CHAPTER NINETEEN
New Orleans 1913
W hen Violet moaned, she sounded like the low note on Manuel Perez’s trumpet. Violet was a tiny woman who waltzed through the dogwood parlor in short ruffled dresses, shiny buckle shoes and no underdrawers. If a man knew just how to bend his head and squint as Violet glided across the room, he could glimpse in the patent-leather reflection the pleasures that awaited him.
But this morning it was Violet’s moan, her musical baritone moan, that held Nicolette’s attention.
“How long’s she gonna keep it up?” Nicolette whispered. “She’s gotta have air, don’t she?”
“The way that man’s pumping his man-thing into her, he’s blowing her up like a balloon. She won’t need no air for a long, long time.”
Nicolette tilted her head and frowned. Although she wasn’t yet six, she had already begun to read and do simple arith metic. What little she knew of science she had learned from watching the world around her. She thought her friend Fanny was wrong. “No, look there. She breathed. She stopped moaning, and she breathed!” Her voice rose. “I heard her!”
“Shhh…”
But it was already too late. Nicolette felt a hand at the back of her neck, a hand that rarely touched her. Fear magnified all her senses. She was acutely aware of the sharp tang of floor wax, the musty, mingled odors of body powder, tobacco and sweat that always lingered in the house. She felt the agonizing tug of a curl trapped in her father’s stern grip and the imprint of his fingers against her throat. As he dragged her away from Violet’s door, she could hear the thunder of Fanny’s footsteps fading down the hallway.
“What are you doing here?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She was afraid to speak.
“Nicolette?”
“Listening,” she whimpered. “I wasn’t hurting nothing.”
“Are you supposed to be here?”
She tried to shake her head, but his grip tightened. “No.” Tears began to run down her cheeks.
“Have I told you not to come up here?” The curl was suddenly freed, springing against her neck where his hand had just been. “Look at me.”
She turned slowly and saw how angry he was. She knew, having seen and compared him to the hundreds of men who strutted or staggered down Basin Street, that Rafe Cantrelle was the handsomest man in New Orleans. But when he was angry, he terrified her. She tried to look at him, but her eyes kept turning to the ground.
“Suppose you tell me why you decided to come anyway?”
She was too frightened to answer. She scuffed her bare toes along the edge of the Persian carpet. The moaning stopped in Violet’s room, and the hall was very quiet. She waited for her father to hit her. She was no stranger to violence. Sometimes the men who visited the Magnolia Palace to sample the pleasures of the city’s most beautiful octoroons thought the greatest pleasure was to leave a woman bruised or bleeding.
“Did Fanny put you up to this?” he demanded.
“No. I wanted to see if Violet would fix my hair.” She peeked at her father from under her lashes. “That’s all. I didn’t think Violet would be ’taining this early. I didn’t, Mr. Rafe.” She reached into the pocket of her pinafore and retrieved calas, rice cakes folded neatly in a linen napkin. “I was bringing her something to eat, so’s she’d help me.”
“That’s no excuse.”
The carpet was patterned, with a bloodred border that was a shade lighter than the wallpaper. Nicolette hooked her toes under one edge and felt the cool, smooth wood beneath it. “I been up a long time.” She risked another glance at his face. “I got lonely.”
“You are not to come up here. Do you understand me?”
For just a moment, she wondered what would happen if she said no. Would he hit her then? She thought he wanted to. He always looked as if he wanted to, although he never had. Sometimes she wondered how it would feel if he did. Sometimes it seemed it would be better. “I know,” she said.
“Go on, then.”
She started after Fanny, who had long since disappeared. At the stairs, she turned for a quick look at her father. He was standing exactly where she had left him, staring at her.
She found Fanny cowering in the butler’s pantry, behind sacks of rice. “Come out now,” she coaxed. When Fanny refused, she began to sing the words. “Come out, come out,” she sang. “Come out from behind there.”
“Mr. Rafe’s gonna get me for sure.”
“Mr. Rafe went away,” Nicolette lied.
Fanny peeked around the rice sacks. “There’s a mouse in here, I seen it.”
