Alma Mater (2 page)

"Your younger sister remains in the chrysalis. I am not wasting
money on a fat caterpillar who I ,devoutly hope—no, I pray—will emerge as a butterfly. God, I hope she doesn't take after the Catlett
side of the family." She exhaled a plume of heron-blue smoke. "In that
case, she'll stay a fat caterpillar."

"Mom." Vic laughed.

"It's true. Look at your aunt Bunny." R. J.'s sister was younger by
two years and pudgier by fifteen pounds, although not a bad-looking
woman at all.

"Too many potato chips."

'
'Sublimation."

"1 thought you didn't believe in psychology."

"I don't, but I'll use anything to make my point," R. J. said. "She
worries too much about what Don is doing."

Don was Bunny's husband, who possessed a wandering eye. The
rest of him wandered right along with it.

"Maybe if I take her, Mignon will buy some clothes."

R. J. paused, cigarette glowing orange in midair. "We haven't any
money, dear. Your father has lost it all again."

"Oh, Mom. I'm sorry."

"Me, too." She smiled tightly. "Thank God you earn your money.
And you will marry brilliantly." She leaned across the kitchen table.
"Charly Harrison."

"Mother." Vic hated being pushed, although she expected (as did
everyone around her) that Charly Harrison would ask her to marry
him before their senior year was over. And it
would
be a brilliant match.
The Harrisons of Charles City, Virginia, had produced one president
of the United States, and they luxuriated in pots of money. The Harrison money appealed to R. J. far more than their lineage. Her pedigree was equally impressive—minus the president.

R. J., a born-and-bred Virginian, knew the value of bloodlines
and believed, up to a point, that breeding people was no different from
breeding horses. Breed the best to the best and hope for the best.
But money mattered far more than the old Virginia families cared to admit.

If nothing else, Yankees were totally honest in their pursuit of

wealth. And for this lack of subtlety, of course, no Virginian could ever
forwive them.

"Well, naturally, I long for your happiness, for a full and fulfilled
Illy. And for Mignon, too. Marrying well is a step in that direction."
"You didn't," Vic put it bluntly to her mother.

"No. I married for love, and look where it got me." She smiled
olowly, "And I still love your father. He gambles. Oh, it's the stock mnrket, so that makes it somehow acceptable, but I don't see that it's
any different from the boys out at Goswells betting on cocks. At least
cot. kfighting has the prospect of being more exciting than gray little
numbers."

"I have a little money put aside. I could get Mignon some clothes."

"Vic, you're a love, but no. For one thing, she really must lose this
baby fat. I don't care if I have to wrap her in Grandma Catlett's old
house dresses until she drops the tonnage. That ought to give her incentive. In the meantime I shall squander what slender resources are at my disposal on cigarettes and roses. I don't think my garden has ever
looked so thrilling as it does this year."

The sound of footsteps on the stair landing interrupted their
conversation.

Vic got up and opened the door before the caller had time to
knock. "Come on in."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you had company." Chris backed away.
"My esteemed mother. Really, come on in. Mother loves an audi
ence. You'll be new ears for all her stories."

Chris stepped over the threshold, noticing how bare Vic's apart-

ment was. A kitchen table, four chairs. That was all she could see. "Mother, this is Chris Carter. Chris, my mother, R. J. Savedge, the

reigning beauty of Virginia's Southside."

Chris walked over to shake hands with R. J., who, as befitted her
station, did not rise but extended her hand.

"I'm pleased to meet any friend of my daughter's."

"Sit down. It's my turn to give you a Coke." Vic placed a glass filled
with ice cubes in front of Chris. The cold can quickly followed.
"Mother, do you want a refill?"

"No, thank you. But you may clean the ashtray."

Come on, girls. I know how much you eat at your age. I'm famished, and I've learned better than to expect any food here. Which reminds me, dear, you'd best come home this weekend, if you can."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Bring Chris." R. J. paused, casting her eyes over Vic's jeans and
cutoff T-shirt. "You aren't going out like that, are you?"

"Mother, it's fine. We aren't going to church."

R. J. airily called over her shoulder as they descended the stairs, "Daughters were born to break their mothers' hearts."

_T

here's someone just wonderful out there waiting for you. He
might even be on this campus," Vic said.
"Puh-lease," Jinx Baptista said, wrinkling her nose.

Vic wrapped her arm around Jinx's waist as they walked through
the quad. Charly Harrison flanked Vic's right side, his arm around her
waist.

Being Vic's best friend could be a trial for a girl. Jinx bore it as best
she could, having recognized since childhood that all eyes would seize upon Vic first.

"Someone intelligent. He'd have to be intelligent to keep up with you, Jinx," Charly said.

"And well hung." Vic giggled.

Jinx winked at Vic. "Your mother didn't raise you right."

"I'm not listening. I'm too sensitive." Charly's voice mocked
them both.

They were strolling through campus and into town, where shops
festooned in green and yellow welcomed back the students as an influx
of gilded locusts each fall.

Jinx returned to the topic of the absence of men in her life.
"Charly, men don't like intelligent women. I've been thinking about
what you said."

"What did I
say?"

"That a man would have to be intelligent to keep up with me."

