Southern Ruby (20 page)

Maman tugged on my sleeve to make me face her again. ‘Dear Ruby, how pale you are. You've been worrying about me, haven't you? I insist that you don't. You can see how well I'm cared for here — you mustn't give my welfare another thought!'

A maid came and served us tea from a silver pot, and I admired the blue Wedgwood cups. As I sipped the tea, I realised what was doing Maman so much good. It was the beauty all around her. A stronger person, used to the struggles and harshness of life, would have done fine in Charity Hospital, but I was convinced Maman would have died there. She was fragile and poetic. Perhaps it was the loss of our social standing and having to sell our material possessions that had brought on her illness in the first place.

I rested my head against her shoulder. ‘I'm fine, Maman. Don't you worry about me.'

She rubbed my arm. ‘Well then, a young girl like you should be thinking of pretty dresses and parties. I'm sure Aunt Elva would be happy to chaperone you along with Eugenie until I'm better.'

I was lost for words. Maman was an intelligent woman, well-read and accomplished in singing and piano. She was also kind and thoughtful towards others. But she had no idea how the real world worked. She'd never had to earn money or manage it. I was convinced that if ever we were lost in the woods, I would find a way out while Maman would sit and wait to be rescued. Only millionaires and movie stars could afford to recuperate in
a sanatorium like this one, but Maman was blissfully unaware that the cost was beyond our means.

On the way home in the bus, I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes. I'd seemed to be just digging us out of the hole we were in and now I had this new worry. I hadn't been able to bring myself to ask the receptionist how much an extended stay at the sanatorium was going to cost, but I guessed it would be around five hundred dollars. If I didn't pay it, Maman would be back at Charity Hospital. The happy expression I'd seen on her face during my visit made the idea unbearable. I couldn't let anything destroy the little ray of hope I now harboured that I wouldn't lose Maman while I was still a young woman.

All right
, I thought,
I'm going to have to squeeze more tips out of my customers and put something aside each week towards the account. Maman is too precious to compromise.

W
hen I turned up for work that night, Rolando was waiting out the front for me. ‘Listen, Ruby, the girls don't like you watching their performances. It's causing me grief.'

I stiffened. Was he about to fire me? That was the last thing I needed.

‘Don't worry,' he said, ‘I've got something for you to do while the girls are on stage. You'll stand behind the curtain and catch their clothes, okay? Don't open the curtain more than a slip. You simply catch their clothes and hang them up.'

I put my hands on my hips. ‘I'm not catching their clothes! Do they think I'm their maid?'

‘I'll pay you five dollars extra a night to do it,' he said.

I bit my lip and considered my options. Each night there were three strippers: one main act and two ‘warm-up' girls. I could turn this in my favour.

‘Five dollars a girl,' I said.

Rolando's face scrunched up as if he was about to get mad, then a smile formed on his lips and he scratched his chin,
regarding me with respect. ‘You know how to take care of yourself. Five dollars a girl. Make sure you don't upset my star acts. If you were ugly they wouldn't care.'

‘If I was ugly,' I told him, ‘I wouldn't be able to get the customers to drink Dom Pérignon instead of sparkling wine.'

Despite my initial reluctance, I enjoyed working backstage with ‘the talent'. The star acts were divas, but the warm-up strippers were usually nice. There was Paige, nicknamed Miss Frigidaire by the other strippers because since she'd married the previous year she only worked when she wanted a new household appliance. Her husband was a foreman in a mattress factory and gave her all his wages to manage, but he didn't make enough to satisfy Paige's desire for modern conveniences.

‘He's a good, honest man,' she told me, ‘but he's got muscles in his body and muscles in his head. No sense of finances whatsoever. He thinks we live in Lakeview and drive a Chevrolet Bel Air on his wages!'

While some of the girls liked the glamour of burlesque and the adoration they received, everybody was there for the money. Like Bethany, whose husband was in hospital with kidney disease while she had three children to support.

‘The back-door johnnies think we must be oversexed because we strip,' I heard one of the star acts, Lola, say to Bethany when I was helping hang up their costumes after the show. ‘But I don't have the energy for a romp when I get home. I put on my pyjamas and go straight to bed!'

