Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells

  Wade put his glass down.

  May cleared her throat.

  Sidda looked at Wade, then at May. “Is this visit a mission or something?”

  “No,” May said quietly. She thought for a moment, then continued. “You know how some people, when they’re together, they somehow make you feel more hopeful? Make you feel like the world is not the insane place it really is?”

  “Like when you see a couple on the dance floor who really know how to waltz,” Wade said. “You want to wait till the music stops, and then run up and congratulate them.”

  May touched Sidda’s hair lightly. “We were all looking forward to the wedding. I mean, we’ve all watched you and Connor fall in love after all these years of us working together.”

  “Yeah,” Wade said. “We feel like you just broke up with us.”

  Sidda reached up to touch May’s hand. “Oh, I’m really sorry. I didn’t even think about you guys. But I haven’t broken up with anybody. I just need some time. Getting married is treacherous.” She stood up and walked to the edge of the deck. “I mean, I don’t see either of you getting married.”

  Wade came over to Sidda and put his arm around her. May did the same. Someone passing on the trail below might have looked up and mistaken them for two sisters and a brother; or, missing certain clues, a ménage à trois.

  “Ah well,” Wade sighed. “I suppose Gertrude Stein, the mother of us all, is right: ‘Nothing is really so very frightening when everything is so very dangerous.’ ”

  For the rest of the afternoon, the three friends did not discuss marriage. They pumped air into three plastic floats and took them down to the lake. The day was a hot one, with brilliant blue skies, all signs of Northwest gray vanished. They laughed and talked and stared up into the sky, occasionally paddling back to the dock, where their cooler and snacks were set up. It was a scene that could have taken place thirty years earlier, on a Southern creek, only the water was colder.

  Toward the end of the day, they gathered back on the deck to grill salmon. As the sun set, they hungrily dove into plates of salmon, pasta, and fresh sourdough bread. May regaled them with stories of her childhood summers on Lake Quinault with her four brothers. Sidda smiled. She liked this woman. Sidda’s professional life had crowded out most of her girlfriends, but as she looked at May, she recognized an equal, a sister, and she was thankful.

  Later, Sidda brought out her mother’s scrapbook.

  “ ‘Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood’!” May exclaimed. “I’d give anything to have thought up that title. How old was Vivi Dahlin when she wrote that?”

  “Young,” Sidda said. “Mama has always been imaginative.”

  “This is fabulous, Sidda!” Wade said, turning the pages of the album. “God, it almost makes up for the fatwa Vivi Dahlin put out on you.”

  All Sidda’s friends referred to her mother as “Vivi Dahlin” because that is what Sidda called her when she told Garnet Parish stories. Feeling both proud and protective of her mother’s book, Sidda announced, “You can each look at one item.”

  Then Sidda blushed when she realized how childish she sounded.

  “What grade are you in right now, little girl?” Wade asked her.

  “Second,” Sidda said. “Maybe third?”

  May opened up to a photo of Vivi, surrounded by Sidda, Little Shep, Lulu, and Baylor on a blanket spread in the yard at Pecan Grove, sometime in the early sixties. Sidda glanced over her shoulder as May studied it silently.

  “I wonder who took this picture,” May said.

  “I really don’t remember,” Sidda said.

  “I wonder where I can get a pair of those sunglasses like your mother is wearing,” Wade said.

  “You were an intense little kid, weren’t you?” May said.

  “Rumor has it,” Sidda said.

  Wade then carefully turned to a page at random and plucked out a clip from The Thornton Town Monitor.

  “Adults Crash Cotillion,” the caption read.

  Wade scanned the piece and roared with laughter.

  “Is this true?” he asked, turning the paper over to examine it. “Or is it one of those made-up newspaper headlines?”

  “I beg your pardon,” Sidda said, taking the clip from him. “This is The Thornton Town Monitor, which has been monitoring every citizen in Cenla for over a hundred years. As God is my witness, Mama and the Ya-Yas and the Ya-Ya husbands crashed the Cotillion ball my junior year in high school. They had been forbidden to come after several years of misbehaving.”

  She paused.

