Ya-Yas in Bloom: A Novel

by Rebecca Wells

  Shep had been a chubby, shy little boy with big brown eyes and straw-blond hair. He’d duck hunted with Myrtis’s brothers ever since they were kids, since they were barely tall enough to hold their rifles. Myrtis had thought she knew Shep Walker like the back of her hand, like somebody so familiar, so much a part of your life, that you don’t even notice them. When he announced his engagement to that Vivi Abbott, Myrtis almost fainted. She was at Wednesday-evening prayer meeting when she heard, and she stumbled to the ladies’ room to hide her tears. Vivi, the daughter of Taylor Abbott, hotshot lawyer and breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. Mr. Abbott was part of that set who drank, went to racetracks, gambled, and showed up at fancy parties with beautiful young women they weren’t married to. Taylor Abbott hobnobbed with Standard Oil men and had two daughters who both went to college, back when most families couldn’t afford to send sons to college, let alone waste good money on sending girls away to school.

  Myrtis had watched Shep at Thornton High School, as he grew from a chubby farm boy in overalls to a handsome young man with a black convertible Buick his daddy had bought him. All the girls from Calvary Baptist wanted to go out with Shep. He was such a good-looking, slow-talking boy, and he dated lots of pretty girls. He could have had his pick of any of them, the farm girls, all good steady girls who knew which end of a cow to milk, who knew how to cook and sew and make a home. In fact, Myrtis would not have minded if Shep had asked her out. Oh, she would not have minded one single bit. It was something she dreamed about during most of high school. But it did not happen.

  Back in high school, Shep did not date Vivi Abbott. She ran with a group of rich, wild kids. Town kids. Catholics. Vivi Abbott was a cheerleader that year, and already drinking after football games on those sweet Indian-summer nights with those three girlfriends of hers. Vivi was dating Jack Whitman back then, another sweet boy. Myrtis could never understand why these nice boys would get mixed up with a girl like that. Jack Whitman died young in the war in Europe. He enlisted right after he graduated, went off to fight the Nazis, and never came back. Vivi had been gone, too, for a while. But she had come back to town, far too soon as far as Myrtis was concerned. Sometimes the will of God is hard to understand. Sometimes the good die young while the wicked prosper.

  Myrtis herself would not have been caught dead running around with Vivi and her girlfriends, who called themselves the “Ya-Yas,” for some ungodly reason. Not if they had begged her to come to one of their parties out at Spring Creek. Not if they had gotten down on their fou-fou little rich knees and prayed for Myrtis to become a part of their group. No. If they had even dared to try and include her, Myrtis would have snubbed them big. She had her snubs planned. She had long assorted lists of snubs that she practiced in bed at night. But she never had the chance to use them.

  All of this came rushing at Myrtis as she sped out into traffic, leaving behind the Grand Opening of the Southgate Shopping Center. She was driving fast because her maiden visit to the Singer Sewing Center had been ruined by Vivi Abbott Walker.

  After two years of demolishing farms and leveling groves of old pecan trees and Live Oaks, hauling out rocks, then grading and laying in dirt—after months of advertisements on K-Dixie-BS-TV and much anticipation—the day of the Grand Opening had finally come.

  By the time the shopping center finally opened, downtown Thornton had been simply ruined by the Negroes, as Myrtis well knew. That’s what all the ladies whispered on the front steps of Calvary Baptist: “Shopping has just been ruint by the coloreds. You can’t even buy a new girdle without having them swarm all around you. If the Good Lord would of meant coloreds to shop in the same stores as whites, then He’d of made us all white.” Myrtis was alarmed; she imagined trying to fend off Negro men lurking in Whalen’s department store as she went to try on her new Maidenform.

  All the white people in Central Louisiana had been clamoring for a real shopping center like they had down in Baton Rouge so they could get away from the Negroes and not have to drive all the way downtown. Southgate was the first of its kind in Garnet Parish, and the Grand Opening was a major event in the history of the town. There was a Piggly Wiggly supermarket; a Modest Dry Cleaners (run by Pentecostal women, something that Myrtis could never get over); a J.C. Penney’s; a Walgreen’s; and the new Singer Sewing Center. The Grand Opening was all people could talk about for months. It had even been mentioned by Preacher Becker at Calvary Baptist. He had worked it into a sermon about how holiness could beget prosperity if you were right with Jesus.

