Southern Ruby

by Belinda Alexandra

  I kept my eyes on his face, so that every time he looked up from examining my knee with his trembling fingers I was ready to smile at him. Our faces were in close proximity, and if he hadn’t recognised me as Ruby by now I was confident he wouldn’t.

  ‘I can’t feel any abnormalities or swelling,’ he said. ‘You might have strained the tendon, that’s all. Do you wear high heels like that all the time?’ He pointed at my stilettos.

  I tilted my head and peered deeply into his eyes. ‘I usually do . . . except when I’m naked, although sometimes I do then as well!’

  He chuckled, then remembered himself. ‘Well, you get dressed now, Miss Charrette,’ he said, moving to his desk as briskly as if he were stepping away from a hungry alligator, ‘and I’ll give you a prescription for a liniment. Try not to wear those shoes all the time, and if your knee isn’t better in two weeks come back and see me.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ I said, as he passed me the prescription and showed me to the door.

  ‘Well, you can come back anytime,’ he added, ‘sore knee or not.’

  Next to Doctor Monfort’s office was a store that sold bathroom accessories. As I passed the shop window I caught sight of my reflection in one of the cabinet mirrors. I stopped and gave myself a wink. Fooling Doctor Monfort had given me courage. Now I was ready for anything!

  For my next performance as Jewel, I wore the black strapless dress and gloves I’d bought from Melody and teamed them with a silk turban and lace corset. The music I chose was Duke Ellington’s ‘The Mooche’: its languorous, haunting beat enhanced my sinewy movements. Every time the clarinet and muted trumpet slipped down the scale, I slithered with them.

  The men in the room seemed to hold their breath for my entire number, and then let out a collective sigh when I’d finished. But none of them would be able to get close to me. I’d stipulated in my new agreement with Rolando that I wouldn’t entertain customers off stage. It was necessary for me to remain aloof to maintain my Jewel persona.

  Rolando congratulated me on my new stage presence. ‘That was incredible, Ruby. It was class all the way.’

  ‘Jewel,’ I reminded him. ‘There is no Ruby in this club. Only Jewel.’

  Back in my room in Chartres Street, while I was changing into my Ruby clothes, I suffered a splitting headache and had to lie down. The squeezing pain at my temples was so severe it almost blinded me. I thought of the racking pangs and nausea that Dr Jekyll suffered when he drank the potion that turned him into Mr Hyde. ‘What’s happening to me?’ I cried.

  Then I calmed myself. Jewel was not an aberration of nature. She was a creation that allowed me to do what was unthinkable as Ruby in order to help Maman — or so I thought.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Mae asked, when she brought the camomile tea I’d requested to my bedroom. ‘You’ve always been the healthy one. These strange hours you’re keeping ain’t doing you no good! What’s going to happen if you get sick?’

  ‘Shh!’ I said. Maman was asleep down the hall. Doctor Monfort had convinced her to return home. ‘I never see my patients do so well as when they’re in the bosom of their family,’ he’d told her. While it was easier on me financially now Mae had taken over nursing Maman, I was always on high alert because the need for secrecy was even greater. Mae knew that I worked at night, but not what I really did. Maman, on the other hand, had to be kept in the dark that I worked at all.

  ‘How long do you think we can keep this up?’ Mae asked. ‘I got to pretend you’re sleeping, or you’re at Mrs de Pauger’s home having a piano lesson. What are you going to do if your mama invites Mrs Pélissier to visit and requests you to play something?’

  I bit my lip and tried to shut out the image of me performing a shaky rendition of ‘Moonlight Sonata’ for Maman and Babette. Like Mae, I feared that at any moment things could come undone. ‘We’ve got to keep going,’ I told her. ‘We have to be like soldiers in a war doing our duty. If I don’t keep working, we’re going to be out on the street with nothing but the clothes on our backs!’

  She drew a breath and rubbed her forehead. ‘You sure got some spirit in you, Miss Ruby. You’re a fighter, that’s for certain. All right then, I’ll fight alongside you, seeing we don’t have much of a choice.’

