Southern Ruby (6 page)

‘No good can come of this, Miss Ruby!' Mae warned as she helped me to dress. ‘Not for a young lady in your position. Those women you saw the other day don't come from the same folk you do. God gave us all a place and we should be satisfied with it. Once you start questioning one part of your life, you start questioning everything.'

‘Listen, Mae,' I said, fixing my hair in the mirror, ‘God gave me two arms, two legs and a head and I intend to use them to get us out of this fix. Didn't you always teach me that God helps those who help themselves?'

Mae shook her head. ‘Small people shouldn't get ideas above their station and grand people shouldn't get ones below theirs — that's what my grandmama used to say.'

‘I've got to try something different from what we've been doing. Otherwise what will we do when there's nothing left to sell? Now you keep Maman occupied until I get home. Tell her I'm taking piano and singing lessons in exchange for keeping Adalie de Pauger company. She'll be pleased by that. You know that old widow is a recluse and doesn't see anybody except young people she thinks have exceptional talent.'

I'd found a job at Avery's Ice Cream Parlor down the South Rampart end of Canal Street, near where the new Civic
Center was to be built. There was a lot of development going on around that part of town and the manager, an Italian man named Mr Silvetti, was happy to hire me on the spot without asking about my experience. The parlour was a cheerful place with black and white tiles on the floor and a long counter with chrome stools upholstered in pink and green vinyl. As well as ice cream it served vanilla shakes, root-beer floats and hot fudge sundaes. A jukebox in the corner played music by people I'd never heard of, like Frankie Laine and Johnnie Ray, but the tunes made me tap my feet in time to the beat.

I had never waitressed before and I didn't know anyone who had, so as I put on my pink uniform and white apron the first day I kept reassuring myself,
How hard can it be?
As it turned out, taking the customers' orders and serving their food wasn't any more difficult than hosting a morning tea and looking after your guests. The hard part was not being able to sit down. At the end of the day, my legs throbbed as if I'd been riding a horse up a mountain, and Mae, despite her disapproval of what I was doing, massaged them with castor oil.

‘You're going to ruin those nice pins of yours, Miss Ruby,' she warned. ‘You'll end up bow-legged and bent over like me.'

‘Shh!' I told her. ‘This isn't forever. Just till we can figure out something else to bring in money.'

‘What's going to bring in money is you being pretty and finding yourself a nice husband.'

‘Oh, don't bother me about husbands, Mae. We're in this mess because of all the de Villeray husbands.'

It wasn't the standing that was the most disheartening part of the job, but how little money I earned for being in the parlour most of the day. I was pleased that we had some extra so we could buy better food and put colour in our cheeks again, but every penny was hard earned and there was no money left over for anything nice like lace or scented soap. And then there was the mopping.

‘
Dio buono!
' said Mr Silvetti the first time he saw me take a mop and bucket to the floor. ‘It's just as well you're pretty, Ruby, otherwise I'd have to fire you. You've got water and muck all over the place. Have you never mopped a floor before?'

The truth was I hadn't, but I didn't tell him that. At least he'd recognised that my good looks were an asset. He kept commenting that he'd never had so many young men coming to the parlour until I started working there.

‘Where do you live, Ruby? Will your father let me take you out?' the young men asked me.

They were nice enough boys with their crew cuts and plaid shirts, but not the sort I was used to. Young Creole men were more aloof and didn't act so eager. Besides, their mothers were always hovering to vet their choice of female companions. I couldn't tell the boys in the ice cream parlour that I was from an aristocratic Creole family, lived in a crumbling apartment in the Quarter and that my father had perished in Brazil. Instead, to deflect all the questions, I decided to invent a new life for myself. It wasn't hard: each day as I walked to work, I felt that I was leaving behind Vivienne de Villeray and becoming someone else.

‘I live with my parents and younger brother in Lakeview,' I told the boys when they pestered me. ‘On one of the new estates there.' So convincing did I make my fictional life that I could see every detail myself as I related it: the sliding glass doors and patio of our modern home; my father leaving for his job at the telephone company every morning; my mother baking oatmeal cookies; our dog, Spud, playing in the garden. ‘I'm saving up for college,' I even added boldly.

