Southern Ruby

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘I don’t want to do anything shameful,’ I told him. ‘I need to be sure that hostessing is all that’s expected of me.’

  Rolando frowned. ‘I can assure you that I don’t employ whores. If any of my girls goes with a customer, I fire her. Likewise, if a customer gets fresh with one of my girls he’s asked to leave. I look after everyone who works for me as if they were my family. All I expect of you is to be friendly and to make sure that the customers are having a good time.’

  ‘And by a good time you mean . . . ?’

  ‘You encourage them to drink, Ruby. That’s what a hostess does. I pay you thirty dollars a week, but you’ll earn the rest by what your customers purchase. You encourage a gentleman to buy a thirty-dollar bottle of champagne, you get ten dollars. You get him to order a hundred-dollar bottle of champagne and you get a third of that.’

  Goodness me, it was the most lucrative job offer I’d had so far! It wasn’t going to turn us into millionaires, but it was a start to getting us out of debt. How hard could it be? My entire education had been about how to charm men to lure them into marrying me. Surely charming them to drink would be simpler. But there was still the problem of someone recognising me. Even if I wasn’t doing anything immoral, just being seen in a gentlemen’s club would be enough to get the gossips talking.

  ‘Do you get many Creole men coming to the club?’ I asked.

  He looked surprised. ‘Why do you ask that? This is New Orleans — we get everybody. Tourists, locals and yes, some Creole men too.’

  I struggled between the hope of helping Maman and the fear that my plan could go belly up and ruin us all. I stared at my hands, not sure how to ask the question.

  ‘You see, Mr Perez . . . Rolando, I’ve kind of fallen on hard times. I don’t want to be recognised.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ he said, pausing for a moment to think. ‘Well, recognise you someone might, but I doubt very much that they’d tell anyone they’d seen you here.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well, Ruby,’ he shifted in his seat, ‘you could say it’s because of the entertainment.’

  ‘The entertainment?’

  His slick smile returned. ‘Why don’t you start tonight, and then you can see for yourself.’

  The terms exotic dancer, burlesque queen, peeler, bump-and-grinder or effeuilleuse meant nothing to me. If Rolando had come straight out and told me that the entertainment at the club was strippers, I would have been better prepared for Rocky Mountains’ performance. When the statuesque blonde appeared on stage, I thought she was going to sing. After all, she was decked out in a gorgeous evening gown of flaming red satin beaded with crystals and edged with feathers. Diamantés glittered around her neck and in her platinum-coloured hair.

  ‘Wow!’ I said to my male companion after I’d ordered him another glass of brandy. ‘She’s beautiful!’

  ‘Almost as lovely as you,’ he replied.

  I smiled demurely. Rolando had warned me not to ask customers too many personal questions, just to listen to them as if every word they said was the most enlightening or amazing thing I’d ever heard. I didn’t know much about this gentleman, except with his grey hair and furrowed brow he looked like he might be some sort of politician. But he had a taste for fine St-Rémy brandy and that was all right by me.

  After a few minutes of sashaying back and forth across the stage to the accompaniment of the jazz band and not a note sung, Rocky Mountains began to slowly remove her opera-length gloves. First she clenched her pinky finger in her mouth and pulled the glove loose with her teeth, then continued with the other fingers until she had loosened the glove enough to peel it off and fling it off stage. She repeated the action with the other glove. The men in the audience cheered and applauded.

  ‘I had no idea that taking off one’s gloves was considered so entertaining,’ I whispered to my companion.

  He raised his eyebrows and looked highly amused. ‘Ruby, you are funny! Next you’ll be asking me why they call her Rocky Mountains!’

  Rocky turned her back to the audience and, little by little, undid the zipper at the back of her dress before wiggling out of it to stand before us in only a beaded bra and a sheer skirt and panties. My jaw dropped. I thought she might be drunk or had lost her mind, and expected that Rolando would appear at any moment to pull her off stage. But nothing like that happened. Instead, every eye in the room remained on Rocky as she continued to disrobe one item at a time, until eventually all she wore were her high heels, a net bra with jewels covering her nipples, and rhinestone G-string panties.

