December 16, 1939

Necie- This house is too big, and it has scary sounds too. I had a bad dream, I think it was about Scarlett. I was running through the fog with her. I woke in a sweat and at first I didn't know where I was. The others were all asleep, so I got out of bed and went looking for Ginger. To see if maybe I could wake her up and make her play some cards with me like we always do at Delia's.

It took me forever to find her room. Well, it's not really her own room, but a maid's room that she is sharing. I knocked and when nobody answered, I pushed the door open and saw Ginger lying on a little cot.

And, Necie, she was crying. Ginger was crying.

Necie, I don't think I've ever seen a colored person cry before.

She startled when she saw me, and she said, "Miz Vivi what you want coming in here?"

"I can't sleep, Ginger," I told her. And I sat down on the floor by the cot.

Ginger looked so different than in the daytime. She had on an old flannel gown of Delia's, like the ones Mama uses for dishrags.

"Why are you crying, Ginger?" I asked her.

"I be cryin cause I misses my family."

"You miss Delia?" I asked her.

And she looked at me like I had hit her or something.

"Your grandmother ain't my family," Ginger said. "I got me my husband, and two daughters. They a lot you don't know."

And then she started crying again.

"Stop crying, Ginger," I said. It made me too afraid to see her cry, Necie. She is supposed to be our chaperone. She's not supposed to be crying. She cried like she was choking, like somebody was choking her. I hated seeing her cry.

"Ginger," I said, "we're leaving tomorrow. We'll be back in Thornton before you know it."

She didn't say anything, just kept on crying there all wadded up in the covers.

"Get up, Ginger," I told her. "Let's play cards, like at home. Come on, I want to play cards."

Then she stopped crying and just laid there.

"I want some hot chocolate, Ginger. Will you get up and make me some? You can have some too. I want some hot chocolate like you always make me at home."

And Necie, she looked at me like no colored has ever looked at me in my life, and she said, "Go fix it yourself."

And she went back to crying, and wiping her eyes with the bed sheet.

So I got up and came back here to our room. But everyone's sound asleep. I am so scared, Necie, and I don't know why.

Your Vivi December 16

8 o'clock at night

On the train, we're coming home.

Dear Necie, We are back on the train, and I am worn out. This trip has changed. I hate to tell you how it ended, but I vowed I would tell you everything and so I will.

This morning we woke up and packed all our things and went down to breakfast. The back of my eyes hurt, the way they do when we stay up all night talking when I spend the night at your house. Breakfast was in the dining room, and there was Aunt Louise reading The Atlanta Constitution oohing and aahing over all the pictures, and there was James Junior, the snooty stupe-nagel.

Teensy said, "We really do thank you for letting us stay here and go to all the events, Aunt Louise. Everybody will be so jealous at home!"

And I chimed in and said, "We just can't wait to get back and tell our good friend, Necie."

And Caro thanked her too.

And I started to say something else, and then that little worm James Junior started repeating every word that came out of my mouth!

I said, "Pardon me, Blaine, but what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to learn to talk like a hick before yall leave," he said.

I looked over at Aunt Louise to see how she'd correct him, and she did not say a word. She just took a bite of her biscuit.

I tried to keep talking, but James Junior wouldn't stop. He kept on and on.

And then Ginger came in out of the kitchen. Which surprised me because we had not seen her in the dining room during the entire visit. Necie, she had a cup of hot chocolate on a tray. She had made it just for me. She was walking over to where I was sitting, and I was just about to thank her.

And that is when James Junior opened his trap.

"Nigger," he said, "who told you you could walk your black Louisiana ass into our dining room? Get on out of here!"

Ginger froze in her tracks, right there on the Persian rug. She didn't move, she just looked straight ahead like she was alone in the room, like none of us were even there. I looked at Aunt Louise to see if she was going to knock that James Junior upside the head, but that woman did nothing but stir her coffee.

I could hear the hot chocolate cup rattle against its saucer while Ginger stood there. All of this happened in an instant. And before I knew it, I picked up my plate and threw it at James Junior. That Limoges china plate with my eggs and grits and bacon and biscuits and fig preserves flew across the table and splattered all over that little two-legged rodent.

"Shut your ugly little snobby mouth, you long-nosed weenie-faced mama's boy!" I screamed. "Didn't your mother teach you good manners?!"

And for a split second before Ginger got out of the room, I thought I saw her look at me and wink, but I'm not sure if it really happened or if I imagined it.

Nobody could believe it. Aunt Louise was screaming, and the other maid came in and James Junior started crying. He actually started crying, Necie. It's not like the plate cut him or anything. I mean he wasn't bleeding or anything.

Then Aunt Louise snatched me up from my seat and shook me so hard I thought my teeth were going to fall out of my mouth and shoot across the floor like someone just threw a hand of jacks. And Necie, the way she shook me, I could tell that she had always wanted to shake me like that, that she had just been waiting to do it ever since she laid eyes on me. She had only been holding back because she was in the Junior League.

Then she caught herself and let me go. "You are never welcome in this house again, Viviane Abbott! Nor in any of the homes of my friends here in Atlanta!! After all that I have done for the three of you! I have done my best to expose you all to the way civilized people live. All because my brother asked me to. All because Teensy is being culturally crippled by that tasteless Genevieve! I have bent over backwards trying to work with you little bumpkins so you would not be the laughingstock of Atlanta. Well, I wash my hands! Go back to your tacky little hick town and grow up without a shred of gentility or breeding. The four of you are a quartet of embarrassments! Aimee, I'm wiring your father that I am done with you! You and your little heathen pack of hussies."

"We are not hussies, Aunt Lou," Teensy said. "We're Ya-Yas." Teensy said it with such piss and vinegar that Caro started applauding.

