Alma Mater (9 page)

_A

car horn in the distance, five short toots, made Piper bark. The
bug lamps gave off a citronella scent, which the bugs respected
within six inches of the flame. Beyond that range they bit the

bloody crap out of everyone.

Regina and Lisa had gone home after a wrangle with Jinx, who re
fused to accompany them.

R. J., stretched out on a chaise longue, smoking her last Lucky of
the.evening. She swore it was her last. Mignon twirled her new gold
posts. Vic, Chris, and Jinx sat around R. J.

The tooting, closer now, was "shave and a haircut, two bits."
"Bunny's won." R. J. laughed.

Within five minutes, Bunny screeched to a halt, leaping out of her
car. "Yes!" As she skipped over she held aloft her silver cup. "I retired
the trophy. Three years in a row. I knew I could do it."

R. J. got up and gave her a big hug. "A victory drink?"

"I'll fix it." Vic kissed her aunt on the cheek, then she walked inside,
returning
with a gin ricky in a frosted glass.

"Actually, 1 wasn't sure I'd pull it off this year." Bunny, now seated at the end of her sister's longue, reached up for the drink. ''Babs Ren
dell gave me a run for it. But by the sixteenth hole, I knew I had it if I
could make par on the next two. She blew up on fifteen. Tricky, that
fifteen." She gratefully sipped her gin ricky. "Humid tonight."

"Indeed." R. J. stretched out her long legs. "Mignon, give your
Aunt Bunny your chair, please."

"Thank you." Bunny froze before dropping her rear in the chair.
"What have you done!"

"Pierced my ears." Mignon acted nonchalant.

"Orgy!"

"I didn't let her do it."

"Who's the culprit?"
Bunny finally sat down, placing her silver cup
on the table beside her.

"I am." Mignon plopped on Vic's chaise longue. "I made Hojo
do it."

"I will wring that girl's neck," Bunny fumed. "How could she do a

dumb thing like that?" She held up her hand. "Excuse me, silly question."
"Done is done." Vic changed the subject back to Aunt Bunny.

"What did you shoot today?"

"Seventy-one. Not bad."

"Bunny, that's wonderful." R. J. stubbed out her cigarette.

"I win at golf. You win at tennis." She winked at her sister.
"Where's Frank?"

"The boys are staying at Heron Sound."

"I'd like to play that course." She held her glass to her forehead. "I
wouldn't trust those men any farther than I could throw a lit cigarette,
Frank excepted. The last time they hiked off, Ted Baptista bought a
Porsche. Said he just had to have it." She looked at Jinx, who shrugged.
"And Randy Goswell got caught with his pants down, literally, and
Arnold Burgess had to protect him from his wife. She happened to drop by, which means she knows her man very well."

"I think we're better off not knowing them so well," R. J. mused.

"Well, mine is still at the club. He came over after work to help
with the party. Jinx, before I forget, your brothers did a good job on
the back scoreboard. Boo is almost as big as Teddy," Bunny rambled
on, happy in her victory, happy in the company. "—Tommy Rendell made a little toast at the banquet that Babs might be runner-up for the cup but she was champion of his heart. Just made me want to gag."

"Another gin ricky?" Vic asked.

"No, I have to drive home tonight, although I'm sure if I wanted to

get falling-down drunk, my dear sister would let me sleep it off on the
porch and throw water on me in the morning."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

The corner of Bunny's nicely shaped mouth curved upward. "Oh,
come on, I was still at Sweet Briar the last time I was that drunk." She
peered over the rim of her gin ricky glass. "I was sick for days after, and
vowed I'd never do that again. And I haven't. And I must say to your crcdit, Victoria, I have never seen you drunk."

"Varsity," came the terse reply.

"Speaking of that, your boyfriend was the star today."

"Forgot to listen to the game," Vic said.

"Mmm, mmm, you'd better pay attention to him. Next home game,
you be there. Away games, that's okay, come on home. But the games
at campus, be right in the front row." She looked out at the lights
across the James, a white glow here and there interspersed with a
green or red light slowly moving along the river, a boat gliding in the
stillness. "If you don't take care of that boy, someone else will."

"He can take care of himself." Vic laughed good-naturedly.

'Ha. No man can take care of himself. A woman can live without a
man, a man can't live without a woman." This was said with great con
viction and some humor. "What do you think, Orgy?"

"They're more dependent than we are. I do think that's true."

"Marry him now. Then you can grow together. The longer you
wait, the more set in your ways you become, and it's not as easy." She
exhaled. "Thank God, you found a rich one."

"If you don't want him, I'll take him," Jinx said.

"What will you give me for him?"

"How about my dad's Porsche?"

"Ooh." Vic pretended this was a difficult choice.

