yall are?” Sidda asked.
“More or less,” Teensy said.
“In her heart your mother knows everything,” Caro said.
After checking in, the Ya-Yas walked down the hall of the comfortable, 1920s-era lodge to their room. A baffled-looking teenage boy following behind with their mountains of luggage. Caro had also brought an oxygen tank—in case she needed it. Leaving them to unpack and freshen up, Sidda went downstairs to the bar to get the drinks they had requested.
Patiently, she explained to the woman behind the bar exactly how to make Teensy’s Gin Risqué and Necie’s Betty Moore’s Whiskey Cocktail. Caro’s Glenlivet with a splash was easier.
“I don’t get a lot of requests around here for drinks with preserved kumquats in them,” the bartender said wryly. “These cocktails wouldn’t by any chance be for the three old hot tamales who pulled up in the convertible, would they?”
“How did you ever guess?” Sidda said.
“Are they old movie stars or something?”
“No,” Sidda replied, “they’re Ya-Yas.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fairy godmothers,” Sidda said.
“Oh,” the bartender said, “I always wanted one of those.”
When Sidda delivered their signature drinks, she found Necie and Teensy lying on the bed, their feet propped up on pillows. Caro was standing at the window, looking down on the lawn that sloped to the lake.
“Dinner at your place in an hour and a half?” Teensy asked.
“We provide the entrée, of course,” Necie said.
“Of course,” Sidda said. “But aren’t yall a little tired?”
“A petite nap is all I require,” Teensy said.
Sidda smiled. “I can’t believe yall aren’t more wiped out. I’m always exhausted when I fly across the country.”
“Oh, good heavens,” Necie said. “We didn’t fly in today! We got to Seattle yesterday. Caro got us a suite at the Inn at the Market, and we had the loveliest meal at Campagne.”
“Outside in the courtyard,” Teensy added. “Delicious foie gras.”
“We slept late,” Caro said. “Stopped twice on the way to the Peninsula. Would have stopped four times if I allowed Necie to have her way. Comfortable car.”
“Not exactly the type of car any of us would drive at home,” Teensy said, taking a quick sip of her drink. “But it’ll do for a rental.”
“How are the cocktails?” Sidda asked.
“My Gin Risqué is very rain forest,” Teensy said, gesturing toward the window dramatically, as though to invoke the trees.
“My Scotch is positively part of the ecological web,” Caro added.
Sidda burst out laughing. She had forgotten that of all the secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood the most divine was humor.
Later, after Sidda had returned to the cabin and the Ya-Yas had rested, the ladies bombed up to the cabin in the convertible. Sidda knew they had arrived because no one else in the world would blow the horn quite that madly. The three women climbed out of the car, bearing two bottles of wine they’d bought at the lodge, and the ice chest Sidda had noticed earlier.
“All you need to do is pop this in the oven on 350,” Necie said, lifting a casserole dish from the ice chest.
“What’s in here?” Sidda asked.
“Your mama’s crayfish étouffée, made from crayfish your daddy raised at Pecan Grove, and succotash made from his corn,” Necie explained.
“Mama sent this to me?” Sidda asked.
“Well,” Teensy hedged, “she didn’t exactly say it was for you, but she dropped it off at my house the morning we flew out. There was a note on it that said ‘Seattle.’ ”
With her first bite of crayfish étouffée, Sidda could see her mother in the kitchen at Pecan Grove. She saw Vivi first melting butter in a large cast-iron skillet, then slowly stirring flour into the butter, and cooking the roux until it became a chestnut brown. She smelled the onions, celery, and green peppers as Vivi added them to the roux. She saw the dish change color as Vivi added the crayfish tails, along with fresh parsley, cayenne pepper, and generous shakes of the ever-present Tabasco bottle. With each bite, Sidda tasted her homeland and her mother’s love.
After she paused to brush the tears from her eyes, Sidda said, “So much good seasoning. It makes my eyes water.”
“Right,” Teensy said.
“Tabasco and cayenne can do that,” Necie added.
After dinner, the four of them took a stroll along the lake, heading south along a trail cut out of the rock. Translucent red huckleberries hung like tiny Christmas balls on the nearby bushes, and on the rock face, vine maple leaves were already turning orange. The last rays of the sunset were bouncing off the lake water at the same time a summer moon was rising, cream-colored against a Wedgwood-blue sky. The four women stopped to take it all in.
“Never seen that happen before,” Caro said. “Sunset and moonrise all at once. Must mean something.”
Back at the cabin, as the long Northwest twilight stretched in front of them, Necie pulled a pound of Community French roast coffee out of her bag.
“Anyone for a demitasse?” she asked, before heading to the kitchen to put on a kettle.
As though the Louisiana coffee weren’t enough, when Necie reappeared she bore a plate of tarts. “Petite pecan tart, sweetheart?” she asked as she offered the plate to Sidda.
“My God, Necie,” Sidda said, “where did these come from?”
“I brought them in my carry-on.”
“Mama did not make these too, did she?”
“Oh, no,” Necie said. “I made these. Your mama won’t fool with sweets. That’s why
she still wears an eight and I have to pray my way into a twelve.”
Caro, having examined the collection of CDs, put on Itzhak Perlman playing old standards with Oscar Peterson.
Teensy and Necie sat comfortably on the sofa, Caro took the easy chair. Hueylene had crawled up into Teensy’s lap, where the cocker was content to stare out at Sidda as if to say: See, we should have company more often. Sidda pulled up yet another chair and sat so that she could see all three women.
The strong coffee and the sinful tarts with their heady combination of dark corn syrup, nuts, and powdered sugar produced a happy buzz in Sidda’s body. “These are delicious, but I better only have a tiny bite and a sip. Otherwise, I’ll be up all night.”
“So,” Teensy asked, casual. “Where are you keeping the ‘Secrets’?”
“Beg your pardon?” Sidda asked.
“The ‘Book of Divine Secrets,’ chère. Let’s have a look.”
When Sidda returned from the bedroom with her mother’s scrapbook, the three Ya-Yas stopped their conversation abruptly. Handing over the scrapbook, Sidda watched the women’s reactions closely.
Briefly, the women opened the album and gave it a cursory scan. After a few moments, Teensy spoke. “There’s a lot in this book.”
“There’s a lot that isn’t in that book,” Caro said.
Sidda closed the scrapbook and set it on the coffee table between them.
“Sidda,” Necie said, “Caro told us you had some questions.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, automatically falling back into the manners of her childhood.
“Sidda, please,” Caro said, “let’s eighty-six the ‘yes ma’ams,’ okay, Pal? It’s from another regime.”
“I have no idea where that came from,” Sidda said, laughing nervously.
Teensy looked at Caro, then at Necie, before she picked up her yellow straw bag.
“My God, Teensy,” Sidda said. “Not more Louisiana goodies!”
“Well,” Teensy said, removing a large manila envelope from her bag, “goodies of a sort.”
“Caro said you were asking about the time your mama got sick and went away,” Teensy said.