Alma Mater

by Rita Mae Brown

  Mignon slid off Vic, squeezing herself between Chris and her sister as Bunny pulled out into the road. "It was, and you'll never guess what she did."

  "Manners," R. J. said dryly.

  Mignon leaned forward and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Hi, Mom." She kissed Bunny. "Hi, Aunt Bun. Cool wheels. I'll be sixteen in December."

  "Don't start," R. J. warned as Bunny headed back to Surry Crossing. "I could take everyone on field trips if I had this car."

  "That's what worries me." Bunny winked as she looked back in the rearview mirror.

  "Okay. I won't drive anyone under pain of death." She stopped midstream. "Hey, there's Walter Rendell. Slow down, Aunt Bunny. I want him to see me in the Wagoneer."

  "For God's sake." Bunny did, however, slow down.

  Mignon waved and then flopped back to the seat. "You'll never guess what Marjorie Solomon did."

  "I can't wait, Mignon. I am sick with excitement," Vic said in falsetto.

  "You are such a twit." Mignon turned her back on Vic, giving Chris and Jinx her full attention. "Marjorie flashed Buzz Schonfeld."

  The name Schonfeld captured Bunny's attention, although she said nothing.

  "What do you mean 'flashed'?" Vic reached for the Jesus strap as Bunny ran over a pothole.

  Mignon unbuttoned her blouse, reaching in.

  Vic reached around, grabbing her sister's wrists. "Stop. You'll create nausea."

  "I wasn't really going to do it, but she did. She reached right in there, pulled out that puppy, and shook it at Buzz and Teddy."

  "My little brother." Jinx's eyes widened.

  "He didn't do anything. He just happened to be leaving the gym with Buzz. And Marjorie's got a set of bazookas!"

  "Dear, what constitutes a bazooka?" R. J.'s silvery tone floated to the backseat.

  "Mom, like so big if she jumped off a rock, she'd give herself a black eye. Like so big she can hold pencils underneath them. Like so big if she was as tall as Vic and ran into you, you'd be blind. Blinded by an erect nipple."

  "Mignon, that's quite enough." R. J. put her hand to her eyes. Bunny started laughing. "Now, Mignon, honey, tell me more about erect nipples."

  "Bunny, don't encourage her." R. J. was laughing, too.

  "She twists her nipples to make them stand up. No lie! She does it and then walks past the boys. And she has the top of her blouse unbuttoned. Poor Buzz."

  "Poor Buzz?" Bunny fed her.

  "Boner."

  "Mignon!" R. J. was laughing and appalled at the same time. "In his gym shorts. Grossed me out." Mignon made a face. "Oh, sure," Vic teased her. "You probably ran for a camera." She

  squeezed Mignon's biceps.

  Mignon turned around, sitting back properly on the seat. "Oh, yeah, you spent the summer sucking face with Charly Harrison. The summer of your erection."

  "Actually, it would be the summer of his erection," Bunny said dryly. "Mignon, you are vile." Vic crossed her arms over her chest.

  "1 may be vile, but at least I'm not exposing my breasts. And Coach

  had his back turned to Marjorie. I think she needs a breast reduction." "The breast expert." Vic sighed, but she was laughing, too.

  "Yours are perfect." Mignon pursed her lips. "She should copy

  yours. Of course, Jinx's are good, and Chris, I haven't seen you naked

  yet, but—"

  "Mignon, you are quite out of line." R. J. stared at her in the rearview mirror.

  "Oh, Mom, it's not like nobody knows what everybody has. We're all naked in gym class, and some of those poor girls need help. I am going to become a plastic surgeon and get rich, rich, rich."

  "My sister, the boob doctor."

  "I could do worse." Mignon basked in the attention. "Proctology." By now they were all laughing so hard Bunny struggled to stay on the road.

  "I was unaware that you paid so much attention to breasts. Mother, maybe we need to rethink Mignon's direction in life," Vic said.

  "Ha ha." She closed her eyes then opened them. "But the best part was watching Buzz try to hide his you-know and walk at the same time."

  R. J. turned to Bunny. "I don't remember having these conversations when we were her age."

  "We didn't, sweetie. You were much too repressed. In fact, I'm flat-out amazed that you produced those two fine specimens in the backseat. I assume you only did it twice."

  Mignon lurched forward, one hand on Bunny's seat, one on R. J.'s. "Aunt Bunny, was Mom really repressed? Like Episcopalians?"

  "We are Episcopalians." R. J. shook her head.

  "Your mother has remained a proper lady."

  "Gee, we'll have to make up for it." Mignon pinched her mother's earlobes.

  "Chris, I apologize for my unruly child."

  "Mrs. Savedge, she's a one-woman show." Chris smiled.

  "The Gong Show," Vic stated.

  "Laverne and Shirley," Jinx added. "Mignon, if you're on boob patrol, I wonder what Lisa's up to. And for God's sake, don't tell my mother."

  "Lisa's no flasher." Mignon liked Lisa, but knew she had a rebellious streak.

  Bunny turned into the drive, slowed to miss Piper, and then parked the car. Mignon climbed over Vic and ran to embrace the dog.