  The Singer Sewing Center held Myrtis enthralled. After all, wasn’t she considered one of the best seamstresses in Garnet Parish? Of course, she did not take in sewing. She had a husband, Mr. Harlan Spevey, thank you very much, who had a fine job selling life insurance. She did not need to take in other people’s sewing. Harlan was a fine provider, even if he was raised a Catholic and had a Catholic mother who acted like she was appointed by the Pope himself to rule over Myrtis and her family. Myrtis did not understand how in God’s creation she ended up marrying a Catholic. She sometimes hoped her marriage was a covert missionary calling to bring Harlan into the Baptist faith. The fact that Myrtis herself had been forced by the Catholics, most specifically her Catholic mother-in-law, to take instructions in Catholicism was like sand chafing between her thighs every day and night. She even had to send her perfect children to Catholic schools, where they were forced to put up with the likes of those Catholic snob Walker children. Spoilt rotted brats. Oh, Myrtis loved her Catholic husband. It was not Harlan who did the pushing; it was his mother. And Harlan was not a man to say no to his mother. But in her heart Myrtis would always be a Baptist. Even if they crammed her full of the Body and Blood of Christ, she would remain true. The only thing she and Harlan ever really argued about was when his mother heard that Myrtis continued to sneak off to Calvary for prayer meetings and covered dish potlucks and what-have-you. Myrtis did her best to hide it, but Harlan’s mother saw and knew all. You can take the girl out of Calvary, Myrtis told herself, but you can’t take Calvary out of the girl.

  As for sewing, it was her special God-given talent, something that put her above all other women, Catholic and otherwise. One of her many favorite scripture quotes was: “They which are gorgeously appareled and live delicately are in kings’ courts.” It was Myrtis’s firm belief that the garments she made were gorgeous apparel. She also believed that she lived delicately. Unlike some people she knew.

  She made everything she wore, plus all of Harlan’s suits. Mind you, a person could count on one hand the number of ladies in Garnet Parish who could make a man’s suit. Arguing to the point of red-faced rage, she tried to talk the nuns at Divine Compassion into letting her make her children’s school uniforms, but no—the Catholics had a uniform supplier, and she and Harlan were obliged to pay a fortune to them. Each time the children went up a size, this galled her worse and worse. She made up for this by sewing the most special, the most original outfits for each one of her children whenever they were not forced to wear the Vatican’s factory-made uniforms. Relatives and friends had been given everything from coats to hats made by Myrtis, and she took no small amount of pride in it. What if Harlan’s mother had not worn the garden dress that Myrtis had made for her? What if it was the same as a slap in the face? Myrtis was not going to let that bother her. It was so Catholic, is what it was, and Myrtis was not going to let it ruffle her feathers. Even if it had occurred eight and a half years ago.

  Hadn’t Myrtis won every 4-H blue ribbon from the time she was eight until she was eighteen? Back before Shep fell under Vivi Abbott’s spell, he was showing prize heifers at 4-H shows, and the two of them would talk when Myrtis strolled by his stall to admire the livestock. Oh, she could have sewn for Shep Walker. Why, right this very moment, Myrtis was wearing one of her homemade creations. A green and white seersucker shirtwaist dress, with white piping on the short sleeves. She made the belt herself, along with a little bikini scarf to match. She imagined she looked like a
Jantzen ad, so jauntily was that scarf placed over her pale brown hair.

  This was one of the reasons Divine Compassion made her so nervous. Not one of those Catholics, it seemed to Myrtis, wore anything but storebought clothes. Myrtis always preferred to be with people who wore homemade clothes.