  ‘Now you can’t expect me to take these off,’ she said, winking at the audience. ‘I’d catch a cold.’

  The lights dimmed, and when they came on again Rocky had vanished like a dream. The men stood up, wolf-whistled and clapped enthusiastically.

  I stared at the stage, trying to take in what I had seen. A beautiful woman had removed items of clothing one by one in a roomful of men and for a few minutes it had seemed the most fascinating thing in the world. I was astounded, not disgusted. Rocky had been a vision of feminine magnificence. Although the men had whistled and cat-called, not one of them had dared to stand up and touch her or shout anything disrespectful.

  My companion nudged me. ‘I think you need a drink more than me,’ he said, indicating to the waiter to bring me a brandy.

  ‘You are right there,’ I told him. ‘Eau-de-vie is exactly what I need.’

  The waiter arrived with my drink: a flat Coca-Cola. The beverages served to the hostesses were never the alcohol that the customer paid for. Still, I sipped the ‘brandy’ and smiled as if it were the real thing. I hadn’t done too badly with my drinks commission on my first night.

  Over the next month and a half, as I worked at the club and made enough money to keep Maman at the clinic and buy back some of our furniture, I watched a variety of strippers do their acts. The cheap, gimmicky ones made me cringe, but I was captivated by the classy ones. There was a star act named White Lily who was trained in ballet and did an elegant number about a girl getting ready for bed after an evening at the opera. Another dancer performed with doves that tugged at her clothes and helped her undress.

  As Rolando had promised, he looked after me and all the other girls. The customers were usually well-behaved, and, to my relief, nobody showed up that I knew. The club was nice but it wasn’t ritzy enough for the Creole social crowd. The men who came were mostly business executives and middle managers in town for conferences, and sometimes lonesome retirees. I didn’t feel bad that I was encouraging them to spend big on drinks because they seemed to enjoy my company.

  Some of the customers knew what the game was though. One man from New York insisted on tasting my drink to check it really was wine and not grape juice. ‘If I’m paying for Mouton Rothschild, then Mouton Rothschild better be what you’re drinking!’ Luckily for me he was all talk and knew nothing about French wine. I was able to convince him by waxing lyrical about the ‘layers of wild berries and anise flavours’ that my grape juice was indeed claret.

  Rolando was so impressed he gave me an extra five dollars for the night. ‘You can spin a story, Ruby. That’s for sure.’

  I didn’t realise that the strippers didn’t like other women watching their acts and learned that lesson the hard way. One night, when I was leaving the club, a stripper named Buxom Maximus leaped out of a doorway at me brandishing the stem of a broken champagne glass. I jumped out of her reach in time to avoid her attack, but she moved menacingly towards me again.

  ‘I’m going to teach you a lesson,’ she screamed. ‘You’re trying to steal my act!’

  Rolando and one of the club’s bouncers saw what was happening and grabbed her in time to stop her slashing me.

  ‘You tell that B-girl to stop watching my act!’ she squealed, wrestling with the men and pointing at me. ‘She wants to steal something.’

  ‘B-girl?’ I repeated. I’d never heard the term.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, baring he
r teeth. ‘Bar girl: just drinks, no talent.’

  I bristled at her tone. Did this little hussy from some hick town think she was better than me? Infuriated, I went home and imitated her bumps and grinds in my bedroom mirror. How tacky, I thought. Then I remembered the better strippers I’d seen, and paraded around the room in various poses, batting my eyelids and taking ages to roll down my stockings.

  I’d be better than Buxom Maximus any day, I thought, admiring the sway of my hips in the mirror. And I’ve got a better proportioned body. I don’t look like I’m about to topple over.

  At the end of April, I received a note from Maman telling me that she’d been moved from the clinic to a special convalescent home on the River Road that Doctor Emory had recommended. I wondered why nobody had consulted me first and went to visit her there straight away.

  When I saw the grand driveway leading towards a Greek Revival mansion with mammoth fluted columns, I was dumbfounded. I could only imagine what it cost to stay there! Doctor Monfort had obviously not explained clearly enough to Doctor Emory that we were struggling for money. I’d barely been making the payments for the clinic as it was.