“Where?” Nicolette squeezed in beside her.
“In here.” Fanny began to dig between baskets of onions. “What’d Mr. Rafe do?”
“He told me not to go up the stairs again.”
“Oh.”
“I like it up the stairs,” Nicolette said.
Fanny began to lob onions into the corner behind the baskets. “You won’t listen.”
Nicolette didn’t bother to answer. She would go up again, of course, as soon as she knew her father was gone—which he usually was. During the day, up the stairs was the best part of the house. Violet and Dora, Emma and Florence, all her favorite people lived there. They had mirrors on all four walls of their rooms and armoires filled with dresses covered with feathers and things that shimmered under the red Venetian lamps in the Azalea parlor. Violet let Nicolette dress up in any clothes she liked. Sometimes they dressed alike and pretended they were sisters.
Fanny’s efforts were rewarded with a terrified squeak. The mouse scurried over Nicolette’s foot and disappeared behind a basket of peppers. “Caroline finds that mouse,” Nicolette said, “she’ll chop it into bitty little pieces.”
Fanny had lost interest now that the mouse was out of easy reach. “Go see who’s out there.”
Nicolette obliged. She peeked through the wooden slats. “Nobody.” Fanny gave her a shove, and Nicolette opened the door.
The kitchen was steamy-hot and smelled of coffee. Early in the morning, Nicolette had watched Caroline grind the beans. Under Caroline’s supervision, she had poured the boiling water over them herself, a little at a time, until there was enough for Caroline to take a demitasse to Mr. Rafe. When she returned, she’d heated her big iron skillet and fried the calas, made from yesterday’s rice.
Now Caroline was at the market with Arthur, the butler and carriage man, but a stockpot of scraps bubbled enticingly on the back burner. Except for the duchess, the women in the house didn’t rise until late afternoon, but when they did, there was always a big meal waiting for them. While they slept, Fanny’s mother, Lettie Sue, and two maids carefully scrubbed away signs of last night’s trade, rings on the duchess’s prized furniture, overflowing cigar trays, mud or worse on the carpets. The house was as quiet as it would ever be.
“Your papa’s as mean a man as I ever saw,” Fanny said.
“Is he?” Nicolette thought that was interesting.
“He’s got devil eyes.”
Nicolette had never seen the devil, but she thought he must be a sight, if his eyes were like Rafe’s. Nicolette could hardly wait until she knew things like Fanny did. Of course, she wasn’t sure Fanny knew a lot, just because she was older. It might be because she didn’t live in the district. She lived back of town, in a place called the Battlefield, one streetcar ride away. She even went to school with her brothers and sisters when she wasn’t at the Palace helping her mother. She didn’t like school, but she told Nicolette stories about it, just to make her jealous.
Voices drifted in from the hallway. Nicolette recognized the growl of her father’s. The woman’s was unmistakable, too. “Duchess’s up,” she said.
“You lied. Mr. Rafe’s still here.”
“Hide if you want.” Nicolette went out the door and stood on the side porch, where she was screened by a vine Caroline had planted at carnival time. Shiny green mirlitons hung from it now, heavy and ripe for the picking. In a few minutes, she saw her father walk past alone.
She stayed where she was and watched Basin Street begin to crank up for the day. From a saloon up the line, she could hear music, brass and piano and the faint, faint warble of a woman’s voice. A horse-drawn wagon rattled as it rode slowly over the pockmarked street, and the driver, a withered old man with skin as dark as Caroline’s stove, shouted that he had blackberries to sell. Almost immediately his cries were drowned by the shrill steam whistle of a train pulling into the station.
Three women in wide feathered hats, inhabitants of another district residence, strolled down the banquette, arm in arm. They weren’t cheap crib girls. Nicolette knew the difference. The crib girls didn’t dress like ladies. Some of them lived back of town and just came into the district to work, often sharing a rented room with another girl so it could be used day and night.
The crib girls didn’t need fine clothes. From what Nicolette could tell, most of the time they didn’t need clothes at all. She had seen them nearly naked in their doorways on Iberville and Conti, talking low and dirty to every man who passed by. They weren’t like the women at Magnolia Palace, who took their clothes off upstairs, and then only for gentlemen.
