The Sisterhood

by Helen Bryan

Together again in their childhood haunt, for a minute it seemed impossible to be discussing such grown-up concerns like weddings and careers. How, both wondered, had they got to this stage of their lives already? Then Menina said, “You haven’t seen this yet. Look! Isn’t it beautiful?” and banished their childhood ghosts. She had twisted her engagement ring—a big diamond flanked by sapphires—inward, saving up for the big moment. Now she twisted it back and fluttered the fingers of her left hand at Becky. The setting sun shone through the dogwood trees into the sunporch, sending little sparkles from the diamond dancing on the wall.

  “Oh Child of Light!” exclaimed Becky, leaning over from her lounger. “It’s amazing! Did Theo choose it or did Mother Bonner point him in the right direction?”

  “Theo chose it. He said sapphires matched my eyes! Isn’t that sweet? But ‘Mother Bonner’—please!” Menina laughed. “Just between us, Mother Machiavelli’s more like it! I had no idea until I got to know her better. Don’t you remember, she was in that Vogue feature last year about women who are ‘Old Southern Money, New Southern Politics and the Power behind the Throne’? That woman is politics all the way.”

  Becky munched sugar cookies. “Why doesn’t she just cut out the middleman and run for office herself?”

  “Oh, you know, she can go all fluffy and talk about politics being a man’s game, but I think she likes the string pulling, fund-raising dinners and stuff. Thanks to her the Bonner family’s got political contacts up the ga-zing. I don’t know whether Theo really has ambitions, anyway. He talks about it, but he’s only just passed the bar exam. He wants to spend a couple of years working at the legal advice center.”

  “The indigent’s friend? And speaking of indigent, are the two of you planning to live on what he makes there? You’ll have to get a job won’t you?”

  “Well it is peanuts, but Pauline took me to lunch after we got engaged at Christmas and explained that Theo’s trust fund would support us. Don’t look at me like that! I have plans, of course I’m going to work! It’s just that it’ll be a help if I don’t have to work full time while I write my scholarship thesis.”

  “A junior college and you practically have to write a master’s dissertation. Sheesh!”

  Menina nodded. “Yeah, it’s harder than I thought it would be when I applied.” Her scholarship had been a big one—with its small classes, well-equipped studios, and high ratio of teachers to students, Holly Hill was expensive—but it had a condition attached that meant few girls applied for it. The scholarship was the gift of an art-loving Holly Hill alumna in the late nineteenth century. She wanted to encourage Holly Hill’s “lady” scholars to contribute to the study of art history without engaging in unseemly competition with men. Recipients signed a pledge to write an original thesis on an original art-related topic of their choice after they graduated—the scholarship included a special grant for travel if further research was necessary. These theses were then privately published by Holly Hill and available to the academic world at large. The stinger was in the penalty clause. If a scholarship recipient failed to deliver her thesis within a year of graduation she had a legal obligation to pay back her scholarship.

  Menina had been so excited about giving her parents the good news about her scholarship she hadn’t mentioned that part and she still hadn’t.

  “Sure focuses your mind,” said Menina, “but once that’s out of the way, I’ll finish my degree at the University of Georgia. Then maybe graduate school. I really like art history, and I’m planning to work in a museum someday. We’ll see. There’ll be a lot to juggle with classes, a part-time job, cooking dinner, all that stuff, but Theo’s pretty busy so I have time. We saw some cute apartments near the campus, in that section of old houses. A lot of Theo’s married fraternity brothers live in the neighborhood, and everyone takes turns to have the others for dinner. Mama’s already copying recipes for this and that for when it’s our turn.”

  Menina didn’t mention that she had come away from her lunch with Pauline with a rather different view of Menina and Theo’s married life. To Menina’s dismay, then irritated astonishment, Pauline had made it clear that Theo was working on building his electable image for the future. As Mrs. Theo Bonner III, Menina would join the Junior League, do volunteer work, and attend charity lunches to network with the wives of prominent businessmen, the kind who made large political contributions. Menina knew it would be waving a red rag at a bull to repeat Pauline’s words to Becky. She would just have to think of a tactful way to stick to her own plans.