  ‘I’m making good money, and we’re saving more now Maman is back home. As soon as we pay the sanatorium bill and the mortgage, I’ll stop working so hard. Life will be better then.’

  Mae looked at me sceptically. She didn’t excel at arithmetic or know exactly how much I was making, but she must have been able to figure out that the money we owed wasn’t going to be paid back anytime soon. Some days I couldn’t even bring myself to think about how long it was going to take to pay it all off.

  ‘When you find yourself a nice man and get married, then life will be easier,’ she said emphatically.

  I smiled sweetly, but the irony of her comment was like a kick in the stomach. Now I was a burlesque dancer, no nice man would want me.

  One night after I’d been performing as Jewel for a couple of months, one of the warm-up strippers told me there was someone in the club who wanted to see me.

  ‘I don’t mix with the customers any more,’ I told her.

  ‘Oh, you don’t say no to this one,’ she said. ‘It’s Sam Coppola. He’s got links with the Mancuso gambling family. His speciality is making people disappear without a trace. Rumour has it one of his suppliers got on the wrong side of him and ended up dissolved in a tub of lye and emptied into a swamp.’

  Half of the entertainment business in New Orleans was run by the mob and I couldn’t afford to get on the wrong side of them. I dressed, reapplied my lipstick and fixed my hair.

  A waiter showed me to the table where Sam Coppola was sitting. I’d been expecting a stocky Sicilian with bad table manners and was surprised to see a good-looking Italian man in a white tuxedo and black bow tie beckoning to me and pointing to a bottle of Bollinger in a champagne bucket.

  ‘Won’t you join me, Miss Jewel?’ he asked, standing. He had slicked-back hair and a tanned face. There was a slight lisp in his speech that might have been annoying in another man, but coming from his full lips was strangely sensual.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, placing myself in the chair he’d pulled out for me.

  ‘Do you want something to eat?’ he asked. ‘I wouldn’t trust the food in this joint, but I can send for something from Antoine’s?’

  One thing that was clear in the first few minutes of meeting Sam Coppola was that he wasn’t of peasant stock. His tastes were expensive.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’

  He stared at me for a long time, as if sizing me up.

  ‘Did you enjoy the show, Mr Coppola?’ I asked, to break the ice.

  ‘Call me Sam,’ he said. ‘And to answer your question, yes, I did enjoy the show. But I expected I would. I’ve been hearing a lot about Jewel at the Havana Club, so I decided to come see what all the fuss is about.’

  I was aware of something he wanted to say beneath the polite chit-chat. The way he looked me over made my stomach pitch. It was a fall to become a burlesque dancer, but I didn’t intend to sink further and end up a gangster’s moll, even for a man as debonair as Sam Coppola. If he made any sort of suggestion like that, I’d tell him I was engaged. Surely the mob had its own code of honour in that regard. I didn’t want to end up in a tub of lye.

  ‘How much money do you make here?’ he asked.

  Why did he want to know? Was he going to offer me a role as a courier or drug runner? I shifted uneasily in my seat and he noticed. Sam Coppola never missed a thing.

  ‘The reason I’m asking is because whatever it is, I’ll double it. I’m opening a new club on Bourbon Street and I want it to be class all the way. I’m looking for a local dancer to be the main act, rather than a string of out-of-towners. The act has to be pure glamour and not cheap striptease. I’m creating the sort of place that men would feel comfortable bringing their wives and gir
lfriends for dinner and a show. You interested?’

  His offer was a good one. Rolando liked to change his acts around and that was going to be a problem for me. The other girls toured the country to perform at different venues, but I couldn’t do that because of Maman. A permanent spot in New Orleans was what I needed, and what Sam was talking about was exactly the sort of burlesque dancer I wanted to be.

  ‘I make five hundred dollars a week,’ I told him, poker-faced. ‘So it’ll be one thousand dollars a week for me to come work for you.’

  The frown lines on his forehead deepened. ‘One thousand! Isn’t that a little steep?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ I said, managing not to fidget or avert my gaze. ‘You said you wanted class and class doesn’t come cheap.’

