And naturally they were singing, warming up for their “act.” At almost every single Ya-Ya party during those years, my mother and her friends provided the after-dinner entertainment. And never, never did they rehearse what they were going to do. They waited until the very evening, then ran upstairs, or in the back, or to the cabana, depending on where the party was. Once they got away from the guests, they would start figuring out what to do that evening. They called this “Backstage.” It was a huge privilege when they occasionally let me look on.
Mama folded her arms and said, “I feel it, I feel it. It’s a Judy night.”
“Yeah, baby, Judy is talking to me, too,” Caro said.
I was so used to the Ya-Yas saying this. At school, sometimes I slipped and said things like, “I hear Joan of Arc calling to me.” The nuns would correct me, and later ask Mama if she had had me “tested” yet. The nuns used to regularly ask all four of us if Mama had taken us to be “tested.” When we asked Mama about it, she’d laugh. “Oh, for God’s sakes. Don’t listen to them.” I realize now that they were suggesting my mother take each and every one of us to a child psychiatrist. Needless to say, we were not “tested.” At least, not then.
“We haven’t done young Judy stuff in a while,” Necie said, looking a little worried.
“Countess Singing Cloud,” Teensy said to Necie, addressing her with her royal Ya-Ya tribal name, “so what? Judy is in us.”
“Deep within,” Mama replied.
“Deep. Very deep,” Caro agreed, and they launched into “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”
God, they loved Judy Garland. I had heard them sing this song since the day I was born. They’d loved Judy Garland since they—and she—were girls. When they were in high school during the war, they used to go over to each other’s houses every day after school to sing and dance and learn the words to all their favorite songs. Judy had been with the Ya-Yas a long time. Maybe they felt the same about Judy as I did about Little Stevie Wonder: I was just so amazed by a little kid with all that raw talent that I could not help but fall in love.
I was sitting there on the hardwood floor in the doorway to my bedroom, watching them get ready. I munched on little candy hearts, biting right into “Dreamboat” and “Be Mine.” And that is when I had my big idea.
“Mama,” I said softly. Nobody heard me. You had to talk loud around our house to be heard.
“Mama,” I said, louder.
She turned and said, “Why, Sidda, Dahlin! What are you doing here?”
“Watching,” I replied. Then before she could tell me to get back to the den, I said, “Yall sure are good.” Little brownnoser. But I knew it would work, and it did.
“Thank you, Pal,” Caro said, and bent down to touch my head. “I swear,” she said, “I wish I had your red hair and you had a wart on your nose.”
Caro always said that to me. In fact, she’d ask for snippets of my hair to take to different hairdressers, trying to get them to match my color. She called it “Siddalee Red.” It made me feel that my hair was beautiful. Sometimes I still feel that way, and I thank Caro whenever I do.
“Sidda has always had impeccable taste,” Mama said. “That’s why I love her so much.” Then Mama tried a vocalization for a moment before she took another drag off her cigarette.
“Filthy habit,” she muttered while she French-inhaled.
“Mama,” I tried again, “I’ve got an idea.”
“Sidda, you know what I said about interrupting me when I am busy. We’re getting our act together—no time to tarry, Dahlin!”
“I know, I know, Mama, but listen to this! Why don’t yall sing ‘Funny Valentine’? You know, in honor of Saint Valentine’s Day.”
“My God!” Mama exclaimed, and made a face at the others like she’d just hit the jackpot.
“Eclatant!” Teensy said.
“Magnifique, Siddalee. Absolutely magnifique,” Mama said. She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. “You constantly amaze me.”
“You think it’s a good idea?” I asked her, fishing for more compliments.
“Good?” Caro said. “Good?! It’s…it’s…” She waved her arms around in the air like they might accidentally bump into the word she was looking for. “It’s psychological!” Caro’s big word that year was “psychological.” Whenever something impressed her, she would say, “Sooo psychological.” I don’t know if Caro was actually in therapy then, or if she was just reading a lot. Mama read a lot, but nothing like Caro—Caro read things that no one else in the state of Louisiana did.
“No, it’s not psychological,” Mama corrected her, “it’s directorial. She inherits it from her mother.”
“Whatever it is,” Necie said, “I know ‘My Funny Valentine’ in the key of C. What do yall think?”
“Hunkey-goddamn-dorey,” Mama, Caro, and Teensy all said at once.
They began singing right away, with Mama taking up the melody. She started it a little too low, and they were almost lost by the second verse. But they laughed and picked it up again, and sang it through.
Then, like divine inspiration, I had my second big idea of the evening. “Mama, you could play it on your clarinet!” I said. Mama learned to play the clarinet when she was a little girl, and she kept it up in high school. When she went to college, she played with her sorority sisters in a little group. She never advertised this, but I thought it was near genius.
Mama bent down, pulled me up from my cross-legged position, and kissed me right on the lips. “This child is incredible!” she declared. “My oldest offspring. My most stellar, perfect one!”
“Que le Bon Dieu vous bénit!” Teensy said.
All the other Ya-Yas chimed in. Mind you, these women had been sipping bourbon or martinis for hours. But they were still sober enough for the show to go on. I could smell liquor on their breaths, mingled with their Chanel, My Sin, Joy, and Mama’s signature scent from Hovet Parfum, along with cigarette smoke. For years I thought of that mixture as the essential aroma of womanhood.