  The second Myrtis opened the front door of the Singer Sewing Center and inhaled the scent of all those dyes, all that fabric, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. Vivi Abbott and her crowd could buy their clothes at Whalen’s, but give Myrtis a sewing machine, and she’d mow them down with her talent. Oh, she gloried over the counters filled with bolts of every imaginable fabric. Your plaids and florals; your new synthetic blends and cotton piques! Myrtis worshipped at the altar of notions, the racks of zippers, and the new pattern books—drawers upon drawers of the newest patterns, difficult patterns with fat envelopes of tissue paper, chock full of directions that only the most accomplished seamstresses could follow. And the salesladies, well, they could have gone to college in sewing. They probably did, they knew so much. Myrtis had never met ladies who knew more about interfacing.

  Now she wouldn’t have to be alone anymore in her love for the Zig-Zag stitch. She had found a home. Maybe it would help her not feel so empty inside. Ever since she’d married and given up her full membership at Calvary Baptist, had given up teaching her Sunday school class, she had not felt quite right. And when she snuck out to prayer meetings after promising Harlan she wouldn’t, she felt guilty. Like an alcoholic sneaking out to a bar. In fact, one time during a particularly heated argument during Advent, when Harlan’s mother had heard about Myrtis’s help creating the outdoor crèche at Calvary, Harlan’s mother called her a “Baptistaholic.” Myrtis would never forgive her for that. She nursed that grievance with a pleasure so deep and private that it resembled how most people feel about their sexual fantasies.

  One of the few things that comforted her was that she knew that Shep Walker had married a Catholic too, and had gone through Catholic instruction. But Shep stopped short of letting the Vatican lock him in the Catholic penitentiary. She’d heard Shep Walker had drawn the line when it came to telling his sins to another man, which meant he never made his first Confession, which meant he never got to partake of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Myrtis herself took Communion. Everybody looked at you; you had to. But the most she ever said in Confession to the strange man behind the incense-smelling screen were things like “I spoke rudely to a friend” or “I did not do my best at cooking this week.” Myrtis figured that was enough for them.

  If only she could talk to Shep Walker, they might find they had still had something in common, like they used to in 4-H. Like when they, along with a small contingent of other Garnet Parish 4-Hers, rode a school bus up to the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport. Myrtis showed her sewing, and Shep Walker showed the Brahma bull he had raised. But now Vivi Abbott Walker stood between them, and Vivi radiated a force that seemed big as the Catholic Church itself in all its prideful glory.

  How jubilant Myrtis was, after three hours in the Singer Sewing Center on Grand Opening day! Who needed pecan trees when you could have a Negro-free shopping center with a shrine to sewing? That’s right: it should have been called the Singer Sewing Shrine. But no, that was too much like something Vivi and her crowd would say, so Myrtis clamped her mouth shut and gave a tight little grin. She would never let anyone know how happy this place made her. It was hers; she would keep it all to herself.

  She was in such a good mood, and she was determined that no one would ruin it. She had registered to win the new Touch & Sew Machine they were giving away. She had introduced herself to the manager of the store. She had bought two new patterns for summer swimsuit cover-ups. Such items like she was planning to make would cost twelve to fifteen dollars at J.C. Penney’s.

  Myrtis walked out onto the expansive blacktop parking lot of the new shopping center, smiling because she was so sensible and thrifty. She smiled because she would soon drive back over to her mother’s house and show her mama the new patterns and material. She would sit across from her mother in the cool light green kitchen with the shades partly pulled to block the sun. Her mother would praise her for being such a smart homemaker. They would have an afternoon cup of coffee together as they did every day, and then she would go home and start her own family’s supper.

  Myrtis raised her hands to her eyes and tried to block out the glare from the sun. The sun was still hot and bright, even though it was late in the afternoon. She looked out over the parking lot at the crowd gathered at the far end of the lot.

  “Oh, that’s right, they have that elephant here for the Grand Opening,” she said to herself. The elephant had been advertised for three weeks before the Grand Opening. Pictures of the elephant with her trainer were on the front page of the Thornton Town Monitor. The children had been talking about it for weeks. Myrtis had adamantly opposed the elephant rides as soon as she heard about them. “Elephant rides!” she had said to her mama one afternoon over coffee. “Now have you ever heard of such foolishness, I ask you?”