  “Am I boring yall? Mama sent me this album, and I happen to be quite interested in it, but really—”

  “Sidda,” May said, “come on. A lead-in like that? Of course, we’re interested.”

  “Well,” Sidda continued, “it was a Cotillion rule that no alcohol was to be served. Of course, everybody always brought their own little flasks and mixed drinks in the bathroom. But when the Ya-Yas chaperoned, they had a tendency to turn the whole event into their own party. Of course, they refused to hide their own booze, and would pour drinks for any kid who wanted a drink or two or five. They did that for two years, the second year resulting in a little problem with the boys hoisting us girls in our formals up onto their shoulders so we could burst the papier-mâché piñatas. However, once we were up that high off the ground, we found it rather appealing to begin trying to knock other girls off their dates’ shoulders. Oh, it got rowdy, honey. Yards of tulle were torn and taffeta ripped. A few femme fatales knocked to the floor, a couple of chipped teeth. That sort of thing.

  “After that, the Cotillion Committee pointedly did not ask Mama, Teensy, Caro, and Necie and their husbands to chaperone. In fact, they were sort of forbidden to show up. Granted, they had their rules, but these committee women were the worst—Miss Alma Assholes. That’s Ya-Ya-ese for stuffy, officious people.”

  “You need not explain to me, Preciosa,” Wade said. “The International Society of Miss Alma Assholes had a very active chapter in my own hometown of Kansas City. In fact, there was also the brother society: The International Association of Mister Albert Assholes.”

  “Don’t keep us hanging by an eyelash, Miss Walker,” May said. “What happened?”

  “You would have thought people in my hometown would have known better than to forbid the Ya-Yas to do anything. The next year they showed up in their evening gowns, and, with the husbands in dinner jackets, they walked straight past a receiving line of Cotillion Committee members, who were too shocked to stop them. Once they got inside, they commandeered a big table, set up bar, and of course became the center of attention. I was horrified.”

  “Was there a scene?” Wade asked.

  “Not until the police arrived. As they were escorted out, flashbulbs were popping all over the Theodore Hotel ballroom,” Sidda explained. “This was 1969, and in the tone of the times, Mother began referring to her crowd as ‘The Cotillion Eight.’ ”

  “You are making this up,” May said.

  “There are a million stories in the Naked City,” Sidda said. “This is only one.”

  Before Sidda could close the album, Wade leaned down to examine yet another photograph.

  “Ah, the teenage Vivi Dahlin,” Wade said. “And is this your father?”

  As Sidda bent down to study the photograph, she was startled to see a beautiful young man who was playing a fiddle. Lanky and graceful, he was leaning back against a large tree trunk. His eyes were large and dark, and he had the most sensual lips Sidda had ever seen on a man. He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pair of khakis, and the expression on his face was one of happy concentration. To his left was a low branch, the kind that old live oaks in the South are known to grow. On the branch sat Vivi at age sixteen. She wore a white peasant blouse, a full skirt, and sandals. Instead of looking at the fiddle player, her head was tilted to the side and slightly down. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, lost in the music. Whoever had taken the picture had capture
d a very private moment, and Sidda felt as though she should have asked permission to behold the image.

  “No, that’s not my father,” she said, “that’s Jack Whitman. My father has never played the fiddle.”

  “Don’t you think he looks rather like—” Wade said before May interrupted.

  “I don’t know who was behind the camera on this one, but you can tell she loved her subjects,” May said.

  Sidda looked at May, then back at the photo. She longed to breathe herself back in time, to hover invisibly near the young woman in the picture, to hear the fiddle music, to witness up close her mother’s fledgling joy.

  In spite of Sidda’s invitation to spend the night, Wade and May left after dinner, protesting they’d already made reservations at Kalaloch Resort, on the coast. Sidda walked them to May’s vintage convertible Mustang, and the two women hugged.

  “Take care of yourself in the former Czech Republic,” Sidda said.

  “And Greece and Turkey, and wherever else she decides to light,” Wade said.

  “Your mom can’t stay enraged forever, Sid,” May said. “God, I wish she could simply see the play. Keep the door open, girlfriend. As long as you’re both still breathing, there’s a chance.”

