The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder: A Novel

by Rebecca Wells

  Jazz Fest lasts for two weekends. By the time the next Friday rolled around, I knew where I wanted to be. I returned to the tent, this time with an apple in my daypack, along with the tea and Valium. My friend came as usual, too, and when she nodded to me, I nodded back. What a relief it was to acknowledge and be acknowledged, without having to talk.

  This was a big day, when the first gospel choir of children filed in and climbed up the risers, their heads held high, their clothes ironed and starched. The bows on the multiple pigtails of the little girls danced, their colors moving like flags of a young nation. I could not stop a small smile from coming to my lips—the first smile I remembered since that morning Sweet left for work and I kissed him, not knowing it would be for the last time.

  The power of the children’s singing reached toward the heavens. The tapping of my friend’s feet, her head bobbing to the music, and her hands clapping to the rhythm stopped me from going down to that dark place of loss that I’d grown so used to. Sometimes she raised her hands in the air, calling out, “Say yes! Uh-huh, hallelujah!”

  She pulled me back from the pit of burying sadness. Without even turning to me, she pulled me from the edge of grief and despair. Seeing the pink flesh on the back of her heels, the gentle reverberation of her ample hips and fleshy arms as they jiggled in jubilation, I thought, You used to dance like that, Calla. You can come alive again.

  Finally, it was Saturday, the next-to-last day of the festival. That day, I shocked myself by falling asleep in public. When I woke, I was startled to see that it was already dark and that a whole different crowd was now inside the tent. I remember awakening to the scent of hair pomade. That confused me, and at first I thought I was back in La Luna, sitting next to Olivia and M’Dear in the kitchen. Then I realized that, all the time I’d been asleep, my head was leaning against the black woman’s shoulder, close enough to smell her hair product.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered. “It’s kind of warm in here, and I—”

  “You tired, that’s all,” she said.

  “Yeah, I am,” I replied. “Yeah, I think I am.”

  Those words were the first we exchanged.

  Each day that I’d spent in the gospel tent had left me feeling a little stronger. Each day, I had moved a little further into the land of the living.

  That night, I brushed my teeth, I loosened my braid, tried to brush out at least some of the wild tangles, and I washed my hair. I cleaned myself well and let my hair dry freely.

  When I woke the next day, I realized that it was Sunday, the last day of the festival. I could feel something in the air, some rare sensation almost touching on magic, the way I imagine birds must feel around certain flowers. Back in the gospel tent, a choir came in, all in blue robes, led by a tall slim black man in his late teens. The children who came in first were some of the youngest I had seen in my days in the gospel tent. Some of those little boys and girls were just five and six years old, not even in first grade, and they behaved better than any child that age I had ever witnessed. Soon four black women in blue skirts and white shirts were buzzing around, helping the little ones, shushing them, hugging the ones who were nervous or crying, helping them get in their right singing places. I couldn’t take my eyes off one little girl who smiled from the moment she came in. Just being there was enough to make her happy.

  That is how I want to live, I thought, I can be like that. I have that little girl somewhere inside my skinny, weeping self.

  I’d read about this particular choir. Pastor Tanisse Jackson of the First Evening Star Church held Sunday services in an old filling station where the tanks had been removed. Pastor Tanisse and the First Evening Star Gospel Choir had opened their doors to children, teenagers, and adults—black and white—who needed something to hold them off the streets, and had given them a discipline that came from learning to sing together as a choir as best they could. Sunday mornings, she dished out donated meals of fried chicken, string beans, cornbread, and slices of coconut cake. During these dinners, Pastor Tanisse moved among the tables, greeting family members who had been convinced by their children to come to church. In a city filled with gospel choirs, the Times-Picayune wrote, the First Evening Star Gospel Choir rocked the roof like nobody else.

  They sure did.

  While all the singing I’d heard in that tent had been good, the First Evening Star Gospel Choir took jubilation to new heights. I thought the whole tent would explode, just be blown apart by all that energy and joy. My eyes were as tuned in as my ears, watching the little ones sing with their mouths wide open, totally focused on every movement of Pastor Tanisse’s hands. If one of the young ones began to lose focus, the pastor would give her an eye. If one of the teenagers began to slouch, I could see her head nod toward him. My friend sitting next to me began to sway and call out, and I joined her, unable to stop myself. How could my life be unbearable when there was singing like this in the world?

  When the First Evening Star Gospel Choir reached its thundering finale, I realized that I would most likely never see, let alone sit next to, my new friend again. While the choir lifted me up, the thought of losing another person in my life brought my tears back. I couldn’t bear the thought that I would never again feel her soft wide flesh, her heavy arm, her huge bottom that spread out and touched my hips, just as I would never again feel Sweet’s body beside me. I felt naked, terrified, at the thought of being separated from her. Without thinking, I grabbed her hand.

  “Oh, don’t go, please,” I said. “You don’t have to leave right away, do you?”

  She sat back down, and I felt a wave of relief.

  “I do got to be going home soon,” she said. “This meetin’ just about over.”

  “But—” I sat next to her, trying to think of what to say.

  She took my hand and held it for a moment, looking into my eyes.

