Dollbaby

by Laura Lane McNeal

  Fannie’s eye landed on a shiny red Packard. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen: long and lean, with a black leather top that was rolled down in the back. The passengers, a man and a woman, were chatting gaily as they drove by. Fannie took in a deep breath. Perhaps one day she’d own a car just like that one.

  She followed some of the other train passengers a few blocks to Canal Street, which was bustling. Noise seemed to come at her from every direction—the clanging of the streetcars gliding past in the middle of the boulevard, the honking of the passing autos, the whistles bellowing from the ships on the river, the bells from nearby churches ringing in the noon hour, and the street vendors hawking waffles, pralines, and lemon ice. She walked past restaurants, cafés, and movie houses clustered between department stores.

  Dozens of people hurried past her, bumping and pushing her along, every once in a while hurling a comment in her direction to watch where she was going. She paused on a corner to let a trolley go by. Intrigued by the name on the front of the streetcar, Desire, Fannie decided to follow it down Bourbon Street.

  Many of the buildings on Bourbon Street were tightly shuttered and appeared derelict, yet there was a feeling of old worldliness about the French Quarter that made Fannie want to linger, a certain splendidness that somehow made up for the squalor of the crumbling buildings and the stench of day-old trash piled waist-high in the alleyways. She clutched her satchel against her chest and smoothed down her ragged hopsack shift, suddenly feeling self-conscious as well-heeled people brushed past her.

  She wandered aimlessly down Bourbon Street, wondering how she was going to get along with no money. The run-down bed-and-breakfast she just passed advertised rooms for three dollars a night. She only had enough for one night’s stay. Then what?

  Fannie found herself across the street from the Starlight Jazz Club, where a man was lingering against the doorframe. His eyes fell upon her, where they remained long enough for her to become uneasy. She turned to go.

  “Hey there, you got a name?” he called out.

  Fannie gripped the handle of her bag with both hands and peeked out from under her tattered cloche hat. “You talking to me, mister?”

  The man waved her over. Fannie hesitated, unsure if she should talk to a strange man. Then again, what other choice did she have? She crossed the street and went over to where he was standing.

  The toothpick in his mouth fluttered up and down as he studied her face; then he took the opportunity to study the rest of her. “You need a job?” he asked after a while.

  “Um, well . . . yes sir,” she said meekly.

  The man motioned for her to follow him inside. He leaned his elbow on the massive carved oak bar. “How old?”

  “What?” she asked, distracted by the heavy stench of pine oil and stale alcohol.

  “How old are you?” he repeated.

  “How old you got to be?”

  The man let out a slight laugh. He came up to her and cupped her breast in his hand. Fannie jumped back.

  “Not from around these parts, I take it?” His accent was sharp and clipped, as if he were too impatient to finish his words.

  Fannie held her satchel up over her chest. “No, sir. I’m from Evangeline Parish.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  Fannie hesitated. “Near Mamou.”

  “Mamou? Where in the hell is that?” The man scratched his head under his hat.

  “Up the road from Ville Platte.”

  “You one of them Cajuns?” he asked, wrinkling up his nose.

  “No, sir.”

  He fingered the gold cross around her neck, turning it over in his hand. “You a Catholic?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then why you got that cross around your neck?”

  Fannie shrugged. “My mama, she give it me when I was a baby. Worn it ever since.”

  He let the necklace drop and stepped back. “Don’t matter none. Lots of Catholics around these parts. Know anyone in New Orleans?”

  “No, sir,” Fannie said.

  “You a drinker?”

  “No, sir.”

  A half smile slid up one side of the man’s face. “Well, you will be soon. No doubt about that. Got a name?”

  “Frances Hadley.” She drew in a breath, wishing she’d made up a name.

  “Now listen here, Frances Hadley from near Mamou, this is a legit establishment. You got other ideas, you can go on down to Norma’s place over on Burgundy Street.”

  Fannie would later find out that Norma was a notorious madam who owned one of the brothels around the corner. She would also learn that legit businesses in the French Quarter in 1929 were few and far between. And this wasn’t one of them.

  “Tell you what. I’ll pay you ten dollars a week, plus tips. You can bunk with one of the girls up on the third floor. No cavorting with the clientele, unless it’s your day off. Then I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do.” He chewed on the toothpick, waiting for an answer.

  “What exactly I got to do for ten dollars a week?” Fannie asked.

  “There’s a nightly show. The guys in the band come in and play a few rounds of jazz. Once they get the crowd going, the gals come out and just kind of pose in front of their props. See that there oyster shell?” He nodded toward a papier-mâché prop in the corner.

  Fannie glanced over. “Yes, sir.”

  “The good-for-nothing girl that used it in her act just ran off to New York. Now it’s yours. Your stage name is Miss Pearl. All you got to do is swing your ass a little and toss that papier-mâché pearl around like you’re in love with it. One of the other gals can show you how it’s done. Just keep the crowd happy. Keep them coming in. That’s all you got to do. Now go try this on, let me see if you got what it takes.” He tossed a satin brassiere, some panties, and a cape her way.