It was a good, simple and happy life that I invented and it made me feel better. My mother wasn't dying of diabetes, and I had a bright future and could marry freely for love, without obligation to traditions, fortunes and a family name. Pretending to be a carefree seventeen year old
made
me a carefree seventeen
year old, for a few hours a day at least. It wasn't until I'd changed out of my uniform and was heading back towards Royal Street that the weight of the world bore down on me again.

Then one day something happened at the ice cream parlour to challenge my invented happiness.

As well as the counter that faced the milk bar, there were tables that ran the length of the tall windows. Customers could look out at the street and watch the passing parade of people and streetcars. But the section reserved for coloured folks wasn't so appealing: just four tables tucked away in the back corner. They couldn't even use the front entrance, but had to come in through a side door that opened onto a dingy laneway. The parlour had a restroom but it was for ‘Whites Only'. The coloured customers had to go find a public restroom elsewhere on Canal Street or wait until they got home.

I'd lived in a segregated society all my life and had never questioned it. It was the way things were — white and coloured lived ‘separate but equal' lives according to the law. White people had their restrooms, and coloured people had theirs. It was the same with drinking fountains, seats on the streetcars, lines in banks and vending machines. Once, as a child, I'd asked my mother why our servants — three then, including Mae — ate in the kitchen and not with us. ‘Darling Ruby,' Maman had replied, stroking my hair, ‘coloured folk are much more comfortable in their place. They don't want to mix with us either. It's how it is.' But for some reason, things started to bother me in the ice cream parlour. Perhaps it was because the place was so pretty for whites and so drab for the coloured people. How could that be separate but equal? Or perhaps it was because, as Mae had warned me, now that I was questioning one aspect of my life, I was starting to question everything.

We'd just finished the lunchtime rush and Betty, another waitress, and I were wiping down the counters and tables. A group of young men and women office workers from the
Louisiana Life Insurance Company were the only customers left. They were celebrating somebody's birthday, loudly joking and laughing with each other. Then the front door opened and in walked three coloured men.

Betty was rinsing glasses and didn't notice, but I was surprised to see them coming in the ‘Whites Only' entrance. All of them were tall and smartly dressed: they wore cinnamon suits with two-toned embroidered shirts and silk ties that complemented their coffee-toned skin. The oldest of them, who I guessed to be twenty-five, nodded to me and said, ‘Good afternoon, miss.' The men didn't take a table in the coloured section but sat at one facing the window. I considered that they might be from the North, where segregation wasn't mandated. But whether they were from the North or not, as long as they could read English they must have been aware of what they were doing. They'd selected a table right under the gigantic
Whites Only
sign.

Well, what of it?
I thought.
There's plenty of room now lunchtime is over. Why shouldn't they have a view of the street?
I picked up my order pad.

The man who'd spoken watched my approach, looking me directly in the eyes. I always appreciated an interesting face. Despite his young age, this man was dignified, with broad cheekbones and a strong chin. His eyes seemed ancient.

‘What would you gentlemen like?' I asked, directing my question to him and speaking in a low voice.

The other two men glanced at me briefly, surprised that I hadn't challenged them, while the first man held my gaze as if sizing me up.

I glanced back at the group of office workers. It was their presence that was making me nervous rather than the three coloured men sitting in the wrong place. I longed for more people to arrive and distract attention away from the threesome. But my discretion was of no use. Mr Silvetti walked in from the back room and called out, ‘Coloureds in the rear! You can't sit
there!' He didn't say it in a malicious way, rather out of habit, in the tone one might use to instruct a dog to heel or to sit. But he'd drawn the attention of the office workers, who turned around to see what was happening.

I sucked in a breath, sensing trouble.

The coloured men didn't get up and move as they were told. Rather the dignified man turned to Mr Silvetti and answered in a calm voice, ‘No, thank you, sir. We'd like to sit here.'

You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

One of the office workers, a man with a skinny neck and freckles, frowned. ‘Hey, nigger, the man told you to move!'

‘No, thank you, sir,' the coloured man repeated. ‘We'd like to sit here.'

