The Sassy Belles

“Miss Vivi, how long have your ‘meetings’ with Mr. Heart been going on?”

“A couple of years,” Vivi answered.

Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head and I choked on my celery stalk.

“And when you had these, um, meetings…was it always at the Fountain Mist?” Sonny kept a straight face and dove head-on into the questioning.

“No,” answered Vivi. “Sometimes we ‘conferenced’ in his car. And sometimes we had meetings at the Big House since we moved Mama to that fancy retirement center last year.”

“Would you say that the Fountain Mist was the main place for your conferences?” Sonny asked.

“Oh, without a doubt. Room 106 every time.”

Sonny kept writing. “Okay, back to the events that led up to the disappearance of Mr. Heart.”

“Well, I said goodbye to Lewis and hung up the phone. Then I went upstairs and sprayed my entire body with rose water and told Arthur Mama needed me at the center and I’d be back in a jiffy. He said, ‘Okay, Miss Vivi, you tell her I say hello.’ I put the top down on my car and flew to my meetin’ with Lewis. When I got there, Lewis’s red ’72 Corvette was parked outside in the back. He had already gone inside. I pulled in next to him. We always parked in the back ’cause both our cars are a dead giveaway. Anyway, I walked to our room about halfway down the sidewalk. When I got there I stopped for a second to catch my breath and straighten my dress. When I reached for the door handle, I realized it was already open.”

“What time of day was this?” Sonny asked, swigging his Dr Pepper slowly.

“It was at eleven o’clock this mornin’.” Vivi had obviously returned body and spirit to room 106. Her demeanor had changed. The alcohol had subdued her normally frenetic pace.

“Go on. What happened next?” Sonny kept up the questioning.

“Well, my God!” Vivi yelped. “You know what the hell happened next. Dammit, Sonny, just use your imagination!”

“Miss Vivi,” Sonny said, slow and steady, “we have no choice. The details here are important. It could lead us to Lewis.”

“Vivi, remember,” I said, “the details are what will clear all of this up and maybe lead us to what happened to Lewis. That has to be your focus.”

“Okay,” she said. “Lewis was already waitin’ for me in bed. I kicked the door closed and he revealed himself to me. He was deep into a fantasy.”

“What do you mean?” Sonny said.

“He had a gun holster on,” Vivi answered directly.

“He had a gun?” Sonny shot back.

“No, no!” she said. “He had on a holster. He had no gun. But he did have a little surprise for me where the gun goes.”

“What was that?” said Sonny.

“A toy,” Vivi answered, swigging her drink a little faster.

“What kind of toy?” Sonny was dead serious as he continued taking notes.

“A sex toy, you idiot! A ginormous blue penis! We named it Deputy Dick.”

I threw back the rest of my Bloody Mary in one gulp.

“I’ll have a double scotch on the rocks,” Harry announced once he’d flagged down the cute bartender.

“It had fiber optic rainbow lighting,” Vivi explained. “Lewis told me to grab it, so I slipped out of my shoes and pulled up my dress. I had no panties on and my thighs were still moist from workin’ in the rose garden. I began to perspire on my neck and the water rolled around and down under my breasts. I unbuttoned my dress just enough so he could see I had no bra on either.”

Sonny had a bewildered look on his face. He’d asked for the details, but by no means was he expecting a play-by-play account of their sexual escapade. He looked at me helplessly, and I tried to think of a way to get Vivi to shut up without embarrassing her. But before I’d come up with anything, Vivi continued to reveal her dirty little story.

“Lewis looked hungrier than ever. He said, ‘Hey, Red, save a horse, ride a cowboy.’ You know like that song says? So I thought, What the hell. I slung my leg over and sat straddling him with Deputy Dick in my hand. ‘Ride it first,’ he said, so I did. Did you know that with each little movement that damn thing turned a different color?”

“Vivi!” I said with my eyebrows up. There was no time to be polite—I needed to stop her before it got any worse. “Stop! That’s enough. I think that will do. You’ve said plenty.” I was talking with my eyes bugging out, trying desperately to make her stop, but Vivi being Vivi and after a few drinks, she just kept right on talkin’.

“Lewis threw me over on my back and crawled under the covers to the end of the bed and started suckin’ my toes and lickin’ my calves. His body was to die for—he had bulked up a little lately, trimmed down some. He was in amazing shape, and those great big shoulders and that thick black hair… God, I was so into him.”

