Celeste's Harlem Renaissance (13 page)

Before I could worry about how to find Miss Jarboro, I saw her walk toward us. Remembering my manners, I curtsied, pulling at my skirt at the same time, until Miss D poked me with her elbow. “Hello, Miss Jarboro, ma’am.” I took Aunti’s hand. “This is my Aunt Valentina Lassiter. Aunti Valentina, this is Miss Caterina Jarboro, of Wilmington, North Carolina.”

“Pleased, I’m sure.” Aunti stiffly jerked her head at Miss Jarboro.

“Celeste talked so much about you, I feel I know you,” Miss Jarboro said. She extended her hand to Aunti and smiled broadly. I knew how Aunti loved to show her pretty white teeth. Where were they now?

“And I’m Mrs. Ripsey Dillahunt, who called you last night,” said Miss D, introducing herself before I could. “And do you have a leading role?”

“Oh, no,” said Miss Jarboro. “I’m in the chorus line, but I’m understudying for other parts, too. I thought Miss Lassiter could audition for the chorus line and understudy. Sometimes a girl who can’t travel away from town drops out, so she’d have a chance to get that spot. We go on the road to Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia before we open here on Broadway. See, we’re all praying that
Shuffle Along
will truly make it to a real Broadway theater. This place here is just our practice hall; you know how that goes, Miss Lassiter.” She smiled warmly. When Aunti didn’t say anything, she added, “If you’re interested.”

When Aunti still didn’t say anything, she raised an eyebrow at me. “Or perhaps you’d like to audition, Celeste, if you like to dance.”

“Me?” I could barely do the two-step, let alone dance in a musical! “I —”

“No, she’s still a child,” Aunti burst out, like she’d been trying to get a word in all along. “She doesn’t care to perform. I’m the one who’s the performer in the family. Of course I’m interested.”

“That’s what I thought.” Miss Jarboro smiled. “I was just teasing.”

“Oh, good,” I said, relieved. “I —”

“You see I’m here, so I’m ready,” Aunti said. “When do we get started?”

“You all just take seats near the front here, then I’ll come back and get you, Miss Lassiter.”

After Miss Jarboro walked away, Miss D chuckled. “She knew you’d wake up if she offered the part to your niece.”

“Be quiet, Ripsey. Celeste, did you tell her you wanted to be in theater?” Aunti wore this slightly embarrassed, slightly angry expression.

“No.” I shook my head hard, bewildered by her question. “I couldn’t even —”

“Val, you should have been talking to Miss Jarboro,” Miss D interrupted. “How’re you gonna audition for the chorus if you don’t talk?”

“Ripsey, I was hoping for something higher than the chorus line,” Aunti whispered. “Oh, look — Gertrude Saunders, Adelaide Hall, and Lottie Gee! I know them, and I wager they’ve got the starring roles. Shoot, I’m as good as they are. Look, there’s Miller and Lyles, the fabulous vaudeville comics.” She nudged me and pointed to some men with papers in their hands by the musicians’ section. “And Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, the composers, are over there with them!”

“Go speak to them,” I whispered, “since you know them.”

Aunti fingered the fringe on her skirt. When she headed toward the musicians’ section, I crossed my fingers. But instead she spun off for some seats and sat down. I sighed and followed. Like Miss D had said, seemed like the only time Aunti got excited was when Miss Jarboro joked about me auditioning. I hoped Miss Jarboro wouldn’t get fed up with her moodiness and not put in a good word to the producers about her.

We watched people do some dance kicks, then I got up my courage. I didn’t want Aunti to keep snapping at me. “Have you decided on another name yet?” I asked carefully. “To keep Madame Gutness off your trail?”

“Not gave it a thought,” she murmured, watching the dancers.

“How about Val, from Valentina, and Chavis, for that man in the picture who you said was your good friend?”

She glanced at me sharply, but only said, “Hmmmm.”

When a man hurried to the front of the room and issued orders, the musicians began tuning their instruments. Miss Jarboro and the other people took positions. With a drumroll and a cymbal crash, the musicians set off and the folks began to sing and do a dance that Miss D whispered to me was the Charleston.

“I can do that better than most of them,” Aunti said under her breath. She swung her shoulders to the music. “Look at that girl with that white dress on, stumbling all over the place.”

The girl danced all right to me, but I didn’t tell that to my aunt. “What if you got out there?” I whispered. “Dancing in your chair won’t get you noticed.”