  “Thanks, May,” Sidda said.

  “You take care of yourself,” May said. “Fax any brainstorms about The Women—which we did not discuss at all!—to Jeremy. He’ll know where to reach me.”

  Wade hugged Sidda. “Sorry if I was a bitch. I just want all my children to be happy. And Connor McGill is such a stud-muffin—oops! I mean genius designer.”

  “Love you, Wadey,” Sidda said.

  “Love you, Siddkins,” Wade said.

  Sidda was surprised how sad she was to see them leave. She was relieved to still have Hueylene for companionship. For the first night since she’d arrived, it was warm enough to sleep with the windows flung open, wearing only a T-shirt. She pulled the sheet up as she propped up in bed, eager to open Connor’s envelope.

  He had written her name beautifully, but what she had not noticed earlier was that he’d drawn flowers into the letters of her name. In his exquisite hand, he had drawn sweet peas to form the “d’s” in her name. A soul from another age. When she opened the envelope, she found a seed catalog from a firm that identified itself as “The Sweet Pea Specialists, Birdbrook, Halstead, Essex.” A corner of one page was turned down, and when Sidda opened to that spot, she found the following item circled:

  “LOVEJOY. One of the best Sweet Peas of recent years, strong and unrivaled. A very vigorous grower and sound in constitution; the crowning glory being its colour of salmon pink enhanced with a soft orange overlay, giving a clear brightness and purity. This is a colour that will neither bleach nor scorch in the hottest of sunshine. It is tiptop for both garden and exhibition, giving well-balanced flowers on long graceful stems. (Sweetly scented.)”

  Folded into the catalog was a single sheet of drafting paper. On it Connor had written: “Sounds like you.”

  Sidda closed her eyes and leaned back into her pillows, astounded at how aroused she was. Connor knew just how to get to her. She saw the incredible roof garden Connor had cultivated at his loft in Tribeca. She remembered the first time she stepped into his loft. A Sunday morning in February, 1987. A wood stove burning, a handmade quilt hanging on an exposed brick wall. A brunch of fresh oysters and cold beer. The sudden shift in her body that day as she admitted she had never, ever, felt so at home on the island of Manhattan.

  She switched off the lamp and slipped the seed catalog under her pillow. Maybe a giant stalk will grow during the night, and I can climb my way out of indecision. I must, I must figure out what I’m doing.

  But, as she settled into the darkness, her angels lit near her feet. First, they whispered, love your salmon pink and soft orange overlay; let it glow with clear, bright purity. So Sidda touched herself. She touched her blossom until, out of self-love, it swelled and quivered. Then she nodded off.

  13

  May was correct: the person who snapped the photo of Vivi and Jack on that day in 1941 had indeed loved them. Genevieve St. Clair Whitman had captured the image without disturbing the two adolescents. She had snapped it fast and true, and when she advanced the film, she uttered a silent prayer for her son and Vivi Abbott. She did not doubt that the two of them were meant for each other. She had not questioned this since the afternoon she witnessed the two of them sitting in a swing together sometime late in 1938, holding hands, not speaking, swinging in an easy rhythm. She knew her son was born with a well of tenderness that was a curse in his father’s world. Genevieve could not imagine a stronger, more vital girl than Vivi to receive and embrace Jack’s tenderness. Not a woman to second-guess her intuition, Genevieve accepted the fact of Jack and Vivi, and she did not stand in their way.

  Oh, she had to keep an eye out every now and then. With Vivi constantly at the house, as close to Teensy as any sister, Genevieve had developed a graceful chaperoning—a kind of trust coupled with a few well-timed distractions. Both of them were so busy—Jack with basketball and track, Vivi with tennis, cheerleading, and the school paper—that she usually didn’t worry. In her prayers, she thanked the Virgin for granting her son love at such an early age.