“Can’t you stop her?” Harry mumbled to me as he took a big swig of his scotch. “I don’t think she’ll ever get to the finish line. And this is making me queasy.”

“Miss Vivi, please. That’ll be all for this part. Can we try to skip to the place where he stopped breathin’. Please?” Sonny tried to redirect her, but Vivi didn’t hear anything, she was lost in the story, unfortunately reliving it for all of us like it was a sick skin flick. With all that had happened to her today, none of us felt ready to be harsh with her. There was nothing to do but keep right on listening.

“Lewis kept licking—all the way up to my thighs, then I felt his mouth on my abdomen, sliding his tongue below my navel. Just as he was on arrival, he slipped the toy out of my hand and flipped me back over on top of him, and said, ‘How ’bout a ride on the real horse, Red? Let’s go for a trot.’ He was full of the devil! And I loved it. I positioned myself just right. He was primed and ready. He started buckin’ like a wild bronco. I was bouncin’ up and down when…when it happened.”

We all sat up, backs straight on our bar stools, bug-eyed, mouths dropped open. I was afraid to ask, but someone had to do it. “When what happened, honey?”

“When suddenly, I felt him stop,” Vivi continued. “No sounds. No movement. No nothin’.” Vivi stopped talking. Her face dropped. She took a minute and we were all sitting still in the hushed silence.

Then she added, “I looked down at him, and he looked a little purple. But his eyes were open. So I…dismounted.”

By this time we could tell she was feeling her alcohol.

“I called his name out. ‘Lewis, Lewis!’ I got louder and louder but he just turned bluer and bluer. I slapped his face and nothin’. So I jumped up, and buttoned my dress and kept shoutin’ and shoutin’ the entire time. I shook him and still he didn’t budge. So I reached across his chest to the chair, grabbed my purse and fumbled for my cell phone and called Blake while running out of the room to my car. I just started driving aimlessly. Not sure where I was headed—I just knew I needed to be doin’ something. When I couldn’t get a hold of Blake, I called Harry.”

“Vivi? You okay?” I said. She looked at me, her eyes drooping. She heaved a big sigh. We all sat quietly. We had been through all of the emotions. No one spoke. I could hear the noise of the bar, but the mood had dropped. We all stared at Vivi. Sadness was hanging in the air like a wet drape. It was a crushing heaviness suffocating us.

“Okay, Miss Vivi, is that your statement?” Sonny was trying to remain professional, but I could see even he was shaken. “Would you like to add anything else?”

I motioned to Vivi to say no, but she couldn’t focus anymore. With all the Jack Daniel’s she had, she felt she needed to jabber.

“Mr. Sonny,” Vivi said, her eyes brimming with tears, “I never meant to hurt Lewis. He is my dear friend. I love him. Please find him. He may be out there confused. Maybe he had a seizure and when he came to, I wasn’t there. Or he could have forgotten who he is. Please…” Tears now spilling down her cheeks, she was like a child that needed to be held through the night after a nightmare.

Harry shoved a hundred-dollar bill at the bartender, stood up and straightened his tie. “Okay,” he announced. “I think my client’s done all she can and, personally, I don’t think she’s physically able to do much more.” He stood up and touched my shoulder. “We need to get her home.”

Harry said he would drive both me and Vivi in my car. We’d leave his vehicle at the Tutwiler. He shook Sonny’s hand and helped Vivi down from the stool.

“Thank you, Miss Vivi, you’ve been very helpful. We’ll be in touch,” Sonny said.

I balanced Vivi on my left side and Sonny leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Good seein’ you, Blake. Take care of yourself. I’ll be in touch.” He turned to walk away and his cell phone began ringing. He kept walking as he answered.

“Officer Bartholomew.”

Silence. Then, “Okay. I’m there in ten.”

He hung up and abruptly turned and looked at all three of us in the twilight of the Tutwiler lobby.

Sonny cleared his throat and looked Vivi in the eyes as he announced, “We’ve got a body.”

4

The chandelier in the Tutwiler lobby could have dropped and none of us would have moved. We were frozen. I looked immediately at Harry. This was possibly his baby brother. And though he and Lewis had not spoken in years, I could see he was visibly shaken.

“Where is it?” Harry said.

“Washed up at the Cypress Inn out at the river,” Sonny answered. “Some girl discovered it while taking a walk at the restaurant.”

The Cypress Inn was a longtime Tuscaloosa mainstay. It was built up high on the banks of the Warrior River, and it had a beautiful walking path that led down from the restaurant to the water.

