Southern Ruby (35 page)

When I returned to the house in the Garden District, I was surprised to see Uncle Jonathan's Mustang parked in the drive. Then I remembered that he and Aunt Louise were leaving for their Native American retreat later that evening.

In the kitchen, Aunt Louise had already started on dinner. I kissed her, then kissed Uncle Jonathan, who was sitting at the breakfast counter reading a book on the Sedona desert.

Aunt Louise removed the frying pan from the stove and spooned the potato, mushroom and onion mix onto some plates. ‘I usually don't make such hearty meals in summer, but as Johnny and I are going to be eating a lot of cactus for the next week, I thought we'd better fill up.'

‘Where's Grandma Ruby?' I asked.

‘She's having a rest before dinner,' Aunt Louise replied, taking four placemats from a drawer and setting the table.

I folded the napkins for her. ‘Is everything okay?'

‘I usually take her to her medical appointments, but today she wanted to meet with some Uptown friends — women she knows from the civil rights days. Instead of catching a cab home like she promised, she got on the streetcar. I think the heat has worn her out.'

Once the table was laid, Grandma Ruby appeared. Her hair was coiffed into a bouffant updo and she smelled of Lily of the Valley perfume. But there was a pallor to her skin that her pink blush and lipstick couldn't mask, which worried me. Then I watched her smile radiantly and tuck into her food and wondered if I was overreacting.

‘What did Doctor Wilson say?' Aunt Louise asked her. ‘Was your blood test all right?'

Grandma Ruby lifted her glass of wine and tossed her head back. ‘He told me to drink less coffee and have more sex,' she replied with a cheeky grin. ‘Apparently sex is good for one's heart despite the old wives' tales.'

Aunt Louise grimaced, but Uncle Jonathan laughed out loud and winked at Grandma Ruby. ‘Well, hopefully Louise and I will be having a cardiovascular workout this week,' he said. ‘It's a long time since we took a holiday together.'

‘Johnny, please!' Aunt Louise scolded, nodding in my direction. ‘Mind your manners. We're going to be staying in tents most of the time anyhow. How much hanky-panky can you get up to when the walls are that thin?'

I was happy that the three of them were relaxed enough around me now to let their genteel manners go a bit and be risqué. I was also glad that my presence was allowing my aunt and uncle to enjoy some time away.

After dinner, Aunt Louise ran through Grandma Ruby's medicines with me. ‘She knows how to take them,' she explained. ‘I'm just showing you so you know what's what. The main thing to notice is if she gets prolonged shortness of
breath, extreme tiredness, or complains of headaches or chest discomfort. But honestly, Momma hasn't shown any symptoms of her illness for years. Lorena knows what she can and can't eat with the warfarin, although every now and then Momma sneaks something on the restricted list like kiwi-fruit or mint. Small amounts of those foods won't hurt her.'

When it was time to leave for the airport in the Mustang, Aunt Louise handed me her car keys. ‘I've parked the Prius in the garage. It's yours to use. Our spare house keys and the alarm code are in the top drawer of the desk in the study.'

‘Just remember we drive on the right side here,' added Uncle Jonathan with a grin.

Aunt Louise gave me a hug before she got in the car. ‘I can't tell you how happy I am you're here to keep an eye on Momma. I wouldn't feel safe leaving her with anybody else.'

‘Don't worry,' I told her. ‘I'll take good care of her.'

I returned to the house to find Grandma Ruby downing a glass of water and some tablets. Despite our hearty meal, the colour hadn't returned to her face.

‘Are you all right?' I asked. ‘Did your doctor really say everything was okay? You weren't putting on an act for Aunt Louise and Uncle Jonathan?'

She grimaced as she put the glass in the dishwasher. ‘Oh, Amandine, don't take on Louise's role while she's away! I'm looking forward to spending time with you. Of course I'm all right. My blood was a little thick so they changed my medication, which always unsettles me for a few days.'

‘Would you like me to put the kettle on?' I asked, hopeful that now we were alone she might be in the mood to continue her story.

She shook her head. ‘Let's get up early and spend the day in the summerhouse. I have so much to tell you.'

