Southern Ruby (31 page)

I laughed. ‘Did you fancy Jewel was an “older woman”?'

‘Something along those lines,' he said with a grin. He took a sip of the coffee. ‘You make coffee like a Creole, you know that?'

‘I am a Creole,' I told him. ‘My name is Vivienne de Villeray but everyone calls me “Ruby”. My family used to own several plantations and my forebears were favourites of the French king.'

Leroy's eyes twinkled and he laughed. ‘You kill me, Jewel! One minute you're Jewel the dancer and now you're a dark-haired Creole aristocrat. What else you got up those pretty sleeves of yours?'

In other circumstances I might have been hurt by his mocking tone: I was making an effort to come clean with him, but he didn't believe me. But I wasn't going to argue the case with him. Not tonight, anyway. Instead, I found myself thinking about the way he was looking at me, as if he was eating me up with his eyes.

He finished his coffee and put the cup in the kitchen sink, then reached for his jacket and shirt. ‘I better get going. It won't do you any good if someone finds out you've had a coloured man with you. Thank you for the coffee.'

‘Stay,' I said.

He frowned and shook his head. ‘You know I can't.'

‘I don't care,' I said, moving towards him and putting my hand on his arm.

He turned and we gazed into each other's eyes. His lips trembled and I could see he was wrestling with his feelings, trying to resist them. Then he reached up to my cheek and brushed it with the backs of his fingers.

‘I've been wondering what it would feel like,' he said. ‘Like satin.'

He pulled me to his chest and wrapped his arms around me. I nuzzled my face against his shoulder.

‘I've wondered too,' I said, pressing my lips to his warm flesh.

He took my face in his hands and kissed me down my neck and along my collarbone. His warm breath sent tingles through me.

‘Are you sure, Jewel?' he whispered, opening the front of my robe.

His fingers lingered over my breasts and I took his hands and put them to my flesh. He caressed me and a desire I could not have imagined rushed through me. I swooned with it. It was nothing like the wedding-night stories I'd heard from the older Creole girls about feeling ashamed and wanting everything over with. I felt like I was floating down a bubbling river.

Leroy picked me up in his arms and carried me to the chaise longue. He slipped my robe from me, before stroking his strong hands down my body and along my stomach and thighs.

‘You're beautiful,' he said with reverence. ‘Even more beautiful now than when you're on stage.'

His touch was so tender that any fear I had about what we were about to do faded away. The outside world might have its views, but we were cocooned from it in the room on Chartres Street and everything felt right and natural between us.

Who would have thought that a simple thing like watching Leroy shave could make me so happy? I loved to lie on the chaise longue and see him moving the blade down the contours of his face before dipping it again in a bowl of sudsy water. A thousand butterflies took flight in my stomach. Perhaps it was the same excitement men felt when I rolled down my stockings on stage.

The room on Chartres Street had become our haven. We would meet there after the show and before we went back to
our respective homes. I would arrive first, and then Leroy would sneak through the garden and climb in the window I'd left open for him. Like Jewel — no, even more than Jewel — he had to remain hidden. The joy of what we shared depended on secrecy. It would be destroyed — we would be destroyed — if anyone found out.

‘I love listening to your heartbeat,' I told him one morning after we'd made love and I was resting my cheek against his chest. ‘I don't need to go anywhere else in the world to be happy. All I need is to be near enough so I can hear your heart.'

‘I'll remember those words forever, Jewel,' he said, kissing the top of my head. ‘I don't need to be anywhere else either, as long as I can see you.'

‘Now you know my name is Ruby,' I said. ‘Jewel is my stage name. I don't want to be fooling you along with the rest of the world.'

‘Yeah, I know. Vivienne de Villeray, the Creole aristocrat. You're dancing to support your mother and maid. But when I'm with you, you're Jewel: my beautiful, mysterious girl.' Then he noticed something in the open armoire and got up, treating me to the sight of his smooth toned buttocks. ‘Didn't you see this shelf is lopsided?'