“Say what?” Aunti slipped off her jacket and dropped it into my lap. She ripped the fringe off her skirt, roped it around her neck, and mashed her hat more firmly onto her head. She practically flew onto the chorus line, the fringe flapping around her neck like butterfly wings. “Go, Aunti, go!” I whispered.

When the dance ended, the man who had called folks up pointed to Aunti. Aunti’s and the man’s lips moved, then they left the other dancers and went to a corner. “You think he got mad and made her leave?” I whispered to Miss D. I surely didn’t want her to blame me for that.

“The way he was showing all thirty-two teeth, he’s either gonna hire her or ask her for a date,” Miss D replied.

Aunti sashayed back to us, smiling and shaking her fringe. “They hired me!” she bubbled. “I’ll only be in the chorus, but it’s a start. I can’t leave with them for Washington, D.C., because I got to get my traveling money together first. But I can join them there later, and then open with them in Philadelphia. He also wants me to be an understudy for Adelaide, Lottie, and Gertrude. Isn’t that fabulous?”

“Praise God and pass the biscuits!” I said. Some of the other people heard me and laughed. But my plan was finally moving ahead again. She’d open on Broadway, make money, and then we could go back home! “When do we leave for Washington? I could help you with your wardrobe and your hair and food, like you did with —”

“Oh no, the road’s no place for a child,” Aunti exclaimed, sounding surprised. “You’ll stay with Miss D till I get back. If that’s all right with you,” she added to Miss D. Miss D nodded.

“But I thought — well, all right,” I whispered. Now I was going to be separated from even the one relative I had here in New York. What if Aunti didn’t come back?

Chapter
Ten

F
rom the way Aunti interrupted me I knew she didn’t want me flapping my lips in front of her new friends. I guessed she couldn’t afford to have me tagging behind her on the road, either: I’d just be another mouth to gobble up scarce food. Maybe she wanted a spell away from me. Still, being left behind was a calamitous letdown.

“Um, after you become a big star with lots of money, we can return to Raleigh for the fair,” I said to cover up my distress at not being able to travel with her. “By then Poppa’ll be home and you can live with us, and —”

“Whoa, this little filly’s just galloping! She went from hardly saying a word when she moved here to making more noise than a Victrola! Excuse me.” Laughing, Aunti took me by the arm and steered me to a corner. Miss D followed. “Just when my career’s rising off the ground again, what makes you think I want to go back to Raleigh?” she whispered.

That was something else I shouldn’t have flapped my lips about. “Well, no, you wouldn’t, not with a new job, I guess.” My stomach knotted up. But if she didn’t go back, I really couldn’t, either, at least not until Poppa was well. The law wouldn’t allow me to live in the house by myself because I was too young, and Aunt Society wouldn’t stay with me because she said I was too — sassy? Too something! Bowing my head, I studied patterns in the linoleum floor so Aunti Val couldn’t see the disappointment in my eyes.

“Oh, now you’re drooping. Celeste, I didn’t say I
wouldn’t
go back.” Aunti flashed her toothy smile. “Isn’t that right, Miss D?” She playfully flicked the fringe at Miss D, but Miss D took it and tucked it into her purse.

She and Miss D had a five-second staring contest, then Aunti looked back to me. “We got lots of water to cross between now and then,” she finished.

While I fretted, the lady named Lottie Gee walked over to us. “My, my, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, Valentina. Welcome to
Shuffle Along,
” she said. “And who’s this? Your daughter?”

“Now, you know I’m too young to have a girl this old! She’s thirteen.” Aunti’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. I knew she wasn’t pleased with Miss Lottie’s assumption. “This is my niece Celeste, from North Carolina. And my friend, Mrs. Dillahunt. They came to offer support.”

Miss Gee spoke to us and we spoke back. “So, Valentina, how’s Madame Mercifal? Is she giving you time off to work with us?”

“She’s freed me up, that’s for sure,” Aunti said, glancing at me meaningfully when I breathed in sharply. “Tell me more about the costumes. Or do we wear our own clothes? I hear this show has a tight budget.”

“Sitting so pretty with Madame Mercifal Gutness, you needn’t worry about a little thing like a tight budget.” Miss Gee lowered her voice. “But I’m sure you’re already aware the show doesn’t have any money. We won’t get paid until after we’ve come back from Washington and Philadelphia and open here May twenty-third. But everything’ll work out.”

Not get paid? Miss D pulled me off to the side while Aunti and Miss Lottie kept talking. “Don’t you say anything,” she whispered. “I heard what Lottie said. Cece,” she said louder, “I know you must be getting hungry. You like chitlins? There’s a barbecue joint not far from here.”