My disappointment was tempered by my concern for her. After I'd accompanied her to her room, I sat in the wing-back
chair in my room and stared at the moonlit garden, trying to guess the answer to the question that had been bothering me. If Grandma Ruby had been so in love with Leroy, how had she ended up marrying Clifford Lalande?

The following morning, I was pleased to find Grandma Ruby up earlier than usual and waiting for me in the summerhouse. A mini-feast of freshly squeezed orange juice, grilled tomatoes, baked sweet potato, cornbread and mango tapioca pudding was spread out on the table.

‘Did you make all this?' I asked her, sitting down in a wicker chair. ‘You must have been up early.'

‘Because of the change in medication, I didn't sleep well,' she said, then looking down at the food she added: ‘I haven't prepared a meal like this for anybody for years. I'd forgotten what a pleasure it is.'

I studied her face. There was tension in her jaw and her cheeks were flushed. When she stared into the distance and her hands clenched into fists in her lap, I wondered if it was what she was about to tell me, rather than her change of medication, that had made her sleepless.

O
ne morning, as Leroy was getting ready to leave the room in Chartres Street, he turned to me and said, ‘I'd like you to meet my family this Sunday.'

A thrill ran through me. If Leroy was asking that, then he must be serious about me. ‘Of course, I would love to,' I told him. ‘But will they be all right with you bringing home a white girl?'

‘They'll love you,' he said, straightening his jacket. ‘There's nothing to worry about with them, you'll see. They don't care so much about the things other people get wound up about.'

‘Are you going to explain that?'

Leroy's grin stretched from ear to ear. ‘No, I'll let you discover why for yourself.'

It was only when he had kissed me goodbye and snuck out the window into the garden that I saw the dilemma. What would it be like once he and I stepped out of this room together? It had been a cocoon to us, a place of safety from the world outside.

Then there was the question of my identity. Did I go as Ruby or Jewel? Would I have to deceive Leroy's family the way I did
everyone else? I opened the door of the armoire that held Ruby's clothes then immediately shut it again. Of course I would have to go as Jewel, albeit a toned-down version. Not only was that how Leroy thought of me but Jewel belonged to the demimonde of New Orleans society, along with the musicians, magicians, transvestites, comedians and members of the mob. It was still a leap for her to be with a coloured man but for Vivienne de Villeray, the Creole aristocrat, it was impossible.

Leroy lived with his family in Tremé, an area famous for its jazz and racial mix of African and Creole cultures and everything in between. It wasn't far from the Quarter, and when I was a child my father sometimes took Maman and me there to see the Mardi Gras Indians show off their splendid feathered parade outfits. But it was a long time since I'd crossed over Esplanade Avenue into that part of town. The November sun shone gently down on the mix of shotguns, double-shotguns, Creole cottages, Craftsman-style homes and Italianate mansions that created a kind of gumbo architecture in the area.

I was wearing a jade green dress and matching sweater, and had pinned my wig into a respectable beehive. But I was still conspicuous among the old folk and families out strolling to see the turning autumn leaves. A group of young Italians sitting on a stoop whistled at me and one man was scolded by his wife for rubbernecking me when I passed them on the banquette.

Leroy's street was bordered by evergreen camphor trees, but the leaves from the crepe myrtles had fallen and they crunched under my feet. I checked the house number Leroy had written down for me and found myself standing opposite a stately white house with black shutters and ironwork. A sign in Gothic script out the front read:
Thezan Family Funeral Home
. I heard a babble of voices and someone playing the banjo.

I walked down the gravel drive that led to the back of the building and found myself in a garden of palmettos and arches covered in ivy. The lawn was occupied by a group of coloured children: three girls in braids skipping rope, and two smaller ones playing pitty-pat. A boy no more than five years old was picking up the nuts that had been dropped by a pecan tree and placing them in a pail. Another boy was twisting himself around on a swing attached to an oak tree. The girls skipping rope noticed me first and stopped to stare. Then one of them, in a starched cotton dress, covered her mouth to hide her smile before walking towards me. She took my hand and without a word led me down a walkway bordered by cannas towards a raised cottage with dormer windows and a front porch.