‘No,' I told him, leaning on my elbow. ‘I don't care about things like that.'

The next morning, I woke to loud banging: Leroy was fixing the shelf with a hammer and nails. I giggled. He couldn't stand untidiness. Even at the club, he couldn't pass a painting without making sure it was perfectly straight.

‘It's like we're a married couple,' I told him, ‘you fixing things for me.'

He turned to me with some nails held between his lips and nodded, pleased by the thought. He took the nails out and hammered them into place.

‘I like doing things for you, Jewel. I like taking care of you.'

‘I like it too.'

I'd never known a man like Leroy: someone who wanted to take care of me. My father had only cared about himself, and Uncle Rex was no better. I'd gotten used to taking care of myself.

I watched Leroy check the shelf was secure and wondered how he felt about having to sneak around. He never spoke about it. Perhaps, like me, he didn't bring it up for fear of breaking the beautiful spell we were both under.

‘Well,' he said, taking his shirt from the hanger and putting it on, ‘time to go. I'll see you at rehearsal.'

I stood up and put my arms around him, kissing his luscious mouth. I hated this routine. It hurt me every time I had to extricate myself from him.

After Leroy left, I rushed about the room dressing myself as Ruby. Despite the minimum sleep I was getting, my cheeks were rosy and my eyes shone. Passion for Leroy was the only thing that gave me the stamina to continue with this frenetic life. I was terrified that somehow it would all unravel when I least expected it.

T
he quiet of the night was broken by the squeal of tyres. I hadn't expected hoons in the Garden District but it seemed every place had them after all. ‘Idiots!' I said under my breath.

The sound disturbed Grandma Ruby more than it did me. She blew out the candles before going to the window to investigate, peering into the night and not moving until the car sped off again, leaving behind it the smell of petrol and burning rubber.

‘A scalded cat fears the fire,' she said. ‘For a long time we had to be afraid of sounds like that.'

I waited for her to say something more, but she only shivered and turned towards the door. With a sinking feeling in my heart and stomach, I realised that after beginning that scorching tale of forbidden love she was going to leave me in suspense again.

As we went up the stairs, Grandma Ruby's breathing became laboured. I linked my arm with hers to give her support. When we reached the door to her bedroom, she deliberated a moment then looked at me.

‘Life is half spent, Amandine, before we even know what life is. Make the most of every day and be happy.'

The following morning, Grandma Ruby wasn't up when I went to the kitchen, and Lorena didn't work on Sundays, so the house was quiet except for Flambeau noisily pecking at his plate of corn.

I left Grandma Ruby a note to say I was going to the French Quarter, although what I really did was to get off the streetcar at Canal Street and catch a bus from South Rampart Street to the Lower Ninth Ward. I was the only white person on the bus. Most of the other passengers were elderly, or housewives with shopping bags full of groceries. One woman, in a pair of denim micro-shorts and with dyed orange hair, sported a monitoring anklet without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. I stared out the window and thought about what Grandma Ruby had told me about segregation in New Orleans. The city was still segregated in a way, not so much by white and black facilities but by where people lived.

I rang Terence on my mobile and he met me at the bus stop.

‘Well, hello, Amandine,' he said, smiling broadly. ‘You're getting around like a local.'

‘Yeah, I'm getting to know the city pretty quickly,' I said, falling into step with him as we headed off in the direction of his house.

In truth, even though I'd been in New Orleans only six days, it was as though a lifetime had passed. I wasn't the same girl who had arrived at the airport with holes in her history. Grandma Ruby's stories about my New Orleans family were creating a foundation I'd never had before. But how could I even begin to explain all that?

‘Hey, Terence!' a man standing on a ladder and fixing a wonky gutter called out as we passed. ‘Hot and humid as hell,
ain't it? Real hurricane weather!'

Terence waved and replied, ‘Sure is,' before we walked on.

‘I read an article in
NOLA Life News
about a possible superstorm,' I said.