"Oh." He stepped between the women to place a hand in the small
of each woman's back as he escorted them across the road safely to the
other side. "Well, he would."

"And I'm saying men don't like intelligent women."

"Jinx, come on." Vic rolled her eyes.

"It's true."

"Vic is intelligent." Charly said this with conviction.

"Oh, bull—you'd love her if she were as dumb as a sack of hammers."
"I would not." A tiny, indignant wrinkle crossed his tanned brow.
"You'd still be sexually attracted to her."

He looked at Jinx. "Probably. But I wouldn't love her. If she didn't
have a brain, I'd get bored eventually."

"For some men, 'eventually' lasts years," Vic teased him.

"You two are scratching for a fight. Come on, women can be just
as superficial about looks as men."

"That's true," Vic agreed with Charly, "but they don't have as much
opportunity to exercise it."

"My mother thinks it's true what they say about women using sex
to get love, and men using love to get sex. I think I agree with her."

"Jinx, since when have you ever agreed with your mother?" Vic
said, punching Jinx on the arm.

"I am now." Jinx returned her attention to Charly. "Do you remem
ber the first time you saw Victoria?"

"Sunken garden behind the Wren Building. I spent the whole next week looking for her. I asked everyone I knew if they knew her or had ever seen her."

"She could have been mentally defective, you wouldn't have
cared." Jinx pretended to
be
horrified at his shallowness.

"Yeah, but once I found her I discovered she was bright and
beautiful."

"Thanks to me. I am responsible for bringing you two together.
You owe your happiness to me."

"Saint." Vic put her arm around Jinx's neck.

"Face it—if Charly and I hadn't had Physiology together, then

who knows? You were waiting for me after class, and then he wanted
to know me." Jinx sighed.

"If you hadn't introduced me, I'd still be out there trying to find
Vic." Charly smiled.

What Jinx wouldn't admit was that when Charly came up to her
before the next class, her heart had skipped a beat. But when he asked about her friend, she knew she was defeated before she'd even had a
chance. She promised to introduce Charly to Vic, and she kept her
promise. Jinx loved Vic, she would always love Vic, but there were
times when it was hard not to resent her.

'Vic, do you remember the first time you saw Charly?"

"Sure, when you introduced us."

"Well?"

"Well, what?" Vic shrugged.

Jinx asked. "Do you remember what you thought?"

Accustomed to male attention, Vic remembered her first meeting
with Charly, but it didn't loom as large in her consciousness as it did in
his. She hoped that didn't show. "I thought he was a nice guy."

"Thank you." Charly smiled.

"Jinx, if you go around trying to find someone, you never will. I
think it kind of sneaks up on you. You'll meet the right person."

"And he'll like intelligent women." Charly winked at Jinx.

He liked Jinx. She was cute, energetic. He had to like her. Jinx and
Vic were inseparable.

They passed the Catholic church, St. Bede's, stopping to ad
mire the large statue of Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mother, in the
middle of the immaculately kept grounds. Across the street, the mon
signor lived in a tidy white house where he kept an eye on St. Bede's
and Mary.

"She always looks so peaceful," Jinx remarked. "Male saints never
look as peaceful as the Blessed Mother."

"Because they're struggling against their own testosterone."

"If Raphael were alive, he'd paint you as the Madonna." Charly
kissed Vic's cheek.

Jinx grimaced. "I'm going to throw up."

"Cynic," Charly said.

"I'll be the godmother to Vic's children. They'll need a cynic in
their lives. That's probably why the BVM looks so peaceful. The kids
are out of the house."

"Your mother, if she heard you . . ."

"She won't unless you tell her." Jinx pinched Vic's arm. "Which re
minds me, what's the plan for the weekend?"

Vic rolled a deep breath. She hadn't yet told Charly that she
needed to go home. He hated it when she missed a football game. In
his defense, he attended all her lacrosse games. Vic and Jinx held the
lacrosse team together each spring.

"Home."

Charly's face fell.

"Dad's lost all our money. Again." She glanced at each of her
friends and then back to the serene BVM. "Mother came by yesterday. She didn't make a big deal about it, but you know it is. Last time he did
this I was in seventh grade, and it was hell."

"Can you pay tuition?" Charly dropped his large hand on her
shoulder, lightly squeezing.

"I did already. That sucked up most of the money I made working
for Uncle Don this summer." She exhaled again, louder this time. "I've
got enough for my books, but I think I need to get a job. No lacrosse."

"Don't say that," Jinx said quickly, her voice carrying a sense of ur
gency. "There's plenty of time before practice starts. We'll think of
something."

"Hey, it's not a funeral. If I can't play lacrosse, I can't. I can't let
Mom and Mignon down."

"There's got to be another way," Jinx said.

"Sell dope?" Vic suggested, raising her eyebrows.

"Mmm, not a good idea."

"Charly, you're so straight." Jinx studied the BVM's impassive,
beatific expression. "I think she'd look fetching in a striped uniform."
"Prisoners wear orange now," Vic corrected her.

"Orange, well, that's bright and cheery." Jinx thought for a moment. "Maybe someone needs a researcher, some professor who lost
his graduate assistant."

"Yeah, but I'm not in graduate school."