  "I will never have children. I live in fear of my genes," Vic said. She closed the door after Chris emerged, lightly brushing against her. A delicious chill ran across Vic's stomach.

  "You'll have a house full of them," Bunny predicted. Mignon walked back to them, her arms raised at shoulder level, shaking her bosoms like a stripper, as she sang the stripper's song from the musical Gypsy.

  Jinx called to R. J., "That's it, Mrs. Savedge. Put her on the stage. She can be a stripper."

  "Porno movies," Vic said.

  R. J., walking to the back door, asked, "Victoria, have you seen porno movies?"

  "Yes, Mother." Vic blushed.

  "I can't believe it." R. J. blushed.

  As soon as they entered the house, Mignon zoomed straight for the refrigerator.

  "Well, actually, Mrs. Savedge, a bunch of us rented one. It wasn't just Vic. Kind of a girls' stag party," Jinx explained.

  "I have never seen such a thing." R. J. seemed genuinely surprised. "Oh, I have," Bunny airily admitted. "They lack imagination, but,

  on the other hand, it does beat playing bridge with the girls." "Mignon?" R. J. closed the refrigerator door.

  "I haven't seen one."

  "What a relief. Offer our guests refreshments before you partake of them yourself."

  "Oh, yeah. Sony, Morn." Mignon asked who wanted Cokes or drinks and filled the orders. Every time her mother's back was turned she'd perform the stripper shake.

  Vic whispered to Chris, "If you did that, I'd tear your clothes off right here in the kitchen."

  "You can do it later," Chris whispered back.

  "You're talking about me!" Mignon handed Jinx a tall glass of soda water with a slice of lime.

  "You wish." Chris laughed at her.

  "But you were talking about breasts. My sister is" —Mignon lowered her voice— "the only six-foot-one-inch girl in Surry County. Some of those inches are her boobs."

  "You are so out of control." Vic was ready to swat her.

  "Mignon, since you have so much energy, I'm going to put it to good use." R. J. handed her a pair of gardening gloves. "Weed."

  "Mom, I'm supposed to go to the game tonight."

  R. J. checked the wall clock, a plastic cat whose eyes and tail moved. "One hour of weeding, a shower, then I'll drop you off back at school."

  "I'll help you," Chris volunteered.

  "Now, Chris, you sit here and enjoy yourself." R. J. pulled out a chair at the kitchen table.

  "Thank you, Mrs. Savedge, but I would enjoy weeding the garden. I miss gardening."

  Vic, Chris, and Mignon weeded while Jinx turned over soil with a little claw. She then put down a layer of rich, seal-brown mulch. "Your ears look better," Jinx observed.

  "Thanks," Mignon said. "I twist my pos
ts about a thousand times a day. Thanks again for helping me buy them. You, too, Vic, even if you are hateful mean."

  "So, Mignon, how did you get Hojo to pierce your ears?" Jinx figured there was more to the story than Mignon was telling.

  "Asked her."

  "Short answer from a usually long-winded twerp," Jinx observed.

  "Hojo thinks she is the last word on fashion. Like, you should see the cropped fringe top she wears with painted-on jeans, cowboy boots, and a hat the color of her boots. Paints her fingernails to match. She doesn't always wear a bra either. Wowee."

  "You are obsessed with breasts today." Vic laughed.

  "It's hard not to notice when they're sticking right out at you, you know. I mean, where can you look? Hojo's got a good body, and she knows it."

  "You just walked up to the reception desk and said, 'Pierce my ears'?" Jinx thought sooner or later she'd wheedle the truth out of her.

  "Kind of. I told her I was a social outcast. Every girl in my class has pierced ears and Mom and Dad live in the Dark Ages, like, right after the fall of Rome. It took me a couple of visits because she knew Mom would be less than thrilled, like frosted Antarctica. But I told her it wouldn't last long. Mom is a very forgiving woman, and did she want me to be warped for life by my high-school experiences? Low self-esteem. Forever. Bad men." Mignon shuddered.

  "Since when have you lacked in the self-esteem department?" Vic asked as she battled chickweed.

  "Look who's talking."

  Vic ignored her. Chris stood up, grabbed the wheelbarrow, and rolled it closer as they'd moved away from it, leaving piles of weeds in their wake.

  Jinx listened as a boat under power tooted to one under sail. A vessel under sail always has the right of way.

  "So what do you do when someone flashes you?" Mignon lagged behind the others in weeding.

  "No one has ever flashed me," Vic said. "Come on, Mignon, work harder. You are a lazy ass as well as keeping us abreast of the times."

  "We are so funny." Mignon minced about. "1 know Marjorie Solomon is going to do it again."

  "Don't look," said Jinx, offering sensible advice.

  "Wear sunglasses," suggested Chris, gathering weed piles and tossing them in the wheelbarrow.

  "Yeah. Great idea. I can see everyone, but they don't know I'm looking. That is so cool."

  "Ray-Bans," Jinx said. "Sleek."

  "I'll wear them in the shower in gym class, too. Surrounded by boobs. The really big ones are the worst, and Itsi Giorgianis has hair around her nipples. Can you stand it? I would die! I would shave every night. I would risk cutting off my own nipples."