Vivi started to cry at Sonny’s announcement. I held her still with my arm tightly around her shoulder.

“No, no, no… It isn’t true, is it? It’s not Lewis, is it? I don’t know what could have happened to him. Oh, I think I’m gonna throw up. Am I gonna be charged with murder now, Blake?”

She was breaking down now and crying hard. I held her a little closer and told her we weren’t even sure who the body was. She was shaking and going into shock.

“Vivi.” Harry was trying to help her get hold of herself. “The body has to be identified and the cause of death has to be determined, too. Nothing is gonna happen until we do the ID. Let’s get over to the Cypress Inn and see if we can get some answers. I’ll drive.”

Harry had a way of doing that. Taking charge. He was good at it, especially in a crisis. He could turn off the feelings and purely think—quite easily, actually. Sometimes I hated that.

We rode back over the bridge, back to the river for the third time that day and headed to the restaurant. The drive was a total blur, but ten minutes later we were all in the parking lot of the Cypress Inn.

Dusk is beautiful at the river. The reflection of the sun shimmering on the water can take your breath away. Flaming pinks and soothing turquoise draw blurry patterns across the indigo water. A liquid sunset. The expanse of the river is wide and the bank is thick with trees and snaky roots and kudzu vines that creep and crawl all the way down to the muddy water.

It’s a fast-flowing river, full of waves and ripples. It’s thick with underbrush and debris, making it notoriously one of the hardest areas for police divers to find anything. Or anyone. The Warrior is used for transportation. Time here is marked by the occasional slow-moving barge pushing coal up and down the river. Every so often, a speedboat races past, causing heavy waves to lap against the banks. A beautiful old riverboat called the Bama Belle would paddle down past the restaurant till sunset, when service would stop on the old vessel.

The Bama Belle was a sweet part of the fabric of the river. It was just for show. Tourists and out-of-town family loved it and kept it in business. But it was one of the main reasons I loved to eat at the Cypress Inn, especially at dusk. It was beautiful to see the boat in all her original glory just meandering along the curve of the river, on her way home, straight toward the setting sun, with her paddle wheel churning the muddy, ink-colored water below.

The Cypress Inn is built hanging off the hillside. All glass and old driftwood, it looks like it has been there forever. Two stories and facing the river, it’s built in a triangle shape so everyone can watch the river while they eat their catfish and hush puppies.

Hanging baskets of azalea and begonias drip blossoms over the outdoor porch. And the trees are thick with magnolia blooms big enough to hold the spoonfuls of occasional afternoon rainwater that was a daily, almost unnoticeable part of Southern springtime.

It was this gorgeous scene that we all stepped out of the car to see, though the beauty of it was muddied by the dark reason we were all gathered there. Harry left us as he jogged ahead to catch up with Sonny. I knew he needed to see the body for himself. I also knew he wasn’t fully embracing the possibility of what might actually be waiting for him at the bottom of that path. But I was.

Vivi was mumbling to herself, “See what horny can do? You see? If Lewis and I weren’t always so horny, I’d have beautiful roses on my supper table tonight and Lewis would still be here.” She kept walking and mumbling and looking at her feet as she stumbled to the path. She looked up at me. “Okay, I know it’s not possible for us not to be who we really are, but I just cannot believe that my last vision of Lewis alive will be with that holster on and Deputy Dick in his hand.”

Vivi and I linked arms like two old women and walked down the curvy stone walkway to the riverbanks. The footlights along the daffodil-strewn path twinkled in the encroaching darkness. It led us, roaming, down the hill and delivered us to the wooden planked bridge that guided us to the gazebo.

I heard the sounds of the sirens coming in the distance.

We located Sonny and found a small huddle of people standing east of the gazebo and, at the center of the group, with bare shoulders shaking, stood young Mandy Morrison, Tuscaloosa’s Miss Everything. She was head cheerleader, Miss Tuscaloosa High School, Miss West Alabama Fair Queen…. She had plans of moving to New York and launching herself on Broadway.

Seeing how distraught she was, I had a feeling this event might slow things up a little.

Mandy, her mom, dad and younger brother were all at the Cypress Inn celebrating her high school graduation and acceptance into a small liberal arts college in New York when Mandy and her dad went for a little father-daughter stroll along the river. They had stopped to smell the wandering vines of honeysuckle when Mandy spotted the body—well, part of the body.

