Chapter Nineteen

Laura called Lola Domengeaux within the hour. She wanted and needed to leave the influence of Chateau Camille, both past and present, and go somewhere more neutral to collect her thoughts. The phone rang repeatedly in the Domengeaux home, and then Myrtle Hill, the operator, interceded.

“I expect they’re still at the hospital, honey. Why don’t you try after eight?”

“Hospital?”

“You been out of town of course. They took Louie Domengeaux in for chest pains right after Christmas. It don’t look good, if you know what I mean.”

“Thanks, Myrtle.”

“Any time, hon.”

The town talked of replacing Miss Hill after her retirement with a computerized phone system, but no computer could ever do the job along with gossip the way old Myrtle did. “Telephone, telegraph, tell-a-woman,” the all male parish council joked, but they dialed her up regularly to keep abreast of the news.

Late that evening, Laura did reach the Domengeaux residence, but the daughter, not the mother, answered. Yes, Mama was fine but tired. Yes, she’d tell her Laura Dickinson had called. Click. Because she had no place else to go, Laura went to the guestroom and unpacked.

In the morning, Robert and Laura initiated another beautifully coordinated program of mutual avoidance. He had his early coffee in the kitchen, slammed the rear door loudly in signal of departure, and as soon as the crunch of his steps on the gravel pathway sounded far enough away, Laura emerged fully dressed from her room, used the bathroom, grabbed her coffee and a hot biscuit from Pearl and hurried off to work.

In the late afternoon, she politely phoned Pearl to say she would be late for dinner, please not to wait for her or set anything aside. Laura stayed at the library, sometimes actually working, cataloging a truck of books or playing with the budget to make room for a new project, sometimes merely reading a suspense novel or a piece of light non-fiction, but never a romance. When the clock reached an hour when Laura could be certain Robert and Angelle were safely in the parlor of the Chateau, she drove back to the mansion, parked in the front, but entered through the kitchen. Pearl had a tray of food waiting for her.

Laura insisted on reheating the meal herself. Afterwards, she usually joined Pearl to work on the Mardi Gras costumes in the housekeeper’s room. Sympathy had not made Pearl more talkative, but she could be drawn out by a continuous string of questions as Laura discovered when she found sewing in silence did not take her mind off Robert LeBlanc sitting nearby in another room.

“Where did you learn to sew, Pearl?”

“My mama taught me. I used to make my own costumes to save on the money.”

“Costumes?” Laura’s eyes went to the picture of the nearly nude chorus girls.

“Yeah. I danced when I was young. Tap, ballet, everything, at Miss Starr’s School of Dance. Miss Starr was kind of a hippie, still is. She had classes separate for the black kids to keep the white mamas happy, but she always told us we had more joie de vivre than her other students. Joie de vivre, that’s Miss Starr. That old lady is still dancing to this day. My mama paid for the lessons. I sewed my own costumes. Sure came in handy later.”

“Would that be you in the first row, just off center?” Laura nodded at the photo, her hands being too busy to point.

“That’s me at the Cotton Club.”

“Cotton Club!”

“Not the one you thinking of. I ain’t that old, baby. This one’s in Los Angeles, least it was.”

“When were you out there?”

“Oh, thirty years ago. The times might have been a-changing, but there were still plenty of men would pay to see black women dance with nearly nothing on. Still are. That’s where Beulah was born.”

“Beulah?”

“My daughter. I called her after my mother, but neither of them ever thanked me for it. Children take strange revenge sometimes.”

“Revenge?”

“Yeah, revenge. See, when I was young I went with a white boy for a while. Well, my folks broke that off fast because white boys only want one thing, they said. Funny, we hadn’t got that far at all, but I was so mad I went out and found the blackest boy in town and gave him my all.” Pearl released a sear little smile. Clearly, the revenge had backfired.

“I got pregnant before my parents could bust that one up, too. See, to a respectable high yellow family like the Seguras, going with a black Black is almost as bad as going with a white man. Worse probably. My folks didn’t buy into the black is beautiful campaign. Always marry lighter, my granny said.”

“So, you went to California.”

“No, they sent me off to my sister Opal until after the baby came. What my mama didn’t know—because Opal never told her—was she married a white man out there and was passing. Well, that was fine with me. With all those Mexicans and Indians and foreigners out there, I could pass, too—until Beulah came into the world. You should have seen Opal’s face. Turned whiter than that guy she married when she saw my little ebony bundle of joy.” Pearl smiled again, this time at her sister’s pretensions. “Opal never did have any children. Maybe she was afraid they’d come out black.”

“So you and Beulah stayed out there.”

“Yeah. I got a job dancing at the club. We toured all over. I’d leave Beulah with a friend and go. Those were some years.” Her face softened, and then tightened again. “But dancers get old fast. Even so, it was too late for Beulah. She was twelve going on twenty-one by the time we came back here.”

“What happened?” Laura asked, even though she knew, to keep Pearl talking.

“Oh, she went bad on me. No parental guidance, the school said. She took money for her services, too. That’s something I never did—even with the judge.”

“The judge!”

“Look, Laura, you’re almost family it seems to me, and the family knows all about this. When I came back, I took the maid’s job here at the Chateau. A comedown for me, you know, but I needed the work. I still had my looks then, being just over thirty. Miss Auree, T-Bob’s mama, was only in her forties and dying of cancer. She’d have her good spells and her bad ones, but that lady always remained brave and wise. One day, she called me into her room and plain asks me to sleep with her husband. She said he needed the comfort she could no longer give him, and being a judge and all, he wasn’t free to go out and get some, if you know what I mean. I said he had never bothered with me. She said he would, and sure enough he came to my room a few nights later.”