His composure was chilling. Coloured men didn't speak back to white men. They didn't look them in the eyes and address them as equals. They didn't stand their ground when told to move. If you were coloured and a white man approached you on the banquette, you'd better lower your eyes and step out of his way or you'd be ganged up on and beaten.

‘You've been told to move, boy,' said one of the women in the group. ‘Have you been up North, boy? You got Yankee ideas about your place now, boy? Those ideas mean nothing here!'

The coloured men ignored her and picked up the menus.

Now a Southern woman's honour had to be defended and the white men sprang into action. They rushed towards the rebellious threesome with their fists raised, but when they reached them they seemed less certain of what to do. A white man could beat a coloured man to death with no fear of the law, but something about these men, apart from their superior size, was unnerving. They seemed to possess an inner power.

Frustrated, one of the office workers picked up a melted marshmallow sundae from a table I hadn't cleared yet and poured it over the first man's head. Inspired, the others began throwing napkin holders and forks at them, screaming, ‘Get
lost, you dirty niggers! You'll be sorry when there's a noose around your necks!'

Still the coloured men didn't react, until the troublemaking woman walked over and put her lighted cigarette onto the back of the hand of one of the men. He flinched, but I imagined the pain would have caused a bigger reaction in a lesser man.

As the threats escalated, the three men finally stood up, still with solemn dignity. I looked at the first man, his beautiful suit ruined by the sundae. I grabbed a napkin and wanted to hand it to him so he could clean himself up, but my limbs wouldn't move. Fear of being labelled a ‘nigger lover' kept me rooted to the spot.

The inflamed group of office workers shoved the coloured men out of the parlour, ironically through the ‘Whites Only' door. The whole episode couldn't have taken more than ten minutes but my world had changed forever. I looked at the napkin in my hand. In not helping the man, even in a small way, I'd let some significant part of myself down.

I promised myself that if ever I was in a similar situation and another human being needed my help and sympathy, I wouldn't stand by silently.

A
part from the incident with the coloured men, working at Avery's Ice Cream Parlor was pleasant enough but I was worried about the low pay despite the tips I earned. Maman's physician, Doctor Monfort, was an old family friend who treated her for free, but the medicines he prescribed were expensive. I had to find a better-paid job, but what?

One morning when there weren't any customers in the parlour and I was in the kitchen scrubbing down the benches, I heard a familiar voice.

‘Well, of course her husband spends all his time on Bourbon Street looking at the girls. She doesn't know how to control him.'

It was a nasty, droning voice that drained you of energy the moment you heard it. A voice like that belonged to a nasty, droning person: Aunt Elva!

I peered through the round window in the kitchen door and saw her taking a seat at the counter with some other matronly ladies, including Lisette Rombeau. Aunt Elva wiped down the stool with her handkerchief before placing her ‘too good for the
ordinary world' derriere on it. I'd never expected to see people Maman knew in the parlour. It wasn't close to where Aunt Elva and Lisette Rombeau lived in Metairie. What were they doing here?

‘Service, please!' Aunt Elva called, turning to look at the kitchen door.

I ducked down, my heart racing. This was a disaster. I was the only waitress scheduled for that morning, and Mr Silvetti was out on an errand. I didn't even want to imagine the consequences if I went out and served those women. I was proud of myself for doing something to help our situation, but if Maman found out she would be ashamed — and worse, mocked and shunned by the other high-society Creoles. Her weekly ladies' bridge club was one of the few social pleasures she had left.

‘Service, please!' Aunt Elva called again. ‘Is anybody even here? What's taking you so long?'

I heard the sound of a chair scraping. She was coming to investigate. There was nothing to be done but make a run for it.

I grabbed my clothes and fled into the storeroom, out the delivery door and into the laneway. It wasn't until I reached home that I fully realised what a close call it had been. I couldn't go back to the ice cream parlour. It was too risky. I quickly changed out of my uniform behind a palm in the courtyard and threw it into a garbage can. When I entered the apartment, I heard voices and found Maman entertaining Babette Pélissier, the only friend who still called on her, with tea and cake. And what a cake it was! The icing was butter cream formed into a bouquet of pink and white roses. Mae must have bought it from the exclusive French patisserie across the street. Of course it was all for Babette: Maman wouldn't be able to touch it because of her diabetes.

