“I know I’m blessed, Cindy, but my head is swimming with all this commotion. Would you believe that two weeks ago I’d never sung anywhere except second row of the Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church choir in Low Point, North Carolina?”
Cindy’s laugh came out in spurts. “Yeah, I’d believe it. I can tell you’re as straight as the crow flies, as my grandfather always said about my grandmother.”
Clarissa completed her two payless weeks at The Limelight and the first two weeks of her new contract and managed to save half of what she made. But working night hours meant that she couldn’t go to the movies and shopping with Cindy and, to Clarissa’s disappointment, their friendship failed to develop as she would have liked. She knew Buck Ryan was making money, thanks to her singing, because he began taxing the overflow crowd with a cover charge and a two-drink minimum per show.
“Why don’t you ask for more money?” Cindy urged.
“No, a deal is a deal. People are learning about me, so I’m getting something out of this, too. In another month, I should have some really good clippings, and I’ll be able to demand more.” She didn’t say that she was biding her time until she could present herself as a polished person, but she read newspapers, books, magazines, and anything that she thought would help her to speak better and with more self-assurance.
However, all that changed when she went into the lounge before breakfast the next morning and picked up the morning paper. Her lower lip dropped as she groped for a chair. Her bubble had burst. Shortly after she’d left the club just before midnight, the police arrested Buck Ryan for trafficking in drugs and closed The Limelight. She had to find a job.
Chapter 2
A month later, having applied for a job singing in every nightclub and supper club in the city, Clarissa knocked on office doors with a heavy heart, knowing what to expect. Come back after this thing with Buck Ryan blows over—you’re too closely identified with him, club managers told her. Her talent meant nothing now, and she was just another woman looking for work.
Clarissa had always been a practical person, and she was no less so now. She had to eat and pay for her room, and she was not afraid of work. When Cindy asked her what she planned to do, she replied, “Any honest work.”
“Well, if I can help, let me know. I’m not one to see a friend falter and not give her a hand.”
“I’ll remember that, but I managed to save a little, and I’ll be all right.”
She registered at the D.C. Employment Agency and, for the next two months, worked as a baby-sitter, cleaning woman, temporary caretaker for an invalid man, and at many other assorted jobs. Every morning, she found it harder to get out of bed. She walked with slower steps, and laughter no longer came easily. But she couldn’t go back to Low Point to do Mr. Amos’s laundry for fifty cents a shirt and Miss Elizabeth’s mending for eight dollars a day. She dragged herself to church that Sunday morning and sat in the last row, uncertain as to why she’d gone there in the first place.
After the sermon, a clerk read announcements, and then she heard the preacher say, “If any of you ladies wants to be a live-in companion to an older woman, see me after service. The pay’s good. You get to go to the movies, opera, theater, and travel. No housework. You must be single and have a high-school diploma, and you can’t have any of the brothers hanging around you.”
“I could save some money,” Clarissa said to herself, “and maybe study music. Going to the opera and things like that, I could learn a lot.”
Three days later, Clarissa moved into the home of Lydia Stanton, a wealthy, wheelchair-bound septuagenarian. “My own room, sitting room, and bath,” she marveled, as her gaze took in the elegant setting in a beautiful, four-bedroom modern house on upper Sixteenth Street.
“Lord, just look at this,” she said, blinking back the tears as she swung around and hugged herself, “and I don’t even have to wear a uniform.” She sank to her knees and thanked the Lord. “If I can just stay here a year, I can save my money and never be dirt poor again.”
She answered the knock on her door, opened it, and looked into the face of the uniformed housekeeper. “Lunch will be served in fifteen minutes, Miss Holmes.”
Clarissa gulped, momentarily speechless. “Uh . . . thanks. What is your name?”
“Lorraine, ma’am. If you need anything, just press that green button on your phone.”
Hoping that her bottom lip didn’t betray her, Clarissa forced what she hoped passed for a smile. “Thanks. I hope you’ll have time to show me around.”