  It was a risk to tell someone like Sam Coppola a lie, but I’d gone to see Tempest Storm perform at the 500 Club. It annoyed me she was making so much more money than me. She was very pretty and had an eye-popping figure, but she couldn’t keep time to the music. When the drummer gave her a beat, she’d miss it. Her dancing was uncoordinated and her act — well, her act was a little tacky. One thousand dollars wasn’t even half of what she earned.

  ‘Now, Miss Jewel, don’t you get smart with me,’ Sam said. ‘I know you make one eighty a week and I’m willing to pay you five hundred — and provide your costumes.’

  ‘Then why’d you ask me if you already know?’ I said indignantly.

  He rubbed his chin. ‘To see how good you are at lying. Anyone who works for me has to be like a box with the lid shut tight. You focus on the job I’m paying you to do and nothing else. Anything you see and hear you keep to yourself. You don’t even raise an eyebrow. You simply erase it from your mind like you never noticed it to begin with. As we say here in Louisiana, three can keep a secret if two are dead.’

  My blood turned to ice. Was I prepared to work in a club owned by the mob? What if I accidentally witnessed something I wasn’t supposed to see? But five hundred dollars a week and a long contract was too good to refuse. With that amount of money, I had a chance of getting our debts paid off faster than I’d ever dreamed.

  I lifted my chin proudly. ‘Well, how did I do? Did I meet your criteria as a good liar, Sam?’

  He grinned, and I noticed for the first time the scar on the inside of his lower lip that must have been the cause of the lisp. ‘You did pretty good. But get rid of that phoney transatlantic accent, will you. You’re slipping in and out of it like a faulty radio. You’re Creole, right? Well, speak with a French accent if you want to sound haughty. It will be a hundred times more convincing. And remember the most important point of disguising your voice: err on the safe side — talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much.’

  ‘How come you know so much about changing your voice?’

  He chuckled but didn’t answer the question. ‘Now come see me on Monday and we’ll sign the contract.’

  He poured the champagne and we clinked glasses. I had a feeling I was going to like Sam Coppola. As long as I stayed on the right side of him.

  When I told Rolando I was leaving to work for Sam, he was pleased for me. ‘That you were once Vivienne “Ruby” de Villeray is a secret I’ll take to my grave,’ he said, with his hand dramatically over his heart. ‘But I hope if I ever need it, you’ll put in a good word for Rolando.’

  Before returning home that afternoon, I had some errands to run for Maman. When I passed Jackson Square I found a crowd had gathered there, and stopped to see what was happening. The faces of the people in the crowd were grim and I could feel their anger simmering in the atmosphere like heat. A man with a bald head and trimmed beard was standing on a wooden stage, surrounded by reporters and an audience of men and women holding placards urging citizens to Say No to the Desegregation of Schools.

  ‘Do you want your daughters associating with niggers?’ the speaker asked the crowd. ‘Do you want mongrels for grandchildren?’

  The murmurs from his audience made it clear that they didn’t.

  ‘The purity of the white race is threatened by desegregation,’ the speaker continued, beads of sweat popping up on his hairless pate. ‘We must protect white womanhood against the predatory instincts of the coloured man, who has only recently emerged from the darkness of Africa.’

  The man in front of me turned to his companion and sneered, ‘Some of those darkies are hung like thoroughbreds. They should be sent to the knackery like finished up racehorses before they can cause any trouble, or be castrated at birth!’

  His companion sniggered, then looked around him with fierce eyes. ‘If a daughter of mine associated with any nigger, I’d lynch both of them myself.’

  My heart beat hard in my chest and my hands turned clammy. I remembered what had happened to Mae’s father and wanted to be sick. For the first time in a long while, I thought of Clifford Lalande and his family. This was the kind of hatred they were up against in trying to improve society. These people in the square looked ordinary, the sort of people you’d see in a department store or holding their children on their shoulders at the Mardi Gras parades. But something evil lurked in their minds and it made them volatile and dangerous.

  I pushed through the crowd and headed home. Something was happening in New Orleans. Something terrible. I could feel it.