  A nurse led me through to an entrance hall decorated with giltwood furniture and crystal chandeliers, then out into the garden. Maman was sitting near a pond bordered with roses and hydrangeas. Despite having had a lung removed, she looked better than she had in years. She had colour in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled when she smiled at me.

  ‘Ruby, darling! Isn’t this the most wonderful place? I’ve met so many interesting people here. There’s an opera singer from Boston and a scientist from Germany. I have a charming room that overlooks the avenue of oaks, and every afternoon a pianist comes to play Chopin and Rachmaninov and other wonderful composers. The library is magnificent too. I’ve started reading again.’

  The garden was certainly beautiful with its green lawns and elegant fountains. It reminded me of our own plantation home where we’d spent summers before it was sold from under our feet to pay my father’s debts. The memory of that sent a shiver down my spine.

  I sat next to Maman and took her hand. The trembling she’d suffered for so long had vanished and she’d put on weight in a becoming way. Seeing her well after so many years of watching her deteriorate gave me my first inkling of hope. Maybe Maman would see her fiftieth birthday, after all.

  I beamed a smile back at her. ‘Maman, I’m pleased to see you looking so vibrant.’

  ‘I feel better than I have in years,’ she said. ‘A nurse comes every morning to give me a massage, and another helps me take a walk around the garden every afternoon. It’s so heavenly beautiful here that I can’t help but be happy. Isn’t Uncle Rex so kind to have arranged for me to stay here for my recovery?’

  The smile froze on my face and I turned away so Maman wouldn’t read my expression. I hadn’t heard a word from Uncle Rex since Mae had informed him of Maman’s dire condition. But I let Maman believe that it was Uncle Rex who was paying for everything because she wouldn’t have been able to bear the truth that I was working to keep everything together.

  Maman tugged on my sleeve to make me face her again. ‘Dear Ruby, how pale you are. You’ve been worrying about me, haven’t you? I insist that you don’t. You can see how well I’m cared for here — you mustn’t give my welfare another thought!’

  A maid came and served us tea from a silver pot, and I admired the blue Wedgwood cups. As I sipped the tea, I realised what was doing Maman so much good. It was the beauty all around her. A stronger person, used to the struggles and harshness of life, would have done fine in Charity Hospital, but I was convinced Maman would have died there. She was fragile and poetic. Perhaps it was the loss of our social standing and having to sell our material possessions that had brought on her illness in the first place.

  I rested my head against her shoulder. ‘I’m fine, Maman. Don’t you worry about me.’

  She rubbed my arm. ‘Well then, a young girl like you should be thinking of pretty dresses and parties. I’m sure Aunt Elva would be happy to chaperone you along with Eugenie until I’m better.’

  I was lost for words. Maman was an intelligent woman, well-read and accomplished in singing and piano. She was also kind and thoughtful towards others. But she had no idea how the real world worked. She’d never had to earn money or manage it. I was convinced that if ever we were lost in the woods, I would find a way out while Maman would sit and wait to be rescued. Only millionaires and movie stars could afford to recuperate in a sanatorium like this one, but Maman was blissfully unaware that the cost was beyond our means.

  On the way home in the bus, I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes. I’d seemed to be just digging us out of the hole we were in and now I had this new worry. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask the receptionist how much an extended stay at the sanatorium was going to cost, but I guessed it would be around five hundred dollars. If I didn’t pay it, Maman would be back at Charity Hospital. The happy expression I’d seen on her face during my visit made the idea unbearable. I couldn’t let anything destroy the little ray of hope I now harboured that I wouldn’t lose Maman while I was still a young woman.

  All right, I thought, I’m going to have to squeeze more tips out of my customers and put something aside each week towards the account. Maman is too precious to compromise.

  ELEVEN

  Ruby

  When I turned up for work that night, Rolando was waiting out the front for me. ‘Listen, Ruby, the girls don’t like you watching their performances. It’s causing me grief.’