The woman stared at her. “I . . . uh . . . guess Mrs. Stanton will do that. She uses the elevator to get from floor to floor.”
“Oh.” Clarissa recovered, aware that she had made an error. “I didn’t realize there was an elevator. Thanks.”
Clarissa went to her bedroom window and looked out on Sixteenth Street at the trees, shrubs, and elegant homes that surrounded her. A house with an elevator, ceilings that she wouldn’t be able to reach with a broomstick, a maid who called her Miss Holmes and who she was supposed to call Lorraine and summon by pushing a green button on a telephone. She laughed. Laughed until her shoulders shook. Laughed until tears drenched her face.
A short time later, she joined Lydia Stanton in the breakfast room, where her new employer sat at the table, her wheelchair stationed beside the door. “I hope you and I are going to be good friends,” Lydia said. “I got tired of staying home alone and missing the things that I enjoy just because I don’t have anyone to enjoy them with. Do you play bridge?”
“No, ma’am, but if you’re willing to teach me, I’m eager to learn. I’ve never been to any kind of concert, because I always had to use my little money just to stay alive. I love music, though—any kind of music.”
“Then we’ll get along just fine. I’ll get us season tickets to the ballet and the symphony concerts.”
The only dressy clothes she owned were the ones she wore while singing at The Limelight, and they probably wouldn’t suffice. “I’ll need a salary advance to get some clothes if you want me to dress up. I don’t suppose my two long black skirts and three black blouses will be suitable.”
“Probably not. By the way, if there’s anything special you like to eat or that you dislike, tell Lorraine. I don’t bother about the food. She plans the menus.”
I hope I don’t have to spend too much on clothes, Clarissa said to herself, mindful of her plan to save practically all of her salary. She sipped the cucumber soup—whoever cooked a cucumber had to be crazy.
“After lunch, have a look at those Saks Fifth Avenue catalogs on the table in the den. If you see anything you like, I’ll call the store and have them sent out for you to try on.” Clarissa nearly choked on the broiled lamb chop. She couldn’t afford a Saks Fifth Avenue handkerchief. “I’ll put them on my account.”
Clarissa couldn’t help gaping at Lydia Stanton. “You mean you’re going to pay for my clothes?”
Lydia laughed. “Yes, I am. I’ve been in this wheelchair ever since I was in an automobile accident seven years ago, feeling sorry for myself, being bored, plain wretched, and letting life pass me by. I am going to enjoy introducing you to another way of life. Did you read Pygmalion?”
“No, ma’am.”
“There’s a copy in my library. Or we can rent the movie, My Fair Lady. Same story.”
“I’d love to read it. Reading is something I never had time to do, but I’m going to use some of my free time reading. I want to learn to speak better and to carry myself well.”
Lydia’s face seemed to glow with pleasure. “Yes, Clarissa, you and I will get along very well.”
Thrilled at the thought of what was in store for her, Clarissa telephoned the woman who was her foster mother from her fifth through her ninth year, the only one of her five foster mothers who gave her love and affection along with the required food and shelter. She made certain that Eunice Jenkins always knew where she was.
Chapter 3
A week later, Clarissa sat in
the auditorium at the Kennedy Center, fascinated by the glitter, and bewitched as members of the Danish Royal Ballet Company danced Swan Lake. She didn’t want it to end.
“Is this all?” she asked Lydia as the dancers took their final bows. “Isn’t there any more?”
“The comedians have a saying, ‘Always leave ‘em laughing’.” Lydia said. “It’s better to leave wanting more than to leave thinking we wasted our money.”
Clarissa buttoned her new camel-hair coat and hooked its fox-fur collar, gifts from Mrs. Stanton, then helped her employer into her coat, pushed the wheelchair to the lobby, and waited for Lydia’s chauffeur.
“If our relationship ended this minute,” she told Lydia, “you would have a special spot in my heart for as long as I live. I never dreamed of coming to a place like this one.” Without thinking, she began humming the tune, “For Once In My Life.”
