They Call Her Dana

by Jennifer Wilde

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE TOMATOES AND ROTTEN EGGS CAME FLYING across the footlights, pelting the backdrop, ruining my gown, and I stood there in stark terror as the audience shouted and jeered. Stern-faced ladies carrying placards came marching down the aisles, chanting, “Stop this play! Stop this play!” and then the audience rose en masse, fists waving, feet stamping. There was a mighty roar as they charged the stage, intending to tear me limb from limb. I was frozen, totally unable to move, and I desperately tried to scream. The scream was trapped in my throat. I tensed as great hulking men and flinty-eyed women scrambled up onto the stage, shouting, “Scandal! Disgrace! Outrage!” My heart was pounding, pounding, and finally I threw back my head and released the scream and opened my eyes and Jason snorted, his, body jerking violently, his own eyes flying open.

  “Jesus!” he cried. “What th’ hell was that?”

  “Nothing,” I said calmly. “Go back to sleep, Jason.”

  “Did you hear something?”

  “Not a thing,” I told him. “You must have been having a nightmare.”

  “What time is it?”

  “I’ve no idea. I just woke up myself.”

  Jason groaned miserably and grabbed the pillow in a lethal hold and flopped and twisted around until he was in the desired position, then snorted again. He managed to pull the bedcovers completely off me, twining them cocoonlike around his lower limbs. It was just as well. He always slept in the nude. I climbed out of bed, the skirt of my thin white cotton nightgown fluttering. The carpetless floor was cool to my bare feet. The windows were all open, the pale yellow curtains billowing gently in an early morning breeze. The thin rays of sunlight streaming lazily into the room were still weak. It couldn’t be much later than six-thirty.

  Our final dress rehearsal last night had dragged on until after one o’clock this morning. No wonder I felt so groggy. Jason had been an absolute beast. No wonder I had such a nightmare. I wearily pulled on the thin white and yellow striped robe that went with my nightgown, the skirt aflutter with ruffles. As I tied the sash at my waist, Jason flopped around again, wrapping the sheets tighter around his legs. He groaned, wrestled with the pillow and finally lifted his head, peering at me with one slightly open eye. I remembered that I was furious with him. That wasn’t unusual. Ever since we had started rehearsals here in Atlanta hardly a day had gone by that I wasn’t furious with him.

  “Do—uh—do you—uh—think you might—uh—bring me a cup of coffee?” he croaked.

  “I’m furious with you,” I reminded him.

  “Jesus, Dana, don’t start in on me. Okay? Just—uh—please don’t start in on me. I feel wretched.”

  “Good,” I said cheerily.

  “Please bring me some coffee. Pretty please.”

  “Fetch it yourself,” I said.

  He sat up abruptly, both eyes open now, both blazing.

  “Sometimes you can be an absolute bitch!” he thundered.

  Damp, unruly locks of black hair tumbled wildly over his head and his lower body was tightly encased in twisted sheets and he looked so comical and so utterly endearing that I had to smile. He scowled dangerously.

  “What th’ hell are you smiling at!”

  “You, darling,” I said lightly.

  I stepped over to the bed and rested my hand on his cheek and smoothed that wild tumble of hair from his brow and he became a little boy again, wounded, thoroughly misunderstood. I leaned down and kissed him on the lips, my heart full of affection for this exasperating man whom, when I didn’t want to murder him, I wanted to pamper and please and coddle. He reached up and grabbed my wrist in a tight grip and pulled me back down onto the bed, his eyelids drooping seductively now, his mouth parting for a longer, more meaningful kiss. I struggled free, getting off the bed, smiling still.

  “Go back to sleep,” I told him. “I may bring you some coffee later on.”

  “You really can be a bitch, Dana,” he complained woefully.

  “I’ve had to learn to be, darling—for my own protection. If I weren’t a bitch now and then, you’d run all over me.”

