A Wife of Noble Character (15 page)

Vivienne scoffed. “Why are you attacking me for this?”

“All right, stop,” Waverly said. “It's good Vivienne knows, that's all.”

Reis sighed and stood. “I have to get ready for a meeting.” She paused at the door. “I love your hair that way, Viv. You look like a ballerina.”

They watched Reis stride to her luxury sports utility vehicle, her body so trim and fatless that Vivienne momentarily thought Bucky couldn't be blamed. Reis opened the door, painfully sanguine, and in a moment zipped off.

Waverly offered the only words that could possibly have helped. “Want to get pedicures?”

*   *   *

T
OE BEAUTIFUL WAS
packed with women just off work. Fey, the middle-aged Vietnamese woman who ran Toe Beautiful like a stern madam, greeted Vivienne and Waverly.

“You want mani-pedi?” she asked.

“Just pedi,” Vivienne said.

“No mani?” Fey tapped her own bare fingernails. “Ten dollars more for mani.”

“Just pedi,” Vivienne said again.

“Mani-pedi for me,” Waverly said.

“Okay,” Fey said. “Pick a color.” Then she yelled something in Vietnamese and a young Vietnamese woman emerged from the hall. “Go there,” she said to Vivienne and Waverly, and pointed to the only open pedicure chairs. Vinyl thrones, side by side.

Vivienne disobeyed and went to the bathroom first. She tried to cool her feelings by splashing her face with cold water, but it didn't help. She was so mad, and so hurt, and so humiliated, and so all three at once. In the big vibrating chair, she sat in a kind of stunned reverie, feeling her breasts shake beneath her dress. For her color, she chose a deep, dark red.

“Callus remover?” the woman at her feet asked.

Vivienne leaned forward. “Wouldn't it be great if there was a callus remover for people's hearts?”

The young woman looked up and smiled but said nothing. Vivienne repeated herself, louder, catching the attention of the employees. The young woman smiled the same and pretended to laugh. Vivienne realized she didn't understand. “No callus remover,” she said.

“It's not your job to worry whether there are calluses on other people's hearts,” Waverly said.

Fey called out something in Vietnamese, and another woman called back, until the women of Toe Beautiful were sharing an animated conversation in Vietnamese. The woman at Vivienne's feet, who'd smiled meekly at her every word, was now speaking fast and forcefully in what sounded like the chiming of mysterious bells. Vivienne wished she and Waverly could join them. It seemed to her that in their business of providing pleasure that they probably didn't care to give, they were gathered up, bonded close. Vivienne got to have her feet rubbed, but she didn't get to understand that seamless turn from faux-supplicant to woman-among-friends. When Vivienne looked on as if she might understand their secret, they ignored her and said serenely, “Shoulder massage?”

As Waverly paged through a celebrity rag, Vivienne fell under the spell of the footbath. The pleasure soothed her anger, but she kept picturing Reis and Bucky, cuddling and talking. It didn't make sense. She'd been seeing Bucky for three months and was only beginning to feel they'd developed an intimate rapport; how could Reis just happen to be there and connect with him?

Probably because she was a future attorney, she knew how to be convincingly innocent and seductive at the same time. It was near impossible for Vivienne to imagine Bucky turning sensitive and confiding in Reis, unless he was trying to get into Reis's skintight jeans. This possibility called to mind an image much worse, and much more explicit, than the two of them cuddling and talking. But the worst possibility of all was that they'd just clicked, as people do, under the worst circumstances for Vivienne.

“How long did you know?” Vivienne asked.

Waverly folded the magazine on her lap. “Only since today. Reis told me during Pilates.”

“Do you really think they haven't done anything?”

Waverly considered this with a compassionate twinkle in her eyes. “Reis didn't tell me,” she said. “I don't know.”

“So he wants her and not me? And he discovered this only because he had me?”

“Just be glad you hadn't been with him for years. I think this means he's not the guy for you.”

Vivienne mused on this while Waverly evaluated her coral toenails. Accepting that he wasn't the guy for her meant accepting that, to Bucky at least, Reis was preferable. This alone would hurt, but its proximity to her nakedness in a field of mesquite made it sickening. Bucky's sweat and juices were still on her while he and Reis were discussing Scripture. It was horrible.