Right there, bobbing against the bank, was someone’s leg and the lower half of their torso.

Vivi and I pushed into the little crowd of people just as Mandy was recounting her unfortunate vision.

“I was just giving my dad a hug and, like, I looked over his shoulder and I saw a leg! At first I thought it was, like, a log….”

Mandy kept talking…enjoying the attention even though she was somewhat “grossed out.” As she kept up the frenetic, breathless encounter of her graduation dinner surprise, Sonny took notes and the officers collected the evidence.

Vivi and I peeked over the crowd of people now gathering at the banks.

“For God’s sake!” she hollered. “It’s not even the whole entire body! But this is the half I know best. No. No way is this my Lewis.” Vivi could not keep it to herself.

Harry jumped in immediately. “This is not a good time to share your opinions unless someone asks, okay?” He was clearly on edge.

Vivi looked up at me with her half-drunk eyes. She was purely exhausted and it was showing. She pulled me down the bank away from Mandy and the crowd and headed toward the river. “C’mon, Blake, I’ve got to get a better look.”

“Vivi, say nothing unless it is in a whisper directly to me. The last thing we want is to get you any more involved than you need to be. This is critical.”

“I’ve got it, Blake. But if there’s a chance in hell this is my Lewis, don’t you think I ought to at least try to identify the half of the body that just washed up?”

“Honey,” I said, “I’m right behind you.” My curiosity had taken over, too. I just had to see it, not that I would recognize the half that just washed up. But down to the muddy riverbank we went. I knew that with Sonny nearby, he would make sure we were able to slip through the crowd without a problem.

We reached the edge of the river and there it was. Big and hairy, it was definitely the leg of a man. Sonny joined us. We were on the slope, and he was above us in the crest of the bank. At six-three he was a big presence anyway. But up on that riverbank he loomed like a superhero there to save us all. Vivi moved a little closer to him and leaned in as if in secret.

“Sonny, it’s only half a body,” she said quietly.

“Yes, Miss Vivi, we’ve got that part figured out.”

Vivi stood between us, her head moving from side to side in slow motion, in disbelief. Silence fell over us. The three of us stood there on the banks of the muddy Warrior River under a darkening Southern sky.

Vivi broke the silence. “Well, thank God this is the half I know best, huh? This is not my Lewis.”

She leaned in and squeezed Sonny’s arm and tears rolled down her cheeks. We stood on the bank and watched the river roll. I looked at Sonny and noticed his face had softened in the moment. He looked at me full on and gave a little grin. I knew with his help we would all be okay.

Harry walked toward us in his determined, deliberate way. He looked exhausted but still pulled together. His white oxford shirt still looked as starched as it had been that morning, the silver wire frames sitting on his nose sparkled along with the silver hairs sprinkled throughout his dark hair.

“Well, the body part is already causing a problem.”

“Why, Harry?” Vivi asked. “’Cause there’s no dental record for you?” Vivi smirked.

Harry then told us the police would perform the DNA tests in the morning, and would try to match what they swiped at the motel room. He wanted to talk to me alone. Then Vivi said she wanted to talk to both of us alone.

“Well, I know when I’m a third wheel,” Sonny said and winked at me.

“Do you have anything else for us?” I asked Sonny before he walked off. I didn’t realize it, at first, but I was touching his arm.

“No, Blake, I’ll get in touch with you in the morning,” he said. Something came over me. I squeezed his wrist and, I don’t know, but a feeling of comfort swept in and it made me feel warm and calm. I looked up at him and he was looking right through me. I let go and looked forward to the morning.

“Okay, ya’ll. Listen to me,” Vivi began after Sonny headed back up the banks. “That is not Lewis’s lower half. There is no way in hell. I would bet my life on it.”

Harry and I were silent and looking at each other.

“Dammit! I know him. This is not him! Believe me…that little thing would have never kept me coming back!”

5

It was a quiet drive back to the McFadden place. The crystal-­clear night sky was ablaze with starlight. The moon hung over the tall pines and dodged in and out of sight, like a thief following us.

I sat in back with Vivi, her head on my shoulder. The quiet felt good. No radio. No conversation. We had all been through a tremendous amount of emotions and it was a relief to take a minute and let everything digest.

I stared out the window at the cloudless night sky. As the city baked in moonlight, slow-motion movie scenes flickered like a Super 8 film in my head. Scenes of my life with Vivi.