“He gone?” Fanny asked from the doorway.
“Gone.”
“Good!” Fanny streaked past her, turned at the steps and started toward the stable yard. Nicolette followed at a run. The summer sun bit into her arms and bare legs. She wasn’t supposed to be running wild outside. The duchess had told her so more times than Nicolette had numbers to count with. But the duchess never tried to stop her.
The duchess wasn’t really a duchess. She was plain old Marietta Ardoin, and she hadn’t been called Duchess until she moved to Basin Street. There was a countess on Basin Street, too, Countess Willie Piazza, who also had an octoroon house. But since Magnolia Palace was better than the countess’s house, anyone could see why Marietta called herself a duchess now.
Sometimes Nicolette wished the duchess would talk to her the way she talked to Violet. What Violet did was important. Nicolette wondered if she grew up one day and entertained in a room next to Violet’s, if the duchess would talk to her then.
Tony Pete, in a red flannel undershirt with a suspender hanging down, was in the stables, shoveling out the stalls. Nicolette flung herself at his legs, and the shovel clanged against bricks as it fell from his hands.
“What you think you’re doin’, Nickel gal?” he shouted. But he wasn’t mad. Tony Pete was never mad at her.
“Fanny and me wanna ride!”
“Can’t ride now. None of that. And don’t go bawlin’, or the duchess’ll be out here with one of those whips of Flo’s, only she’ll be usin’ it on me!”
“I wanna ride!”
“Can’t ride now!”
Nicolette could tell he was going to let her. Tony Pete could never turn anybody down. All the women used him for errands. At twelve, Tony Pete already knew what drugstore on Bienville sold cocaine over the counter and what newsboys sold marijuana cigarettes, three for a dime. He kept a tab and collected his tips on Sundays, when the duchess paid the women their third of the take. If somebody couldn’t pay, he’d wait for his money without making too much of a fuss.
“I’ll help you shovel,” Nicolette said. “After!”
“Sure you will. Those puny little arms of yours couldn’t haul enough shit to stuff a thimble.”
“Please?” Nicolette clasped her hands in front of her and tilted her head, like Violet always did when she was trying to get a man up to her room. “I’ll be good to you, Tony Pete.”
“You’re too young to be good for a thing, Nickel.” He ruffled her hair, a wild mass of curls that fell past her shoulders. “Awright. One ride apiece. Just one, and only if the duchess ain’t watchin’.”
“She’s sleeping,” Nicolette said.
“Ain’t! You lying!” Fanny said. The two girls amicably argued the point while Tony Pete put a bridle on the duchess’s carriage horse, Trooper, an old bay mare who rarely saw duty.
Nicolette watched him scout the yard before he led Trooper outside. No one was about, and even if someone saw them from the house, it was too early and too hot to make much of a fuss. “Youngest first,” he said, clasping his hands to give Nicolette a boost.
Nicolette saw Fanny pout. She had a wide, pretty mouth—along with long, curling eyelashes—that she already knew how to use to her advantage. Nicolette thought Fanny might be sweet on Tony Pete. He was a fine young sport when he was dressed in his best pressed trousers, strutting down the street with his thumbs in his pockets and his fingers pointing right and left.
“You can be first next time,” Nicolette promised. She didn’t like to disturb the delicate balance of her relationship with Fanny. Fanny was older, but Nicolette’s father owned the Magnolia Palace. Most of the time, that made them even.
Up on the mare’s back, she bounced with excitement. Her days were filled with activity, but a ride on Trooper was always one of the high points. Someday she would have horses of her own, dozens of them, and she would ride like this, just bare legs against her horse’s flanks, through streets she had never seen before.
Tony Pete was taking her for her final turn around the yard when Trooper’s unexpected whinny was answered by another horse. She looked toward the house and saw a carriage parked in the drive. In the evening, buggies and automobiles crowded Basin Street, and the narrow drive was often snarled by traffic. But at this time of day, activity was unusual.
