Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells

  Sidda studied every detail. Who had taken this picture? What was happening just outside the frame? What happened the moment before this image had been captured?

  Setting the magnifying glass aside for a moment, Sidda relaxed her eyes so that the photo was only vaguely in focus. An afternoon of iced tea and idleness. Those Ya-Yas aren’t going anywhere. They’re lying low on the side porch shaded by live oaks. The Germans are about to reach Stalingrad, and the gas chambers are heating up, but the Ya-Yas are still in high school, and the life of the porch surrounds them. They are lazy together. This is comfort. This is joy. Just look at these four. Not one wears a watch. This porch time is not planned. Not penciled into a DayRunner.

  Those porch girls had no idea they were going to sprawl on that couch until the weight of their adolescent bodies sank down into the pillows. They have no idea when they will get up off that couch. They have no plans for what will happen next. They only know their bodies touching as they try to keep cool. They only know that the coolest spot they can find is in front of that rotary fan.

  I want to lay up like that, to float unstructured, without amhition or anxiety. I want to inhabit my life like a porch.

  People took porches and porch time for granted back then. Everybody had porches; they were nothing special. An outdoor room halfway between the world of the street and the world of the home. If the porch wrapped around the house as the Abbotts’ did, there were different worlds on the front, side, and back porch. If you were laid up on the side porch the way the Ya-Yas were in the picture, you were private, comfortably cloistered. The side porch—that’s where the Ya-Yas went if their hair was in pin curls, when they didn’t want to wave and chat to passersby. This is where they sighed, this is where they dreamed. This is where they lay for hours, contemplating their navels, sweating, dozing, swatting flies, trading secrets there on the porch in a hot, humid girl soup. And in the evening when the sun went down, the fireflies would light up over by the camellias, and that little nimbus of light would lull the Ya-Yas even deeper into porch reveries. Reveries that would linger in their bodies even as they aged.

  When people encountered them years later with babies on their hips; or, still later, with hands shaking from some deep-six sadness nobody could name, there was an aura about them. You could not put your finger on it, but you knew these women shared secret lagoons of knowledge. Secret codes and lore and lingo stretching back into that fluid time before air conditioning dried up the rich, heavy humidity that used to hang over the porches of Louisiana, drenching cotton blouses, beads of sweat tickling the skin, slowing people down so the world entered them in an unhurried way. A thick stew of life that seeped into the very blood of people, so that eccentric, languid thoughts simmered inside. Thoughts that would not come again after porches were enclosed, after the climate was controlled, after all windows were shut tight, and the sounds of the neighborhood were drowned out by the noise of the television set.

  Viz’tin. That’s what the Ya-Yas called their impromptu get-togethers when Sidda was a girl. The four Walker kids crammed into the T-Bird with Vivi, bombing into town to Caro’s or Teensy’s or Necie’s, pulling into the driveway, madly blowing the horn, shouting out, “Yall better be home!” Then a batch of Bloody Marys appeared, and cream cheese with Pickapeppa and crackers, a gallon of lemonade and Oreos for the kids, Sarah Vaughan on the stereo, and a party. No planning, no calls in advance.

  On such outings, Sidda might dress up in one of the Ya-Yas’ trousseau peignoirs and let Vivi coach her in reckless, delicious Isadora Duncan—inspired interpretive dancing. Waving a yardstick magic wand with a tinfoil star, Sidda might gyrate wildly across whomever’s porch they happened to be on. What heaven it was when Vivi’s light shined on her! Afternoon would pass into evening and evening into night, and before you knew it, the day was gone, and Vivi and the kids were weaving their way back home to Pecan Grove, windows rolled down to a cool breeze.

  “Ain’t we got fun, Little Buddies?!” she’d call out to the kids.

  And they’d call back, “Oh yes, Mama, we do got fun!”

  Sidda picked the magnifying glass back up and studied her mother’s eyes in the photograph. When did things go bad? What created the paradox of Vivi full of light, Vivi full of dark?