Terence surveyed the sky. ‘Yes, a lot of folks are getting worked up about that possibility.'

Two women were drinking beer on their front porch and watching a boy play with a dog. A man was painting his letterbox lid, while another was trimming a plant by his front door. Nobody here looked too worked up about anything.

‘You'll get out if it comes, won't you?' I asked. ‘According to Elliot, the low-lying areas like here are in the greatest danger of flooding.'

Terence opened the gate to his garden and ushered me through it. ‘We get storms every year, Amandine. Sometimes we're without electricity, or a couple of windows get broken. I lived through the flooding after Betsy. People forget that when they get all excited about the “Big One”.' He took his key from his pocket and pushed it into the door lock. ‘It's too expensive for most folks here to get up and go each time the weatherman decides to up ratings by warning us about a superstorm. You got to pay for your gas, and unless you got family somewhere else, you got to pay for a hotel room in Lafayette or Jackson. And what about your pets? You going to subject your cat or dog to eight hours in a hot car in slow-moving traffic? You can't leave them behind all on their own either, can you?'

He paused on the porch and indicated the neighbouring houses with a nod. ‘Mr and Mrs Williams across the road, they're too elderly to go anywhere. The woman two doors down has five kids and no car; and Augusta next door, she's got no legs and is in a wheelchair. Who's going to look after them if I go? No, if a hurricane is coming, I'll be staying to look after these folks.'

I followed him inside the house. Maybe worrying about hurricanes was a luxury of the rich. From Terence's description of his neighbours, it seemed they had more to worry about in their daily lives than some high-powered winds.

‘Sit yourself down,' he said, then raising his eyebrow comically asked, ‘Shall I get you a “soft drink” before we start?'

I nodded, knowing he meant one of his potent root beers. ‘When in Rome do as the Romans do is my motto.'

While Terence got the drinks, I looked about his front room and tried to discern something about him. There were no family photographs or mementos anywhere. Was he a bachelor? An orphan? A widower? Did he care so much about his neighbours because he had no family of his own? I found myself intrigued by him. But I didn't want to go prying into his business . . . not yet anyway.

He brought the root beers, and we drank them with relish then sat down to play. I liked his teaching style. It was hands-on with no mucking about with scales and theory.

‘This is a composition of your father's that I remember well,' he said, playing a phrase that was colourful and vigorous, then waiting for me to copy it.

We continued through the piece that way, phrase by phrase.

‘You've got a great sense of rhythm,' he said with genuine appreciation. ‘You sure you haven't got any colour in you?'

I laughed. ‘No, not at all. I'd love it if I did, though.'

His eyes opened wide. ‘Really? How's that?'

‘Black is beautiful! And all those cool moves.' I did my version of a hip-hop body wave.

He shook his head. ‘Well, the world has changed. Nobody would have said that back in the days of segregation. Well, almost nobody. To be black then was considered some sort of curse. Even black folks discriminated against each other by gradations of colour. The fairer you were, the better. That caused a whole lot of trouble for the Civil Rights Movement.
Whites beat on blacks, and blacks beat on other blacks because they were darker.'

I thought back to what Grandma Ruby had told me about the white supremacist rallies against desegregation. ‘You've seen a lot of things in your lifetime, haven't you?'

‘Yes, I have,' he said thoughtfully.

We both fell into silence for a minute. I didn't know what he was thinking about, but I was remembering Grandma Ruby and Leroy and how they'd had to hide their love out of fear for their lives. The world certainly had changed. Elliot and I could hang around with Blaine and nobody batted an eyelid. I was here alone with a black man for a piano lesson, and the reason I hadn't told my family wasn't because of his colour but because he lived in the Lower Ninth Ward and I didn't want them to worry.

We continued with the lesson and Terence showed me how to embellish the piece, then played a clarinet along with me, sometimes harmonising with the melody and other times playing a rhythmic arpeggio. It was strange and otherworldly, but somehow I felt my father coming to me through the music. I looked at my hands, and for a moment they seemed to be his hands gliding across the keys.

