Club Storyville (12 page)

“Well, I’m glad you chose us,” Buddy said instead, and Ariel gave a slight smile and nod, as if it was an agreement either of them could make. “I hope you won’t mind too terribly,” he went on with less hesitation. “We’re booked full, and I had two gentlemen reserve a single bed by mistake. Obviously, I had to fix that when they arrived. So, that leaves me with only a single room. I assume you ladies are all right to share?”

Standing in the middle of the wrong boarding house in the wrong part of town in a city that could be every bit as wrong when we saw it by full light, it was that - the notion of sharing a bed with me - that at last gave Ariel pause. Fury, and lesser-admitted pain, snapping through me at the unfairness of it, my one chance to say that wouldn’t work for us, to tell Buddy we would find someplace else, was carried away in the forceful rush of my pride.

“Yes, of course we are,” I said, because normal ladies would be fine with such a thing, accepting it as trivial inconvenience, and, with all the reasons we should have been backing out the door, I wasn’t about to let Buddy think I was the one thing that could make Ariel run.

“Well then, let me show you to your room,” Buddy responded, and I realized I had just decided something for all of us in a single moment of rampant ego.

A
riel and I helping with our suitcases, we managed them all in one trip, passing two other guests along the way, who, as expected, were more like Buddy than like us, and who looked at us with anxious, unwelcoming expressions, before Buddy let us into our room with the key and set our suitcases down inside the sparsely, but nicely-decorated bedroom.

“The bathroom is just two doors down on your right. It’s marked, and you only share with two other rooms,” he said, stepping further inside to turn on one of the two fans to circulate the air. “If it gets too warm, you can open the windows. They have real good screens in them, and even all the way up here, we pick up a little bit of the river breeze.”

“Thank you,” Ariel said, though she sounded less certain of her place than I’d ever heard her as she forced a smile at him.

“Are you hungry?” he asked us.

The heat all I could think about from the moment we rolled into the city limits, within the dim, relatively cool room, my stomach responded at the reminder of food.

“Yes, we’re going to have to eat,” Ariel sighed, and I knew she too was recalling the businesses we’d passed, which weren’t open to serve people of our color and probably wouldn’t even have a place to legally put us if we walked through their doors.

“Well, once you get yourselves settled in,” Buddy said. “I’ve got some gumbo and rolls left from tonight’s dinner, or I can make you salads or sandwiches if you prefer that.”

“Thank you, Buddy,” Ariel sounded incredibly relieved at the offer.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he nodded. “You just come down whenever you’re ready. The kitchen is never closed.” Then, with another cautious smile, Buddy took his leave.

As he pulled the door shut behind him, I looked around the room, every bit what I was expecting, with its simple, clean accommodations, and nothing at all what I was expecting, surrounded as we were by colored folks with whom we would be sharing facilities. The reality of that hitting me, I couldn’t stop thinking what Mama would say if she knew.

Whatever she would say, or think, she wouldn’t be entirely wrong, because what we were doing simply wasn’t done, and it wasn’t just out of personal prejudices.

“We’re breaking the law staying here,” I uttered, wondering if Ariel realized that, if she was aware as the white car hire dropped us off outside, or as we stood on the porch, that we were standing on a line it was illegal to cross.

“You don’t need to worry about that, Elizabeth,” Ariel returned.

“It’s against the law,” I repeated.

“Yes,” Ariel stated crisply. “Technically, it is against the law for us to stay here, but those laws are not meant for us. This is the closest boarding house to where we need to be, and the closer we are, the sooner we get this done.”

“Clearly, Nan’s got it wrong,” I argued, trying to ignore the sudden clenching in my chest at the none-too-gentle insinuation Ariel couldn’t wait to be through with me. “Maybe she forgot the address.”

“That may be,” Ariel acknowledged. “But it’s late, and I am not going to search for another place to stay when this room is perfectly adequate. At least, for tonight.”

“It’s a negro boarding house!”

