“fixed her up” with Patrick just to get some control of her. Patrick, of all the cousins. A horrid idea, though he hadn’t seemed so bad in himself back then.
This is my blood, all these people, Gifford thought. This is my sister, married to her double or triple cousin, Patrick, whatever he is. Well, one thing can be said for sure. Mona is no idiot. Inbred, yes, child of an alcoholic, yes, but except for being rather “petite,” as they said of short girls in the South, she was on every count a winner.
Probably the prettiest of that entire generation of Mayfairs far and wide, and surely the most intelligent and the most reckless and belligerent, though Gifford could not stop loving Mona no matter what Mona did. She had to smile when she thought of Mona firing that gun in the shooting gallery and shouting to her over the earplugs: “Come on, Aunt Gifford, you never know when you might have to use it. Come on, both hands.”
Even Mona’s sexual maturity-this mad idea that she must know many men, which had Gifford frantic-was part of her precocity. And Gifford had to admit, protective though she was, she feared for the men who caught Mona’s attention. Heartless Mona. Something hideous had happened with old Randall for instance, Mona seducing him almost certainly, and then losing interest in the entire venture, but Gifford could get no straight answers out of anyone. Certainly not Randall, who went into an apoplectic fit at the mention of Mona’s name, denying that he would “harm a fly,” let alone a child, et cetera. As if they were going to send him to prison!
And to think the Talamasca with all their scholarship knew nothing about Mona; knew nothing about Ancient Evelyn and Oncle Julien. Knew nothing about the one little girl in this day and age who might be a real witch, no joke.
It gave Gifford a confusing, almost embarrassing, satisfaction to think of it. That the Talamasca did not know any more than the family did why Julien had shot Augustin, or what Julien was about and why he had left so many illegitimate children behind him?
Ah, but most of that Talamasca history had been quite impossible to accept. A ghost was one thing; a spirit that-Ah, it was all too distasteful to Gifford. She had refused to let Ryan circulate the document. It was bad enough that he and Lauren and Randall had read the thing, and that Mona, of all people, Mona had snatched up the file off his desk and read it in its entirety before anyone knew what had happened.
But the thing about Mona was this: she did know reality from fantasy. Alicia didn’t. That’s why she drank. Most Mayfairs didn’t. Ryan, Gifford’s husband, didn’t. In his refusal to believe in anything supernatural or inherently evil, he was as unrealistic as an old voodoo queen who sees spirits everywhere.
But Mona had a mind. Even when she called Gifford last year to announce that she, Mona Mayfair, was no longer a virgin, and that the actual moment of deflowering had been unimportant but the change in her outlook was the most important thing in the world, she had made it a point to add: “I’m taking the pill, Aunt Gifford; and I have an agenda. It has to do with discovery, experience, drinking from the cup, you know, all the things Ancient Evelyn used to say. But I am very health-conscious.”
“Do you know right from wrong, Mona?” Gifford had asked, overwhelmed, and in her deep secret heart even a little envious. Gifford had already begun to cry.
“Yes, I do, Aunt Gifford, and you know I do. And for the record, I’ve made the Honor Roll again. I just cleaned up the house. And I managed to make Mom and Dad both eat dinner before they started their nightly party. Everything is nice and quiet up here. Ancient Evelyn spoke today. She said she wanted to sit on the porch and watch the streetcars pass. So don’t worry. I’ve got everything covered.”
Everything covered! And then there was Mona’s strange admission to Pierce, surely a calculated lie, “Look, I like having them drunk all the time. I mean I wish they were living human beings and all, and that they weren’t drinking themselves right into the grave before my eyes, but hell, I have plenty of freedom. I can’t stand it when meddlesome cousins come over here and start asking me what my bedtime is, or if I’ve done my homework. I walk all over town. Nobody bugs me.”
Pierce had been so amused. Pierce adored Mona, which was a surprising thing, because in general Pierce liked innocent, cheerful people like his cousin and fiancee, Clancy Mayfair.
Mona wasn’t innocent, except in the most serious sense of the word. That is, she didn’t think she was bad, and she didn’t mean to do bad. She was just sort of a…pagan.