  For every such scene of magic, there were an equal number of terrifying cocktail hours when Vivi’s bourbon and branch water took her far away from her children, although she might never leave the house.

  On those evenings, when Vivi stepped out of her bedroom to freshen her drink, she would say, “Get away from me; I cannot stand to look at you.”

  Sidda learned to stay on the ball, she learned to walk the tightrope. She perfected the ability to walk into a room and instantly divine each person’s mood, need, desire. She developed the capacity to take the temperature of a scene, a character, a conversation, a single gesture, and to gauge just what was needed and when and how much. Vivi swung wide in her waltzes with angels, in her jousting with demons, and her daughter learned to choreograph drama from these fluctuations. Her daughter learned the subtle, wobbly, inspired emotional patois that a good theater director needs to speak fluently in her art.

  But Sidda was tired of being vigilant, alert, sharp. She longed for porch friendship, for the sticky, hot sensation of familiar female legs thrown over hers in companionship. She pined for the girlness of it all, the unplanned, improvisational laziness. She wanted to soak the words “time management” out of her lexicon. She wanted to hand over, to yield, to let herself float down into the uncharted beautiful fertile musky swamp of life, where creativity and eroticism and deep intelligence dwell.

  As Sidda set down the magnifying glass and closed the book of “Divine Secrets,” something caught her eye. An adult and an adolescent eagle took off from the uppermost perch of an old cedar near the cabin. As the adult swept from her spot in the tree, her wings beat so loudly it almost sounded amplified. When Sidda heard the clamor, her head tilted to one side. Those eagles, like angels, don’t distinguish between work and play. To them, it is all one and the same.

  10

  From May’s cabin Sidda struck out in the rain along the lake trail then deep into the rain forest, where the canopy of trees was so thick she could not feel the rain. The darkness and quietness both comforted her and frightened her. She felt like a child might feel in a dim, silent cathedral.

  When she arrived at the Quinault post office, she found a postal worker behind the counter watching soap operas on a tiny television. The woman glanced up at Sidda.

  “You general delivery?” she asked.

  “Yes, Sidda Walker, please. Anything for me?”

  Trying not to take her eyes off the TV, the woman reached over to a shelf and pulled down a small package.

  “From Louisiana,” the postal worker said. “Certified.”

  “Goody-goody!” Sidda said, then felt slightly embarrassed.

  “Forest Service says we got sun coming this week,” the postal worker said as she handed the package to Sidda.

  Sidda said, “That would be lovely, wouldn’t it?”

  “One thing you got enough of in a rain forest, and that’s moisture.”

  “Oh, well,” Sidda said, turning to the door. “Makes for smooth complexions.”

  “That’s what I tell my girlfriends,” the woman said.

  This comment struck Sidda, and she turned back to look at the woman once more before leaving. My girlfriends. Said so casually. Sidda almost felt a twinge of envy.

  Standing under the covered walkway in front of the little post office, Sidda examined the package. A certified package from Mrs. George E. Ogden, or as she was better known to Sidda: Necie. Sidda wanted to rip the package open right away, but decided to wait until she was back at the cabin. She tucked it under her Gore-Tex parka, and walked back to the cabin.

  As soon as she’d entered the cabin and removed her wet parka, Sidda opened the package. She had not expected to hear from any of the Ya-Yas. Not one of
them had contacted her since The New York Times piece had come out.

  Written on engraved stationery, blue with a gold rim, with Necie’s monogram on the top, was the following letter:

  August 16, 1993

  Dear Siddalee,

  I am sending you all my best wishes for your upcoming wedding—whenever it takes place. You just take your time, Honey. I’m just so sorry yall aren’t going to tie the knot down here, so I can see you and meet your Mr. Right—and see your dress and all.

  Many congratulations on your big theater hit! I am so sorry George and I couldn’t get up to see it. Frank and his wife and the other Petites Ya-Yas who saw it just raved—and they loved seeing you. Even though I couldn’t come, I want you to know that my brood reported back. I am so proud, Sidda. I always knew you had greatness.