  Menina sighed and crunched the ice in her glass. “The hardest part was finding an original topic, but at least now I’ve got one. When they were cleaning out the library at Holly Hill a few months ago, the librarian gave me an old book nobody wanted and I found it in there. It was privately printed back in 1900 and had some portraits by an artist called Tristan Mendoza, painted in Spain in the sixteenth century. The portraits are all women, dressed up to the eyeballs, no low necks or anything, like in those English portraits of royal mistresses that have their bosoms practically in your face. These ladies have rosaries and prayer books, but then while you’re looking at them, they start to look different—well, sort of hot and come-hither like the bosomy ones. Pornographic; it’s hard to explain. None of my teachers had heard of Tristan Mendoza but they saw what I meant, and said the Spanish court was pretty straitlaced at the time—the Christians had just defeated the Moors and the Moors were puritanical in some ways so the Christians had to out-puritan them to prove they were superior. But you want to hear the most interesting thing?”

  “I’m all ears.” Becky sighed.

  “I got the magnifying glass to take a closer look at the reproductions, and under Tristan Mendoza’s signature he drew a bird! A little swallow exactly the same as the swallow on my medal!”

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I wondered, and from the research I’ve done nobody else seems to know. So—original thesis subject Tristan Mendoza and the swallow. If the swallow meant something to Tristan Mendoza, maybe it meant something to my birth parents. I just have to find out. My dad says they must have been Catholics, and believed it had miraculous powers or something.” Menina’s eyes filled with tears like they always did when she thought about her birth family hoping the medal would save her life. She tried not to think how much she wished they could know the wonderful man she was marrying or see her in her wedding dress. She rubbed them away hastily. “And get this, the Prado is the only museum with any of Tristan Mendoza’s work, so I actually have to go to the Prado! The scholarship even pays for it. I’m thinking I should take the old book the nuns gave me to the Prado. It’s pretty old and just sitting in a drawer in my room. They must have an old manuscript department, or if they don’t they’ll know who does.”

  “Madrid!” Becky reached over and they high-fived. “Fabulous! I hope you find out what you want to know. Now, it’s getting dark, I better go; a guy’s supposed to call me about a project that I hope will get me a summer internship at the New York Times.”

  “Oh Becky! I talk too much! Tell me!”

  “OK, remember that local guy, Junior, kind of dumb kid who dropped out of high school, used to work at the gas station and then got the death penalty for killing a couple? Well he’s on death row trying to win an appeal or get a retrial—you know, he had a fuckwit public defender, evidence full of holes, et cetera, miscarriage of justice, and his new lawyer’s keen to get some publicity but till now Junior won’t talk to anybody. But I got in touch with his lawyer and Junior remembered me from when I used to fill up Mama’s car and said since I was the only girl not too snooty to talk to him then he’ll talk to me now. His lawyer’s supposed to call and give me a date to come to the penitentiary.”

  “I bet you haven’t told your mother you’re going to the penitentiary!”

  “Er, no. I’ll surprise her. Gotta hop.”

  They hugged. “Hasta la vista, Child of Light,” called Becky as she disappeared over the fence.<
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  “Becky hasn’t changed,” muttered Sarah-Lynn darkly, closing the door. “What possessed her to stick that thing in her nose? Please tell me she’ll take it out for the wedding. What color dress does she want, the blue or the lavender?”

  “Oh, sorry, Mama, forgot to ask her! We got carried away talking about other stuff. I was telling her about my thesis and—”

  “That thesis again! Honey, it’ll have to wait; there’s a little matter of your wedding dress fitting and we’ve got to decide on a silver pattern and finish the guest list before the invitations can go out.”

  “Later, Mama.” Menina escaped to set the table. She knew she ought to care more about dotted swiss versus tulle, flower arrangements and silver patterns, and all the things that brought joy to her mother’s heart, but she didn’t. The bride thing wasn’t the big deal, the big deal was living with Theo—she couldn’t wait. Aside from the fact they could finally have sex, it would be heaven to wake up together, knowing that she’d see him every evening, too. She hugged herself thinking about it.