‘What do you think about when you're up there on stage?' Bethany asked her.

Lola grimaced with pain as she pulled off her pasties, which were attached to her nipples with tape. ‘Me? I make up shopping lists, or think about what I'm going to eat for supper later.'

Bethany laughed. ‘Didn't you prefer working in the theatre, Lola — those big, magnificent productions with chorus girls, acrobats and comedians? That's all gone now, of course. Killed off by television.'

‘I'd rather work in a nightclub anytime,' Lola replied, dabbing some baby oil on her irritated nipples. ‘When I worked in the theatre, I'd look out at the front row and there'd be some guy jerking off behind his newspaper. The nightclub audiences are classier.'

One night when I was helping Bethany scrub off some gold body paint, she said to me, ‘You're pretty, Ruby. Why aren't you stripping? You'd make much more money than you do hostessing.'

I didn't want Bethany to think that I judged her. She was in an awful situation with her husband and children and I sympathised. But as desperate as I was about my own family problems, there was a line I couldn't cross. ‘I couldn't. My mother would be so ashamed,' I told her.

‘My mother-in-law was horrified at first,' Paige piped up from the opposite dressing table. ‘“What? You take your clothes off!” she hollered at me. But when she realised that I can make two hundred dollars a week while my husband only makes fifty-five with overtime, she shut up. We've got one house paid off and are saving for another. Believe me, my mother-in-law doesn't say a thing now.'

‘You can make two hundred dollars a week?' I cried.

Paige was amused by my surprise. ‘That's nothing! The big stars make much more. Blaze Starr, Tempest Storm and Lili St Cyr — they can earn anything from a thousand to five thousand dollars a week.'

Five thousand dollars a week for taking off your clothes? Paige could have knocked me down with a feather. With that much money I could keep Maman at the River Road Sanatorium for as long as she wanted.

But Mae's words of warning rang in my ears:
You got nothing left but your reputation. Don't sully that — for your mama's sake
.

Although the acts only gave an illusion of nudity and the strippers stopped short of fully revealing themselves, stripping had a stigma to it. Burlesque performers hung around with other burlesque performers because they weren't acceptable in polite society. And as Bethany had once said, ‘Stripping on stage leaves a stain on you.' Whatever you did in the future, it would always be there in your past. That was enough to stop me considering it seriously.

Maman had a favourite facial cleanser called Deep Magic that was only stocked by a pharmacy near the French Market. For a treat, I decided to get her a bottle. As I passed Antoine's on St Louis Street, I stopped for a moment. Before our money troubles and her deteriorating health prevented it, Maman and I used to eat at Antoine's regularly. Each dining room was decorated in a different theme, and our favourite was the Rex room with its green walls and Mardi Gras memorabilia. I closed my eyes and drank in the memory of the sweet café brûlot, a coffee flavoured with orange liqueur, cinnamon, cloves and lemon peel, and served flaming with dessert. Then I realised that if I stayed there a moment longer I'd start to feel defeated, knowing I could never take Maman there now. Even the facial cleanser was a luxury on the money I was making.

I was about to move on when Clifford Lalande stepped out of the restaurant with an older gentleman. He was wearing a plaid jacket and tan pants and looked as dashing as the first time I'd seen him.

‘Ruby!' he exclaimed when he saw me. ‘I was beginning to
think you'd left town. I hope we didn't scare you away from Prytania Street?'

I'd not forgotten Clifford Lalande. How could I? But with Maman's illness and working each night, I never thought I'd see him again.

‘I had to give up my tours,' I told him. ‘My mother became seriously ill the day that I saw you.'

His face filled with such compassion that it caused a little explosion in my heart. ‘I'm very sorry to hear that, Ruby. How is she now?'

‘She had a major operation, but she's recovering well in the River Road Sanatorium.'

‘That's the best sanatorium in the South,' said Clifford's companion. ‘A colleague of mine had stomach cancer and I'm sure he's alive today because of the care he received there. Your mother is in the best hands.'

‘My apologies, Ruby, for not introducing you to my father,' said Clifford, turning from me to the man. ‘Father, this is Miss Vivienne de Villeray, the fascinating young lady Mother and Kitty told you about.'

