Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (37 page)

“And why in the world not?” Mama said. “You’ve done it countless times before.”

“Shep done come in here two days ago,” he said, “and told me I can give you all the gas and service you want, but I can’t give you no more cash.”

For a minute I thought Mama was going to hit the man. She bit on her bottom lip and looked out the window for a second.

Then she turned back to Lyle Johnson and acted like she had just discovered he was actually Paul Newman.

“Oh, Lyle,” she said, “be a big sweetheart and just do it for me. I’d be ever so grateful.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Shep said just gas, no cash.”

Mama started to leave. Her face was red and I thought she might start crying. She didn’t though. She turned back around, and in one of the deepest voices I’d ever heard her use, she said: “Listen to me, Lyle: I need five Goddamn dollars right this instant. I need it for my daughter.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I take my orders from Shep. He’s the one that pays the bills.”

I could see my mother’s humiliation. It mixed with my own embarrassment and disappointment. I wanted to kick Lyle Johnson for the way he treated her. And I wanted to yell at my mother because she didn’t have cash in her pocket like my daddy.

We stepped out of Lyle’s office and went and stood by the T-Bird.

“I guess we have to give up,” I said.

Mama looked at me and squinted her eyes as she
watched a white Galaxy sedan pull up to a gas pump. “Don’t let me ever hear you utter those words again,” she said.

She took my hand and walked me over to the Galaxy.

“Good evening,” Mama said to the lady.

“Evening,” the lady said.

The woman was rather large, and she was wearing a man’s workshirt that was raveled where the sleeves had been cut off. Her dashboard was crammed with matchbooks, a fly swatter, and a bunch of candy wrappers.

“I’ve got a proposition for you, Dahlin,” Mama said.

The lady gave Mama a look. “Look, hon,” she said, “you’re not a kook, are you?”

“Absolutely not!” Mama said, laughing. “Listen, you’re paying with cash, right?”

“That’s right.”

“How much gas are you planning to buy?”

“Four dollars’ worth,” the woman said, and reached into her shirt pocket.

“Tell you what,” Mama said. “Let me put five dollars’ worth on my husband’s charge account and you pay me the cash. What do you say?”

The woman looked at us for a moment, then said, “Well, I don’t see what harm that can do.”

“You are an angel from God,” Mama said.

“I don’t know about that,” the woman said.

Mama made Lyle Johnson himself pump the gas. When she signed for the woman’s gasoline, she said, “Lyle, I’m looking forward to the day when you have to ask
me
for a favor.”

Mama winked at me, and I winked back. Then we climbed back into the T-Bird with our cash money and sped back to Lawanda.

“Monsieur Elephant Keeper!” Mama said. “We have returned! With cash on the barrel head!”

The man laughed. “How much you got?”

“Four big ones,” Mama said, squeezing my hand to let me know she was bargaining.

“Forget it,” the man said.

“Make it four and a half,” she said.

“Four and a half,” I repeated.

The man smiled at her. My mother smiled back.

“Six,” the man said.

“Highway robbery!” Mama said, and started to walk away.

“Oh, all right,” the man said. “Five and a half.”

“You got yourself a deal, Mister!” Mama said.

Mama and I climbed onto Lawanda’s magnificent back and greeted the animal. “Good evening, Lovely Lawanda,” Mama said. “You’re more splendid than ever.”

“Good evening, Magnificent One, oh Lovely Lawanda,” I said. “Thank you for waiting for us.”

My arms circled around my mother’s waist, and in the pink-orange light of a summer twilight we set out across the parking lot. The elephant keeper walked beside us, a pole in his hand. Soft evening light shone on my mother’s freckled skin, and on Lawanda’s flat gray hide, with its thousand wrinkles. As Lawanda lumbered in her slow, undulating walk, it felt like soft cushions were tied to her basketball feet, so quiet and soft was each step. For an animal that massive to move so gracefully seemed miraculous. She had the power to destroy us with a flick of her trunk. Instead, she let us climb on her beautiful, tired back and ride.

“Siddalee,” Mama said, “close your eyes, just for a minute.” Then, in her most magical high-priestess-European-queen-gypsy-fortune-teller voice, Mama began to speak.

“Lawanda, oh Magnificent One, spirit Siddalee and Vivi Walker away from this hot blacktop parking lot! Return us to the untamed green jungle from whence we came!

“Are you ready?” Mama asked. “Are you willing?”

“Yes, Mama! I’m ready. I’m willing!”