“Do you know the words to that tune?” Lydia asked Clarissa after Sam, the chauffeur, lifted her into the car, stored her wheelchair in the trunk, and headed toward Sixteenth Street.
“Yes, ma’am. I sure do.”
“My dear husband used to sing that to me. He had a wonderfully rich baritone voice, and I loved to hear him sing. Seven long years. Lord, how I miss him! And how I loved that song!”
Clarissa didn’t hesitate. “For once in my life, I have someone who loves me,” she sang, caressing each word in her haunting, smoky alto.
Lydia Stanton turned sidewise to look at Clarissa. “With a voice like yours, you should be rich.”
Clarissa spoke in a voice tinged with resignation. “Not in this town.” She related the story of her short-lived success as a jazz singer. “Nobody in this town will hire me.”
Lydia folded her arms and leaned back into the soft-leather comfort of the Lincoln Town Car. “Time heals a lot of things.”
Within less than a month, Lydia managed to expose her to opera, a symphony, several ballet performances, and a production of Porgy and Bess, Gershwin’s tribute to the many musical idioms of the African-American subculture.
I’m living in a dream world. Most people in this country don’t live like this. I ought to think more kindly of Vanessa. If it hadn’t been for that little slut, I wouldn’t know these places existed.”
Tonight, we’re going to Blues Alley to hear some first-class jazz,” Lydia said that Friday night, “and you pay careful attention. People say the woman singing tonight is a cross between Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.”
Their table was at the edge of the stage, and Clarissa took in the woman’s every gesture, the way she wooed the patrons and drew them to her. I did that, too. I had them with me all the way, and I can do it again. By chance, she glanced toward the next table, and her gaze caught that of a man who had obviously been looking at her, for he raised his glass and smiled. Stunned by the unexpected and unaccustomed attention, she looked at Lydia, hoping that her employer’s expression would not be one of disapproval.
“I see you have an admirer.”
Clarissa folded and unfolded her hands and rubbed her fingers together. “I didn’t do anything to encourage him.”
“I know,” Lydia said. “All the better when you do nothing to invite it. He’s been looking at you ever since we’ve been sitting here.”
“I can’t do anything about that, Mrs. Stanton. I don’t have my divorce yet. Too bad. He looks like a very important person, and he sure is good-looking.”
The waiter handed Clarissa a note. She didn’t read it, but accepted a pencil from the waiter and wrote on the back of the note: “Since I’m married, I don’t consider myself free to read your note, but thank you.” She didn’t sign it.
“You’re a wise woman,” Lydia said. “I’m not sure I would have been able to resist reading it.”
Wisdom had nothing to do with it; she was protecting herself from her libido. “I haven’t had a loving marriage, so I’m more likely than you to fall for sweet talk.”
“A lonely woman is always vulnerable,” Lydia said. “Let’s go after the end of this set. As much as I’m enjoying this, I’m getting sleepy.”
“She doesn’t sing as well as you do,” Lydia said of the renowned jazz singer, as they rode home. “What you need is a chance, and I’m going to see that you get it. I’ve got friends in the music business, and a few of them owe me.”
Clarissa could hardly contain herself as her heartbeat accelerated to a rapid pace and she thought the bottom had fallen out of her belly. “You would do that? Nobody’s ever opened doors for me, Mrs. Stanton. God bless you.”
The following afternoon as Lydia and Clarissa stuffed pre-addressed envelopes for a YWCA fund-raiser, Lydia said, “Allen Harkens will be here tomorrow morning at eleven. He’s a man who can make you famous. I want you to sing something for him.”
“I’ll do my best, ma’am. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Clarissa. Just sing your heart out. Allen is a self-important jackass, but he knows the music business.”
“Where’s your ingénue?’ Harkens asked Lydia when he entered the living room that morning.
“This is Miss Holmes, and she’s anything but an ingénue.”
Clarissa decided at once that she did not like Allen Harkens. When introduced, she extended her hand, but he ignored it, put a hand on her waist, and kissed her. Nonetheless, knowing that she shouldn’t offend him, she forced a smile to her face, stepped back, and let her voice fill the room with the song, “Rocks In My Bed.” Harkens stared at her with a stunned expression on his face, and at the song’s end, he bowed to her.