‘It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss de Villeray,' Mr Lalande said, taking my hand. With his twinkling eyes and soft voice, he exuded the special charm of a mature Southern gentleman. I imagined that in another thirty years, Clifford would be exactly the same.

I pointed to the door of Antoine's. ‘I see you've been dining at the Quarter's finest restaurant. I hope your meal was delicious?'

‘Indeed it was very good,' said Clifford. ‘We've been celebrating.'

‘Is it your birthday?'

‘Not quite,' replied Mr Lalande. ‘Clifford and I have been following the Brown versus Board of Education case in the Supreme Court. Yesterday, the plaintiffs were victorious.'

The Brown versus Board of Education case was so controversial that even the strippers at the club were discussing it. A group of coloured parents had challenged segregation in schools, claiming that it was unconstitutional. Their victory was a step forward for the Civil Rights Movement. If segregation of schools was unconstitutional, then the desegregation of other public facilities would have to follow.

‘New Orleans could be a great city,' continued Mr Lalande, ‘but segregation is costing us, not only economically but psychologically. It's time for all of us to move forward, coloured and white equally.'

I could tell where Clifford had gotten his intrepid optimism from. The Lalandes seemed convinced that every problem had a solution. It uplifted me. Perhaps my problems had solutions too.

‘I hope so, Mr Lalande,' I said, remembering what had happened to Mae's father, ‘I truly do. But I fear for the coloured folks. People can be resistant to change, even when it would benefit them.'

Mr Lalande regarded me with approval in his eyes. ‘That's very true, Miss de Villeray, but I believe in the people of this city. There will be resistance, but in the end what is right must prevail.'

He was about to say more when Kitty came out of the restaurant on the arm of a red-haired young man. ‘Ruby!' she cried when she saw me. ‘Where have you been?'

Clifford gallantly stepped in to explain about my mother.

‘Ah,' Kitty said, as if understanding something that had puzzled her. She touched my arm sympathetically. ‘She'll be all right, Ruby. Especially with such a lovely daughter to take care of her.'

She introduced me to Eddie, her husband.

‘I hope your wedding was lovely,' I said to them.

Kitty started giving me the details of her grandmother's pearls, the nervous priest, the lilac rose bouquet and the
three-tiered wedding cake, when more people came out of the restaurant and it became too crowded on the banquette. We were going to have to move.

‘Look,' said Kitty, glancing at her brother and taking out a pen and notepad from her handbag, ‘we mustn't lose you again. Write down your telephone number for me. Clifford's tennis partner broke her wrist horse-riding and can't play. Won't you come and fill in for her?' She looked at me in a meaningful way. ‘Eddie and I are dying for a game.'

Clifford leaned towards me and covered his mouth with his hand. ‘I have to warn you,' he said softly, ‘Kitty's personality changes on the court. She becomes very . . . competitive.'

Eddie laughed knowingly and Kitty playfully pinched his arm.

I thought about what Maman had said; that I needed to get out and have fun.

‘Well, I haven't played for a few years,' I told them. ‘But I'd be willing to give it a try.'

A date was decided for the game and we parted company, heading in opposite directions. Before the group disappeared around the corner, Clifford and I both turned simultaneously and looked straight at each other. He made no effort to hide the smile that broke out on his face.

On the walk to the market there was a bounce in my stride. I knew the meaning of the look Clifford had given me. The fact that he was older than me only increased his allure. I thought it would be thrilling to have a more mature beau. Then I remembered what I was doing for a living. Clifford might not have smiled at me like that if he knew about the Havana Club.

I lifted my chin and carried on. There was no need to worry about that yet. I'd tell Clifford when the time was right. I was sure once he got to know me better, he would understand.

The morning of the tennis game, I took pains with my appearance, asking Mae to re-iron my white dress several times. As I took my hair out of curlers and lightly powdered my face, I imagined how the day would go and pictured it ending with me and Clifford embracing in the sunset.

‘Where's your head this morning, Miss Ruby?' Mae asked, looking in the door. ‘It's already half past nine and you've got to be at City Park at ten thirty. How are you intending to play tennis on four hours' sleep anyways?'