  Fannie let the brassiere dangle from her finger, unsure of what she might be getting herself into.

  “You change your mind, I got plenty of other gals that would jump at the chance for a paying job,” the man said.

  “No, no,” Fannie said, brushing past him.

  The man grabbed her arm. “My name’s Tony Becnel, by the way. I’m the manager. And one more thing.” He yanked the gold cross from her neck and handed it back to her. “Don’t let me catch you wearing that cross around here. It’ll scare off the customers.”

  The next night, after much coaching, a new haircut, and a cosmetics lesson from Gertie the Gator Girl, who shared the room on the third floor, Fannie appeared as Miss Pearl the Oyster Girl. She was timid at first, just kind of sat in the oyster and stared back at the audience as the jazz band played above her on a platform and waiters meandered through the crowd pouring drinks from bottles of liquor stashed in their apron pockets. The audience booed.

  The following night Fannie watched Gertie to get a few pointers: the way she swung her hips about and raised her arms high above her head with her hands limp at the wrists, the way she pranced around the alligator with her eyes closed and her head back, as if she were in a trance. Sitting under the canopy of the papier-mâché oyster shell, Fannie closed her eyes and tried to mimic Gertie. She wasn’t very successful at first, but after a few days, instead of boos, she was getting whistles.

  And after a few weeks, when customers started flocking in to see her act, Tony changed the sign out front to read “Home of Miss Pearl the Oyster Girl.” They were doing so well, the club hired a young cop named Peter Kennedy to watch the door. They were told his job was to make sure the girls weren’t hassled by the patrons, but his real mission was to tip off the management when federal agents were in their midst.

  Fannie had planned on staying on at the Starlight only until she could find a proper job, perhaps as a waitress or a clerk. But she’d become close with Gertie, who’d persuaded her to stay, if only a bit longer. She was surprised how quickly sh
e’d become accustomed to her new life in New Orleans. The job wasn’t so bad. In fact, she kind of liked all the attention she was getting with her Miss Pearl the Oyster Girl routine. For the first time in her life, she felt special. Besides, between the salary and the tips, she was making more money than she’d ever dreamed of.

  One night a few weeks later, Fannie opened her eyes to find a dark-haired young man with a tanned face sitting quietly at a nearby table as she swayed to and fro inside the oyster shell. He smiled at her. She smiled back. The young man came over after she had finished her act.

  “Can I buy you a drink?”

  Fannie shrugged. “Sure.”

  “My name’s Norwood. Norwood Bell. I’m a river pilot,” he said proudly. “You about the prettiest gal I ever laid eyes on.”

  He stuck his elbow out, and Fannie slipped her hands through his arm. She knew the routine by now. Federal agents, whose job it was to enforce the law on Prohibition, warily eyed the clubs for lawbreakers. But the clubs had figured out a way to circumvent them by creating hidden back rooms, the only access through secret passageways. Norwood escorted Fannie through the ladies’ dressing room into a closet, where he pushed on a coat rack. When he did that, a hidden door at the back of the closet opened up into a smoke-filled back room bustling with people. They stayed there most of the night, getting to know each other, sipping on fancy drinks like Sazeracs and Pimm’s Cups.

  Norwood came back to the club almost every night after that, except for the days he was on the river. Each night he came in, he asked Fannie to marry him. And each night Fannie demurely waved him off.

  When this had gone on for a several months, Norwood took her aside one night and asked, “When you gonna come out with me, let me buy you dinner?”

  “Only night off is Sunday,” Fannie replied.

  “I’m on the river all week, but I’ll be by Sunday around six. Wear something special.”

  The following Sunday, after Gertie helped Fannie pick out a proper dress, Fannie and Norwood went to Antoine’s Restaurant. She’d never been to such a fancy place, with cloth napkins, and waiters in tuxedos. They were seated at a table in the big room with soaring ceilings and dozens of fans whirring overhead.

  When the waiter came over, Norwood leaned over and asked, “Say, where can a fella get some hooch?”

  The waiter, his black hair oiled down against his head, winked at him and said in a thick Cajun accent, “If the gentleman would follow me.”

  The waiter escorted him toward the ladies’ room, where he emerged a few minutes later carrying two large ceramic coffee cups.

  “What’s this?” Fannie asked as he placed a cup in front of her.

  “Champagne for the lady,” he said with a tight-lipped smile, as if he were keeping something from her.

  “Champagne? What’s the occasion?”

  Norwood sat down, pulled a small box from his pocket, and opened it to reveal a gold ring set with a small round diamond. He held it out to Fannie. “Listen, baby, I make good money. I can take real good care of you. I promise never to lay a hand on you. And once we’re married, you won’t have to work at the Starlight. What do you say, Pearl? Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  Fannie didn’t quite know what to say. She thought he had been joking all this time about getting married. Now here he was with a ring. Her head was swimming. He seemed nice enough. It was the first time in her life she’d ever felt wanted by someone. Really wanted. Besides, Norwood had a way of making her feel as if she really were a real lady. She put her hand in her lap and looked down, wondering if she’d fallen for him the way he seemed to have fallen for her.