  Honey, I personally think it is marvelous that you are even interested in our lives as Ya-Yas. I told Liza, Joannie, and Rose, and they all thought it was quaint. My daughters have very little interest in the past, but then they did not choose a life in the theater either. They all send kisses, by the way. Malissa said again how much she loved seeing you last year when she flew to New York with Stephen for that convention. I swear, he is one of the nicest husbands she has ever had.

  I hope the Ya-Ya-rabilia your mama sent is helpful.

  The New York Times upset your mother terribly. I’m sure you know that. Newspapers have exaggerated since the beginning of time, but still that’s no excuse.

  Your mother gave me full permission to send you anything I thought you might be interested in, so I’m sending you some of her letters that I’ve saved.

  I have started a novena to St. Francis Patrizi, Patron Saint of Reconciliation, for you and your mama, Siddalee. We all love you, Honey, and are praying for you all the time.

  Hugs and Kisses,

  Necie

  P.S. I swore to your mama that I would make you promise to return these letters to her when you return the scrapbook. I know you’ll take good care of them.

  Necie’s letters were in a Ziploc bag, and as Sidda opened it, she gave a little prayer that her intentions be true. She didn’t pray that they be pure—that was asking too much.

  Handwritten in Vivi’s girlish hand, on sheets of unlined writing paper, was the following account:

  December 12, 1939

  11:15 in the morning

  On the Southern Crescent, heading to Atlanta

  Dear Necie,

  Gosh, Sugar-Roo, you can’t imagine how much we miss you! I’m not kidding either. The Ya-Yas just aren’t the same without you along. You asked me to write you about every little thing, and that is just what I’m going to do. I’ll save everything and we can paste it into my Divine Secrets album when we get home! Even though your mama wouldn’t let you come because she thinks Ginger isn’t a proper chaperone, I am going to make you feel like you are right here with us. We are all mad at your mama. After all, we are thirteen years old. Juliet Capulet was only fourteen, for heaven’s sake. And Ginger is so too a real chaperone, even though she is a maid.

  Oh, I love being on a train, girl! When we pulled out from Thornton waving to you, I was so sad to leave you behind.

  Once the Southern Crescent got going, oh, it was just wonderful! You just feel like you can go anywhere when you’re on a train. Like Thornton isn’t the only place anymore but just one of a whole lot of towns all over the world. This is my first time on a train without Mama or Papa, and I look at everything. At the backs of the houses and the ladies out there hanging clothes on the line, and the little bitty towns we pass. You just wonder and wonder what the people are doing in those places. I’d like to get off the train at one of these little old stops and just go into the town and tell them I was somebody else and try out living a whole other life! You could be anybody you wanted and no one would ever know.

  Honey, we have four seats all to ourselves facing each other. You were the sweetest thing in the world to make us these cookies. We have got two shoe boxes of fried chicken and biscuits that Ginger made. There is a whole car just for colored people, and that’s where Ginger is. She was worried as can be that she had to leave us. She even tried to talk the porter into letting her stay because we are her responsibility, but he told her, “I wish I could, but it be against the law, and the boss would have my hide.” Then Ginger said, “Yeah, well, Miz Delia gon have my hide if anything happen to these here white girls.”

  I have never gone on a trip with a colored person, so I didn’t know they had a separate car so they wouldn’t break the law. Anyway, that is where Ginger is, so we are on our own! It’s like we don’t even have any kind of chaperone at all.

  You should see people look at Ginger. They can’t believe a colored woman with red hair, just like everybody in Thornton.

  Let me tell you, sweet patootie, we have got a deluxe compartment. It has two pull-down berths, which make four beds altogether, and that is what breaks our hearts because there is an empty bunk which would have been yours, Countess Singing Cloud. Tonight before we go to sleep, we are going to fold down the covers and pretend you are there.

  Teensy brought the latest Modern Screen with her, so we’re reading all about Gone With the Wind. Miss Yankee Vivien Leigh’s picture is all over it, which just breaks our hearts. We have still not forgiven them for not casting Tallulah. Vivien Leigh is not only not a Southerner, she isn’t even an American!

