The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder (18 page)

I could be stuck the whole night, and Ricky would be the one to come and find me first thing Monday morning. By then my leg could have gangrene. My right leg would have to be cut off! A one-legged beautician. Well, at least then maybe he would notice me.

Snap out of it, Calla! I told myself. I yelled at the top of my lungs: “Riiiiiiiicky!!!!!!!!! Help!!”

Ricky finally ran back to the laundry room and pulled me up from the crack. I had bruised my leg a horrible blue, tore my brand new lime-green pantyhose, and ripped off the strap on my platform shoe. I couldn’t stop crying and all the mascara gooched up under my eyes. Once again, don’t you ever believe it when they tell you it’s waterproof, because it is not.

Then the old man came in and put his shoes back on. “Can’t thank you enough, Rick,” he said in an old Cajun voice. “If it wasn’t for you, them old toenails of mine would still be cutting into my feet. You get so old and stiff, you can’t bend over and cut them yourself,
non
.”

Ricky was cutting that old man’s toenails
. And there I was, trying to blow a spell over Ricky while he was performing an act of kindness.

When the old man left, Ricky said, “What do you want from me, Calla?” He handed me some Kleenex.

What does a girl have to lose, after being pulled out from behind a dryer with the yuck-o smell of newt and burdock hanging in the air? “I want for you to fall in love with me,” I told him, “and I want us to get married and open up a shop together. Ricky, it’d be real fun, because you’ve already got the experience and you know all the finances and city codes and all the beauty ins and outs. I’m a real hard worker, and I’m very, very good with people and—oh, shit.” I tried my best to stop crying, but I couldn’t. “What I mean is, Ricky, you are the one with the magic hands.”

Ricky lifted my hands up in his. “Calla, dear young girl, you don’t need me. You have all the magic in your hands that I’ve got in mine.”

I couldn’t believe that he was turning me down flat. I stood there, too numb to move, then I ran to the ladies’ room and locked myself in the stall. I just sat there, so ashamed I didn’t think I could even open the door. What was Ricky going to think of me—a girl who tried to seduce him but instead fell into the crack between a dryer and a wall, covered in stinky voodoo powder?

I don’t know how long I was in there, dying of embarrassment, before Ricky called out, “Are you okay, Calla?”

There was no way to escape. “Yes, yes,” I blubbered. “I’ll be right out.”

I tried to get the mascara and burdock root off my face and fixed my blown-away hair as best I could. Then, feeling like I was under a death sentence, I opened the door.

Ricky was standing there with kindness on his face. Though I’d made a fool of myself, he seemed concerned.

I took a deep breath. “Ricky, I’m so embarrassed. I hate myself for doing this.”

“Don’t ever say you hate yourself. It’s like jabbing your heart with a sharp stick. And besides, I don’t imagine you were raised to hate yourself, or else you wouldn’t be able to touch people the way you do.”

I couldn’t say anything for a minute.
This is a person to trust
, I heard M’Dear say. Raising my eyes to meet his, I said, “I apologize.”

He looked at me, smiling. “No need to,” he said, as he straightened my hair. “C’mon, let’s go grab some lunch.”

Ricky took me uptown on the Charles Avenue streetcar to the Bluebird Grill. While we waited for our burgers, I tried to let Ricky know how much I enjoyed school. “Every day, I learn more and more. I love that you build a world that I can step into, so that now I can actually envision being a cosmetologist. I love that word ‘cosmetology
’
because it is like ‘cosmologist.’ And yes, I am a girl who loves the cosmos. I love the heavens, the stars, the constellations, and hair. My mother first opened the door, and now the universe of cosmetology is opening up for me.”

It was only by the time our food came that I worked up the courage to say, “Ricky, I want to apologize. You know, you’re so handsome and all, and your fingers are so beautiful. I don’t know if I should tell you about my life before New Orleans. But I think it has something to do with me going after you like I did.”

“Calla, go ahead and tell me. I want to hear about you.” And Ricky seemed like he really meant it.

So I told him about Tuck, and about M’Dear and her dying.

“Calla, I’m sorry that your M’Dear died when you were so young.”

“She had breast cancer.”

