Ruby (31 page)

"It's better than what I have at the college," he whispered as if he didn't want the college trustees to hear.
"When I believe in something or someone, Professor Ashbury, I commit myself fully," my father declared.
"I can see that. Very well, monsieur," he said with some pomposity, "I accept your daughter as one of my students. Provided, of course," he added, shifting his eyes to me, "she is willing to accept my tutelage completely and without question."
"I'm sure she is. Ruby?"
"What? Oh, yes. Thank you," I said quickly. I was still absorbing Professor Ashbury's earlier compliments.
"I will take you through the fundamentals once again," he warned. "I will teach you discipline, and only when I think you are ready, will I turn you loose on your own imaginative powers. Many are born with talent," he declared, "but few have the discipline to develop it properly."
"She does," my father assured him.
"We'll see, monsieur."
"Come to my office, Professor, and we will discuss the financial arrangements," my father said. Professor Ashbury, his eyes still fixed on me, nodded. "When can she have her first lesson with you, Professor?"
"This coming Monday, monsieur," he replied. "Although she has one of the finest home studios in the city, I might ask her to come to mine from time to time," he added.
"That won't be a problem."
"Tres Bien,"
Professor Ashbury said. He nodded at me and left with my father.
My heart was pounding with excitement. Grandmere Catherine had always been so positive about my artistic talent. She had no formal schooling and knew little about art, and yet she was convinced down to her soul that I would be a success. How many times had she assured me of this, and now, an art instructor, a professor at a college, had taken one look at my work and declared me very possibly his best candidate.
Still trembling with joy, I hurried upstairs to tell Gisselle, my heart so full, I had no room for anger anymore. I gushed out all the professor had said. Gisselle, trying on different hats at her vanity table, listened and then turned with a look of puzzlement on her face.
"You really want to spend hours with a teacher after spending most of the day in school?" she asked.
"Of course. This is different. This is. . . what I've always dreamt of doing," I replied.
She shrugged.
"I wouldn't. That's why I never pushed for the singing teacher. We have so little time to have fun. They're always finding things for us to do: teachers pile on the homework, make us study for tests, and then we have to fit our lives to our parents' schedules.
"Once you get to know some of the boys and make some friends, you won't want to waste your time with art instruction," she declared.
"It's not a waste of my time."
"Please," she sighed. "Here," she said, tossing a dark blue beret at me. "Try this on. We're going to the French Quarter to have some fun. You don't want to tag along looking like someone just born," she added.
We heard the sound of a car horn, a funny
bleep, bleep, bleep.
"That's Beau and Martin. Come on," she said, jumping up. She grabbed my hand and pulled me along, not showing the slightest regret for the things she had said to our father and Daphne about me only a short while ago. Lies did float about this house as lightly as balloons.
"You're not going to lie to us again about which one of you is which, are you?" Martin asked, smiling as he pulled open the door to Beau's sports car for us.
"Now that you're looking at me in broad daylight," Gisselle retorted, "you surely can tell I'm Gisselle." Martin glanced from me to her and nodded.
"Yes, I can," he said, but he said it in such a way to make it hard to tell if were complimenting her or complimenting me. Beau laughed. Annoyed, Gisselle declared she and I would sit in the back together.
We squeezed tightly into the small rear seat of Beau's sports car and held our berets on our heads as he shot away from the curve. Speeding down the street, we screamed, Gisselle's voice louder and more filled with pleasure and glee than mine which was driven by a pounding heart as we spun around a turn, tires squealing. I imagined we made quite a sight, twins, their ruby red hair dancing and flicking like flames in the wind. People stopped walking to pause and watch us rush by. Young men whistled and howled.
"Don't you just love it when men do that?" Gisselle screamed in my ear. With the sound of the engine and the wind whistling by us, we had to shout to be heard even sitting next to each other.
I wasn't sure what to say. On occasion in the bayou, walking to town, I recalled men driving by in trucks and cars whistling and calling to me like this. When I was younger, I thought it was funny, but I remembered once being frightened when a man in a dirty brown pickup truck not only called to me, but slowed down and followed me along the road, urging me to get into the truck with him. He claimed he would give me a ride to town, but there was
something about the way he leered at me that set my heart thumping. I ended up running back toward home and he drove off. I was afraid to tell Grandmere Catherine because I was sure she would stop letting me walk to town by myself.
