Southern Ruby (43 page)

My heart sank. I couldn't bear to lose Leroy's family; they had become like my own.

‘Things will calm down,' I told him. ‘It's the school desegregation issue. When everything settles down, New Orleans will be like it was before.'

He sighed and rested his chin on my head. ‘I was so worried about you, Jewel. I told you to run! Why didn't you?'

‘I couldn't leave you.'

He took a deep breath and turned me to face him. ‘They could have done something terrible to you. I couldn't bear that. I couldn't bear for you to be hurt because of me.'

I had never seen Leroy look so serious. Something had changed in him. Although we were sitting with our bodies pressed together, he suddenly felt far away. The idea that some gap was forming between us made my pulse race with panic.

‘Perhaps we should leave New Orleans too,' I said, grabbing his unhurt wrist and squeezing it. ‘I've heard there's plenty of work for entertainers in San Francisco.'

He stood up and moved to the window. ‘Do you think it will be so different there? What's life going to be like for you? You won't be able to walk around freely with your husband by your side. What's it going to be like pretending you're part coloured? And what about our children? Don't you want to be proud of your children and show them off to everybody?' He frowned. ‘You'd be ashamed of them because they'd be mulattos.'

‘What are you saying?' I rose to my feet. ‘I
do
want to be proud of my children, Leroy, and I will be when I see you in their faces!'

He shook his head. ‘You got a nice white man in love with you,' he said, his eyes cast down. ‘Clifford Lalande can give you a life that I can't. He can look after you properly. I'll only make you a target.'

Pain sliced me down the middle and split me apart. The gap between us that I'd sensed earlier was now a gaping chasm. Not because we loved each other less, but because the world was tearing us apart.

‘Leroy, I love you! Only you! You don't want me to suffer? Well, I'll suffer if I'm separated from you!'

The desperation in my own voice made me cringe but Leroy remained firm.

‘What about your mother? You can't leave her behind, and I wouldn't ask you to.'

‘I've done everything for Maman and I always will,' I said breathlessly. ‘But she's got to face reality too. She can't keep us living in some imaginary past forever. It might turn her world upside down, but I know she'll love you once she gets to know you.' I moved towards him and clasped his arm. ‘What's left for Maman and Mae in New Orleans? To waste away in our museum of an apartment? San Francisco might give them both a new lease on life too.'

Leroy stared out the window for a long time before he asked quietly: ‘Is that what you want, Jewel? To leave everything and marry me?'

‘I'll die without you, Leroy! I'll just die!' I had never cried in front of him before. I resisted crying in front of anybody. My pride wouldn't allow it. But this time the tears got the better of me.

Leroy hesitated, wrestling with something in his mind. Then he took me in his arms and kissed me deeply.

‘Don't cry. I'll always look after you,' he said when he pulled back. ‘I'll always put you first.'

‘Then let me stay with you. I don't care what it costs — I'll pay it. Just let me stay with you.'

He steered me towards the bench, sat down and tugged me to him. He stroked my hair and pressed my head to his chest. ‘What we have is too strong to be torn apart by anybody else,' he said.

A rush of warmth and love replaced my fear. I slipped my hands around his neck as he embraced me and lowered me to the rug.

‘We'll elope,' he said, gazing into my face. ‘We'll go to San Francisco as you said.'

My neck ached from the bruising and the rug was rough against my back and legs but the desire flooding through my body only made those pains exquisite. I moaned with arousal when he undid the buttons at the front of my dress and kissed my throat and breasts.

‘Yes, we'll elope together to California,' I whispered, nuzzling into his neck and losing myself to waves of rapture. ‘We'll get away from all this madness and always be together.'

That evening before the show I used panstick and layers of powder to hide the bruises on my neck. I slipped on my G-string, and noticed the burn marks on my derriere where I'd rubbed against the rug when Leroy and I had made love. The memory made me smile and reluctantly I disguised them as well.

‘A new life,' I told my reflection in the mirror. I was relieved now that Leroy and I had come to a decision about our future. He was going to leave for San Francisco in a few days' time to find work and a place for us to live. Then I would follow him, along with his family. Although I was intoxicated with love for Leroy and excited by the idea of the new freedoms that awaited us in California, I had mixed feelings whenever I thought about Maman and Mae. I had paid off the mortgage on the apartment so they would be financially secure. Once I was established in San Francisco, I would send for them. But would they come? Or would their horror that I loved a coloured man stop them from ever accepting Leroy and his family? None of that I knew and it tainted my happiness with agitation.

I touched the cat figurine Orry-Kelly had given me, which I kept on my dressing table, and steeled myself. I had to believe everything would work out. I had saved us from financial ruin by sheer force of will and my readiness to do something out of the norm. There hadn't been any reason I shouldn't work other than stupid tradition. And there was no reason Leroy and I shouldn't be together other than stupid bigotry.

The stage manager knocked on the door. ‘Five minutes to show time, Jewel!'

My routine was one I'd been performing for a week now, yet everything felt jarring when I got out on stage. Marty, the orchestra leader, was at the top of his profession but I didn't feel in sync with him and his musicians. Miss Hanley assured me that things would improve with more rehearsals together but I doubted it. Even though the audience didn't notice it, a spark was missing for me: without Leroy, the magic of performing was gone.