“Oh, I’m so awfully sorry, Calla! You know, I have a special friend named Steve. His cousin Louise died of breast cancer. He visited her every week, and he took me sometimes, so I know a little bit about it. I am so sorry, Calla.”

I said, “I’d like to meet your friend, because meeting somebody else who knows—well, it would go a long way.”

“Yes,” Ricky said. “Steve and I are very close.”

There was silence for a while. I thought for a minute. “He’s your love, isn’t he?” I asked.

“Yep,” Ricky said as he picked up a French fry. “He’s my guy.”

“I’ve never thought about it much,” I said, “two men together. But my parents had a dance studio—maybe you’ve heard of it—Will and Lenora’s Swing ’N Sway?”

Ricky took a sip of his ice tea. “No, I don’t believe I have.”

“On the first Saturday of every month, we threw open the doors to music, dancing, and gumbo, and M’Dear and Papa didn’t care one bit about two men dancing together. So nobody else gave it a second thought. Anyway, I’m glad you have someone close. I thought I did. But Tuck left, went off to college, and never called or wrote or came home, even though he promised he would.”

“He never contacted you at all?”

“Never,” I said. “Not one bit.”

“Oh, Calla, it just breaks my heart to hear that happened to you.”

“I waited and waited while I was working for a year to get the money and the nerve to move to New Orleans. He broke my heart—and then I met you! You were teaching, you were just so handsome, and you just had such a way with your hands. When you gave me the Nutra-Kit, the way your hands touched me, it seemed like you weren’t just teaching me, but you were doing something else.”

“Well, I was, Calla.”

I said, “You were? I mean, because it seemed like, well, I’m kind of embarrassed to say it…but it seemed like you were trying to turn me on.”

I could feel my face turning beet red. I had to put my hamburger down.

“Oh, Calla,” Ricky said. “I understand. In fact, I’m flattered!”

“You are?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m flattered that somebody as lovely as you felt that, somebody who knows about the healing that a beautician can do. Not everybody gets that.

“Calla, what I was trying to do wasn’t to turn you on, but to calm you down. I was trying to let my hands send a message to you. A message that everything was good between us. You can do that through your hands, you know.”

“You see, I was afraid I might never fall in love that way again, and then when I felt your magic hands—”

“It’s okay, Calla, I really do understand.”

“Well, I’m afraid there’s more to the story.” I took a sip of my Coke and told him about Madame Marie and her potion.

“Calla! Honey!” Ricky reached for my hands and looked at my palms. Then he said, “I want you to take a vow right now to put your past behind you. Become friends with me, and open up to your new life in this city. Can you make that vow?”

I thought for a moment, remembering how sad I’d been. Then I said, “Yes, I, Calla Lily Ponder, do vow that I will let go of the past. And I vow to let this lunch be the beginning of our friendship. To launch it like a rocket!”

Then Ricky was dead serious. “And now I want you to do something else,” he said. “Remember I said you have the same magic in your hands as I do in mine?”

“Ricky, it’s true, I’ve been wanting to tell someone. One time, I got this great sense of warmth when I was doing hair. I felt that I was moving energy around. I thought that I could read emotions. My mother, M’Dear, is the one who taught me that I had healing hands.”

“I believe it, Calla,” he said. “That’s the highest gift. The challenge is to learn how to use your healing hands. The Bible says, ‘Study to be quiet and do your work with your own hands.’ Look at your hands, Calla. I mean, really look.”

I looked hard and saw my hands—really
saw
them—for the first time. The lines on my palms, my fingers, my thumbs, my strong wrists. I thought of how much my hands did for me, how many different things they could do.

Just then an image of M’Dear came to me. She was saying good night to her ballroom dancing students. One of the men said something about how he didn’t know where she found the energy to work so hard. M’Dear smiled at him and replied, “Oh, my body loves to work!”

Calla
, my hands whispered to me,
we love to work
.

“You see?” Ricky said. “I believe that you have the gift of beauty.”

“Ricky.” I smiled. “I have healing hands. I got them from my mother.”

I
was so excited to see Sukey, I waited for half an hour on the steps to my new apartment for her to arrive. “Sukey!” I said, when she walked up, like a one-person welcome wagon. “I couldn’t wait for you to get here.”