  Now she watched as the huge lumbering gray animal bobbed up and down. The heat from the blacktop sent ripples up into the summer air, so the head and trunk of the animal seemed to float back and forth like a hula girl on the back dashboard of a car. The elephant was decorated with a colorful headdress full of beads and little mirrors and ribbons. Myrtis found herself walking over toward the crowd in spite of herself.

  As she drew closer, Myrtis could see that it was just as packed and hot and sticky as she’d predicted it would be. Looking over at the elephant, she was convinced that she was right to have forbidden her children to come near the place. The situation was more dangerous than even she had imagined.

  Her husband Harlan had said, “Myrtis, I don’t know, I think it might be sorta, well—out of the ordinary for the children. When else are they gonna have the chance to ride on an elephant’s back?”

  But she had told him not to worry about it. She was in charge of the kids, and it was out of the question that her children should so much as consider riding an elephant. Her sons Ronnie and Tim begged and begged. Her only daughter, Edythe, stood by her side and agreed. “We most certainly will not go ride that elephant. Mother is right: this is not Africa!”

  Myrtis thanked the Good Lord. Hearing Edythe repeat her words let her know she was doing a fine job in raising a young Christian lady. This was especially important because it turned Myrtis’s stomach every time she saw her Edythe climb onto a bus that took her to Divine Compassion, tuition paid compliments of Harlan’s mother. A Catholic school was where a daughter learned to serve the Pope, not the Lord. But she could not fight Harlan’s mother. It was Myrtis’s cross to bear.

  What Myrtis saw now as she approached the crowd caused her to immediately reach into her sensible brown imitation leather handbag (ordered from the back of the Delta Sunday Magazine supplement) and attach a pair of clip-on shades to the front of her pointy blue eyeglasses. She hoped the shades might keep her from being recognized. She did not want anyone from Calvary Baptist to find her here. Not after she had spoken against the elephant ride during a Sunday-school class she snuck into as a guest speaker (something that made her feel like she was a double agent for the Heavenly Father). She could stare from the cover of her clip-on shades, stare—without interruption, without being unladylike—at the scandalous scene before her.

  Not far from the stage that had been set up for the Grand Opening ceremonies, Vivi Abbott Walker had parked her notorious Thunderbird. And there she sat on the hood of the car like the Queen of Sheba, with the car radio blaring. Wearing a pair of pink Catalina short-shorts with a sleeveless cotton shirt tied at the waist and expensive pink sandals dangling from her painted toenails. She leaned back on the hood, a pair of her huge sunglasses covering her eyes, smoking a cigarette and sipping something—Myrtis suspected (correctly) that it was most certainly an alcoholic beverage. Vivi was laughing and talking with several of the te
enage boys who always flocked around her. Acting like she thought she was still at Thornton High School with a twenty-inch waist. Oh, it drove Myrtis crazy to see such a sight. If only she had the nerve to take Vivi Abbott Walker aside and give her a piece of advice about how to act now that she was a mother of four. Now that she was the wife of Shep Walker, who was still the most handsome man—other than her husband, Harlan, of course—in Garnet Parish. It would have only been Christian charity to have a talk with this woman who obviously did not know how to behave. Catholics knew nothing of scripture. Still, Myrtis blamed Vivi for not adorning herself in “modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety.” It might be Good Samaritanish, Myrtis thought, if she could impart just one smidgen of ladylike, God-fearing behavior into Vivi Abbott Walker. One of these days, she would do it. One of these days.

  Vivi’s Thunderbird was the kind of car every teenage boy in Louisiana wanted to own. (Probably teenage girls too, but they never approached Vivi about it.) Teenage boys hung around Vivi, offering to pay hundreds of dollars more than that car was worth new. Then they just stood back and adored Vivi while she flat-out refused their every offer, loving every minute of it. On this hot afternoon, Vivi leaned back across her car in splendor, like the Grand Opening was being held especially in her honor, something she accepted as only her due.