“Keep your voice down,” Ariel at last turned to me, taking a step closer, but where there was always that something that made me afraid because it felt like so much, there was something I had never felt from her before - undiluted anger. “I know where we are, and if someone who cares to tell goes running to the authorities, we will only be questioned as to why we would ever choose to stay in such a place and what these animals might have done to us,” she hissed. “The man who showed us to this room and the people in the rooms around us, they are the ones at risk. All we would have to do is say one of them laid a hand on us, and any of these people would be hanging next to the blooms in the trees come morning.”

It was a horrible thing to say - utterly gruesome and unnecessary - and I flinched at the mere notion. Even knowing there was truth in what she was saying, I silently pleaded for her to stop talking.

“I think, if Buddy is willing to take that risk to accommodate us,” Ariel snapped at last, “then your worries are pretty petty.”

Though I tried so hard to keep it in, with the terrible image in my head of the man who had been so respectful of us being ripped out of the world in such a way, I felt more scared and alone than I had since we left Richmond. Ariel was the only person I knew in New Orleans, and, in that instant, it felt like she hated me, like she hated everything I was, like she wished she hadn’t been burdened with me. Feeling a sob rise into my chest, I couldn’t keep it from escaping, and I heard Ariel’s long, drawn-out breath as I dropped my gaze to the floor, trying to blink back the tears that suddenly filled my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Ariel whispered, but it was only her hand on my arm, reluctant, but sincere, that I believed. “I didn’t sleep well. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m just so tired.”

Ariel sounded tired. She sounded overwhelmed. When I glanced up, her eyes held no trace of the disgust with me they seemed to hold a moment before. Sniffing and raising a hand to my runny nose, I felt stupid and immature and like a pain, and I wished I had my handkerchief on me, where Mama always told me to carry it, instead of packed away in my bag where she said it never did any good.

“This was the closest boarding house I found to where we need to be,” Ariel quietly explained. “If I had been paying attention, or I had thought to ask... but I didn’t even think about it. I forget sometimes how different things are down here. Not as different as us Yankees would have you believe.” She smiled back at me when I managed a small laugh at her effort. “There is still plenty of separate, but it isn’t as flagrant, or on the books, so it’s easier to pretend it isn’t there. I truly am sorry, Elizabeth, but it is a much greater risk for them than it is for us, so no one’s going to tell anyone we’re here. Okay?”

“Okay,” I returned, but when I still couldn’t stop crying, Ariel’s hand moved to my cheek for the briefest of seconds, her thumb swiping away a few of the tears there and making my eyes flutter closed before she let me go.

“Let’s get freshened up,” she said. “And we’ll go get dinner.”

Nodding my agreement at the logical plan, the kind both Nan and Mama would have had, I watched Ariel gather some items from her bag and slip out the bedroom door, wondering what I would do if she didn’t come back.

If Ariel left me alone in a strange place with people unlike me, would I figure out how to talk to everyone the same, like she did, could I find my way home on my own? Or, if left to a world of different, would I close in so much on myself I would stagnate and perish, too afraid to open my mouth to even ask for help?

Chapter Twelve

W
hat little I knew about gumbo, I had learned in the bowls of Richmond, and Nan always made them out to be such a terrible disappointment. “You can’t get a good bowl of gumbo north of the thirtieth parallel,”’ she would complain each time she tried a restaurant owner’s attempt at bringing real Cajun cooking to our city, and, if the chef made the mistake of visiting our table, she never was shy with her opinion.

Finally in the right place for it, I was anxious to try what Buddy had on offer, to see if Nan was telling the truth, if the gumbo of New Orleans was everything her memories promised it would be. Ariel said it wasn’t the wisest choice after our long trip and the hot temperatures, though, and would be something better had after a good night of rest, and since she was the one with the papers that said she knew such things, I did as she did, half-heartedly requesting a sandwich and a small salad.

While we sat eating in his dining room, Buddy would pop in every now and then to talk to us about the city and ask what brought us to town, and when I told him about Nan’s request, he was suddenly more interested in me.

“A real life mystery right here in my establishment,” he grinned, just before relocating us and the conversation to the parlor to treat us to a drink he called ‘special lemonade’ that had less of a bite than the cognac the night before, but certainly wasn’t the lemonade I was used to drinking at home.