I’d left Mrs. LaBourde’s place and moved about twenty blocks to my new apartment a month ago, but Sukey hadn’t seen it yet. Our schedules were just so different, with her work at the Playboy Club and my going to school and working at the Camellia Grill, that it was almost like we lived in different worlds in New Orleans. I had only visited her apartment once so far. So it was so good when she finally got a Saturday off and called me to just hang out. I had missed her!

My new place was a darling little one-bedroom place in uptown New Orleans, right above a vintage clothing store called JoAnn’s Vintage Palace. My rent was $150 a month—which seemed like a fortune, but Mrs. LaBourde told me it was a pretty good deal. My apartment was clean and pretty with new harvest gold appliances and a pink bathroom with little one-inch octagonal floor tiles New Orleans people call a “drugstore floor.” I had French doors opening onto a skinny little balcony facing the street—well, really, it was more like a balconette. But it was all mine! Right there on the river side of St. Charles, on Magazine Street.

Walking to and from my apartment to the streetcar everyday, I went by the St. Elizabeth’s Home. St. Elizabeth’s is this huge orphanage that’s been in New Orleans since before the Civil War. It’s a three-story, U-shaped building with a courtyard in the middle that takes up an entire block, with Prytania Street on one side and Napoleon on the other. It’s still run by the nuns. I always think about all those girls who got sent there, back when the yellow fever used to hit New Orleans like a long, slow hurricane, killing many parents. So many children were left behind.

I often say a prayer for them when I look out my bedroom window, watching a wisteria vine and tuberoses growing up the back stairs by my kitchen.

“Well, Calla Lily, I really think you’re cutting loose a little bit. I saw you from down the block, sitting there with your legs crossed like we were raised never to do.”

We laughed as we hugged each other tight.

“I’m dying for you to see my apartment. I’ve spent so much time—”

“Wait a minute! You didn’t tell me that you lived above JoAnn’s Vintage Palace! I can’t believe that you live right upstairs!”

I said, “Maybe we can come back down after—”

Sukey interrupted me. “It’s famous!”

“Yeah, I’m lucky.” As I followed Sukey into JoAnn’s, I could hear the familiar sound of the bells tinkling. I introduced Sukey to JoAnn.

JoAnn seemed to know everyone in New Orleans, or at least in our neighborhood. Since I’d moved there, she’d been kind and funny, and I felt safe knowing we lived together—she on the floor above the shop, and me up another flight of stairs. Today, she held forth wearing a paisley caftan over her head of wild, curly hair.

“Well, Sukey, it’s a pleasure to have you,” JoAnn said. “Are you new here in New Orleans too?”

“Oh, no,” Sukey said. “I’ve been here working at the Playboy Club for a year.”

“Oh, really!” JoAnn said. “Then you must know Dick!”

“Yes, I do.”

“Oh, wonderful! Dick has been a great doorman for that place, and the fact that his name is
Dick
just makes it all the better. Wouldn’t you agree?”

We all laughed.

“Absolutely!” Sukey said. “I couldn’t believe that was his real name. I thought he’d made it up.”

“Well, he
did
,” JoAnn said. “His actual name is Douglas Francis Pritchard.”

“Oh, I’m going to tease him with that,” Sukey told her. “I love to tease every boy in that club.”

“Yeah,” JoAnn said. “That’s what they go for, to be
teased
.” She winked. “Well, y’all just look around now. I’ve got plenty of work to do. Holler if you need anything. And Calla, I understand you’ve had a little dripping with your faucet. I’ll get somebody over there as soon as I can.”

“What a great landlady!” Sukey said. She was heading straight for the hats. Sukey loved hats because they looked so good with her short shiny jet-black Sassoon haircut. She’s worn her hair like that ever since
I
gave her a Sassoon cut when we were teenagers—the first that had ever been seen in La Luna. Nothing made Sukey happier than being original.

We started trying on all the vintage hats. None of them fit over my thick, almost waist-length hair. JoAnn, who’d come over to see how we were doing, said to me, “Sweetie, what you need is a
man’s
fedora. Don’t worry, Barbara Stanwyck wore them all the time, and Hepburn too. You know, Hepburn had thick hair like yours, and it was about the same color, though she dyed it red.”

Then JoAnn whipped out a fedora, which fit me perfectly.