  "Puh-lease!" Vic threw weeds at her sister.

  "It's just personal hygiene. Aunt Bunny had her upper lip waxed and a bikini wax—oh, ouch—so why can't Itsi get her tits waxed?"

  "Because she knows you want to look at her," Jinx said, laughing. "I do not." Mignon let out a small scream of disgust.

  "It's okay, Mignon. You're my little sister. I love you no matter what." Vic feigned sincerity.

  "Me, too. I have lots of gay friends. You can be my newest gay friend." Jinx reached the end of the rose bed.

  "I would die!" Mignon's voice approached her upper limits. "Bet you wouldn't," Chris teased her.

  "I know you give Charly blow jobs, Vic."

  Vic advanced on Mignon, who threw up her hands. She was no match for her taller, powerful sister. "I do not."

  "I saw you this summer. He had his hands all over you."

  "That doesn't constitute a hummer, Mignon." Jinx sank the spade into the mulch pile.

  "If she jerks him off, she sucks him off."

  "First off, you little asshole, I don't. But this is no way to talk in front of Chris. It's wearing thin, you know."

  Mournfully, Mignon asked, "Hasn't anyone here even given a guy a blow job? I want to know all about it."

  "Ask Hojo," Vic fired back.

  "If she pierced your ears, she'll show you how to do it," Jinx added. "No teeth."

  "Gr0000ss!"

  "You're the one who wants to know about blow jobs," Chris reminded her, cleaning up the debris to her satisfaction.

  "I do. I'm left out. Marjorie has great tits, and everyone knows it. She can get any boy she wants. Lisa has boys all over her. I'm like the slug of the tenth grade."

  "Hey, I'm twenty-two, and I'm not doing anything. Besides, doing it just to do it is really uncool." Jinx was sympathetic.

  "Yeah," Mignon agreed, but with little conviction. "If you did it, though, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"

  "Sure." Jinx laughed.

  "Not me. You can't keep a secret," Vic taunted her.

  "I can. I'm already keeping secrets."

  Later the three college girls drove Mignon down to the high-

  school football game; then they trolled around town in the Impala, top down. With the three of them in the front seat, Vic could drive with her right arm around Chris. Jinx put her left arm around Chris so it looked okay.

  By the time the game was over, Mignon back in the car, Vic's heart was blasting away. She could feel the pounding all over, especially in her crotch. She wondered how men functioned with a hard-on because the sensation she was feeling was pleasurable and painful.

  While Mignon chattered away, Jinx, now in the backseat, rested her head back to stare at the stars. She envied Vic and Chris. She didn't envy them being women together, but she envied that physical connection, that excitement. She worried that she would never find it.

  0

  nce everyone finally crawled into bed, Vic waited for fifteen minutes and then bade Jinx good night. She opened the door quietly to the guest room, whispering, "I thought I'd die. I thought they'd never go to bed." She closed the door behind her, locking it.

  Just then a note slipped under the door between the guest room and Mignon's room. Vic retrieved it. Chris whispered, "She's relentless."

  Vic scribbled, "Get lost!" on the note.

  Chris said, "You can't do that. She'll know you're in here." "Forgot." Vic's eyebrows shot upward.

  "This ought to do it." Chris wrote, on a new sheet of paper, "Going to sleep. See you in the morning."

  Vic shoved it under the door. To be sure, she carefully picked up the chair from behind the small desk and wedged it under the doorknob of the shared door. She switched off the small lamp by the bed and pulled up the covers, feeling the cool, clean sheets.

  "Come here." Chris reached for her, pulling Vic onto her. She wrapped her arms around her neck, kissing her.

  Try as they might, a few muffled moans escaped their lips. Enough to alert Mignon, who put her eye to the keyhole but couldn't see anything because of the dark. She listened intently. Someone was in there with Chris. She opened the door to the hall, tiptoed to the guest-room

  door, peered in the keyhole. There wasn't any more light from that angle.

  Then she walked down the hall, careful not to step on the floorboards that creaked, and opened the door to Vic's bedroom. Jinx was sound asleep. Vic's bed was empty.

  Mignon, at first, was shocked that her sister was in Chris's room. Clearly, they weren't playing bridge. The shock quickly passed, curiosity taking its place. Mignon now had another secret to keep.

  T

  he distinctive tang of fall filled the air; a rich perfume of river, leaves, and soil. Heavy with mist, opaque sunrise filtering through silver, it was a late September morning according to

  the calendar, but fall had arrived overnight. Nature's tempo changed, creatures moved faster, birds' eyes glittered more brightly, crickets sang louder. Even the river shrugged off its massive lethargy, flowing with a quickened pace.

  Jinx, usually loath to rise early, surprised herself by waking at six. Vic, already dressed, smacked her bottom.

  "Bacon." Jinx sniffed.

  "Fall," Vic replied.

  "Mmm." Jinx's feet hit the floor. "When did you get back in?" "Uh, fourish."

  "Must be good."

  "Better than good. R
hapsody."

  Jinx, now in the bathroom, toothbrush smeared with paste, said, "Rhapsody. I'll remember that."