At the sound of the door, Buddy’s smile at our compliments of his secret recipe fell fast, and he rushed to greet the people coming in, as if scared to be caught talking to us, even in his own place.

“Good evening,” he greeted the couple coming back from a night out - colored, of course, as all the other guests would be. “Did you have a nice night?”

“You better believe,” the man said enthusiastically. “That place down the street is a find. Not a weak act on the bill. You are damn lucky to live in this city. It really is a...” I was curious as to how the man would describe New Orleans, but, as he looked our way, his eager rambling came at once to a stop. Face turning to stone as he took us in, despite Ariel’s attempt to save the unexpected encounter with a smile, the colored man looked back to Buddy as if he’d just been sedated. “It was a real good place,” he calmly concluded. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

“Yeah, any time,” Buddy returned. “Could I get you something to drink?”

“No,” the man’s eyes flashed our way again. “We’re just going to head upstairs. I’ve got a meeting in the morning.”

“Well, y’all have a good night now,” Buddy replied, and, as I watched the couple escape quickly up the stairs, I knew Ariel and I were the reason.

D
espite having been acquainted with our accommodations in earlier evening, it wasn’t until I was standing at the foot of the bed, gazing across its narrow expanse under the slight haze of Buddy’s lemonade that it occurred to me the types of intimacies that happened in such private circumstances, with nothing but the air between two people, and a door blocking the world from seeing what went on.

It was the kind of thing Mama always told me a lady didn’t think about until it happened, and then only gave enough thought to do her part in making her husband happy. I’d never had any problem minding her until Ariel walked into my life and made me think all the things I’d been taught not to think.

Hearing the door creak open behind me, I turned to watch Ariel walk into the room, invading my physical space again, as she had invaded my mind from the very start.

“What did you say to him?” the tipsiness made me just bold enough to question what had been said downstairs after Ariel handed me the key and told me to go on up to the room.

“I asked if he wants us to leave,” Ariel told me without a fight.

“Does he?”

“No,” she shook her head. “At least, he won’t say he does. He said we’re welcome here as long as we need to stay.”

Nodding in response, it occurred to me I had learned enough about Buddy in just a few hours to expect no less.

“I think it’s only fair I ask you the same question,” Ariel said, her restrained voice absent of emotion, yet somehow managing to manipulate mine. “Would you like to leave?” she asked without pressure or judgment, and it soothed the worries that made me know we should. “I can find another place tomorrow. We’ll have to get a car to take us there and bring us back to the address, but if you would be more comfortable someplace else -”

“This is fine,” I heard myself say before she could finish or I could fully consider the offer. Ariel was giving me an out, freedom to walk the easy road, but it felt like the hard road at the moment. It would mean lugging everything back into the car and paying for rides to get to the exact same kind of place with nothing more than a different color palette.

“Are you sure?” Ariel was utterly surprised at my response.

“Yes,” I nodded, a little surprised myself as I swallowed the slight feeling of fear that rose into my throat. “Buddy’s nice,” I said. “I like it here.”

“All right,” Ariel returned quietly, and I was sure I saw the stirrings of another smile, though it never fully formed on her face. “You should get ready for bed.”

My eyes falling from her averted gaze to the summer sweater she’d changed into to sit downstairs, the question of whether Ariel would wear the same thin nightgown I had glimpsed the night before lodged firmly in my mind. Realizing I shouldn’t even be entertaining such thoughts, I gathered my things and escaped quietly into the hallway, pausing instinctively as I pulled the door shut and glanced up to see the other person waiting for the bathroom, the same colored lady we had seen downstairs.

Nodding uneasily to her, I didn’t know what to say as I stepped into line behind her, and the silence in the hallway felt heavy as the colored lady seemed to know no better than me whether we should try to make conversation.

The bathroom door opening a minute later, the eyes of the woman’s companion jumped to me, drawn, I assumed, to the most out of place thing around.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the room,” he met the lady’s eyes briefly, and, as the man walked off without another glance my way, the colored lady turned to me.