And freedom she had all right, for her pagan ways, and the confession of accelerated sexual activity had also been calculated. Within weeks of Mona’s decision to go active, the phone had been ringing off the hook with stories of Mona’s various liaisons. “Do you know that child likes to do it in the cemetery!” Cecilia had cried.
But what could Gifford do? Alicia loathed the very sight of Gifford now. She would not let Gifford in the house, though Gifford went there all the time of course. Ancient Evelyn told no one what she saw or didn’t see.
“I told you all about my boyfriends,” Mona had said. “Don’t choose to worry about this!”
At least Ancient Evelyn did not tell those tales night and day, of how she and Julien had danced together to the music of the Victrola. And it may not have ever reached Mona’s tender ears that her great-grandmother had had an affair with Cousin Stella. After all, not even clever Mr. Lightner had known about that! Not a word in his history about Stella’s ladies!
“That was my grand time,” Ancient Evelyn had told Gifford and Alicia with relish. “We were in Europe, and Stella and I were together in Rome when it happened. I don’t know where Lionel was, and that horrid nurse, she was out with baby Antha. I never experienced such love as with Stella. Stella had been with many women, she told me that night. She couldn’t even count them. She said the love of women was like the creme de la creme. I think it is. I would have done it again, if ever there had been anyone who stole my heart as Stella stole it. I remember when we came back from Europe, we went to the French Quarter together. Stella kept this little place, and we slept in the big bed and then ate oysters and shrimps and drank wine together. Oh, those weeks in Rome had been too brief. Oh…” And on and on it had gone, until they were back to the Victrola again; Julien had given it to her. Stella understood. Stella never asked for it back. It was Mary Beth who had come up to Amelia Street and said, “Give me Julien’s Victrola.” He had been dead six months, and she’d been tearing through his rooms.
“Of course I didn’t give it to her.” Then Ancient Evelyn would take Gifford and Alicia into her room, and crank up the little Victrola. She would play so many old music-hall songs, and then the arias from
“My dear,” she had once said to all of them-Alicia, Gifford and little Mona, who might have been too young then to understand-“sometime or other you must know the soft yielding and precious love of another woman. Don’t be a fool. It’s nothing abnormal. It’s sugar with your coffee. It’s strawberry ice cream. It’s chocolate.”
No wonder Alicia had become what everyone called a perfect slut. She had never known what she was doing. She’d slept with the sailors off the ships, with the army men, with anyone and everyone, until Patrick had swept her off her feet. “Alicia, I’m going to save you.”
Their first night had been one long drunk, until dawn, and then Patrick had announced he was taking Alicia in hand. She was a lost soul, little thing, he would care for her. He got her pregnant with Mona. But those had been the years of champagne and laughter. Now they were just plain drunks; there was nothing left of romance. Except Mona.
Gifford checked her watch-the tiny gold wristwatch that Ancient Evelyn had given her. Yes, less than one hour more of Mardi Gras, and then at the witching hour it would be Ash Wednesday, and she could go home-back to New Orleans.
She’d wait until morning, probably, maybe even noon. Then she’d drive into the city, cheerfully oblivious to the hideous stream of traffic exiting New Orleans in the other direction, and be home by four o’clock. She’d stop in Mobile at St. Cecilia’s to get the ashes on her forehead. Merely thinking of the little church, of her saints, and her angels, comforted her, and allowed her to close her eyes. Ashes to ashes. One hour more of Mardi Gras, and then I can go home.
What had been so scary about Mardi Gras, Ryan had wanted to know.
“That you would all gather there at First Street, just as if Rowan were opening the front door! That’s what was so scary.”
She thought again of that medal. Must go make certain it was in her purse. Later.
“You have to realize what this house means to this family,” Ryan had said to her. Ryan! As if she had no idea growing up as she had only ten blocks away, with Ancient Evelyn reciting history to her daily. “I’m not speaking of this Mayfair Witches tale now. I’m speaking of us, this family!”
She turned her head in against the back of the couch. Oh, if she could only stay in Destin forever. But that wasn’t possible and never would be. Destin was for hiding out, not really living. Destin was just a beach and a house with a fireplace.