  “I resent that! I’m the gentlest, most amiable—”

  I left the room, blowing him a kiss at the door, and it was not until I had gone halfway down the hall that I remembered that I had nothing whatsoever to be so cheerful about. They were going to crucify us tonight. My nightmare would undoubtedly come true. The whole city was in an uproar about The Quadroon, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone actually planted a bomb in the theater to prevent its opening. Oh well, I thought, moving down the staircase, we will have given it our best, and if they run us out of town, they run us out of town. We can always reprise Lord Roderick’s Revenge in Dothan, Alabama. As I reached the bottom of the stairs, the front door opened and Bartholomew entered, leading a complacent-looking Theodore on a leash. Our silver-haired, rosy-cheeked character man looked as distinguished and dignified as ever in a handsome blue frock coat and pearl-gray ascot.

  “Dana, my dear,” he said in those familiar dulcet tones. “You’re up early this morning.”

  “Apparently not as early as you.”

  “When you reach my advanced years, child, you find yourself getting up with the birds. Besides, Theodore likes to be out and at his business while the dew is still on the grass.”

  “You look very elegant this morning.”

  “One tries to keep up the facade,” he said, sighing with theatrical resignation. “One tries.”

  “You were marvelous last night,” I told him. “Thank God someone is sane and unflappable. It was a disaster, wasn’t it?”

  “Final dress rehearsals are always a disaster. Everyone is always keyed-up and on edge. Our esteemed playwright-director did rather try himself, but we’re used to that, aren’t we?”

  “Aren’t we ever. He was a beast.”

  “But he gets excellent results, my dear. He’s pushed us hard, but we have all surpassed ourselves. None of us has ever been better. Young Billy is amazing. I never thought I’d see the day he would give such a performance. His Travis is perfection.”

  “Billy’s wonderful,” I agreed.

  “And your Janine is going to make theatrical history. Jason may have bullied you unmercifully, but under his direction you’ve created a luminous character no one is likely to forget.”

  “If anyone ever sees it,” I retorted. “Do—do you think they’ll actually let us open?”

  “The city fathers have read the play. They’ve given their approval.”

  “But—”

  “Oh, don’t bother yourself over all this flapdoodle and hoopla, child. The protests, the public demonstrations, the articles in the papers have just helped sell tickets. We’re completely sold out for weeks in advance. The League of Decency ladies and the ministers condemning us from their pulpits are actually doing us a very good turn.”

  “I’m still terrified something will happen.”

  “There might be a small ruckus, but I’ve no doubt sanity will prevail. The majority of folks here in Atlanta pride themselves on their tolerance, open-mindedness and sophistication. They’ll not allow the radical fringe to besmirch the civic image.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am, child. Relax. Come along, Theodore. Your kind old master has some particularly tasty doggy treats waiting for you in our room. I’ll see you later, Dana.”

  I could smell coffee brewing as I moved down the lower hallway to the kitchen in back. Someone else was up early, too, it seemed. It was lovely, all of us living together in this huge old rented house near downtown, only a few short blocks from the theater. With the largess so lavishly provided by the mysterious Mr. Robert Courtland, whom no one but Jason and Jackson had met, we could have stayed in Atlanta’s grandest hotel, but there wasn’t a hotel in the whole of the South that would take Corey and Adam and the boys. The rest of us had elected to stay here so that our new cast members could be with us. Even so, there had been problems. The man who
had rented Jason the house refused to have “niggers” staying inside the house, insisted they stay in the quarters over the carriage house in back. Ever the peacemaker, Corey claimed this suited them nicely as she and Adam liked privacy and they’d actually be more comfortable where they could keep an eye on the boys.

  The coffee had finished perking as I entered the roomy old kitchen with its red-brown tile floor and huge oak cabinets. Corey herself was bending over the stove, taking out a pan of heavenly smelling cinnamon rolls. She smiled a greeting at me, carefully set the pan on the drainboard and began to pour thick white icing over the rolls. Corey was a magnificent cook. She loved to cook, and she spent most of her spare time in the kitchen, an unexpected bonus for the rest of us. She and I frequently made meals for the entire company, with extremely inept help from Laura who meant well but couldn’t tell a skillet from a baking pan if her life depended on it.

  “Lord,” I said, “those smell delicious.”