"You all are awful, but no one is as awful tonight as Mignon." Aunt
Bunny, beginning to come down after all her excitement, dropped her
head back on the pillow, her hand scratching Piper's back.

"Don't you think I look older?" Mignon cocked her head toward her aunt.

"You look like a fifteen-year-old tart."

"Fig," Vic said, playing off "tart."

"Newton," Jinx added.

"Bar," Chris jumped in.

"Weiners." Mignon feigned superiority.

"Well, my dears, I'd better go home while I can. The energy leaked
right out of me." She sat up and reached for her trophy. "Years from
now your children will look on the huge permanent trophy in the club
and see engraved there
1978, 1979,
1980
—
Beatrice
McKenna."

"What about
1981
and
1982?
There's lots of years left," R. J. said,
happy for her sister.

"I hope so, but you know climbing to the top is easier than staying
there. A whole bunch of ladies are gunning for me."

"Win three more years in a row so you can retire another cup. That
way your fireplace mantel will be balanced, a cup on each end." R. J.
rose to walk her sister over to the car.

"I'm going to bed," Jinx headed for the house.

Mignon leapt onto the vacated longue. "Let's stay up all night and
tell ghost stories."

Vic wanted to sit outside and talk with Chris. She wanted to know
where she went to grade school and junior high school and high school.
What were her favorite books, movies, bands. What she wanted to do with her life after she graduated. She didn't know why she wanted to know these things
_;
she just did. But Mignon would get in the middle of
it and she didn't feel like being cross with her sister.

"You tell ghost stories. I'm going to bed, too." Vic rose.

"Me, too." Chris got up, stretching her arms over her head, which
lifted her breasts up.

Vic couldn't take her eyes off that motion or those beautiful
breasts. She had always thought boys were really stupid about breasts,
focusing on one body part. She wondered why she had never noticed
them before. Or why a graceful neck without an Adam's apple had
never before reminded her of a swan. She felt that she had never truly
seen women. She'd been blind to the beauty of half the human race. It
wasn't that she couldn't pick out a beautiful woman from one less
blessed by nature. It just never registered. She felt a little like she felt
the first time she truly heard Mozart. She'd always thought of him as a kind of tinkling composer and couldn't understand why her parents en-

joyed his work. One day, raking leaves, the radio outside tuned to the
classical station, she heard the utter perfection of sound, the balance, the grace and movement, the sheer untrammeled joy of it all. The roll
of the James was in harmony with Mozart.

She felt that way right now.

Jinx was already in the shower. Mignon, grumbling about how she
could tell really scary stories, scary like beetles crawling out of eye
sockets, hopped up behind Vic and Chris as they walked up the long
stairway with a broad landing overlooking the water.

At the top of the landing Mignon hugged and kissed Vic and then hugged and kissed Chris.

"I'm glad you all were there when I got my ears pierced."

"We weren't—exactly." Vic smiled at her. "And how did you con
vince Hojo to do it?"

Mignon's voice rose airily. "She didn't have anything else to do."
"Uh-huh." Vic shook her head.

"Actually, Mignon, you do look good with earrings." Chris had her
hand on the brass doorknob to her room.

"Really?" Mignon clasped her hands together and then threw them
open, wrapping her arms around Chris's neck. "You're so cool. I'm glad
my sister brought you home."

Chris hugged her back. "Me, too." When Mignon let go of Chris, Chris stood on her tiptoes and kissed Vic on the cheek. "Good night,
thank you for a great day."

The kiss burned on Vic's cheek as she tried to sleep.

_T

he uneven-width flooring, smooth as polished bone, glistened
even in the darkness. Chris was trying to sleep. Mignon's
stream of notes slipped under the door contributed to her rest-

lessness. The memory of the sheen rising off Vic's body contributed the rest.

Unlike Vic, Chris knew she could respond to women's sexual
power. It had occurred to her that she might even be a lesbian, a
thought she ruthlessly shoved back into the recesses of her mind. Lov
ing a woman didn't frighten her
_;
people's response to it did.

She'd seen older women whom she thought to be lesbians. They
didn't appear very happy to her, but if she'd thought about it, how
many happy older people did she know? No one, straight or gay, likes
being shoved aside. Small wonder Edward Wallace tightened his grasp
on his whip hand. Money made him important. Money kept him a player, kept him young.

Chris, only twenty, couldn't fathom what the years could do. She
attributed each line, each frown on a gay face, to the fact that he or she
was gay. Granted, homosexuals and lesbians, despised by a few, hated by
others, tolerated by some, did not expect life to be fair. Pain is pain.

One advantage of being gay, Chris supposed, was that you knew
right off the bat where the pain was coming from and who was delivering
it. Pain sneaked up on straight people more often than not. It accounted