Page 32 of And Still Her Voice
“I think she was a blues singer from the twenties jazz age.”
Oh no! The music and the pot had literally taken me away, leaving me vulnerable to Grandma’s impulses. “Did I say anything else?”
“Just that you once saw her in Paris while you were working with the Red Cross during the war.”
Oh shit, she’s back.So much for letting my guard down. No more pot for me.
River smiled, motioning for me to follow him upstairs. “Speaking of all that jazz, I want to show you something jazzy.”
I followed him, wondering what else Grandma might have said during my brief lapse in consciousness. River shared a room across the hall from Mary. I stepped in behind him, over a small mattress and looked around. He opened up an armoire. Hanging were ordinary girl’s clothes, and then off to the side hung the glittery dress he’d worn over at Steinways. I reached for it but then a boa draped over a hook caught my attention and I tugged it out and wrapped it around my neck.
“Why do you have all this stuff?” I asked.
“I’m a performer across town,” he said, reaching into the bottom of the wardrobe where there were girls’ sneakers and sandals. “Today, I’m feeling a little more Diana Ross than Josephine Baker.”
“Who’s Josephine?” I asked.
He smiled at me as he pulled out a shoebox. “I did think it was sort of strange when you told me I reminded you of Josephine Baker.”I said that, too?“You said you’d gone to one of her shows at La Revue Nègre in the Champs Elysèe Theatre.” I sucked in a tiny breath. “She was also from the twenties. Girl, I love your imagination.”Yeah, that’s it, my imagination, alright.He opened the box, removed two pairs of giant stilettos, and handed a shimmering silver pair to me. “Let’s play.” He slipped on some red ones.
I reached for the high heels, sliding them on as he dragged out another box and carried it over to a dressing table where he extracted a wig, some false eyelashes, and makeup. Good for hiding bruises? He pulled out a chair for me to take a seat. I clomped over in the big shoes and sat down. Lifting my chin, he applied some lipstick and some eyeliner. “Close your eyes.” I felt the cool swipe of a tiny brush across my lids and then a soft puff to my cheeks as he applied some rouge. “Okay, now open.”
I gasped not recognizing the beautiful young woman in the mirror staring back at me. At home, I’d never experienced anything like this. At the most I’d tried on Mom’s red lipstick, but sampling the rest of this extravagant stuff thrilled me. It made me—well, after the weed, I supposed I felt sexy. I got up and tried to sashay around the room in those humongous heels. I nearly tripped as I pivoted but then I saw how he’d applied his own makeup and the wig, not the same as the other night at Steinway’s. This one had a flip, but he still looked like a movie star. His lips were cherry red and I stumbled over to kiss him. His mouth, soft and warm, tasted like all kinds of sweetness.
I’d never kissed a boy. But River had been dressed like a girl, a girl who wasn’t kissing me back. He asked if I wanted another hit and I said no, thank you. Confused, I backed away, stepped over to the armoire and pulled out a sparkly dress. I slipped out of my skirt and wiggled into the gown. “Can you zip me, please?” I asked, turning to see him buttoning up an ordinary dress like something a sorority girl might wear to a frat party. He zipped me and then lit a cigarette and handed it to me. In a tall floor mirror in the corner of the room, we looked like a couple of teenagers sneaking a smoke. We giggled, made faces and struck poses. Afterward, we lay on the mattress blowing smoke rings.
“Miss Anna, what are you doing here?”
I sat up. “You’re right. I should be out there helping with the others.”
He kicked off his high heels. “No, I’m asking what are you doing here, in San Francisco? Where are you from? We all got a story. What’s yours? Did your parents abuse you? Your father rape you?”
“No! Hell, no!”
“So then why are you here?”
Now was the time to use my imagination or an overused cliché. “I guess I couldn’t believe that’s all there is. There’s got to be more to life.”
He rolled over onto an elbow, resting his chin on his fist. Appearing unconvinced, he narrowed his eyes at me. “It’s really a shame what happened over at Steinway’s.”
I choked. I’d smoked enough pot to be paranoid. “Yes. A real shame.” I stood, and kicked off the heels. Was he trying to trap me into a confession? Was there a reward out for my arrest? I looked toward the window. I could always jump. I slipped out of the dress. “What about you? What are you doing here?” I asked, hanging the dress back up. Are you a spy? I wondered.
“I’m cursed,” he replied.
I eased up. Cursed like me?
“You see,” he said, sitting up on the mattress, one leg crossed over the other thigh. “All my life I been searching for a place where I could find others like me.”
“Where you could perform as a girl?”
He smiled. “Before coming to San Francisco, I read about a place in New York called Casa Susanna where I might live out my secret fantasies and meet others who had similar ones and wouldn’t think I was crazy. But the more I researched, the more I realized there wasn’t anyone like me.”
“Black?”
“Methodist.” He laughed, pressing his thumb into the ball of his foot.
“I’m Catholic,” I volunteered, taking a seat at the dressing table.
“And I’m probably the only Black Methodist from Iowa.”