By the time Tony Pete had helped her dismount, she had decided to check out the visitor. She straightened her pinafore and combed her fingers through her tangled hair. If the visitor was a gentleman caller, he might give her money to carry a message. The prettier she looked, the more money she would get.
Nicolette liked to do errands for the gentlemen who visited the house, because they always gave her coins or candy, even whiskey-soaked kisses on her cheeks. She knew she was a favorite. When her father wasn’t there, she served wine in the parlor in her best dress, and sometimes she recited poems that Violet taught her. She didn’t understand all the words, but she did understand that she had better not say them in front of Mr. Rafe.
She knew she had better not sing the songs that Clarence Valentine taught her, either. Not that there was anything wrong with those words—at least, she didn’t think there was. But she was not supposed to go into the parlors when the gentlemen were there, and that meant she wasn’t supposed to know the words to Clarence’s songs. She had figured that out on her own, and she was glad. Mr. Rafe was one of the few people who didn’t like her—the duchess was one of the others—and she didn’t want to make him even madder, if she could help it.
She walked along the grass edging the drive until she had to cross the oyster shells. Her feet were tough, but she didn’t like the way the shells crunched under them. The duchess talked about laying bricks on the drive instead, but she never had. The duchess talked about a lot of things.
The carriage was closed up, which seemed strange on such a hot morning. If Nicolette had a carriage, she would open it up to the air, stick her head out the side and let the breeze cool her skin. The old man sitting on the open front seat stared as she approached. She smiled at him, smiled Violet’s most winning smile, but he didn’t smile back. The carriage looked as old as the man, and just as battered by time.
“I can take a message,” she said, in her most grown-up voice. “I can do just about anything.”
He didn’t answer, but he stopped staring. He looked away, as if the sight of her pained him somehow. As she waited, he tapped on the carriage wall. She wondered what she should do next. Then the door opened.
A woman sat by herself inside. Nicolette’s smile faltered. Men were unfailingly generous with her, but women were a different story. They held on to their money the way Tony Pete held on to Trooper’s reins when he led her around the yard. They might fix her hair or let her dress up in their clothes, but money was something else entirely.
The woman stared at her. Nicolette was suddenly aware that her face was dirty and her dress was sticking to her thighs. She stepped closer anyway.
“Lady?” Nicolette curtsied; it was an affectation that always made the gentlemen laugh. “Can I help you?”
The woman nodded. Her lips moved, but no words emerged. She cleared her throat. “Can you come over here?”
“Sure.” Nicolette ambled closer, craning her neck to peer into the carriage. The lady was older than Violet, but younger than the duchess. She was a white lady, with soft brown hair and eyes so pale a blue they reminded Nicolette of a cloudy sky.
“Would you like to sit in here with me?”
Nicolette frowned, until she remembered that she looked like a monkey when she did. Violet had showed her once in the mirror. “Is it hot?”
“Not very.”
“Okay.” She sprang up onto the running board with enthusiasm. In a moment she was seated across from the lady, who was looking her over very carefully.
“My face is dirty,” Nicolette said. “I washed it, though. Yesterday.”
“You…have a beautiful face.”
“Violet says men’ll pay a lot for me.”
The woman dug her fingertips into the seat. “Who is Violet?”
“My best friend.” Nicolette considered that. “No, Clarence is my best friend.”
“And who’s Clarence?”
“He plays the piano in the dogwood parlor. He sings, too. Professor Clarence Valentine. You heard of him?”
“No.”
“He can play anything. Two-steps. Rags. Jass. Sometimes he sings the blues. But just late at night, when the gentlemen are gone. Do you sing?”
“No.”
“White folks don’t—least, not very well. Clarence said so.”
“Do you sing?”
“I do,” she said proudly. “Clarence says I got just enough nigger blood to make me sing real pretty.”
The woman had no answer for that.
“What’s you doing here?” Nicolette asked.
“I brought you something.”
“Me?” Nicolette looked puzzled. “Why?” She reconsidered before the woman could respond. The question wasn’t in her own best interests. “ Merci. See? I can speak French. All the women at the Magnolia Palace got to speak French, ’cause some of the men want to hear it. There’s a house up the street called a French house. You been there? They don’t speak French, though. They do French things.”