‘You got the storytelling gene in you,' Terence told me. ‘Your father really conveyed a story when he played. The effect was as electrifying as reading a piece of great literature. His music moved me.'

‘My Grandma Ruby is quite a storyteller,' I said. ‘It must be in the genes.'

He smiled as if enjoying a private joke. ‘Good storytellers are as highly valued as musicians in Louisiana. They add spice to life by embellishing it.'

He picked up his clarinet and began to play a piece that was soulful, dark and passionate. Even at his age he was an attractive man. There was something about him: a gentleness of spirit and
yet an underlying strength too. He didn't talk a lot, but every word he said had value. I looked around his house again. It was tidy and organised but had no feminine touches anywhere. Surely a man like Terence couldn't have been a bachelor all his life?

‘My parents met at Preservation Hall,' I said, when he'd finished his piece. ‘My father was playing there. It's a big deal to perform there, isn't it?'

He looked at me compassionately. ‘Your father was a big deal, Amandine. A really big deal. I'm sorry for you that you never got to grow up with your parents. It's an honour for me to teach you jazz piano. It makes me think that somehow I'm paying respect to your father for all the pleasure his music gave people.'

We finished our lesson and Terence turned off the electric piano. ‘Why don't you come again on Wednesday? You learn fast and there's a lot more I can teach you.'

As he walked me back to the bus stop, a toothless man shouted to him from a rundown weatherboard house. ‘Hey, Terence, you got yourself a nice girlfriend there!'

Terence laughed and waved back to the man. ‘Don't mind him,' he said to me. ‘He hasn't got all his marbles. He lost them in Vietnam.'

My bus arrived and the driver opened the doors.

‘So we'll get together again on Wednesday,' Terence said.

‘If a hurricane hasn't hit,' I quipped.

He chuckled and helped me onto the bus step. ‘You're developing a real dark New Orleanian sense of humour, Amandine. You could be one of us.'

I ate black-eyed pea fritters and baked sweet potato in the French Quarter, before wandering down Royal Street humming the pieces Terence had taught me. I stopped to look in the
window of an antique jewellery store and admired a rose-gold ring with a large ruby setting — a true power ring! I thought of Grandma Ruby, but it was far too big for her delicate hands.

I held my own hand up and studied it. It was uncanny how I'd felt my father through my fingers when I'd played his composition. The bass chords required playing tenths — two keys longer than an octave. My large hands had always mystified me, but now I saw they contained hidden talents.

I remembered what Grandma Ruby had said about Clifford having perfect-sized hands for boxing. My father and I must have inherited our hands from him. At last my physical characteristics were starting to make sense and I was thrilled by the idea of having a place on a distinguished family tree.

I continued along the street before catching the streetcar back to the Garden District. I wanted to hear what happened next in Grandma Ruby's story.

However, when I reached the house I found Blaine and Grandma Ruby taking tea in the garden.

‘I'm glad you're back early, Amandine,' said Grandma Ruby, standing up to kiss me. ‘Blaine wants to take you for a romantic drive along the River Road.'

Blaine, who was dressed in a fitted white shirt, beige pants and boat shoes, grinned at me. ‘Some of the most beautiful antebellum plantation homes are along there. It will give you a feel for Southern history; and afterwards, I have a friend who's invited us for a meal in her swamp cabin.'

Although I wanted to hear the rest of Grandma Ruby's story, she seemed keen for me to go with Blaine and the drive did sound intriguing. The sanatorium where Maman, my great-grandmother, had stayed and which had caused Grandma Ruby such trouble was along the River Road. It would be interesting to see it.

I went inside the house and grabbed a shawl for the evening and changed into a pair of flat sandals. When I came out again
I was surprised to see Blaine waiting for me in the driveway in a blue Chevrolet Corvette with the roof down.

‘I borrowed it from a friend especially for today,' he said. ‘I told him I needed to impress a stylish girl.'