Aunt Louise acted like she hadn't even heard Teensy, and said, "I told you: my name is Louise."

Your name is asshole, is what I thought. But I didn't say it because I was her guest.

Aunt Louise had William take us to the station early, just to get us out of her house. Well, Necie, I cried and cried. I felt so bad. Caro and Teensy just held me and held me. As we pulled out of the depot, we were so upset, and when we looked out at Atlanta, all we kept seeing was the way it looked with those dying Confederate soldiers stretched out for miles, and I kept thinking how tired and hungry Scarlett was and how she just wanted her mother. I cried and cried until something came into my mind: Necie, I am like Miss Mitchell who they kicked off the Junior League roster because of her Indian love dance. And I started thinking, Well, maybe Miss Mitchell knew exactly what she was doing when she danced that dance. Maybe she wanted to be X-ed out of the club so she could be free to go and write the greatest book of all time.

Yes, I have decided that I am like Scarlett and I am like Miss Mitchell. None of us like pale-faced, mealy-mouthed ninnies, and if that bothers the Junior League, well, that is just too bad.

Love,

Vivian (remember: Drop the "e"!)

Later

12:07 in the morning

Necie-oh, We are rolling through the state of Alabama. I went back to the colored car to see what Ginger was doing, and bring her a Coca-Cola. And do you know she was having the time of her life. She was back there smoking cigarettes and chewing gum and nipping on a bottle that was being passed around four or five other coloreds while they played cards. She was laughing and laughing, and when she saw me, she smiled and said, "We goin home, baby chile! Ain't that good news?"

"It's real good news," I said, and handed her the Coca-Cola.

"Thank you, baby," she said, and took a sip of the Coke and then a swig off the bottle.

"Ginger," I said, "you know a lady doesn't smoke and drink and chew gum with strangers."

And Ginger looked at the others, and they all started to laugh like they were old friends.

"Miz Vivi," she told me, "Old Ginger ain't got to worry about being no lady. That yo' problem, baby. That yo' problem."

Necie, I have had enough traveling. I can't wait to get home. I love you. We all love you. We are lonesome for you. Tonight Caro said you were a little like Melanie. Well, I don't think that's true, but all I have to say is that I love you, like Scarlett realized she loved Melanie right as Melanie lay in the bed there dying. You are our blood sister, remember, and blood sisters can never really go away from each other, no matter how lonesome train whistles sound in the night air.

Love forever and ever,

Vivi

11.

Sidda carefully folded the letters and slipped them back into their Ziploc bag. As she stood up from the easy chair, she felt disoriented, the way one feels upon emerging from a movie theater in the middle of a sunny day. As she looked around the cabin, with its comfortable furniture, Northwest touches, and photographs on the walls, everything seemed suddenly alien. A wave of homesickness swept over her like she hadn't experienced in years. She bent down to Hueylene, who was lying on the sofa, and rubbed the dog's belly. Hueylene moaned and rolled over, wanting more. Sidda moaned in response to Hueylene's sounds, then rubbed the dog on the ears. How was it that this cocker remained so perpetually cheerful? So willing to love and be loved?

"Come on, Buddy," Sidda said. "Let's go for a walk."

They walked into the forest, thick and old. It was only four in the afternoon, but the day was so overcast it felt like twilight. Sidda marveled that some of the logs she passed by had actually toppled to the forest floor several centuries ago.

She paused at one of the National Park Service signs. It read: Very little light reaches the forest floor in the deep temperate rain forest. The only way young seedlings can survive until they reach the light of the upper canopy is to grow on the nutrient-rich decaying logs. These logs are called nurse logs.

People can be nurse logs, too, she thought. Rich, generous, deeply well-mannered.

After her walk, Sidda stepped into the Quinault Mercantile, the general store that served the area. She was surprised to discover that they had a rental videotape of Gone With the Wind.

As she pulled cash from the pocket of her jacket, the fellow at the cash register said, "You carry any videos at all, then you got to have old Scarlett and Rhett. Even the Japanese want to see them."

Back at the cabin, Sidda laid a fire in the fireplace. With rain falling outside, a bowl of popcorn, and a Diet Coke on the table in front of her, she leaned forward from her spot on the sofa, and, with the remote control held tightly in her hand, screened Gone With the Wind.

As she watched, she rewound the tape again and again, playing certain scenes over and over. She anticipated certain moments and fast forwarded to them, pausing the tape to analyze dialogue, lighting, pacing, scenery. Then, rewinding, she studied the buildup. From there, she'd rewind to find certain touches, details she thought she might have missed; she'd turn off the volume during certain scenes just to observe the visuals.

By the time she was done, almost six hours had passed. Her hand was cramped from her vise grip on the remote control. She flicked off the TV, stretched, and let Hueylene out. Glancing at her watch, Sidda wondered how it could possibly have grown so late. She thought about Connor, and pictured his body the way it looked when he was asleep. Does he turn in his sleep, she wondered, like I do, here alone, ready to spoon, belly to back?

She lifted Hueylene up onto the sofa with her and the two of them lay staring at the dying fire. Although this was the first time she'd seen Gone With the Wind in years, it was as if she had been watching the film every day of her life in some hidden screening room of her own.

Sidda remembered how as a teenager she used to worry constantly whether the boy she was in love with at the time was a Rhett or an Ashley. If he was an Ashley, she'd want a Rhett. If he was a Rhett, she'd long for an Ashley. Every girl she met she'd subject to a "Scarlett/Melanie" rating. If the girl weighed in as a Melanie, she was to be pitied. If the meter leaned toward Scarlett, the girl wasn't to be trusted.