Sam must have noticed I was out of sorts. When I'd finished for the night, he summoned me to his table to share some champagne with him.

‘You've got it bad, Jewel,' he said in his familiar lisp. ‘You're really stuck on Leroy, aren't you?'

I nodded.

He lit a cigarette and took deep puffs. ‘You're a fool, but I can't judge you. I was a fool too when I was your age.'

‘Did you fall in love with the wrong woman?' I asked, intrigued.

‘I fell in love with the
right
woman, but I married the one my family wanted me to. We haven't had a happy day together since the wedding night. She was the one who drove me to work for the mob — I needed an excuse to get away. My family are all artisans. They aren't even Sicilian; they're glass blowers in Venice.'

I studied Sam with new eyes. ‘Your wife is still in Italy? What happened to the woman you were in love with?'

His face turned dark. He inhaled on his cigarette and blew the smoke out through his nose like a dragon. ‘She threw herself out of a window.'

I gasped and instinctively put my hand on his arm as if to comfort him. He shrugged, embarrassed at having shared something intimate about himself. His face returned to its normal wary expression.

‘I told Leroy this morning not to play around with you unless he's prepared to sacrifice everything for you. Even then, Jewel, you will be shunned by both white and coloured people.'

He looked me directly in the eye. ‘Are you prepared to destroy yourself to be with Leroy? You've got a good thing going here. There are a lot of wealthy men who'd be crazy for you. They'd give you everything a woman could possibly ask for.'

There was no point playing games with Sam. I was sure he'd already guessed what Leroy and I were up to.

‘We're planning to go to California,' I told him. ‘To San Francisco.'

Sam took a last long drag on his cigarette before snuffing it out in the ashtray. Then he sat uncharacteristically silent and still. I wondered if he was going to get mad. I did have a contract with him, after all. But then something shifted in his expression, a subtle softening.

‘Go ahead and do it,' he said firmly. ‘I'll use my contacts to get you both work. Sometimes you've got to be brave enough to say “Damn it!” and do what you want to do.'

A few days later, as I ate breakfast with Maman, I admired how pretty she looked in the satin dress suit with lace cuffs I'd bought her for her birthday.
It's because of Jewel we have this life
, I thought proudly.
I'm not going to be ashamed of her, and I'm not going to be ashamed of Leroy or our children either. I'm going to make my own path.

I didn't know how I was going to tell Maman about Leroy. I couldn't tell her beforehand what I was planning to do, because she'd try to stop me. If Mae knew, she'd call the police. I was going to have to present it to them as a
fait accompli
.

Although I thought about Leroy and our new life constantly, I hadn't heard from him since I'd seen him in the tool shed. He'd told me that he'd only get in contact once he was about to leave for San Francisco. ‘No news will be good news,' he'd promised.

When I reached the rehearsal studio and saw Miss Hanley had brought in a record player, I choked up. ‘I miss Leroy,' I said.

Ever since the attack on me and Leroy my heart felt like it was beating in irregular rhythms. I clutched my head and sat down in a chair, willing the dizziness to go away.

‘Goodness me,' Miss Hanley said, pouring me a glass of water, ‘what's the matter with you? I miss Leroy too, but Marty is going to come to our studio rehearsals from tomorrow and he's charming. Good musicians move on all the time. You'll have to get used to it.'

Bless Miss Hanley. She hadn't guessed there was something going on between me and Leroy, even though it had started right under her nose. It made her seem foolish but I was fond of her anyway. She'd done so much to shape me into a star and I was grateful. I'd miss her when I went to San Francisco.

We rehearsed together for nearly two hours, using a chair as a prop. It represented a man who was initially impervious to my charms but eventually gave in to them. Then the studio telephone rang and Miss Hanley answered it.

‘It's the receptionist from the Vieux Carré Club,' she said, her hand over the receiver. ‘She says you have a message from a woman named Bernadine to meet her urgently.'

Bernadine was Bunny's proper name. I realised that Leroy must be about to leave for San Francisco.

‘I've got to go,' I told Miss Hanley. ‘I'll see you tomorrow.'

I took a cab to Tremé. When it pulled up outside the funeral home, I saw a crowd dressed in black gathered outside. I felt sorry for the mourners and their grief. My life was about to begin and somebody else's had ended. I paid the driver and was heading down the driveway to the Thezan home when I heard Bunny call out to me. Her distressed tone sent a shudder through me.

I turned and saw her walking in my direction. She faltered a couple of times and I wondered if she'd hurt her leg. When she
reached me I was horrified by the chalky undertone of her skin. She always looked so healthy.

‘What is it?' I asked her. ‘Are you ill?'

Her lips quivered and she couldn't bring herself to speak.

‘Bunny?'

When she finally looked at me, her eyes were glistening. ‘Leroy's dead.'

A sickening numbness spread across my chest. I wavered on my feet. No! Leroy was going to San Francisco. We were going to start a new life together. I closed my eyes as if I could make this nightmare disappear. But when I opened them again Bunny was still standing before me only now she was sobbing.

‘We were worried when he didn't come home the day before yesterday,' she said through her tears. ‘Then we got a call from the police last night. A fisherman found his body in the river. Someone had shot him multiple times before throwing him in the water.'