  “Reckon they are,” Corey replied. “They’re my specialty. Adam always did love my cinnamon rolls. Them and my peach pies.”

  “Don’t mention your peach pies,” I told her. “I can gain five pounds just thinking about them.”

  “Wouldn’t hurt you to put on a few pounds, honey. You’re too thin.”

  “You sound like Jezebel.”

  “That Jezebel must’ve been one smart woman.”

  “She was—is,” I corrected myself. “Bossy, too, just like you.”

  Corey grinned and began to remove the rolls from the pan with a pie server, arranging them on a large blue platter. In her fifties, she had pale brown skin and gorgeous black-brown eyes and thick, frizzy hair that had gone entirely gray some years before. She had lovely bone structure with high, broad cheekbones, a thin nose and full, Negroid lips. A little taller than I was, she had the slender frame of a girl, and she was given to bright, showy clothes, like the purple frock she wore this morning. Corey wore dangling opal earrings, coated her lids with mauve shadow and used special rouge to emphasize her cheekbones. The leading actress at the Jewel Theater in New Orleans, she was proud of her collection of wigs and sorry she wouldn’t be wearing any of them in The Quadroon. Makeup and earrings were also banned when she was in character as Jessie.

  “There,” she said, “the icing’s thick and gooey, just like Adam likes it. I’ll just let it cool for a minute or two and harden up a bit. Don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t piddle around in a kitchen now and then. It’s so relaxing after the tension of the theater.”

  Corey had a deep, throaty, beautifully modulated voice that was quite theatrical. She was a superlative actress, and as Jessie she employed a raspy, broken half whisper that could be heard in the top row of the balcony and indicated a lifetime of defeat. All of us were dazzled by her skills.

  “Is Adam up, too?” I asked.

  “No, that man is still piled up in bed, snoozing away. Takes an earthquake to get him up—that or a bucket of water in his face. Thought I’d just let him sleep this morning. He’s nervous about tonight.”

  “I’m absolutely terrified,” I confessed.

  “Isn’t any need to be. It’s just a play, honey. You white folks all get too hetup. Either they likes us or they don’t. If they don’t, Adam and I’ll go back to the Jewel and you-all can hit the road again with them noisy melodramas Mister Jason wrote.”

  “God forbid,” I said.

  “Isn’t anything wrong with melodramas. We put on lots of ’em at the Jewel, them and the classics. Sometimes it’s a relief storming around in entertaining hokum, particularly after a heavy season of Marlowe and Congreve and Webster.”

  “You—you do Marlowe and Congreve and Webster at the Jewel?”

  Corey gave me a knowing smile. “Guess that surprises you. Idn’t too many plays written for colored people, honey. We just do what all the other companies do and pay no mind to skin color—no one but colored folk come to the theater anyway, and they see nothing unusual about it. My Duchess of Malfi is a big favorite. I’m always having to revive it.”

  “It seems—” I hesitated, groping for words. “It seems somehow unfair—I mean—”

  “I know what you mean, honey,” Corey said. “If I were white—but I’m not white, I’m colored, and don’t you go feelin’ sorry for me. I’m one of the lucky ones. I have my papers. I’m free, so’s Adam. Us Free People of Color have our own section in New Orleans, our own customs and culture. Things is what things is, Dana, and if you’re smart you make the best of ’em.”

  She looked at me and nodded, black-brown eyes full of sad wisdom.

  “Idn’t no sense frettin’ about what isn’t,” she said. “Just get on with what is.”

  “I—I wish I could be as—as philosophical as you are, Corey.”

  “You got a lot of years to get that way, honey. I am almost old enough to be your granny, though I’d deny it with my dying breath. Sit yourself down now, have some coffee.”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down at the battered old oak table, resting my elbows on it and watching tiny curls of steam rise from the cup. We really were fortunate to have Corey with us, I reflected. She had been the main draw at the Jewel for almost two decades. Adam, her husband in spirit if not in law, acted at the Jewel as well, usually in flashy roles, Corey confided. Eighteen years her junior, Adam was a strikingly handsome Negro, very vain about his looks and constantly grumbling about the fuzzy gray wig and heavy makeup he had to wear to make a convincing Rufus. Adam and Corey had no children of their own but had appropriated her two young nephews to play my little brothers. The boys were a lively pair, a “mettlesome handful,” Corey declared, but, rambunctious as they were, both had quickly become pets of the company. Ollie spoiled them deplorably, clucking over them like a stern mother hen. The outrageous Englishwoman with her bright red wig and imperious manner was the only one who could keep them in line.