  “You doin’ much better, baby. I think you gonna make it now. We was worried ’bout you at first, but now you okay. You might not know it, but you gone be just fine.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “You don’t need to thank me, baby. Just go on with your praying.”

  I watched her large chest expand as she took a deep breath. As she exhaled, she reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a flattened cigarette pack that looked empty. It was a green-and-white package of Kools with a book of matches slipped under the cellophane. She pressed it into my hand, and gave me a smile. Then she stood up and walked out of the tent.

  I held up the pack to look inside. There was only one cigarette left. Her last smoke.

  I was not a smoker, but I fished that crumpled cigarette out of the pack and lit it. I took a long, slow drag, which made me cough. Then I took a deep breath without the help of the cigarette, let it out, and felt my shoulders drop. It was the deepest breath I had taken in ages that did not end up in a sob.

  I breathed in and out slowly and fully for the first time since I learned Sweet died. I breathed, watching the smoke from the cigarette in my hand curl up into the air. I watched it burn all the way down, then stubbed it out against the sole of my sandals. It was as though my friend had absorbed my sadness into her large body, shot it up to the Moon Lady, then let it fall back into herself fully cleansed. So the cigarette she gave was an invitation to breathe again, and a temporary memento of the days she sat by my side in a hot gospel tent filled with suffering turned into song and sent to God.

  She was doing what M’Dear taught me to do with my hands—absorb the sadness, the grief of others into my own body, send it up to the Moon Lady, then breathe out a fresh breath.

  On the way home, I looked up at the sky. “I need you tonight. I need to see you, La Luna,” I whispered.

  I remembered M’Dear’s voice, telling me, “The moon, La Luna, is always there. Her pull is strong, strong enough to move the mighty Mississippi, Calla. The Moon Lady, La Luna, is your bridge from darkness to light. Trust in her strength.”

  I caught sight of the moon through the
trees, and I prayed. Oh, Moon Lady, I need your strength. I need some way of just letting this be. I ask you to teach me acceptance. Help me to accept this hard death of Sweet.

  And again M’Dear’s voice filled my mind. “Look closely now,” she said, “and wait. These are the two most important things I can tell you now. Look closely and wait.”

  Chapter 34

  1981

  Steve did some investigation for our case against the oil company. In his research he found out that something had fallen on Sweet during the explosion, and it hit his neck and head. I kept thinking about that, about my husband’s bones, his tendons, his muscles. The thought of then holding someone else’s head in my hands, well, it was more responsibility than I wanted right now. Just the weight of the skull, encasing the head. The muscles and bones. The top of the spinal column right there at the base of the neck. These precious parts terrified me. What if I hurt someone? It was all too much.

  I had to tell Ricky that I couldn’t work for a while. When I told him that he should maybe find someone else to replace me, he didn’t speak at first. When he did, his voice was kind of husky.

  “There is no replacing you, Calla.”

  When M’Dear died, I felt like a big safety net was torn apart. When I married Sweet, I felt that net start to mend. Then Sweet was killed, and the net was blown apart again. Now there was nothing underneath. My life was my high wire, and I had to build my own safety net. Let the Moon Lady weave it out of stronger material than I or anyone could devise.

  I took M’Dear’s words to heart. I looked closely, and I waited.

  I walked, usually one to two hours a day at first, trying to think my way to the next step. I walked all around the Garden District until I cleared my mind of everything except the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other.

  Then I wrote letters to the folks at home who were worried. They hadn’t heard much at all from me since the funeral. Finally, it was time to write.

  The best place was our porch in the mid-morning sunlight.

  May 5, 1981

  New Orleans

  Dear Nelle,

  I can’t thank you enough for coming down to be with me. First of all, to close the rink for a week. Everything you did gave me more hope. Your cooking—even though I know I didn’t eat—made our home feel alive again for the first time since Sweet died. The smell of bell peppers and onions being sautéed, the early morning scent of bacon frying, made me remember that life had been good, and that it might be good again.

  Our talks in the living room about Golden Princess and Mister Chaz doing well, but getting older. I miss them. This is the longest I’ve been away from home, and you’re right. Maybe I should consider coming back some time soon. Will has offered to actually drive down, pick me up, and drive me to La Luna for the weekend. And drive me back to N.O. He is my sweet, quiet, sensitive brother, and when he plays his fiddle you know what kind of heart he has.

  Not now, but maybe down the road, we’ll talk more about my coming home and practicing beauty. Isn’t it interesting that even though I’ve lived here in N.O. I still call La Luna my home? You’re right, maybe because my roots are there my heart is there. Sweet & I used to talk about it—how we would have one child, or maybe two, and move back. This was before I knew that somehow it wasn’t meant to be one of my blessings in this life.

  Anyhooo—I’ve rambled on long enough. I’ll sign off for now with much love and gratefulness.

  Calla

  May 15, 1981

  New Orleans

  Dear Renée,

  Don’t worry! Your last letter was nothing but worry. Worry is bad for your soul and for Eddie and the little ones (sounds like the name of a band, huh?), but mainly, worry is bad for your hair! No kidding, it is.