“If you’ve got a demo, I can book you into any club in this country.”
“I have one,” she told him, “but I don’t have a copy.”
He patted her back. “No problem. I can make all the copies we need.” To Lydia, he said, “The gal’s got enough talent for a dozen singers.”
“If I’m leaving here, I want to give Mrs. Stanton ample notice.”
Lydia waved her right hand in a motion suggesting that the thought was ridiculous. “You start singing as soon as you sign a contract. Allen, get her a decent contract.”
“Sure thing, Lydia.”
“This is your chance,” Lydia told Clarissa after Harkens left them. “Maybe your only chance.” Her gaze bore into Clarissa. “You didn’t like Allen. Why?”
“I don’t want no strange man putting his hands all over me. He acted like he had some right to paw me.”
An expression of sadness clouded Lydia’s face, and she looked away. “You’re going into the entertainment business, so get used to it. He doesn’t even know he did it. Just make sure you never spread your legs in order to get a job or to keep one.”
Clarissa sat down and nearly missed the chair. “You mean some man will expect me to prostitute myself just so I can sing?”
Lydia rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “You wouldn’t be the first woman to do it, but with your voice, you won’t have to stoop to that. I didn’t have half of your talent, and I made it the best way I could. Thank God I met my husband before I got dragged into the ugly end of the business.
“He worked in real estate, and after we married, we worked together building, managing, and renting property.” She wiped her eyes. “He enriched my life in so many ways, and just like that”—she snapped her fingers—a drunken driver took his life and left me a cripple.”
Clarissa draped an arm around Lydia’s shoulders. “Saying I’m sorry won’t help, but I am. I hurt for you.”
“I’ve quit living in the past, Clarissa, and since you’ve been here, I’ve been able to enjoy things that Larry and I did together. Now, let’s get busy. What we need is a good pianist who can score some songs for you, and it’ll do you a lot of good to take courses in grammar and vocabulary building. I want you to present yourself as a refined and elegant lady, not as a singer with nothing else to offer. You’re a fine person, and I want it to show.”
One week later, Lydia received a p
hone call from Allen Harkens. “I got four gigs for your girl, Lydia, but get some of that hayseed out of her. These are high-class joints. She starts at After Hours in St. Louis two weeks from Friday.”
“Good. Clarissa’s got polish enough, and don’t you start anything with her.”
“Not to worry, babe, I go to church these days.”
“Yeah. Right,” Lydia said. “The first man to squeeze my twelve-year-old breasts was a deacon in my parents’ church. So you bet I’m impressed with your new sanctity.”
Clarissa’s euphoria at the news that she would resume her singing career proved short-lived. She phoned Eunice Jenkins to tell her that she would be at the YWCA in St. Louis, and learned that her beloved foster mother had suffered a stroke.
“I hate to disappoint you,” she told Lydia. “I had five foster mothers, and Mom was the only one of them who treated me as if I were her own child, one that she loved. I cried for months when they took me away from her. Her husband died, and foster mothers had to be married.”
“But she would want you to have this chance.”
“I know, ma’am, but she needs me. One of her daughters is in the army, one has young children, and the other is not dependable. I appreciate all you’ve done for me, but this is the only mother I ever had.”
“All right. You’re giving up a lot, but I respect you for it. If you need me for anything—I mean anything—you know how to reach me.”
Without thought as to what she did, Clarissa leaned down and hugged Lydia. “I’ll be there for you, too, if you need me.”
Chapter 4
A month later, with three thousand of the thirty-eight-thousand dollars she’d managed to save, Clarissa buried Eunice Jenkins in a silver, satin-tufted casket on a hill in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Her foster mother had died smiling while Clarissa held her hand and sang, “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.” She dragged herself away from the grave, oblivious to the sleet, rain, and the tears that turned to icicles on her cheeks.
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