I shook my head, knowing what she meant. “I can’t stand anything that’s pork, not after having to use pig grease on my head,” I said softly.

Rehearsal ended. Miss D and I had to hurry to keep up with my aunt flying back to the subway. “Aunti, how can you have a job and not be paid?” I panted.

“Oh, she meant no money in my hand
just yet,
” Aunti said as we tromped down the stairs to the subway platform again. “That’s not unusual. We’ll just keep doing what we’ve been doing until my new money rolls in.” We pushed through the subway doors and found seats.

“But I don’t want to keep on!” I said so loud an old White man across the aisle peered over at me. Money was supposed to roll in immediately!

“What did the man who hired you say about salary?” Miss D asked. “After all, Lottie could be wrong. And when does the show open in D.C.?”

“He told me that he couldn’t pay me right away. We’ll open in D.C. in a few weeks, in early May. That’ll give me enough time to raise money to get there. All these questions! I thought you two’d be happy.
I
am.”

“Val, you know good and well that if I don’t ask, I won’t know, ’cause you won’t say,” said Miss D, slapping her gloves against her purse again. Their voices got so low I couldn’t hear them over the subway’s rumble. Then I heard Miss D say, “You better straighten up and fly right, girl. Don’t be so wishy-washy. You know Cece wants to go back home and she wants you there, too.”

At least Miss D understood how I felt. Aunti didn’t seem to. The least she could have done was thank Miss D and me for helping her get this job, but she didn’t. I was just too outdone with her to even bring it up.

Back at the boardinghouse Aunti fixed a big vegetable salad as she sang lines from
Shuffle Along
songs. I sure didn’t feel like singing, or even playing Dede. How could good news be so bad at the same time? I wished Evalina, Angel Mae, or Swan were around to talk to. I hadn’t even heard from them yet. Had they forgotten about me, too?

After supper I got into bed feeling lower than the rug on the floor. But Aunti was still bubbling. “I told Mr. Blake about Madame Mercifal. He said he and Mr. Sissle weren’t afraid of her. If they decide to put my name on the program, he’ll bill me as Val Chavis, the name you suggested. Ain’t that cute?”

“Yes, ma’am, cute,” was all I said. Seemed like anything I tried to do to get back home was like grabbing fog with my fingers: I could see it and feel it, and it stayed within my reach, but I still couldn’t hold it in my hands. Why couldn’t I make her want to go back to Raleigh as much as I did? I hadn’t come to New York because I wanted to, like she had. I’d been here long enough. It was time for me to get ready to go back — even if it wasn’t possible, I added sadly to myself.

I began going to the
Shuffle Along
rehearsals with Aunti, but since I didn’t have anything to do there, I took Miss Pinetar along. When Miss Lottie, who played the rich girl named Jessie, practiced “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” I danced my puppet around on my lap. Aunti sat down by me to take a break. “Seems like if you’re wild about somebody you’d want to show you had some fire,” I told her. “Like this.” I jerked Miss Pinetar’s arms and legs around while I softly sang the song faster.

“I’ll be sure to tell Lottie to follow the bouncing wooden doll next time.” Aunti chuckled. “You got a point, Cece, but don’t ever tell stars how to sing their songs. I know from personal experience that they don’t like it.” She returned to the chorus.

Aunti had also asked me to come along to help her unravel the complicated plot, since she didn’t seem to understand it any more than I did. As far as I could figure it, a Mr. Jenkins (played by Mr. Miller) and a Mr. Peck (played by Mr. Lyles) were part-ners of a grocery store in some town down South called Jimtown. When the partners decided to run against each other for mayor, they both secretly swiped money from their own cash register to buy votes, then each accused the other of stealing. Jenkins on the sly hired a private detective to catch Peck, while Peck hired one to catch Jenkins. Lo and behold, unbeknownst to each other, they hired the same detective, named Keen-Eye.

Now. The fellow named Harry (played by Roger Matthews) that Jessie (Miss Lottie) was so wild about was a good guy who wanted to become mayor, too, but unlike Peck and Jenkins, Harry wanted to run an honest campaign and refused to buy votes, since that was illegal. He didn’t have any money anyway, but fortunately Jessie was so much in love with him that she was willing to help him finance his campaign. Harry and Jessie’s campaign and their love hit some snags, though, when Jessie’s daddy refused to give them any money unless he knew for sure that Harry’d win the election. Worse yet, if he
didn’t
win, Jessie’s daddy wouldn’t let him marry Jessie, either! Mr. Peck won the election, and a string of other calamities sprang up, which convinced me never to enter politics.