“You look so mad,” Waverly said.

“I am.”

“Erase it from your mind. It's not worth your energy.” She opened her purse and handed Vivienne a small brown paper bag. “Will you bring this by my parents' house? It's a piece of wedding cake. Clay and I had the final tasting this morning. I don't have time to go by there. Date night.” She smiled.

“Sure,” Vivienne said. Fey came around and gave her a firm tap on her shin. Her toes were done. Time to go.

 

II

Bracken swung open the wide cut-glass door, barefoot in khaki shorts and a maroon Aggies T-shirt, one hand gripping his short glass of Scotch.

“Well, hey, Cally,” he said, settling in against the doorjamb.

Vivienne had never liked standing at Sissy and Bracken's door. It made her feel small. She was much more comfortable inside, looking out, with Sissy and Waverly.

“Just dropping this off,” she said, handing over the bag. “It's a slice of wedding cake.”

He disappeared for a moment, calling to someone in Spanish, and returned empty-handed, wearing loafers. “You want to do me a favor, Cally?”

She hesitated, wanting to decline. But she knew she wouldn't. It was impossible to say no to Bracken. There were men in Houston who would've given up their boots for the chance to do Bracken Blank a favor.

“My car is in the shop,” he said, strolling outside past Vivienne, sniffing the air. “Why don't you take me down there to get it. I just got the call it's ready.” He was already walking to her car. “It idn't far, down on Westheimer,” he said, opening the passenger door for himself and dropping inside.

Traffic was thick, and Bracken was the biggest person who'd ever ridden in her passenger seat, not so much in size as in sheer force of personality. He filled the space with his drawl and Scotch aroma; Vivienne felt choked by it. She unrolled the windows, but then he rolled them back up, blasted the AC, and reclined his seat to a forty-five-degree angle, tucking his free hand behind his head.

“It's been a long time since I spent a lazy afternoon,” he said. “Always think it'll do me good, then I remember I'm not the lazy type. It's 'mportant to keep active, keep the hands busy or the brain thinkin'. Otherwise you'll lose it. Ah, you don't need to worry about that yet, but rigor starts young.”

Vivienne nodded.

“You might be thinking that's funny coming from a guy with a drink in his hand,” he said, holding up his tumbler. “But rigor earns you the right to indulge. Indulgence without rigor is sloth.”

“I agree,” Vivienne said, changing lanes to keep busy.

“I used to play a game with my kid brother called the blinker game,” he said. “We'd try to sync up folks' blinkers on the road. See if anyone's blinker rhythm was the same. Some people got spastic blinkers.”

Vivienne clicked up her blinker and made a right onto a short patch of open road. From the corner of her eye she saw Bracken sipping, nodding his head slightly. If she hadn't been familiar with his swagger, she might have thought he was tipsy. He made her uncomfortable because she was always wondering if he was anything like her father; she sensed they had shared a certain posture that made others listen, a persuasive manner of saying things that made you wish you had it too.

But, then again, Bracken came from heartier stock. He grew up in a cowpoke town in the Panhandle, studied his way into A&M, and earned his wealth through a mash-up of brains, charm, and faith. He had the enthusiasm of a former yell leader and the diligence of a wolf—his success had only made him more ambitious. But it was hard to tell when he was back-patting and when he wasn't. He'd always seemed uninterested in her old family name, claiming he was sick of petroleum the minute he was born. “I've seen too many derricks,” he liked to say, “too many pumps.”

“Just finished that one there,” he said, pointing out the window to a sort of French château with a dirt yard and crates of St. Augustine sod piled in the driveway. “So, tell me, Cally, how's life?”

“Great.”

“Grand,” Bracken said. “What're you doin' with your time?”

“Working at Cotton and Lace,” Vivienne said.

“Cotton and lace?” Bracken said. “Which do you like better?”

“No it's one place, not two. The name is Cotton and Lace.”

“I'm aware,” Bracken said. “I'm asking which do you prefer to wear—cotton or lace?”

Vivienne kept her eyes straight on the road. “Cotton,” she said.

“Personally I like lace. Not for myself, though.” He laughed and sipped on. “You got a fella?”