‘Babette has the most wonderful news!' Maman exclaimed, indicating for me to sit down next to her. ‘Georgine is getting married! To Harvey Boiselle!'

While Babette still called on Maman, I hadn't heard from her daughter in over a year. Still, it pleased me to think Georgine had stolen one of Eugenie's beaus. Aunt Elva must be fuming! It was hard to keep the smile from my face despite what had happened at Avery's. Maman seemed to have forgotten that Aunt Elva had spoken about Harvey Boiselle in relation to her own daughter, otherwise she might have been more circumspect. Maman was forgetful of quite a few things these days. Doctor Monfort said it was the progression of her disease.

‘Your mother has been telling me the most delightful story about the history of the house in Rue Ursulines,' said Babette, adjusting her fashionable demi-chapeau. ‘I'd forgotten how good she is at relating a story.'

If there was one talent appreciated above all in New Orleans it was the ability to tell a good story. Why, it was as impolite to tell a story badly as it was to not greet an acquaintance on the street. Visitors said the reason it took so long to get things done in New Orleans was because everyone you met had a story they wanted to share with you. In a city of storytellers, Maman was the best, especially when she told tales about the history of the place. The animation in her face and the way she raised and lowered her voice at the right moments made it seem like the scene she was describing was unfolding before your eyes. Perhaps her talent had been handed down from the plantation days, when there was nothing to do during the hot, mosquito-ridden evenings except play cards, read poetry and tell each other stories.

Mae came to refresh the tea. She glanced from the cake to me and winked. Even though she didn't like me working, I guessed she was pleased that we could make Maman happy with the money I was earning. Then I realised that not only could I not return to the ice cream parlour after I'd run out like that and thrown away my uniform, but I hadn't picked up my current
week's pay. It was going to be gravy and bread again if I didn't figure something else out quickly.
Curse, Aunt Elva
, I thought.
She's got a way of spoiling everything.

‘Ruby,' Maman said that evening, when we were sitting together reading and listening to Chopin on the record player after dinner, ‘you are looking more and more like your father every day.'

‘Maman, that is not a compliment!' I cried, putting my book down.

‘Pray, why not?' she asked, looking indignant. ‘He was the handsomest man in town and you're the prettiest girl.'

‘Because he left us and got himself killed by a mosquito. Being the handsomest man in town isn't much use if you aren't there for your wife and daughter.'

‘Now that's no way to talk about your papa,' said Maman, taking off her mother-of-pearl spectacles. ‘Your father was a passionate man and passion is a fine trait, even if it does get you into trouble sometimes.'

Despite the fact that my father had practically deserted us, Maman never said a bad word against him. She had some strange points of view about the world, and being loyal to your husband, even if he was a cad, was one of them. She wasn't capable of seeing things any other way.

She pressed her lips together and frowned. ‘It's true the de Villerays perhaps had more passion than most. But my branch of the Dreux family had none, and that made them weak. Both my parents were dead before they were forty and produced no heirs except me. Passion gives you the will to live. I think that's why I was so charmed by your father: he had a zest for living. Unfortunately, I couldn't keep up with his late nights and his festivities and his ideas —'

‘Just as well you didn't, Maman,' I interrupted. ‘Or you'd have gone on that foolish trip to Brazil and died with him.'

She sighed and changed the subject. ‘Anyways, did I ever tell you about Nicolas Didier, a Creole aristocrat distantly related to the de Villeray family? Now there was a man who had some passion.'

Normally, listening to one of Maman's stories was my favourite way to pass time. But my mind was troubled and I only half paid attention to her tale about a French man and a beautiful quadroon woman back in the days when there were few white women in the colony. Maman spoke about the grand balls where mothers of mixed-blood women brought their daughters to meet prospective protectors in a system known as
plaçage
. The coloured women were given their own houses, and any offspring born of the union were formally educated. It was an arrangement that lasted until a suitably aristocratic wife was sent to the colony by the man's family for an official and legally recognised marriage. Maman described the ball gowns and the women ‘with skin like butterscotch' in elaborate detail, but all I could think about was money. How was I going to earn it now that I no longer had a job at the ice cream parlour? Then something occurred to me.