“We never talked much except the night after his wife died. Then, we both cried together for her. Things kept on the same between us until his heart gave out. Never thought he loved me or anyone else but Miss Auree. He never considered marrying again. He didn’t leave me nothing or give me nothing, but I did it for her, and I never asked for nothing either.”

That night, Laura, who knew very well she was not family, felt she had pried. On other nights, Laura realized though she asked the questions, she was the one being led.

“So tell me about Mardi Gras in Chapelle.”

“Well, it’s not like New Orleans where the rich people dress up and go to balls and the poor people stand in the streets, get drunk and show their titties for beads. Here, the whole town works on the costumes and anyone who buys a ticket goes to the ball, but it helps to be somebody if you want to get elected to the court.”

“Is that why they chose Angelle?”

“Well, the LeBlancs are old family, but I suspect Denise DeVille had something to do with it.”

“I don’t think I know her.”

“Oh, she comes around here plenty when you’re at work, that Miss Denise. Nineteen and as foxy as they come. She’s old DeVille’s granddaughter, and this year’s Queen Marie Antoinette the thirty-second.”

“Old DeVille who always falls asleep in the library?”

“That’s him. Would you believe he used to chase after Miss Lilliane years ago, but his family broke it off because of those old rumors? Well, I think little Miss Denise believes those stories are so romantic she’s going to break with family tradition and marry a LeBlanc.”

“Marry who?”

“Why Mr. Bob, of course. Naturally, all the DeVilles are upset, especially the mama who won’t be able to have a big Catholic wedding at the church if Denise marries a divorced and very lapsed man who’s made it clear he ain’t paying for any annulment. And then, there’s the age difference and the old stories.”

“I don’t think Robert is interested. He never mentions her.”

“How would you know? You hardly talk to him no more. Why all month, she’s been over here asking for information on the artificial insemination of cattle. Says it’s for a college biology paper, my ass. Why just last week, I had to serve her lunch and listen to all that stuff over my food in the kitchen. Mr. Bob, he keeps loaning her farm magazines, and then she has to return them. While she’s here, she plays Barbie dolls with Angelle since she isn’t too far from the grade school herself.”

Pearl gave Laura a sharp look. “You know, a man can be put off too many times and begin to look elsewhere, especially when he wants a mother for his little girl. Me and Tony thought you and Mr. Bob had finally got together out there in the barn. Said he could see you brushing off the straw and buttoning up, even with Bob standing right there in front of you as if nothing was going on. I guess old Tony got it wrong. His eyes must be going before his mouth stops talking, but he sure was sorry to interrupt whatever might have happened.”

“I thought it was an old Southern custom not to talk about things like that!” Laura blushed a red so hot she could feel beads of sweat form on her forehead and start to roll toward the fabric she bent over trying to hide her face.

“That’s what white folks want to think. Just foolin’. Won’t go no further than Tony and me. Sure wouldn’t want Miss Lil catching on. Tony and me, we’re pulling for you, not Denise.”

Laura cleared her throat. What could she say to that? Thanks for being on my side? Instead she opted to steer the conversation back where it had begun.

“So, tell me how the court is chosen.”

“Well, the members of the Mardi Gras Association nominate people, and they have to be pretty well off because costumes are expensive and they pay for their own. Now, I know they nominated Mr. Bob for King Louis the Sixteenth, but he backed out, so Dr. Bourgeois is going to do it. That didn’t please Miss Denise at all. Before we know it, Angelle is nominated for the court, and her daddy didn’t have the heart to say no.”

“What’s the theme this year?” Laura made another attempt to direct the conversation far, far away from Robert, Angelle, Denise and herself.

“The Four Seasons at the Court of Queen Victoria. Old Miss DeGravelle is going to be Queen Victoria. She sure has the weight for the part. Angelle is in the Court of Spring. They asked Mr. Bob to be in the Court of Spring while you were gone, but he said he hadn’t done anything so foolish as to dress in a green tuxedo since he turned seventeen, and he wasn’t going to do it again.” Pearl paused, waiting for a question. When none came, she went on by herself.

“But Denise talked him into being in the Court of Winter because the men are wearing black tails, and he would look so-o-o handsome, she said. He will, too.”

Again Laura had no comment, so Pearl asked a question. “Who’s taking you to the ball, Miss Laura?”

“I wasn’t planning to go.” Laura bent way over the rosebuds she tacked to Angelle’s skirt as if she were entirely engrossed in the task.

“Everybody goes.”

“Even the black people?”

“We have our own affair—to which I am going with Tony.”

Suddenly grand, Pearl stood up and lowered the zipper on a full-length clothing bag hanging from a hook on the narrow closet door behind the sewing machine. Her gown was a startling shade of tangerine. Not a dress Laura would care to wear, but she truly believed Pearl could carry it off without any trouble and look fantastic.

“Our ball is just as fine and maybe even better than the white folks’ ball, not so stuffy, you know. We got a much better band. “What are you going to wear to the ball, Madame Librarian?”

Laura smiled and answered, “Nothing.”

“That might do for after the ball. But, we have to talk about beforehand.”

“I’m not going.”

“Black spandex?”

“Absolutely not! I’ve had a bad experience with black spandex.”

“Silver lamé?”

“Not going.”

“Let me get your measurements tonight,” Pearl said, and she did.