The house was old but meticulously kept, with a freshly painted front door and stark white columns. The four full-length windows that looked over the porch were open and inside the room a fire blazed in the grate. Leroy looked out of one of the windows and smiled like a sunburst when he saw me.

‘Well, Darlene,' he said to the little girl, ‘looks like you found me a fine lady.'

The girl covered her smile again with her fingers and nodded before running away to rejoin the other children.

Leroy laughed and walked down the steps towards me. ‘Come meet the family,' he said, taking my arm.

I flinched. We'd never made physical contact out in the open like this. But before I could express my unease, Leroy had guided me into the room with the fire, which was occupied by four men dressed in their Sunday best. They stood when they saw me.

‘So this is the famous Jewel we've heard so much about,' said the oldest of the men, stepping forward to clasp my hand cordially. ‘I'm Joseph, Leroy's pa.'

Joseph spoke in the same rich tenor voice that Leroy did. He wasn't as tall as Leroy, but he was handsome, with chiselled features and a neat close-cropped moustache.

Leroy introduced me to his uncle Milton, his cousin Dwight and brother-in-law Gerald. All the men smiled genuinely and didn't seem put out by my presence. If I'd walked into Maman's bridge club with Leroy on my arm, we would have been met by deathly silence and horrified stares.

‘Come meet the womenfolk,' said Leroy, guiding me into a yellow-painted kitchen where the air was steamy with the smell of frying garlic.

The women looked up and greeted me with the same friendly smiles the men had.

‘Well, look at you!' said a stocky woman with her grey hair braided into a bun. ‘Ain't you a pretty one!' She took both my hands in hers. ‘I'm Alma, Leroy's grandma.' She turned to two other women who could have been twins with their neatly curled hair and full plum-coloured lips. They were dipping chicken pieces into egg batter, then rolling them in flour and breadcrumbs. ‘And this is Leroy's mother, Pearl, and my other daughter, Eleanor. That skinny one by the sink is Bunny, Leroy's sister, and that one cutting up the tomatoes is Dora, Eleanor's daughter-in-law.'

Apart from Dora, whose skin was dark, the women had what was called ‘teasing' complexions: lightly tanned. Bunny, with her height and long, straight hair, could have passed as a Spaniard. I wondered if there was some white blood in the family.

Pearl pushed Leroy back into the main room. ‘Now you stay with the men, you hear? It's bad luck to have a man in the kitchen. We'll take care of your little Jewel.'

Leroy and I exchanged a smile before he disappeared. Pearl took my purse and placed it on a chair. Then she handed me an apron.

‘The mains are almost done and I'm fixing to start on the sweet potato pudding,' she told me. ‘You can help. There's no use assisting Eleanor with her creamed turnips. She guards her secret ingredients as closely as I do my embalming ones.'

Bunny giggled. ‘The families always say Mama makes their dearly departed look better in death than they did in life.'

Pearl nodded. ‘I know how to fill them out just right and give them a healthy glow.' She handed me some eggs, a bowl and a whisk, clearly intending for me to do something with them. ‘Even the mob sometimes secretly bring their boys to me, then transfer the body back to their Italian funeral homes when I'm done. I've fixed up gunshot wounds and put back together a man who was cut to shreds. It was like working on a jigsaw puzzle! I'm the best in New Orleans.'

I wasn't squeamish and Pearl's story didn't faze me. What was bothering me was the bowl and whisk. This was uncharted territory for me. In our home, our guests didn't see the kitchen; the food mysteriously appeared on a trolley pushed by Mae. I couldn't recall Maman even making herself a cup of coffee, and I'd never so much as stirred a saucepan.

‘What's the matter, honey?' asked Pearl, stepping back and studying me with her twinkling eyes. ‘You don't cook?'

She was about fifty years of age, and Alma looked to be seventy. Alma had been born after the Civil War, but her parents could have been slaves. I wasn't going to say that we had a coloured maid at home who did everything for us. Luckily Dora chimed in and saved me from having to explain anything.

‘You gotta learn how to cook, Jewel!' she said emphatically. ‘I know you entertainers live on Chinese takeaway, but those pretty looks of yours ain't going to last forever. You got to come up with something else to please your man.'