  FIFTEEN

  Ruby

  My first impression of Sam Coppola had been right: everything he did was ritzy and lavish, and the Vieux Carré Club was no different. When I went to sign my contract, I gaped in awe at the white marble floors, the gold damask-papered walls and the recessed lights. Builders were working on the revolving glass podium I was to perform on.

  My contract had a strict code of rules including: No bumps and grinds, no flashing and no hanging on the curtains. None of those things were my style, but when I read that Sam Coppola also had the final say in what I wore off stage, I protested. Until the lawyer showed me a rack of Balenciaga and Dior dresses.

  ‘Any objections to these?’ he asked.

  I shook my head.

  My stage costumes were to be made by an Australian designer named Orry-Kelly, who had dressed Hollywood stars like Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe. I was nervous when I went to see him at his suite at the Roosevelt Hotel, but when the maid showed me into the room I was surprised to find an unassuming man with grey streaks in his hair and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses perched on his droopy nose. He looked more like a bank manager than a haughty clothes designer.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re younger than I was expecting. As I’m getting older, I enjoy being around young people more.’

  He opened a desk drawer and took out a measuring tape. I noticed an antique figurine of a white cat sitting on a notebook on the desk. Pansies and vines were painted on her coat, as if she was peering out of a garden.

  Orry saw me looking at it. ‘Do you like it? I collect cat figurines, and I picked up this beauty in a pawn shop down on Royal Street would you believe?’

  I could believe it. It was one of the family heirlooms I’d pawned months ago and hadn’t had a chance to buy back. It seemed strange for it to have ended up in Orry’s hands. Was it a good omen?

  I handed my clothes to his maid, and Orry took measurements where I’d never had measurements taken before: from my navel to my crotch, and my crotch to my ankle.

  ‘Burlesque costuming is still high couture but it’s also an engineering feat,’ he explained. ‘The zippers have to be durable, and the snaps placed in exactly the right positions. The costumes must stand up to the rigours of performance.’

  The creation of my costumes was a performance in itself, with numerous sketches and fittings.

  ‘Normally I prefer simple, unadorned elegance on a petite woman like you,’ he said, pinning me into a beautiful gown with a gold satin base, pale gold for the chiffon overlay, and bronze flower motifs running from shoulder to hip. ‘But on the stage you need a bit of glitz to catch the light.’

  As well as the gold dress, he d
esigned a pink and silver silk-jersey ensemble consisting of a corset, jacket, skirt and headdress. The outfit was embellished with bugle beads, pearls and rhinestones sewn on in feathered lines. The skirt wrapped around to produce a draped effect and was secured with a large hook and eye.

  As he worked, Orry liked to gossip about the stars he’d dressed for Hollywood. ‘Marilyn might act sweet, but she’s a devil to please. I enjoyed dressing Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as women far more for Some Like It Hot.’

  The day before he flew back to Los Angeles, he invited me to his office and handed me a silver box tied with a bow. Inside I found the white ceramic cat.

  ‘I don’t know why, but every time I looked at it, something told me you should have it,’ he said.

  I thanked him, and he kissed my cheek and said, ‘Work hard and persist, persist, persist. That’s the only route to stardom. I know: I’ve been watching starlets come and go for years.’

  Guilt stabbed my conscience and I clenched my hands. Although Orry meant well, his remark drove home that many of the other performers at the Havana Club had dreamed of stardom all their lives. I was only performing for the money, but it seemed I was getting what they’d wanted without having sought it. I knew I’d have to put everything into my act now — or else be exposed as a fraud.

  I met my choreographer, Miss Hanley, the following week in the club’s rehearsal studio on Dumaine Street. The Quarter was deluged in light, and as I made my way there I squinted at the brightness. It was unusual for me to be out at this time of day; I had become a creature of the night.

  Miss Hanley was a slight woman of a certain age, wearing a black blouse, piped pants and black dance shoes that gave her an unbroken line. I was in a grey skirt and off-the-shoulder fire-orange blouse that flattered my assets in a ladylike way.

  She looked me up and down and smiled. ‘I see Sam has been dressing you. Very elegant. Now show me some arabesques and entrechats so I can get an idea of your style.’