Vivienne died a little scrambling for a response. “No fella.”

“Well, idn't that an inappropriate question,” he said, and laughed again, a sturdy laugh. Perhaps sensing her discomfort, he batted the air and sniffed. “I'm only bringin' it up because I played a round with Randal Stanley not long back, and we got to talkin' about you.”

So Randal had succeeded in playing golf with Bracken. He probably thought he was king of the hill now. Vivienne sped up and almost made the next light, but the yellow was too close to call. She stopped hard. “I don't know Randal very well,” she said, willing away her fib to him while bracing for it to resurface. No matter how well she tried to cover her ass, it was never enough. And like clockwork:

“He told me somethin' kinda funny,” Bracken said, balancing his half-full tumbler in the dashboard's crevice. He stretched his fingers over his hairy knees and straightened his elbows, pausing until a sufficient anticipatory cloud of shame drifted over Vivienne. “Said you were lookin' at some museums for Waverly's rehearsal dinner a while back.”

Vivienne tugged at a hangnail till it stung. What the hell was she supposed to say, Randal was lying? The thought landed on her shoulder like a butterfly—blame it on Randal.

The light blinked and went green. “Huh?” she said, pressing the gas, cocking her head sweetly. Bracken either wasn't fooled or wasn't expecting this reaction.

He drawled, “You didn't catch me?”

“No, I heard you,” Vivienne said. “I just—” She pressed one hand to her sternum and folded her shoulders inward. “I'm just confused.”

“Confused me too,” Bracken said, raising a sidelong eyebrow. “'Cause sayin' that wouldn't be true. Meaning it would be a lie. And a pretty perplexin' lie, because I can't figure out a motive. Why would Cally lie about something like that?”

Vivienne spoke like a gentle narrator. “He must have misunderstood me. I don't know why he'd say that.”

Bracken reached for his glass and took a drink. “Bullshit, Cally. I want to know why you told such a funny white lie. I haven't shared this information with anyone, because it piqued”—“
picked
,” he said—“my curiosity like it hadn't been piqued in a while. What's Cally up to?”

Suddenly she felt his warm, sandpapery fingertip against her temple, and she barreled her eyes onto the road. She could smell cigar musk in its texture. “What's brewin' in there?” he said, twisting his raised wrist as if uncorking a bottle. She wanted to cry, half from blind fright, half in gratitude to him for calling her out.

“He creeps me out,” she blurted. “He invited me to tour the museum with him, and I needed an excuse to get out of it.”

Bracken dropped his hand and nodded with relish, as if he'd finally answered life's riddle.

“Now I see that,” he said, in a new, avuncular tone. “Sorry I put you on the spot, but it's been biting at me. I'm a sucker for a scoop. Randal idn't subtle, and probably in the extreme with women.” He was musing down into his glass. “And he plays things too deliberate with his pimple-poppin', but he's on his way. I'm telling you that now.” He sipped. “I respect his ambition. It's showy, but it's tough.”

She listened to him as one does without a choice in the matter, wordlessly and with nods, yet she also felt less irritated now that she'd been honest. She'd relinquished something to him, of all people, and it was a relief.

He went on. “Now, I invited him to the wedding. Don't be scared of him. He's a good time, just dudn't have good graces. He'll come around.” He focused on her suddenly with a looser, amused expression. “Are you stuck in the mud?” he asked.

Vivienne forced a smile. “What? No, I'm doing fine.”

“Well, that's grand,” he said. “But the curse of modern youth is choice. When I was growin' up, you didn't have the luxury of choice unless you were willin' to hit the free market and work for it. Kids are interested in plenty, but the question is whether it pays. A lot of you girls didn't include that need in your plans, and a lot still don't have to, but that's how you find yourself stuck in the mud,” he said, pausing. “Am I right?”

It was typical of Bracken to employ patronizing friendliness in masking what really were presumptuous, nosy questions. “I'm not stuck in the mud,” she said.

“Women are havin' to adapt to a new landscape,” he said, ignoring her and indicating the world beyond the car, shifting from large homes with detached four-car garages to manicured townhome communities and, in the coming mile, to expansive commerce. “My feeling is it's the hardest for your generation. There's no tradition anymore, and I lament that. Would you agree?”