“I keep my men’s things over here because it’s basically a women’s shop. But some of the men come in for ladies’ clothes, too.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why would the men come in for ladies’ clothes?”

JoAnn laughed. “Oh, Calla, you really haven’t been in New Orleans for long. Let me just say that there are men in this town who like to dress up in women’s clothes and strut around. And if you go down to Godchaux’s Department Store on Canal Street, you’ll notice that they stock the latest ladies’ platform shoes up to size thirteen.”

“Oh,” was all I could say.

Sukey told me, “Calla, don’t worry. You’re going to do okay here in New Orleans.”

After the hats, we started working through the racks. So far I’d only bought some vintage jewelry from JoAnn, one or two skirts, and a cute little jacket with a peplum skirt and wide shoulders, which I loved. I wore it with slacks, and it sort of made them look more feminine.

But today I was in the mood to splurge. A girl always has to keep Mardi Gras in mind, and I had been asked out on a few dates. Sukey was pulling out all kinds of wild clothes for me. One was a mauve silk full-length dress that looked like a nightgown, with ecru lace on its hem and at the bodice. “You’ve got to try this on,” she insisted. “This is just too glamorous to pass up.”

“Good eye, Suke.” The skirt was cut on the bias, and it hugged my bottom like it was made for me.

I twirled, and the way that silk moved was like a wave. “Wow,” I said, rubbing my thighs. “This feels so good against my legs.”

“Oh,” Sukey said. “That is fabulous!”

“I love the way the dress is open down to the waist with lace, giving the illusion that it’s see-through.”

“And look, there’s a little peignoir sort of jacket you can wear over it if you feel shy. That dress is
you
, all the way. Look in the mirror. Now, undo that braid.”

“I can’t undo it right here in the store.”

“Yes, you can.”

Sukey got up on a stool inside the dressing room. She quickly undid my braid and ran her fingers down my hair.

JoAnn came over and examined me. “You fill that dress out divinely, Calla! Hmm, you really look like a movie star. There’s just one more thing you need. Take off that jacket.”

She waved her hand at me, bossy as could be. She went to the mannequin in the display case at the front of the store and brought back a long white feather boa. We cracked up laughing as she swept it around my neck.

Though it did look good, I said, “No, I cannot wear this. Where would I ever
go
in a feather boa?!”

“You’ll find a place in New Orleans. I promise you,” Sukey said.

No one could ever win an argument with Sukey. “Okay, I’ll get it. But what about you? Aren’t you going to get anything?”

“Nope,” Sukey said, “this is
your
day to splurge. But I do want to try this on.”

She held up an outrageous olive green dress with dolman sleeves. “Look at these winged sleeves. They’re lined with leopard skin! JoAnn, is this real leopard skin?”

“Of course,” JoAnn told her. “This is from the 1930s.”

So Sukey put on the dress, and I had to admit it was a very gorgeous idea on Sukey. The stand-up collar was lined with leopard skin, too, which was just meant to go with Sukey’s jet-black hair. The dress had a zipper down the front, a leopard-skin belt, and a swirly skirt with leopard-skin trim. It was too long on Sukey, and kind of baggy in the chest, but otherwise it fit perfectly.

“What do you think?” Sukey asked JoAnn, doing a Loretta Young twirl.

JoAnn studied Sukey. “It needs to be shortened, which I’d be happy to do for you. I can raise the hem and stitch the leopard skin back on. And you need to wear more of a push-up bra under it.”

“I know about that. It’s my tiny boobs, right?” Sukey said. “I need push-up bras because my breasts are smaller than every other Bunny.”

“You have beautiful breasts,” JoAnn told her. “You have nothing to worry about.”

And I could see for the first time that Sukey truly worried about the size of her breasts. She used to kid about them in high school, but now she was noticeably relieved to have someone like JoAnn tell her that they were the perfect size.

After JoAnn finished pinning Sukey’s hem, we paid for our new outfits.

“Okay,” Sukey said. “Now, let’s go see your apartment.”

We climbed the twenty-eight hardwood steps up from the first floor. The first thing I wanted Sukey to see in the apartment was the balcony. As soon as we walked in I raised the nine-foot double hung windows that led to it, and Sukey stepped out. “Oh, my! This is lovely, Calla!” she said.