  I stiffened. Was he about to fire me? That was the last thing I needed.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I’ve got something for you to do while the girls are on stage. You’ll stand behind the curtain and catch their clothes, okay? Don’t open the curtain more than a slip. You simply catch their clothes and hang them up.’

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘I’m not catching their clothes! Do they think I’m their maid?’

  ‘I’ll pay you five dollars extra a night to do it,’ he said.

  I bit my lip and considered my options. Each night there were three strippers: one main act and two ‘warm-up’ girls. I could turn this in my favour.

  ‘Five dollars a girl,’ I said.

  Rolando’s face scrunched up as if he was about to get mad, then a smile formed on his lips and he scratched his chin, regarding me with respect. ‘You know how to take care of yourself. Five dollars a girl. Make sure you don’t upset my star acts. If you were ugly they wouldn’t care.’

  ‘If I was ugly,’ I told him, ‘I wouldn’t be able to get the customers to drink Dom Pérignon instead of sparkling wine.’

  Despite my initial reluctance, I enjoyed working backstage with ‘the talent’. The star acts were divas, but the warm-up strippers were usually nice. There was Paige, nicknamed Miss Frigidaire by the other strippers because since she’d married the previous year she only worked when she wanted a new household appliance. Her husband was a foreman in a mattress factory and gave her all his wages to manage, but he didn’t make enough to satisfy Paige’s desire for modern conveniences.

  ‘He’s a good, honest man,’ she told me, ‘but he’s got muscles in his body and muscles in his head. No sense of finances whatsoever. He thinks we live in Lakeview and drive a Chevrolet Bel Air on his wages!’

  While some of the girls liked the glamour of burlesque and the adoration they received, everybody was there for the money. Like Bethany, whose husband was in hospital with kidney disease while she had three children to support.

  ‘The back-door johnnies think we must be oversexed because we strip,’ I heard one of the star acts, Lola, say to Bethany when I was helping hang up their costumes after the show. ‘But I don’t have the energy for a romp when I get home. I put on my pyjamas and go straight to bed!’

  ‘What do you think about when you’re up there on stage?’ Bethany asked her.

  Lola grimaced with pain as she pulled off h
er pasties, which were attached to her nipples with tape. ‘Me? I make up shopping lists, or think about what I’m going to eat for supper later.’

  Bethany laughed. ‘Didn’t you prefer working in the theatre, Lola — those big, magnificent productions with chorus girls, acrobats and comedians? That’s all gone now, of course. Killed off by television.’

  ‘I’d rather work in a nightclub anytime,’ Lola replied, dabbing some baby oil on her irritated nipples. ‘When I worked in the theatre, I’d look out at the front row and there’d be some guy jerking off behind his newspaper. The nightclub audiences are classier.’

  One night when I was helping Bethany scrub off some gold body paint, she said to me, ‘You’re pretty, Ruby. Why aren’t you stripping? You’d make much more money than you do hostessing.’

  I didn’t want Bethany to think that I judged her. She was in an awful situation with her husband and children and I sympathised. But as desperate as I was about my own family problems, there was a line I couldn’t cross. ‘I couldn’t. My mother would be so ashamed,’ I told her.

  ‘My mother-in-law was horrified at first,’ Paige piped up from the opposite dressing table. ‘“What? You take your clothes off!” she hollered at me. But when she realised that I can make two hundred dollars a week while my husband only makes fifty-five with overtime, she shut up. We’ve got one house paid off and are saving for another. Believe me, my mother-in-law doesn’t say a thing now.’

  ‘You can make two hundred dollars a week?’ I cried.

  Paige was amused by my surprise. ‘That’s nothing! The big stars make much more. Blaze Starr, Tempest Storm and Lili St Cyr — they can earn anything from a thousand to five thousand dollars a week.’

  Five thousand dollars a week for taking off your clothes? Paige could have knocked me down with a feather. With that much money I could keep Maman at the River Road Sanatorium for as long as she wanted.

  But Mae’s words of warning rang in my ears: You got nothing left but your reputation. Don’t sully that — for your mama’s sake.