“How do you know what they do there, Nicolette?”
“You know my name?”
The woman nodded. “Yes.”
“How come?”
“I knew your mother.”
Nicolette forgot about monkey faces and mirrors. She frowned. “I don’t got a mother.”
“I know. But once you did, and I knew her. And I know that today’s your sixth birthday.”
“Nobody told me about any birthday.” She was puzzled.
“They must have forgotten.” The woman drew a small box from beneath her skirts. It was wrapped in silver paper with a white silk ribbon. “This is your birthday present.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely.” The woman reached across the space between them and took Nicolette’s hand. Her hand was as soft as Violet’s, but it trembled.
“Will you open it now?” She put the box on Nicolette’s lap.
“Sure.” Nicolette tore into the paper. When she lifted up the top, a gold locket lay on soft cotton. “Mine?”
“Yes. But, Nicolette, this must be a secret.”
Nicolette’s eyes brightened. “A secret?”
“Yes, dearest. You mustn’t tell anyone. Especially your father.”
“Why?”
“He would be unhappy with me.” The woman’s voice caught for a moment. Nicolette decided that maybe she had the croup. Once Nicolette had gotten a bad cough, and the duchess had made her drink wine with a candle melted in it.
“Has he told you anything about your mother?” the woman asked.
Nicolette fingered the locket. “I don’t got a mother.”
The woman sat back. “He hasn’t, then. He was very unhappy when your mother went away.”
“She died.”
“Yes. When she went away to heaven. He wouldn’t want to be reminded of her. And this locket was hers.”
“My mother’s?”
“Yes.”
Nicolette held up the heart, dangling it on the gold chain. It was simple, nothing like the jewelry the women in the house wore, but six tiny diamonds set among etched roses sparkled in the sunlight. “Was she pretty?”
“Oh, not as pretty as you are. But she loved you. Very much. And she didn’t want to leave you.”
Nicolette slipped the locket over her curls. It tangled, but she managed to free it without the woman’s help. “Then she shouldn’t have gone and died,” Nicolette said.
“Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we plan, dearest.”
“I don’t need a mother, anyway. I got Violet and Clarence.”
“And your father?”
Nicolette didn’t know what to say about that. She shrugged. “And Mr. Rafe.”
“You call him that?”
“Everybody calls him Mr. Rafe.”
“Is he good to you, Nicolette?”
Nicolette was perplexed. She had never really considered that.
“Does he ever hurt you?”
Nicolette shook her head. “He’ll like me better when I’m not so much trouble.” She heard tapping. The woman did, too, Nicolette saw her glance at the side of the carriage.
“Do you remember what I said about hiding the locket?” the woman asked. “You must hide it, or your father will be angry at both of us.”
Nicolette tried to pry the locket open.
The woman reached over and spread it wide. “See how it’s done?”
“There’s nothing inside.”
“Someday you can put a photograph in there.”
The tapping sounded again. This time louder.
“You’d better go now,” the woman said. But even as the words passed her lips, she reached across the seat to hold Nicolette there.
“Will you come back?” Nicolette asked. She had decided that the lady was pretty, even though she didn’t smile much. And she was nice. Nicolette wouldn’t mind seeing her again, especially if she brought another present.
“I want to. But if your father finds me here, he’ll be very angry.”
“Do you live in the district?”
“No.”
“You work here?”
“No!”
“Then I guess I won’t see you again.” Nicolette pushed the door open and started to stand.
“May I hug you?” the woman asked. “For your mother?”
“I guess.”
She reached for Nicolette and pulled her onto her lap for a hug. Nicolette was surprised at the ferocity of it, but she circled the woman’s neck and hugged her back.
“Remember, don’t tell your father,” the woman whispered. She tucked the locket inside Nicolette’s dress so that it wasn’t visible.
“I like secrets.”
“Goodbye, dearest.”
Nicolette slid off the woman’s lap and jumped to the ground. She started to run toward the stable yard, but just before she was out of sight, she turned and waved. The woman was still there. Watching.