‘Hey!' said Eleanor, grinding her hips at the stove. ‘I might be an old married lady but I can cook
and
please my man. It don't have to be one or the other.'

The women burst into laughter. From the living room came the sound of ragtime — the men were jamming.

‘Well, Jewel, I'm going to teach you how to make a pudding,' said Pearl. ‘Then next time you come, we'll work on a main.'

I was eighteen years old and it was the first time I'd ever beaten eggs. But I learned a lot more that day than how to make sweet potato pudding, garlic spinach and spicy tomato salad. As we cooked, Pearl and Eleanor took me through the entire process of conducting a funeral, including collecting the body.

‘We went to collect good old Florence Lewis who lived on the top floor of a townhouse. But she weighed over five hundred pounds! We had to get her down the stairs while the family waited in the foyer, weeping and grieving. We tried to be dignified, with Milton carrying the stretcher at the head and Joseph and Dwight at the feet, and me walking slowly in front with a rose in my hands. But Milton stumbled on the narrow stairway and Florence's body slipped off the stretcher. Those of us in front had to run like crazy down the stairs or else get crushed. Thankfully, one of Florence's legs got wedged in the balustrade and she came to a halt, otherwise there would have been more than one funeral to arrange!'

This story, which had obviously been told before, sent the women into peals of merriment.

‘Of course, Leroy don't work in the family business,' Pearl told me. ‘Goes faint at the sight of a corpse. He became a musician instead. But I always remind him he got his start playing in funeral parades.'

Bunny, who had been sneaking admiring looks at me, asked, ‘Jewel, do you really take your clothes off on stage?'

In Ruby's social circle that question would have been the end of the conversation. I was surprised Leroy had told them what I did. But the women considered me with curiosity rather than disdain.

‘Well, I don't take everything off,' I explained. ‘Men appreciate a little mystery. In fact, you can get a room of men excited just by slipping off your sweater if you do it the right way.'

‘Show us something,' said Eleanor, putting down her spatula. ‘Show us one of your moves.'

I'd never performed for a group of women before, and certainly not in a kitchen, but I slid my hands up along my body and flicked back my hair before slowly untying the apron strings at my neck and waist. I tugged the apron away and held it out for a moment before letting it drop to the floor. Then, one by one, I undid the buttons of my sweater before slipping it deliberately over my shoulders and wriggling free of it.

The women clapped and cheered.

‘Woo hoo!' said Alma, fanning her face. ‘You keep that up, young lady, and I reckon you could turn me into a lesbian!'

Dora and Bunny had to hold their stomachs they were laughing so hard.

‘Hey, ladies,' called Joseph from the living room. ‘What's all this monkeying around? Your men are hungry.'

I'd never known such camaraderie between women before. Even the charity lunches Maman used to take me to were highly competitive. I wondered why Leroy's family was so accepting of me, apparentlty not at all bothered by my race or what I did for a living. Maybe it was because their own profession — and the horror people associated with death — put them on the edge of society too. Or maybe dealing with death had made them realise what was truly important in life.

The food was laid out on the dining table on a fruit-patterned tablecloth that matched the curtains in the front room. The adults sat around it, while the children were delegated to their own table in the kitchen. I took a moment to admire my surroundings. Bunny had made a centrepiece from a carved-out pumpkin filled with sunflowers, which bloomed until autumn in New Orleans. The plates were simple Pyrex trimmed in green, and the serving dishes were ceramic. There was nothing showy about Leroy's family home. Nothing was there to impress. Rather, every item — from the overstuffed armchairs to the
pictures of waterbirds on the walls — seemed to have been chosen to create a welcoming atmosphere.

Leroy, seated opposite, winked at me. I couldn't have been happier in that informal setting, where people passed dishes to each other instead of waiting for a maid to do it. I'd never known family life like this — everyone talking at once about everything from baseball to the neighbour's new baby and yet seemingly able to understand each other. It made me wish I really was Jewel and not Ruby. If I could become Jewel forever and live like this, I'd do it.

Then I thought about Maman and Mae. I doubted they could adapt to this life, even if it would do them the world of good. Maman was a kind person who'd always treated her servants with respect, but she'd only ever seen coloured people as domestics. And Mae couldn't seem to picture herself any other way.