“Then open your eyes! Open your eyes and witness Vivi and Sidda of the High and Mighty Tribe of Ya-Yas as they commence their great escape on the back of Royal Lawanda!

“Great Scott! Look at this! Lawanda is jumping the ditch! She’s out of the parking lot! Oh, my God! I don’t believe it! We’re crossing the highway. Sidda, look at them, will you?! Just look at those people jumping out of their cars to watch! Oh, they’ve never seen the likes of an elephant breaking free with Ya-Ya royalty on her back!

“We’re too much for them! Wave to the people, Dahlin, wave like the Queen and Princess we are.

“Oh yes! We’re on the Lawandamobile! Listen to her roar and trumpet! Hold on now! Look at her! We’re charging across the highway, faster than a plane! Past the beauty shop, past Hampton’s Funeral Home, where the sight of us stops all the mourning! Past
The Thornton Daily Monitor,
which has never touched news this big! Past Father’s old law offices, past Whalen’s Department Store, where there’s nothing we want to buy anymore! Past the River Street Café, and—

“Oh! Oh, Buddy! Hold on to your hat! We’re climbing up the side of the levee now! Look! The sky is fading to blue-purple and filling with stars. There’s the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. There’s Pegasus! Reach up, Buddy, scoop down some stars with your hand! Up here on Lawanda’s back, we can touch the heavens!

“Into the Garnet River, now, the red flowing river. What a mighty swimmer! Feel how Lawanda submerges, breathing through her snorkel trunk! Even alligators know better than to mess with Lawanda! She could stay down longer, but she surfaces so we can breathe.

“Oh, no! Look up on the levee! It’s the jealous pissants, gunning for us. They’ve got their spears, they’ve got their guns! Well, they will not take our ivory trunks, they will not take our broken hearts! We are not trinkets to put in a jewelry box! Oh, no, they’ll tell their children’s children about us, Buddy! The mother and daughter team that got away!

“Come on, sweet, strong Lawanda, you can do it! Just a few more feet to the other side of the river where safety awaits. Ah, yes, yes. We made it. Now we can rest. Now rest, Sweet Big One, that’s it, rest, eat all you want.

“My darling daughter, we’re finally here! Home in the wild, green verdant jungle. Do you
feel
the velvet air?! Do you
feel
it on our skin? Do you smell the bananas and ancient trees? Do you hear the rare birds and millions of monkeys? Do you see them swinging from tree to tree? This is our true home, no need for air conditioning, no call for cash, just walking barefoot all year long. Where the trees and animals know our names and we know theirs. Yesssss! Say it, Sidda! Say it with me: ‘Yesssss!’ There is nothing, anywhere, to be afraid of! Lawanda loves us and
we are not afraid!”

Sidda paused for a moment. She looked down at the key, which still lay in her hand.

“All we had done was circle that puny shopping-center parking lot, but when that ride was over, I was a different little girl.

“We climbed back into the T-bird and drove down Jefferson Street in the early darkness. I looked at my mother behind the wheel, barefoot and humming. Without taking her eyes off the road, she reached out her hand and placed it on top of mine. Her skin was cool and soft. We drove past the familiar landmarks we saw every day. But the world outside our car seemed charged with mystery, all new and unknown.”

Sidda glanced at the key one last time.
It’s life, Sidda. You just climb on the beast and ride.

Then she crossed to Connor, took his champagne jelly glass out of his hand and sat down in his lap, facing him. She began to kiss him all over, while at the same time unfastening the jumper she’d put on after their swim.

They began their lovemaking on the deck, with Sidda still straddling Connor. Then they moved to the bedroom. When she closed her eyes, Sidda felt like they were a satellite tumbling in wide-open space, and this did not scare her. For once it did not scare her to open to this man, to herself, to the endless wide universe she had no control over. This time, when their pleasure joined, Sidda did not weep. She laughed out loud, the way a child does when she is deeply and completely delighted.

After Connor fell asleep, Sidda got out of bed. She walked into the big room and chose a cassette tape from her collection of music. Bringing a small boombox out onto the deck, she poured herself the last of the champagne. She slipped in the home-edited tape she’d made of Aaron Neville singing “Ave Maria” over and over. She stood naked in the moonlight.