It had always been just like this. I’ve always taken care of her. I think we both liked it this way. I’m older than Vivi by only three months, but Vivi’s the kind of girl who always needed a caretaker. I’m a little stronger, a little more able to focus. I am on a perpetual schedule. I like things neat and orderly…and predictable. Meanwhile, Vivi is full of adventure. She always loved a spontaneous road trip, though for me, that meant I had no time to pick out all the shoes I would need for the journey. But Vivi could just jump in her Thunderbird with no luggage, saying, “Oh, hell, we can get what we need when we get there.” Oh, I still jumped in the car with her, but immediately I’d get out my notebook and pen and start making a list. The more I thought about it, the more I realized we balanced each other out. She may have needed me to take care of her, to organize her life and keep her on the right track, but I needed Vivi to remind me of my wild side. To remind me to really live in the moment. As I sat in the car reflecting on the days I’d been living lately, playing second fiddle to my husband’s burgeoning political career, trying to forget what true love and romance really felt like, I realized that maybe I needed to be reminded of everything Vivi was. Maybe I was the one who needed Vivi right now, not just the other way around.

Vivi was an only child, and her parents were quite a bit older than the rest of ours. Her society-bred mother was always somewhat sickly, and her father was a loudmouthed, hard-drinking, gambling partygoer who loved women—often several at a time. They lived on a massive plantation, and though she was surrounded by wealth, no one was ever really there to care for Vivi aside from her nanny, Corabelle, and the gardener, Arthur. She loved those two people like they were her parents. And truly, they were. In all the most important ways.

Vivi ran the whole place now. It was certainly not a plantation anymore; it had been decades since it was even active, and little by little, acre by oak tree, it has been sold off to developers. There was about a hundred acres left of it, and Vivi and Arthur were the only ones who lived there anymore since they had moved Vivi’s mother to that fancy retirement center.

After we finished high school, Vivi had gone to the University of Alabama and gotten her journalism degree. Now she did freelance work, writing articles for magazines and newspapers on subjects that were dear to her heart, such as women’s rights, gardening, home and friends.

Vivi was deeper than she let most people see, and her energy and wild streak made her seem crazier than she actually was. But she was just fine running the place all by herself. “Plus, I have Arthur,” she’d always say. And she did.

She loved that man maybe more than she’d ever loved anyone. They were family as far as she was concerned. He loved taking care of her and took such pains around the place to keep it feeling like home.

Arthur had his own room in the house, and it had been appointed with the finest things. He was family since the beginning. Interestingly, he was actually born there, on the plantation, nearly fifty-five years ago when both of his parents had worked for the McFaddens. When Vivi’s father died when she was young, Arthur just moved in and took on the responsibility of caring for her and her mother.

Corabelle, Vivi’s nanny, died a few years back when she was nearly seventy-five. Arthur and Vivi took it pretty hard, but you could just see that they would get through it with each other to lean on.

Harry was always asking me why I kept rescuing her. Was it because I’m really all she’s got? Was it because that’s the way it’d always been and I love being needed? Well, maybe a bit of both. And I knew it would always be this way with us.

As I held her in the moonlight, she fell asleep on my shoulder, trusting me, as always, to keep her safe. And I would, even if I didn’t know quite how at that moment. I knew I would figure something out. She was counting on me. I was her Swiss Army knife.

* * *

We arrived at the plantation at almost nine that evening. Harry pulled the car around the circular gravel drive. A fountain spilled over its edges creating peaceful, soft splashes under the moonlight. Vivi’s home was something special. A true Southern plantation, the main house was huge and stately, typical antebellum Greek Revival architecture. Wide, white, round columns surrounded a wraparound front porch, and floor-to-ceiling windows doubled as doorways much of the year. The upper level held a sweeping veranda, hugging the columns with a whitewashed wooden rail. Rocking chairs were scattered around every few feet. Hanging baskets were full to brimming and dripping with ferns, English ivy and petunias, while bell-shaped purple-and-pink verbena hung at every window and spilled over the sides of the containers. The gravel drive was long and shaded on either side by huge oak and magnolia trees that reached across the road and lay gently upon each other, branch intertwined in branch, forming a fragrant flowering tree tunnel all the way to the front of the house. The side yards were full of pecan trees and tall pines. Just as you reached the porch, the left side yard held a huge rose garden with every colorful variety imaginable growing and blooming. The fragrance surrounding the main house was mesmerizing on a hot summer night with a breeze drifting in the humid air.