  How is Calla Rose? I love the last batch of pictures you sent.

  Guess what? I am taking a class in yoga! Now, don’t think I’ve joined a satanic cult or something. It’s just a way of exercising that acknowledges the soul. You know I have been interested in the soul ever since M’Dear talked to us about it when we were little girls. Well, I am trying to sort of sew my soul back together.

  I’ve been babysitting Ricky and Steve’s little cockapoo named Ginger Rogers. She is so cute and makes me laugh with her silliness.

  Sukey and I see each other two or three times a week. She has become another person, Renée. Or maybe the person she always was and just had to uncover.

  I’ve got to go feed Miss Ginger Rogers before she tap-dances across my feet!

  Love to you, Eddie, my dear Calla Rose, and Little Eddie,

  Calla

  Then one morning over breakfast with Ricky, I said, “Ricky, something’s changing.”

  He looked at me over his cup of coffee. We were sitting at our favorite diner, the Bluebird Grill.

  “I’m starting to feel different. I’m starting to see the trees again. I heard a bird this morning. Something’s widening in me.”

  “Good, good,” he said, smiling. “It’s been a while now. All right, let’s have some bacon and eggs, huh? How about some bacon and eggs and some good grits, the way you like them, with lots of butter?”

  “Ooooh,” I moaned. “Ricky, just because I’m starting to feel a little better, don’t go pushing that kind of food on me just yet.”

  “Okay,” Ricky said. “How about some grits and toast? Grits and biscuits?”

  “Mmm. Maybe just some grits,” I said, “just some plain grits. Butter on the side, nothing fancy, okay?”

  “Okay,” Ricky said, “good.”

  “I don’t want to rush it,” I said. “I don’t want to rush my mourning. It’s mine. Maybe if I take enough time, my heart will just get bigger—big enough to take all this. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I think I do. Sweet was family to me, and to Steve, too.”

  “I know. Ohhh, bless Steve’s heart. He’s always the one who says, ‘Calla’s getting tired now. Let’s leave her alone. Let’s go home now.’

  “And Ricky, you’ll be saying, ‘No, no, no! We’re not leaving Calla alone. We’ve got Casablanca here to watch for the fourteenth time. We’ve got popcorn and plenty of chocolate!’ You know, sometimes, Ricky, how you just don’t let up?”

  “I know,” Ricky said. “It’s just my Chalon nature.”

  It made my heart sad to hear him say that. “Chalon nature”—it’s something I’d have loved to see get passed on. I remembered how Sweet and I tried so hard to make a baby—all the crazy things we did that we couldn’t tell anybody, like me standing on my head. “Come on, Calla,” Sweet would say, “let’s do it like the yogis do.”

  “What do you know about yogis?” I’d say.

  “Nothing,” he’d say, holding my feet. “I don’t know nothing about yogis, but I do know that you sure look good while I’m holding your feet and I get to see what I see.”

  “Oh, stop it!” I’d say, laughing.

  I looked around the Bluebird Grill. It was so smoky—all that bacon and hamburgers and people smoking cigarettes. The smell was comforting and turned my stomach at the same time.

  As I looked around, I felt myself somehow move outside of myself, the pain just beginning to let go so that I could finally see something else besides it. I could see where Ricky and I were, sitting in that booth right there on St. Charles Avenue on Skid Row.

  I remembered being here at the Grill a few years ago at 2:00 a.m. But who was I with? It wasn’t Sweet. So it must’ve been Sukey and me. I remembered the life I had before Sweet, how wild it was. Probably half of the people at the Grill that night were taxi drivers. I also saw a prom queen, a transvestite, and a police officer, all within fifteen feet of each other.

  I chuckled out loud as I recalled that scene, sitting there with Ricky while a plate of grits was set down in front of me. I picked up my fork, inhaled the aroma of the grits, and got very calm.

  I looked across at my dear friend, who’d helped pull me through the storm. I smiled a
nd said, “I think I’m ready to start back up at the shop if it’s okay.”

  Ricky smiled back. “Your chair’s been waiting.”

  Chapter 35

  DECEMBER 1981

  I had been back working at Ricky’s for almost six months or so when

  Steve called and said, “Let me take you to lunch.”

  “Sure, where do you want to go? Felix’s?”

  “How about Galatoire’s?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, laughing. “Yeaaaah, right.”

  “No, Calla, I’m serious.”

  “Really?”

  The next thing I knew, we were at the glass doors and polished wood of Galatoire’s, the grand dame of the oldest and grandest of New Orleans restaurants.

  “Oh, wow. Steve, I can’t go in there. Look at how I’m dressed!”

  “Oh, come on, Calla. It doesn’t matter. We can do anything we want.”

  I stepped in and saw the dining room in all its glory. It has very high ceilings and old mirrors set into the white woodwork. Above the mirrors, all the way to the ceiling, the walls were deep green with a large gold fleur-de-lis pattern.

  Galatoire’s legendary, graceful waiters have been there thirty, forty, fifty years, and when they retire, their sons inherit their jobs. You can just see that sense of history in the way they move, crisscrossing the dining room with such ease and grace.