And yet, I also knew there were girls my age and older who could parade up and down the street day in and day out and never get a second look. It was flattering and threatening at the same time, but my twin sister seemed to draw satisfaction from this attention and looked surprised that I wasn't having a similar reaction.
Our tour of the French Quarter was quite different from the one my father had taken me on, for with Beau, Martin, and Gisselle, I was shown things I hadn't seen even though we were walking on the same streets. Maybe it was because we were there at a later part of the day, but the women I saw lingering in the doorways of jazz clubs and bars now were scantily dressed in what at times looked like no more than undergarments to me. Their faces were heavily made up, some using so much rouge and lipstick and eyeliner, they resembled clowns.
Beau and Martin gawked with interest, their faces frozen in licentious smiles. Every once in a while, one would lean over to the other and whisper something that set them both laughing hysterically. Gisselle was always jabbing one or the other with her elbow and then laughing herself.
The courtyards looked darker, the shadows were deeper, the music was louder. Men and in some places, women, hawked from doorways of sparsely lit bars and restaurants entreating the pedestrians to come in and enjoy the best jazz, the best dancing, the best food in New Orleans. We stopped at a stand to buy poor boy sandwiches and Beau managed to get us all bottles of beer even though no one was of age. We sat at a table on the sidewalk and ate and drank, and when two policemen came walking down the other side of the street, my heart thumped in anticipation of all of us being arrested. But they didn't seem to notice or care.
Afterward, we rushed in and out of stores, amusing ourselves with the souvenirs, the toys, and novelties. Then Gisselle directed us into a small store that advertised the most shocking sexual items I had ever seen displayed. You were supposed to be eighteen or over to go into the store, but the salesman didn't chase us out. The boys lingered over magazines and books, smirking and giggling to themselves. Gisselle made me look at a replica of a man's sex organ made of hard rubber. When she asked the salesman if she could see it, I ran out of the store.
They all followed a few moments later, laughing at me. "I guess Daddy didn't take you in there when he showed you the French Quarter," Gisselle quipped.
"How disgusting," I said. "Why would people buy those things?"
My question made Gisselle and Martin laugh harder, but Beau just smiled.
At the next corner, Martin asked us to wait while he approached a man dressed in a black leather vest with no shirt beneath. He had tattoos on his arms
and
shoulders. The man listened to Martin and then the both of them walked deeper into the alleyway.
"What's Martin doing?" I asked.
"Getting us something for later," Gisselle said, then looked at Beau, who smiled.
"Getting what?"
"You'll see," she said. Martin emerged, nodding with satisfaction.
"Where do you want to go now?" he asked.
"Let's show her Storyville," Gisselle decided.
"Maybe we should just go down to the nice stores and arcades at the ocean," Beau suggested.
"Oh, it won't hurt her. Besides, she needs an education if she wants to live in New Orleans," Gisselle insisted.
"What is Storyville?" I asked. In my mind I imagined a place where people sold books and items based on famous tales. "What do they sell there?"
My question threw the three of them into another fit of hysterics.
"I don't see why you should laugh at everything I say and ask," I said angrily. "If any of you came into the bayou and went out in the swamp with me, you'd ask a lot of dumb questions, too. And I assure you, you'd be a lot more frightened than I would be," I added. That wiped the smiles and laughter off their faces.
"She's right," Beau said.
"So what. You're in the city now, not the swamp," Gisselle said. "And I, for one, don't have any intention of ever going to the bayou.
"Come on," she added, grabbing my arm roughly, "we'll take you up some streets and you tell us what you think is sold there."
Her challenge restored the smile to Martin's face, but Beau still looked troubled. Unable to cast off my own curiosity now, I let Gisselle take me along until we reached a corner and looked across the street at what seemed to me to be a row of fancy houses.
"Where are the stores?" I asked.
"Just watch over there," Gisselle pointed. She indicated an imposing four-story structure with bay windows on the side and a cupola on the roof. It was painted in a dull white. A luxurious limousine pulled up at the curb and the chauffeur stepped out quickly to open the door for what looked to be a very
distinguished older man. He strutted up the short set of steps to the front of the house and rang the bell. A moment later, the large door was pulled open.