My mother and I are like elephants, she thought. In the stillness of night, out of sight, out of acoustic range, separated by barren, dry savannas, my mother has been sending me messages. In my dry season, when I froze in the face of love, my mother did not abandon me. My mother is not a
stage character to be fathomed from fragments, and I am not a scrawny, anxious child waiting for her perfect love. We are each flawed, and in search of solace. Mama longed—still longs—to bust free of the hot, dry place where fear keeps her frantic and bourbon keeps her hazy. She still longs to return with me on the back of a graceful beast to the fertile jungle where wild things flourish.

Sidda held the glass of champagne up so she could see the bubbles in the moonlight. My mother is not the Holy Lady, she thought. My mother’s love is not perfect. My mother’s love is good enough. My lover’s love is good enough. Maybe I am good enough.

Twenty minutes or so passed before she spotted a shooting star. Then a meteor shower filled the sky. Sidda stood perfectly still, watching and listening. Hueylene came out to sit at her feet. The sky was so clear, the setting moon so kind. There were no city lights to interfere. The meteor light from so very far away was older than she could even imagine. There was nothing to figure out. There was Sidda’s heart beating. There was the heart of the planet beating. There was enough time. She was not afraid.

30

C
onnor and Sidda sat out on the deck in their shorts and T-shirts after having slept till noon. Van Morrison played on the CD and Hueylene was almost sobbing she was so happy to be eating bits of bacon that Connor snuck her from his plate. He had cooked Sidda’s favorite breakfast: fresh sour-dough French toast with maple syrup.

Pausing for a minute to look at her lover and her dog against the backdrop of the lake and the mountains and the trees, Sidda felt a shiver of happiness. “Thank you, Connor,” she said. “For listening. For loving me.”

He gave her a slow smile, then put a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth. “What’s this Vivi birthday shindig the Sisterhood was talking about?”

“The Sisterhood?” Sidda asked, smiling.

“The Ya-Yas,” Connor said. “If you and your mother are like elephants, then the other three of them are the sister elephants. You know, the ones that tag along and help mothers with the calves.”

“You amaze me.”

“Hey, I watch Public Television. When is Vivi’s birthday?”

“It’s actually in December. But this year they’re celebrating at the end of October because Mama wants an outdoor party when the weather’s still good.”

“Why don’t you return her scrapbook to her in person?”

Sidda put down her fork and stared at Connor.

“Are you nuts? She’s still enraged about
The New York Times.
She’ll kill me on sight.”

“You know,” Connor said, “no one would ever suspect you worked in the theater, Sidda.”

“Am I being melodramatic?” she asked, laughing. “
Moi?
Never.”

“Of course not,” Connor said.

“Of course not,” she said.

“I don’t hear much about your dad,” Connor said, reaching for his cup of latte. “He must be a brave man.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come on,” he said, “marrying a woman as strong as your mother. Finessing his own way through that band of women. What’s the French word for
sisterhood
?
Communauté de soeurs.
”

Sidda helped herself to a slice of cantaloupe. She thought of how much she’d missed her father. “He was never around much. I’ve been so obsessed with my mother I guess I haven’t paid much attention to Daddy.”

“You might want to,” Connor said. “Teensy told me you’ve got his eyelashes.”

“Teensy said that?”

“Yep. Said your mother’s lashes ‘disappeared when she swam.’ She told me that while we were in the lake.”

Sidda shook her head. “God only knows what else they told you when I wasn’t listening.”

“You have no idea,” Connor said.

Unable to resist, Sidda dipped her finger into the remaining maple syrup. Then she put her finger in Connor’s mouth for him to lick it off.

“You know,” she said, “October is my favorite time in the South. There’s nothing like Halloween in the Gret Stet of Loosiana.”

“Necie said she’d cook for me,” Connor said. “Teensy wants to introduce me to Cajun music, and Caro has already
challenged me to a whistling contest. I hear Louisiana calling.”

“October,” Sidda said, thinking out loud. “Harvest time. Not too hot, perfect weather. We’ll be done at the Rep. The American Playhouse project will be under control.”

Connor McGill winked at Sidda. She winked back. She fed Hueylene the last scrap of bacon. Then she stood up, walked to the railing overlooking Lake Quinault, and flung her arms wide into the air.

“Are you listening, Holy Lady?” she called out. “Gods and Goddettes? Angel-gals? Thank you for making Connor McGill and me the same species. Thank you for his kisses sweet as Aaron Neville’s falsetto! Thank you for not knowing, for guessing, for leaping into the dark!”

“I take it that means we’re going to Louisiana together,” Connor said.

“Uh-huh,” Sidda said. “Shots and passport up to date?”

“I like to live dangerously,” he said.