  While she knew for a fact that other girls had a flourishing sex life without a scarlet H for harlot appearing on their foreheads, she wasn’t exactly brimming with sexual confidence. Menina had indeed listened to her mother’s warnings about sex before marriage and all that stuff about cows and free milk. And Theo, who could have picked any girl in the world, had picked her. Deep down Menina thought maybe her mother had been right. She had been too terrified of losing him to risk finding out.

  CHAPTER 3

  Laurel Run, Georgia, April 2000

  Menina and Theo hadn’t decided about their honeymoon. They were thinking of a week in Venice, another in Paris—Theo’s choice, not that Menina was complaining, but if they could extend their honeymoon another week it would be fun to go to Madrid together. She could visit the Prado, see the Tristan Mendozas there, and find what other information the Prado had. She was quite excited by the idea and sure Theo would like it.

  Meanwhile she drove her mother crazy by slipping away to the library when she was supposed to be doing some wedding task or other. She could only find one reference book that mentioned Tristan Mendoza, who had been born around 1487 in Andalusia, studied in Italy, and returned to Spain where he was hugely successful until he abruptly abandoned court. It wasn’t because he had died—a later contemporary reference referred to “the great artist Mendoza, now the poor pilgrim and wretched mendicant.”

  The only other bit of information that proved he hadn’t died at court was a signed work from this later period, documented as having cropped up in England before World War II. It was a painting of a woman in a cloak, bearing Mendoza’s signature with the characteristic small bird beneath, and bought at a Sotheby’s auction by a wealthy English collector in London. Unfortunately that painting no longer existed. During the Blitz, a German bomb destroyed the collector’s Mayfair house. After the war, an inventory of the contents of the London house, including the art collection, was found in papers kept at the collector’s country house. The inventory referred to a painting of “an unknown holy woman, a rare, late work of Tristan Mendoza.”

  The reference book suggested there might be more of his work in private Spanish collections if they hadn’t been looted or destroyed in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, but his only known paintings were in the Prado. Menina thought this was pretty convenient, and if the Prado did know something about private collections, they could put her in touch.

  Menina planned to ask Theo about Madrid the following weekend. The Bonners were holding a special dinner party that Theo said was important for them to attend.

  When he came to pick her up that night, she was excited and nervous. Pauline had called to tell her the dinner party included the governor and his wife, an elderly state legislator, and some important and influential campaign contributors. Menina had gone shopping and was feeling glamorous in a new scoop-neck black dress with a sassy ruffled skirt, and Sarah-Lynn’s pearls. Her hair swung over her shoulders, and her engagement ring sparkled on her left hand. She kissed her parents good night and the couple left hand in hand.

  In the car Theo was preoccupied, so to fill the silence Menina chatted about wanting to go to Madrid. He muttered something about being too busy.

  Too busy? For a honeymoon or for Spain? She took a deep breath and reminded herself that her scholarship debt was her problem, not his, that she was the one interested in the swallow, not him. She would be a good sport about it. “Oh. It’s OK. I understand. I’ll manage by myself and go later. The scholarship will cover it.”

  Theo interrupted, “The thing about tonight’s dinner is, we’re both on show.” He took one hand off the steering wheel and put it on her knee. “Things are moving sooner than we expected. Old Tubby Gaines who’s been in the state legislature forever is retiring after one more term—and that’s created an opportunity for me. Tonight they want to discuss precampaign strategy. It depends on whether voters will see me as a solid citizen, not a rich kid. If I get elected, a couple of terms in the state legislature would pave the way for a Senate race in the future. How about that? Exciting, huh? In fact, everything hinges on you tonight.”

  “Me?”

  “You. Because I’m a Bonner it’s easy to discredit my bid for the nomination; they’ll say I’m a young rich guy dabbling in politics. But with a lovely wife and a young family, bingo, I’m John Kennedy. You’re beautiful and smart without being a ballbuster or a pushy career woman. You go to church and, well, you’re such a lady that I could be an ax murderer and you’d make me look good. And with your background, you know, your adoption, being Hispanic, your volunteer work at the Hispanic center, you’ll draw the Hispanic vote. That’s the crucial demographic these days. So brush up your Spanish, honey, and you can translate my campaign speeches.” He gave her knee a squeeze.