We were close enough to hear the music that poured out and see the woman who greeted the gentleman. She was tall and dark olive in complexion. She wore a dress of red brocade with what had to be imitation diamonds on her neck and wrist. They had to be imitation, they were so big; but what was most curious was she wore tall feathers pluming from her head.
Looking past her, I could see a wide entrance hall, crystal chandeliers, gold mirrors, and velvet settees. A black piano player was running his hands over the keys and bouncing on the stool. Just before the door was closed, I caught sight of a girl wearing nothing more than a pair of panties and a bra and carrying a tray filled with what looked like glasses of champagne.
"What is that place?" I asked with a gasp.
"Lulu White's," Beau replied.
"I don't understand. Is it a party?"
"Only for those who pay for it," Gisselle said. "It's a brothel. A whorehouse," she added when I didn't respond quickly.
I gaped back at the big door. A moment later, it was opened again and this time, a gentleman appeared escorting a young woman in a bright green dress with a neckline that practically plummeted to her belly button. For a moment the girl's face was hidden by a fan of white feathers, but when she pulled the fan back, I saw her face and felt my mouth fall open. She brought the man to his waiting car and gave him a big kiss before he stepped into the rear. As the car pulled away she looked up and saw us.
It was Annie Gray, the quadroon girl who had ridden on the bus with me to New Orleans and used voodoo magic to help me find my father's address. She recognized me immediately, too.
"Ruby!" she called and waved.
"Huh?" Martin said.
"She knows you?" Beau asked.
Gisselle just stepped back, amazed.
"Hello, I called.
"I see you found your way about the city real good, huh?" I nodded, my throat tight. She looked back at the front door. "My aunt works here. I'm just helpin' her out some," she said. "But soon, I'm gettin' a real job. You find your daddy okay?" I nodded. "Hello, boys," she said.
"Hi," Martin said. Beau just nodded.
"I've got to get back inside," Annie said. "You just wait and see. I'll be singin' someplace real soon," she added, and hurried back up the steps. She turned in the doorway and waved and then disappeared within.
"I don't believe it. You know her?" Gisselle declared.
"I met her on the bus," I started to explain.
"You know a real prostitute," she followed. "And you said you didn't know what was here?"
"I didn't," I protested.
"Little miss goody-goody knows a prostitute," Gisselle continued, addressing herself to the boys. They both looked at me as if they had just met me.
"I don't really know her," I insisted, but Gisselle just smiled.
"I don't!"
"Let's go," Gisselle said.
We walked back quickly, no one speaking for quite a while. Every once in a while, Martin would look at me, smile, and shake his head.
"Where should we go to do it?" Beau asked after we all got back into his car.
"My house," Gisselle said. "My mother is probably off at a tea party and Daddy is surely still at work."
"To do what?" I asked.
"Just wait and see," she said. Then she added for the boys, "She probably knows all about it anyway. She knows a prostitute."
"I told you, I don't really know her. I just sat on a bus with her," I insisted.
"She knew you were looking for your daddy. Sounds like you two knew each other real well," Gisselle teased. "You didn't work together someplace, did you?" she asked. Martin spun around, his face full of laughter and curiosity.
"Stop it, Gisselle," I snapped.
Beau pulled away from the curb and shot down the street, leaving her laughter falling behind us.
Edgar greeted us all at the doorway when we returned to the house.
"My mother at home?" Gisselle asked him.
"No, mademoiselle," he replied. She threw a conspiratorial glance at Martin and Beau and then we followed her up the stairway to her room.
"What are we doing?" I asked when she cast off her beret and opened the windows as wide as they would go. Beau flopped on her bed and Martin sat at the vanity table smiling stupidly at me.
"Close the door," she ordered. I did so slowly. Then she nodded at Martin who dug into his pocket and produced what to me looked like the cigarettes Grandpere Jack often rolled for himself.
"Cigarettes?" I said, a bit surprised and even a bit relieved. I knew some kids in the bayou who had started smoking when they were ten or eleven. Some parents didn't even mind, but most did. I never liked the taste nor the feeling that my mouth was turning into an ashtray. I also hated the way some of my school friends' clothing reeked of the smoke.