When she came back in, I gave her the full tour.

“Ohh, Calla! Your ceilings!”

“They’re
ten feet
high,” I told her.

“And your bathroom—it’s huge! You could park a Volkswagen bug in there. I love your four-poster bed, too.”

“I bought it on Magazine Street when I got here. It was a steal, though I had to clean it up. I rubbed Vaseline on it from head to toe.”

“It’s beautiful. And look at your great duvet!”

“Aunt Helen made it. I picked out the fabric.”

“Gosh,” Sukey said, “this is like a real New Orleans apartment. It kind of makes me wish I’d gotten real furniture, instead of beanbags. I like them because they’re ‘mod,’ but they basically mean you’re always sitting on the floor.”

“I like your beanbags and throw pillows,” I told her. “Now, would you like something to eat?”

“No, thanks,” Sukey said. She walked into my kitchen and opened the fridge. “But would you mind if I had a beer?”

“No, help yourself.”

Sukey opened a beer and took a big gulp.

“How’s your job going?” I asked.

“Well, I feel like I know a lot of valuable information now, like all about wines and liquors and about the psychology of customers. And our ‘Bunny Mother’ has taught me a lot about hairstyling and makeup and that kind of thing. You know, if I wanted to, I could ask to transfer to another club. There are clubs all over the country. They have one in
Jamaica
.”

“Jamaica!” I said. “That’s amazing.”

“Calla, I got my one-year raise, and you won’t believe what I’m making now. I mean, I don’t want to make you feel bad or anything, but I make almost three hundred a week!”

“A
week
? You make three hundred dollars a week?!”

“Well, almost,” Sukey said, “almost three hundred dollars a week.”

“Still, Suke! That’s just—girl, if you’re saving that money, you’re not going to have to work for the rest of your life!”

“Calla, I have to tell you, I love my job. It’s exciting. I’m never bored! And I get to meet international and famous people. Guess who came in two weeks ago?
Tony Curtis
. You know, it’s an elite club, so you need a key to get in, and Tony Curtis is a key holder! And the atmosphere of the club—oh, it’s just like walking into another world. It’s designed to feel like you are at a cocktail party with fine food and drink and entertainment, and us—the Bunnies! It’s not sleazy because we have
members
—not just anybody off the street. They have to wear dinner suits, or at least sports jackets, they must treat us with respect, and they are told that they cannot
ever
touch the Bunnies.”

Sukey popped up and got another beer.

“I’ve met several girls there that I like very much,” she told me when she came back. “Bunny Ginger and Bunny Lou are the best. One of them is from Iowa, and the other is from Indiana. They applied and became Bunnies right out of high school, like I did, but some of the Bunnies have actually been fashion models.

“So, Calla, my world is fulfilled. Every time I go to work, I look forward to it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I really feel like I’m part of the sexual revolution. Like I am representing the fact that we have a whole new freedom about sex that would blow those pointy red hats off the Vatican cardinals.”

I got up and walked to the refrigerator. Sukey seemed like someone had wound her up, and she couldn’t stop talking. “How about something to eat?” I offered, setting out a platter of cheese and crackers that I’d prepared for her visit.

“No, thanks,” she said with a little laugh. “I’m on the New Orleans Liquid Diet.”

When I didn’t laugh, she said, “Oh, my God, Calla Lily, don’t start jumping down my throat.”

“What do you mean, Sukey?”

“I mean, be a good hostess and please get me another beer,” she said, imitating the voice of our Home Ec teacher. When I went and got her the beer, she continued talking.

“And I feel that I’ve gained so much grace and poise being a Bunny, like when I do the ‘Bunny Dip,’ which is the way you have to put one foot forward and lean back on the other while you’re holding your tray. It’s very important to learn, because if you bend down to serve drinks, your boobies can just fall right out of that uniform. Well,” she said, “in my case, the brassiere pads!

“And then there’s the ‘Bunny Perch,’” Sukey continued. “That’s when you sit down on the edge of a chair or on the edge of a booth, just barely touching with your butt, and holding on with your hands, so that you don’t fall. And you’ve got one leg down and one leg up, because that’s the most attractive way to present your legs.”