‘What an extraordinary story,' I said when Maman had finished. ‘Why don't you write it down? You'd be a fine writer, and I bet a publisher would sign you up right away. You could be as famous as Margaret Mitchell.'

Maman lowered her eyes, flattered, then looked at me with a stern expression. ‘Don't talk such nonsense, Ruby. I couldn't write a book and I wouldn't want to anyway. I've got you to take care of.'

‘Why don't you approve of women working?' I asked. ‘Sometimes they just have to. Many of the students at Tulane University are young women now.'

Maman smoothed her skirt. ‘Oh, I understand that some women find themselves in a position where they have to work.
But, Ruby, a lady — a real lady — never works outside the home. Those girls going to university might make fine careers for themselves, but in the end they're going to come home to a dark and empty house.' My dismay must have shown on my face because her eyebrows rose in alarm. ‘Ruby, honey, promise me that you'll never work. I've given my all to raise you to be a proper lady and to make a good marriage. After your papa's death, it was all I had to live for. Promise me you'll never do anything to ruin that. A woman's first priority is her husband and children. A gentleman won't marry a woman he doesn't think is committed to him and the home first.'

Later, as I lay in my bed, I heard Maman coughing and Mae going to her room to take her some hot water with lemon. Doctor Monfort had warned that the diabetes could affect Maman's breathing. If the coughing persisted, she would need more medicines and for that we'd need money. Uncle Rex hadn't been to see us in a while. Aunt Elva was keeping him away, I suspected. How were we going to afford those medicines if I didn't work?

Maman had some lofty ideas but no practical sense and, as much as I loved her, it frustrated me. I thought about my father. It seemed to me that a woman could do better for herself than to tie her fate to the whims of a male member of the species. But Maman would never understand that, and as much as I hated sneaking around, that was what I was going to have to do.

Maman's cough was worse in the morning. I called Doctor Monfort, but he wasn't able to make a house call until later in the evening, so he told me to come to his office in Jefferson Parish and he'd give me some medicine to soothe Maman's respiratory tract.

When I stepped off the bus, I marvelled at how much Jefferson Parish was changing. It used to be a sleepy community with chickens and cows wandering about, but now there were housing developments and roads springing up everywhere. Factories, shops, hotels and even casinos stood where before there'd only been pastures.

As I was leaving Doctor Monfort's office with the medicine, I bumped into Uncle Rex on South Carrollton Avenue. My uncle, usually so precisely dressed, was unshaven and wearing a creased jacket with his tie askew. I wondered if he and Aunt Elva had argued and she'd thrown him out for the night. But that didn't feel right: Aunt Elva would never do anything that would ‘get the neighbours talking'.

‘Hello,' I said, stopping in front of him.

He looked at me kind of funny, then his eyes opened wide as if he'd suddenly recognised me. ‘Ruby! What brings you to this part of town?'

‘Doctor Monfort has his office near here. Maman was sick last night with her breathing and I had to come and pick up some medicine.'

I was hoping he'd offer to pay for the medicine, but he didn't, and I was at a loss about how to approach the subject because he'd always put the money in the jar on the mantelpiece without making a big song and dance of it. Had Aunt Elva truly gotten to him about not giving us anything? If that was the case, we were in trouble, because the medicine had cost ten dollars and I'd had to get it on credit. I was trying to help myself, but Aunt Elva kept thwarting me at every turn. I couldn't win for losing.

Uncle Rex and I talked about the weather and how it was finally starting to turn cold. Then, out of politeness, I asked about Eugenie, even though she wasn't an ounce nicer than her mother and I didn't really care how she was doing. ‘I can't believe it's almost a year since we made our debut. How is she?'

Uncle Rex shifted uneasily on his feet and didn't reply.

I hadn't had any offers of marriage, but that was to be expected. I was surprised that Eugenie mightn't have either. Aunt Elva had made out that Pierre Leboeuf was very taken with her, and even though Eugenie wasn't the most attractive of girls she did have a sizeable dowry.