  Oh, all those hats! They have pictures of Scarlett’s outfits and hats in Modern Screen, and it is enough to make you wet your pants just waiting to see them for real on the screen. We are so so so lucky to go to the premiere!

  Teensy’s Aunt Louise and Uncle James in Atlanta are just rich as sin. He was a friend of Hoover’s, and he just about owns the Coca-Cola Bottling Company! In Atlanta, he just runs the show! Teensy’s father asked her to have us up there.

  My secret dream is to meet Margaret Mitchell. Don’t tell anybody, but it is my plan to get her autograph at the ball. I will just slip away and find her and tell her how much I love her book and ask for her autograph. What do you think of that?

  Countess, I have to go now because Duchess and Princess Jaybird want me to play cards with them. They all say kiss kiss kiss and we love you to death and miss you every single minute.

  I’ll write you again later today.

  XXXXX Viviane

  Tingling with excitement, Sidda put down the letter and walked into the big room. She picked up the scrapbook and began to search through it. She felt sure she’d seen something about Atlanta somewhere among her mother’s souvenirs. She flipped through page after page until she found what she was looking for. It was a clipping from The Atlanta Journal dated December 15, 1939. The headline read: “Junior League’s Ball By Far Most Brilliant in History of Atlanta.”

  The article read:

  Social brilliance without compare in Atlanta’s romantic history wrote a glorious chapter of accomplishment for the Junior League’s Gone With the Wind costume ball at City Auditorium Thursday night. New highs were recorded for elegance of setting, quality of program, and importance of those in attendance. It was an epochal occasion from any standpoint—one not remotely approximated by anything that had ever happened before.

  Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia De Havilland, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard, and dozens of governors, capitalists, socialites from Maine to California, and magnates whose genius has created a mighty industry in motion pictures, statesmen, and writers and actors, all richly garbed, were serenaded with spirituals by a group of Negroes in plantation costume from the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Fifty members of the Junior League then promenaded through the curtain one by one, each attired in a gorgeous party frock of Scarlett O’Hara’s day.

  The piece went on from there, but Sidda’s eye was drawn to a paragraph further on in the article. It was circled and had an arrow pointed to it. In the margin were the handwritten words “Guess who?”

  The circled paragraph read:

  Dancing on a floor
with around 3,000 other people, the feminine guests found their hoop skirts were apt to be up in the back or out on the side. One young girl in a navy bengaline and green taffeta hooped skirt getting up to dance tried to pass in front of a couple in the dress circle, and her skirt, much to her confusion, went entirely over the head of the person sitting in the seat in front of her.

  Sidda laughed out loud. Hungrily, she went back to her mother’s letters.

  Later

  11 o’clock at night

  In our berth!

  Necie-o,

  I am in my top berth with Caro and Teensy up here with me. The curtains are open and we can see fields passing by with moonlight shining down on them. We have on our nightgowns and we’ve got your cookies right up here with us. And as I promised, we folded down the covers on your bed just like you were going to lay your sweet little head on the pillow. Oh, Necie, I wish you were here! You should be here.

  You won’t believe what happened only about a half hour ago! We were singing and getting loud, but no louder than usual, and then out of nowhere there was a knock on our door! We didn’t know who in the world it was and we had on our nightgowns already, and we started giggling and then Caro whispered that it was Clark Gable. And we started rolling around on the bunk kissing the pillows, moaning, “Rhett, oh, Rhett!” And then the knock came again and we just almost wet our pants. So Caro jumped down from the bunk and cracked open the door and said, “What do you want?” And me and Teensy were leaning down, peeking, and we saw the conductor. Oh now! I thought he is going to tell us we’re making too much noise! But all he said was, “Just checking to see if you young ladies are doing all right. Your father asked me to keep an eye out for you.” And we all told him we were doing just fine. But then Teensy said, “Do you think we could please get some cold milk to go with our cookies?” You know Teensy, she will ask for anything, anywhere. And the conductor told us he’d see what he could do.