Page 12 of Home Body
“I know we should. But here’s the thing. I never asked their last name. I have no way of looking them up in the phone book or asking information.”
“I see.” Llayne frowned. “I understand, but it’s rude to just show up.”
“I don’t think so. Not with them. Mamie has people coming and going all the time because she bakes for them.”
“Do you remember how to get there?”
“Sure. It isn’t far.”
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll help you out of your dress.”
“No. I want to show it to them. It’s such a beautiful dress. Mamie – that’s Dalia’s mom – and Rose – her five-year-old daughter – they’ll love it.”
“Okay. But honey, will you promise me you won’t sleep in it tonight?” her mom teased.
“I don’t know. Ireallylike it.”
“I see. Come on. I’ll drive.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Kenyon gathered up her gargantuan skirt and away they went.
CHAPTER 9
Inch by taunting inch, Dalia lifted the skirt of her long, slinky, red dress until she held it above her bare knees, which she bent and swayed back and forth. The gang of half-wits ogling her went wild, cheering, clapping, and whistling.
Good god almighty,she thought. They’re just knees. Everybody has them. But if these animals wanted to go apeshit crazy and pay for the privilege of seeing her extraordinarily ordinaryknees, so be it. Ten- and twenty-dollar bills rained down on the front of the stage.
Even though the other dancers came out half naked and stripped to their skin, Dalia’s routine to the classic songThe Stripperdrove men wild. It was old-fashioned burlesque, naughty but never nasty as her striptease mentor had always said.
Of course, her mentor had no idea she’d been a mentor and would be very unhappy at realizing she’d convinced her young family member to do this. Mama’s cousin, stage name Dolly O’Dare, had been an internationally famous burly-q girl back in the days of swoony jazz, cigarette-smoke-filled rooms, and classy acts. Dalia had heard Dolly opine about the decline of theart of striptease often enough to know better than to let Dolly, the “exotic dancer,” know what she was up to at a gentlemen’s club.
“Gentlemen” my eye, Dalia had thought after her first night on stage. Nary a gentleman had deigned to walk through the door.
Thus, she knew her mom’s cousin would disapprove of her dancing and particularly the joint she danced in. Dolly lived in Detroit, but Dalia wasn’t worried about running into her here. The former burlesque performer wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this. But if she did get wind of Dalia’s dalliance, she’d no doubt report to Mama Mamie, which Dalia dare not let happen.
She’d let her mama believe the “big, fancy restaurant” lie ’til the end of time. Mama would never know what she’d done to make enough money to grant the one dream Mamie Blackburn had always cherished. With the way Mamie had always put everyone else before herself, now that she was a twenty-two-year-old grown woman Dalia had found the means to put her mama first. After all, at age fifty-five Mamie Blackburn didn’t have fifty more years to work this out. No, Dalia wanted it to happen that very fall, a couple of months away.
The president of the Farmdale Bank, who was also mayor, was holding store space for her, property he owned right in the historic part of downtown. Once Dalia had enough for a deposit, the first month’s rent, and retrofitting, Mama Mamie’s Bakery would come to life.
It’d been listening to Mama’s cousin Dolly talk about how she’d danced, classy not brassy and fun rather than frantic, that planted the idea of dancing into Dalia’s head. As she performed toThe Stripper, she let her mind wander back to that morning six months earlier at the kitchen table. Mama had made a sumptuous coffeecake, which the cousins appropriately enjoyedwith their coffee as they chatted away like morning birds. Mama had been born and raised in Farmdale and Dolly an hour away in Detroit, but they’d seen each often as kids, their mothers being sisters and visiting each other almost every weekend. Then Mamie had stayed with them in Detroit to finish high school there because there hadn’t been a high school for black students in her small hometown. Being near the same age, the two girls had grown up more like sisters than cousins.
At Mamie’s kitchen table, they’d exemplified the meaning of the phrase “coffee klatch,” chatting freely while Rose, who was too young for such a conversation, played outside with Rover.
“I never approved of Dolly’s choice of career,” Mamie explained to Dalia, who felt a bit like a third wheel sitting with these two as they reminisced about things that had happened before her time. Mamie took a bite of her coffeecake before explaining. “Not until Butch and I visited you …” she looked at Dolly “… that one time in Harbor Springs at that nightclub. My, I must admit, that was fun!”
“I knew you’d like it. You and Butch were such good dancers. And that band was fabulous. You two cut a rug on that dance floor.”
Mamie chuckled. “I loved being in his arms and moving to music. We used to turn on the radio and dance around the house all the time.”
“Now that,” Dalia interjected, “I remember. You were like teenagers in love.”
Mamie smiled. “Because in our hearts, that’s what we were. I know we seemed like a couple of old fuddy-duddy farmers, but we did love to have fun. And Dolly, we did have a great time at that club. And your performance wasn’t nearly as salacious as I’d feared.”
“I tried to tell you. Burlesque back in the day was like vaudeville with singers, comedians, and acrobats, but with theaddition of a stripper. That was where I came in.” Dolly winked at Dalia. “When I played supper clubs like the one in Harbor Springs there was a band and a dance floor for customer dancing and then my act. The audience was filled with couples, not dirty old men.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I’d been mistaken,” Mamie admitted. “The music was phenomenal, and your act was truly lovely.”
“You see,” Dolly said, turning to Dalia, “back then a dancer’s attitude was ‘look at what I’ve got that you can’t have’ instead of today’s dancers who give it all away. In my era, ‘stripping’ meant peeling down to a pair of bikini bottoms and pasties, very demure by today’s standards. And sometimes I only let down a shoulder strap and didn’t strip at all. That drove them wild.” She’d pointed at Dalia with her fork and chuckled. “I made a lot of money that way.”
