What do you know? I’m actually following through on something I said I was going to do here. I’ve written another fictional piece (again in one sitting – keeping it short) and I honestly think I’m going to do this every Friday. If I didn’t fear jinxing myself, I’d name this theme something like “Fiction Friday” – but then I’d absolutely let it fall off the radar. Too formal.

Instead – I’m keeping this open. I’ll try to do something like this weekly – and we’ll see how that goes. I’m also going to try to keep all of the writing connected and see if I can get an actual story out of it. Just to create some direction. I just wrote this story (or piece of a story) and had to stop before I got to the part where it connects to Ivy. But it will. Possibly next week.

But Ethel Clinton nee Chambers was also the most beautiful woman on earth – or close to it – so she didn’t think she owed the world too much else. At least that’s the way Vivi saw it. And Vivi got to see quite a bit of Ethel during the day, because in spite of “the child’s tedious questions” and “unnecessary theatrics,” Ethel didn’t like to be alone.

So young Vivi spent her days watching Mama wilt on couches while putting on airs that only a Southern woman who came from money could claim. Which, in fact she could not, since she was neither. At least that’s the way Vivi’s Daddy saw it, and said as much.

Ethel took great umbrage to this, since she most certainly did consider herself to be Southern woman. But in spite of her Virginian birthright, her own daddy was a Yankee – and a middle class one at that – and it was only her dark eyed glare that kept people from reminding her of that fact.

Vivi didn’t take after her Mama in any way. She was a Clinton through and through, and her blue eyes twinkled more often than they narrowed at people. She was far more observant than Mama and learned early on that you get much further in life by laughing than glaring.

And she laughed. A lot.

She laughed at Mama when she went off on one of her tirades about…anything. She laughed at her sisters when they told her she couldn’t climb trees like the boys. She laughed at everyone who lamented over her not inheriting her mother’s beauty like her sisters did.

She especially laughed at that. Because she was plenty beautiful on her own.

In fact she didn’t give two hoots about having a Yankee Granddaddy since she fully intended to be a Yankee herself one day. As soon as she was old enough, she was taking her red curls and long legs to New York. She was going to be a fashion model.

The rest of the women in her family could faint on couches all they liked. She was going to be someone. Not just someone’s beautiful wife.

Now at age 59, Vivi had to laugh again. Because she never did move to New York. She never did become a real “Yankee” as they used to call them. And she did in fact become someone’s beautiful wife. But she wouldn’t change a thing, because whatever she did or didn’t do, she made sure it was on her own terms.

Now, looking at her perennially red curls in the mirror, she thought two things. First, that it was time for a touch up. Her roots were showing. Mental note: must call Claude for an appointment. And second, that Mama did teach her something very valuable all those years ago. Vivi may have been many things in life – but she was never boring.

That’s all I have time for today. But this isn’t what I was planning to write about Vivi. It’s an intro gone wild. My verbosity always gets the best of me… I’ll have to pick it up again next week.

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