  “Mmmm.” Menina looked out the window, feeling deflated. Her own plans had just been swept aside like dust.

  Nevertheless, at dinner Menina did her best. She made polite small talk until dessert, when Theo’s mother steered the conversation toward her female guests and the volunteer activities that filled their free time and offered such wonderful networking opportunities. The women responded with a chorus of offers. One said the symphony fund-raising group could use someone young on their committee. Another offered there was a vacancy on the board of her children’s charity that she was sure would be perfect for Menina. A third insisted Menina should come and talk to her about a museum trust that had been run by old ladies from the same families for too long. When Menina tried to think of a way to refuse politely, Theo’s mother pointedly told Menina, “Women wait years for invitations to joint these very high-profile causes.”

  Menina rebelled. She managed a tight smile and said that she wouldn’t take on any new commitments; she had plenty of commitments of her own between her thesis and finishing college. The governor overheard, raised his eyebrows. Theo scowled at her and shook his head slightly and his mother asked sweetly if Menina’s little projects couldn’t be put on hold. Shouldn’t a wife put her husband’s career first? Menina stabbed her spoon into her peach melba, but was too polite to argue in public.

  On the way home Theo asked why couldn’t she see that the ladies were doing her a favor.

  “Doing you and your mother a favor, you mean! My ‘little projects!’ Please!”

  “Menina, be reasonable. My mother’s going to pull strings so you don’t have to write the damn thesis, because you won’t have time to go running off to Spain or burying yourself in the library. We need to look for a house—my parents will buy it as a wedding present—and you’ll have to decorate it and then entertain. I know my mother’s talked to you about stuff, like the Junior League. And the other thing is, we should start a family soon—maybe not within nine months, people will start counting, but we could have a baby by the end of the first year. Voters want to see a candidate’s family on the campaign posters. It was one thing to mess around with art at college
, but now you need to grow up!” he said irritably. “It’s only a medal, not a divining rod to locate your birth family.”

  Menina couldn’t believe her ears. “Your mother will do what? And start a family? I won’t have a baby just so people will vote for you! I understand what’s important to you, but something’s important to me, too! And…and…for your information, I’ll go to Spain, with or without you!”

  Theo slammed his foot on the accelerator and the sports car skidded and nearly slid off the road, scaring Menina. Maybe she hadn’t thought about the future as much as she should have. His words conjured up a picture very different from the ideas she’d had about living together in a student apartment, having their friends to dinner, telling each other about their interesting days, maybe planning a few more foreign trips before children tied them down. Instead it seemed she’d be up to her ears in ladies’ lunches, home decoration, charities, and children she would probably have to raise all by herself because Theo would be so busy with his important life.

  How could they have such different ideas about their marriage? Maybe she didn’t know Theo as well as she thought she did.

  “Theo?”

  No answer.

  “We need to talk.”

  No answer.

  “It’s not just about a trip or a baby. It’s about us, our lives together, how we get what we both want out of life. It matters.”

  No answer.

  Menina took a deep breath. “The wedding’s picked up steam like a runaway train and we haven’t had time to ourselves since you proposed, but now let’s talk this over calmly.”

  No answer.

  What on earth was going on? She had never seen him taciturn and hostile like this, not the Theo she loved but an angry stranger. It frightened her, enough to blurt out, “If we can’t talk, we should postpone the wedding until we can.”

  Silence.

  She expected Theo would drive past the lake, but at the last minute he braked hard, sending the car into a skid as he turned off the road. He pulled up at the edge of the lake and turned off the engine, still silent. It was a lovely night with a full moon reflected off the water’s surface, and cicadas were singing—a marked contrast to the poisoned atmosphere in the car. Finally Theo let out a big sigh and touched a button to recline their seats slightly. He lowered the armrest so he could put his arm around Menina’s shoulders. Menina felt stiff and miserable.