  “Here, honey, try one of these rolls,” Corey said, setting the platter on the table. “Icing’s good and firm now. Still warm, too.”

  I wondered how she could be so calm and matter-of-fact about tonight. Much of the protest about The Quadroon was due not only to its shocking theme but because real Negroes were to appear in the production. A certain highly vocal segment of citizenry vehemently protested this seditious affront to white sensibilities, and one of the leaders claimed that if the play opened he and his cronies would march on the theater with tar and feathers for the whole company. Answering this threat in an interview in Atlanta’s major paper, Jason said that no one would be permitted inside the theater without purchasing a ticket and he seriously doubted any of the “redneck yahoos” could afford the price. He added that he would personally beat the bejesus out of any lout who tried to disrupt his play or molest any of his company. The interview caused quite a stir and prompted a whole spate of letters to the editor, both pro and con. It also sold hundreds of more tickets.

  Corey sat down with a cup of coffee and sipped it thoughtfully as I sampled one of the rolls.

  “It’s sinfully delicious,” I told her.

  “They always are,” Corey said. “My cinnamon rolls can’t be faulted. Have another one.”

  “I wouldn’t dare, but I will set one aside to take up to Jason.”

  “You and him were sure going at each other last night,” she observed idly. “For a while there I thought you might actually kill each other. When you threw that lamp at him—good thing he ducked.”

  “He deserved it,” I said.

  “And you deserved the shakin’ he gave you afterwards. You make up yet?”

  I nodded. “In bed,” I confessed.

  “Best way there is to make up. That there’s one fine man, honey. If you were smart, you’d latch on to him good and make sure he never got away. You’re altogether too casual about it.”

  “It—it’s just a casual thing.”

  “For you maybe, honey, but it idn’t for him. Man’s in love with you. Oh, he pretends to be as casual as you
are, but he’s got it bad. Men like that one are few and far between. You let him slip through your fingers, you’ll be mighty sorry one of these days.”

  “He—he’s merely a bonbon, Corey. I’m fond of him, of course, extremely fond, and we have—what we have in the bedroom is quite marvelous—but I don’t want—” I paused for a moment, reaching for the right expression. “It’s a convenient and very satisfying arrangement for both of us, with no strings attached. I don’t intend to—to become emotionally involved.”

  “You think you ain’t already? Lordy, hon, you white gals sure does love to fool yourselves.”

  She shook her head, took a final sip of coffee and stood up.

  “Reckon I’ll cook some sausage and biscuits and cream gravy. That teasin’ Mister Michael always comes down round seven-thirty, likes a good hot breakfast in the morning, something he sure idn’t going to get from Miss Laura. She’s another one foolin’ herself. That cowboy’s done lassoed her and got her hog-tied good—she just don’t know it yet.”

  I carried hot coffee and a roll upstairs to our room, expecting to find Jason still in bed. He wasn’t. He had already bathed and shaved and, wearing his best gray breeches and a white lawn shirt, stood in front of the mirror brushing his hair. I paused in the doorway a moment, watching him. He was so tall, so lean, rakishly attractive with those unusual features, those glorious gray-green eyes that could blaze with murderous rage or sparkle with merry humor or smolder with lazy sensuality or reflect the soul of a vulnerable boy, put-upon and ever so misunderstood. At the moment they were quite sober, reflecting the serious, dedicated, formidably intelligent artist and businessman he was at heart. What a complex creature he was, full of contradictions, full of moods, decidedly mercurial. During the past three and a half months a number of women here in Atlanta had tried their best to capture his interest. He had given them all the cold shoulder. A rogue he might be, but at least he was a faithful rogue.