  “Well, what do you say, honey?” he asked anxiously, still holding the ring out in front of her.

  Fannie gazed up at his handsome boyish face. “Of course, Norwood. I’d be honored.” She put her hand over his. “But since we’re going to be married, you should know my name’s not Pearl. It’s Frances Hadley. But you can call me Fannie.”

  When Doll finished the story, Ibby pulled her legs up onto the bed and hugged them tight.

  “So it was love at first sight?”

  “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose,” Doll said with a laugh.

  “Now I understand Fannie’s obsession with the cemetery. She hated the way her mother was buried out in the woods like an animal.”

  Doll nodded. “Was hard times back then. She don’t like to talk about it much, particularly about her mama. Miss Fannie come a long way since she was Miss Pearl the Oyster Girl.”

  “Maybe that big red car is her way of proving it,” Ibby said.

  “I never thought of it that way, but maybe so.” Doll scratched her head. “That Mr. Norwood—he adored your grandmother. You know them pearls Miss Fannie wears around her neck every day? He gave them to her as a wedding present. Ain’t a day goes by she don’t have them on. You know, when you think about it, Miss Fannie’s like a pearl. Starts out rough, just a tiny piece of sand. Layer by layer, that piece of sand becomes round and smooth until one day you can’t even tell that piece of sand is still buried in that pearl. Did you know that the more wear a pearl gets, the luster just grows finer? Just like your grandmother. She may not be high-and-mighty like other folks, but she a lady just the same. You remember that, no matter what other people might say.” She patted Ibby’s knee. “Now I got to go help Queenie in the kitchen.” Before she left, she turned to Ibby and wagged her finger. “And one more thing. If I catch any boys up in this here room again, those boards are going right back up on the windows. Understand?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A few days later Ibby came in by the back door and set a package on the kitchen table.

  “You go and buy yourself another record album?” Queenie asked.

  “Yep.” Ibby opened the icebox door and took out a pitcher of lemonade.

  “I don’t understand all that loud music you young folks listen to these days. But, you know, Miss Fannie, she used to do the same thing. She’d close the door, turn the phonograph up real loud, and dance around her room for hours on end, just like you do.”

  “She did?”

  “She sure did. She was a good dancer, too.” Queenie eyed Ibby as she took a glass from the cupboard. “You been drinking an awful lot of lemonade lately.”

  “It’s hot in my room.” Ibby grabbed the package from the table and started toward the dining room.

  Queenie called out after her. “Miss Fannie says she needs to talk to you when she gets back. About your dress, the one Doll’s gone make for your party.”

  When Ibby got up to her room, she put the lemonade on the bedside table. Now that there was an adjoining room to hers, she’d spent the last several days rearranging the furniture. The first thing she did was move one of the twin beds and all the birthday dolls into the turret room. She’d swiped a clothing rack from Doll’s sewing room and moved all her clothes in there as well. She shoved the chest of drawers up against the wall where the twin bed had been, then moved her bed sideways up against the window. She looked around, pleased with the new arrangement.

  She put her new album on the record player, one by The Moody Blues called In Search of the Lost Chord, and danced around the room, wishing her daddy could be here, singing the words along with her. She loved The Moody Blues, the way they spoke in a low monotone in some of their songs instead of singing the lyrics, making you feel ethereal and otherworldly. The band had become her connection to her father, a connection no one could take away. She’d listened to the album Days of Future Passed so many times she thought the walls of her room could repeat the lyrics to “Nights in White Satin” back to her.

  When the album was over, she poured a glass of lemonade before reaching over and opening the window. She stuck her head out and watched T-Bone for a few minutes. He was wearing white overalls, a painter’s cap, and dark sunglasses as he hummed a
nd waved his paintbrush around.

  “You thirsty?” she asked.

  T-Bone’s head swerved around.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He wiped his brow with a rag he pulled from the back pocket of his overalls. “No, no. Guess I was just lost in what I was doing.”

  “I brought you some lemonade,” she said, holding the glass out to him.

  “Right nice of you, to keep bringing me lemonade, Miss Ibby. A person gets mighty parched out here working in the sun all day.” He downed the lemonade and handed the glass back to her.

  “What were you humming just now?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Not anything you’d like.”

  “How do you know?”

  He gave her a sideways glance. “Just a guess. What kind of music you like?”

  She shrugged. “The Beatles, the Doors, the Supremes, Moody Blues. You like The Moody Blues?”

  “Well, I really can’t say,” he said.

  “That means no. So tell me, what kind of music do you like?”

  He began painting again, then stopped and put the brush on the lip of the paint can. “Funk. I guess you could say I like funk.”

  “Funk?”

  “It’s kind of like soul music but with more beat to it.”

  “Is that what you were singing just now?”

  “Yeah.” He tipped his cap and scratched the top of his head. “You probably gone hear it on the radio anyway. It’s gotten mighty popular. The song, it’s called ‘Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud.’”

  “Oh,” she said, feeling her face flush.

  “By the godfather of funk, James Brown, also known as Mr. Dynamite or Soul Brother Number One. He’s one cool brother, and he really knows how to dance.”