  * * *

  Sidda could not know this. As she returned to the photograph on the next evening, she studied the image, transfixed by her mother’s expression. Sidda could not know the autumn afternoon in the early forties on Bayou Saint Jacques, Genevieve’s country. She could not know the pungent aroma of the cochon de lait, or the sight of that pig roasting over the slow fire, or the huge vats of boiling water for the corn. The raw-boned jubilance of Genevieve’s and Jack’s and Teensy’s cousins and cousines and tantes and oncles and all the other Cajuns on that Saturday evening over a half century ago. The crispness in the autumn air. The easy joking. The little girls dancing with their grandfathers, the older girls, dark like Genevieve and Teensy, in their full skirts and peasant tops. The presence of the bayou, the feel of liquid Louisiana land, the language of these people who staged a fais do-do at the mere mention of Genevieve and her two children coming back to visit.

  On these visits to the bayou with the Whitmans, Vivi felt a sense of having escaped, of entering another world. And she was terribly afraid that somehow her joy would be found out and snatched away from her.

  That day on the bayou, Vivi’s head tilted back as Jack kissed her lightly on the neck as they waltzed to “Little Black Eyes.”

  “I will always love you, Vivi,” he said. “There is nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you.”

  The words shot through Vivi’s bones and blood and muscle, and her body relaxed, so that when her feet touched the ground they met the earth differently, as though they had found roots that reached deep down and anchored to something tender and undamaged.

  On that late afternoon in 1941, Vivi believed for the first time: There is more that is right with me than there is wrong with me. Jack loves me. He will always love me. To look at Vivi Abbott spinning and smiling, no one on the bayou would have perceived that she had stumbled into love’s seductive offer of bedrock, or how desperate she was to seize it, or how completely she believed that Jack Whitman himself was her terra firma.

  With Jack’s love, everything Vivi had not been given could now be made up for. Every reflection of herself that was not mirrored in her mother’s eyes, every curious question her father had not asked, every visitation of the belt on her true-blonde skin could be redeemed. Vivi did not think of these promises on that afternoon with her skirt swirling and her hair swinging, but they curled inside her and attached themselves.

  To look at Vivi, it would be difficult to spot the tectonic shift that took place in her that afternoon. But it would render her more vulnerable than a person wants to be. It would create infinitesimal fault lines, perhaps profound enough to be passed on, like brown eyes or a proclivity for mathematics.

  But Siddalee could not
know any of this. She could only study the photo and wonder.

  Putting the scrapbook aside, she took out a piece of paper and wrote Connor a note. It read:

  Connor, unequaled—

  You know I’m no gardener, but the fragrance of those sweet peas wafted into my dreams. I was preparing soil in my sleep last night (something you know I know nothing about), and kept encountering masses of thick, dense roots. Did not (this will come as no surprise) like getting my hands dirty, but found myself bent on disentangling the roots and shaking the soil off them. This would have seemed a chore, but it was actually rather pleasant, because I could smell the sweet peas the whole time.

  How is it you know just how to delight me?

  May and Wade made me laugh. They also made me look at my rather embarrassing tendencies toward bull manure.

  XX

  Sidda

  P.S. My, but you gardeners know how to romance a blossom. Take my breath away, why don’t you?

  14

  The wrinkled page looked like it had been torn out of a comb-bound book. On it was the following entry:

  MISS ALMA ANSELL’S ACADEMY OF

  CHARM AND BEAUTY

  HOW TO BE SMART AND CHARMING COURSE

  WINTER SESSION, 1940

  LESSON 4: DO NOT CRY!

  Tears will do you no good. No one will want you with dark, lifeless, dingy, lusterless, sparkleless eyes in a setting of bags and puffs. Gentlemen prefer eyes brilliant and alive and glowing, without benefit of satchels, grief, and blackness. If you must insist on crying, use a boracic-solution eye bath immediately afterward, then put cotton pads soaked in warm water and the essence of rose petals over the eyes. Next, pat very, very gently a little rich lubricating vitamin cream around the eyes. Then take a warm bath, followed by a nice nap with eye pads soaked in half-and-half witch hazel and ice water. Leave those pads on for twenty minutes, and remember that plenty of sleep is essential and it is vitally important NEVER TO CRY. A girl has enough handicaps in the campaign for love. Do not add to them with tears.