“Run!” Mama said. “Go have Little Shep get my clarinet out of the utility room. I stored it up there on the high shelf with the bags of dog food your Daddy doesn’t know about.” My father forbade storebought dog food in our house. If a dog couldn’t live off table scraps, he announced, then it wasn’t a real dog and deserved to starve.
I broke into a run down the hall to get Little Shep. “Shep-o!” I announced, “Mama wants you to go get her clarinet out of the utility room. And be careful climbing up to that high shelf to get it, okay?”
Little Shep didn’t budge.
“I am talking to you!” I told him, mimicking the way Mama sounded when we didn’t mind her.
“I’m busy.” He stared at the TV and didn’t even look in my direction.
“I know that, you igmo, but I gave you a direction!” I thundered in my most parental tone.
“Go get it yourself,” Little Shep said.
Well, that just threw me into a spin. “What did you say?” I yelled at him. I bent over and turned off the TV set. “I told you to do something! Now get up and do it!” And with that, I gave him a little kick in the side with my foot. It didn’t hurt him. I wasn’t even wearing shoes.
He slammed his fist down on top of my foot. I was about to kick him in the face when Ruby tackled me to the ground.
“Cut out that kickin stuff, Miz Siddy,” she told me.
“Who do you think you are?!” Little Shep screamed right into my face. “What do you mean, you gave me a direction? Who do you think you are, the director of the world?! You’re outta your tree.”
As he reached to turn the TV back on, I grabbed a piece of his hair and twisted it in my hand. Ruby reached out and slapped my hand so hard I had to let go of his hair.
“Ow!” I said. “You hurt me. Colored girls aren’t supposed to hit white girls.”
“And white girls not supposed to beat up on they bros and call people names. What you tryin to do, Miz Siddy? Mister Little
Shep gonna haul off and knock you silly.”
“Yeah,” Little Shep said, “the only reason I didn’t sock you in the stomach is because you’re a girl. I could knock you flat on your back. You’d be begging for a doctor.”
That made me stop and think. He was a year younger, but he was solid muscle.
“Well, you should mind me!” I told him.
“Who said I had to mind you?” he growled.
“Yeah, Miz Siddy, you ain’t no boss-lady, you jes another little chile.” Ruby got in between us so we could not touch each other.
“Mama told me to tell you to go get her goddamn clarinet.”
Ruby said, “You better not let your Mama hear you talkin like that, she gonna tan your hide.”
“What does Mama need her clarinet for?” Little Shep asked.
“They’re gonna use it in their act,” I whispered, like I had the inside dope on everything in the world.
Little Shep headed for the door. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Before he disappeared into the utility room, he stuck his butt out at me and made a big fart sound with the palm of his hand and his mouth.
“Oooh, yall the baddest little white chirren I ever saw,” Ruby said, and then opened another Coke. During this whole exchange, Baylor kept playing with his paint box, and Lulu never took her eyes off the TV, her hand digging in and out of a box of Cracker Jacks.
After dinner, when it was time for the performance, we were allowed to sit in the living room and watch. The Ya-Yas sashayed out holding big red heart-shaped boxes of candy in front of their chests. I had put on a little Judy background music. But as soon as Mama and the Ya-Yas were center stage in the middle of the orange carpet, I jerked the needle off the stereo and ran to hand Mama her clarinet.
Mama blew a few notes, and then Necie joined on the piano, and all four of them began to sing “My Funny Valentine.” They sang it in their quirky harmony that made any slightly flat notes or incorrect words sound like clever jazz improvisations. After they sang it through once, Mama played a solo. Watching her stand there, blowing on her clarinet, wearing her black satin off-the-shoulder cocktail dress, is something I will never forget. Mama had rhythm, power, and bravado. When she got to certain notes, she was so completely absorbed, her eyes closed, you knew she was flowing in a river of music that she made herself. She loved doing what she was doing so much that I could feel it like heat waves emanating from her body. People gave her a round of applause for her solo, and then the Ya-Yas sang the song again. When they were through, everyone—including my father—whooped and hollered and whistled. Baylor, Little Shep, and Lulu were sitting next to me with their mouths hanging open. They had seen the Ya-Yas sing before, but never with Mama on her clarinet. Once they finished the number, the four of them made deep exaggerated curtsies all the way to the floor, then stood, held hands, and took a bow from the waist in unison.
Mama whistled one of her showstopping whistles that quieted the applause. You could tell she felt mahvelous. She said, “Thank you all, Dahlin Hearts. And special thanks to my daughter, Miss Siddalee Walker, who helped direct tonight’s special Valentine’s Day number.” And everyone applauded again.
I had never felt so proud in my life. I felt a surge of power so strong that I could taste it. I had thought up the song, and I had thought up Mama on the clarinet! They all thought it was a good idea! And they did it!
I wonder if Mama ever knew how much that acknowledgment meant to me. I wonder if she knows how it makes up for so many things. That moment stays inside of all the other moments. It’s not that it makes the other scary moments go away. But when I am up against the wall, when I am shaking with fear before a show opens, when I am standing in the lobby watching people walk into the theater, the memory of that moment stops me from hiding in the bathroom and throwing up. That was the moment that held me together when I got my first vitriolic review—the one that suggested I run a bowling alley rather than direct plays. It is one of the moments that is helping me stay (barely) glued together now that I’m working in increasingly high-pressure settings. I wonder if Mama knows that. I wonder why I haven’t told her.
After everybody finally quit clapping and shouting, Teensy cracked open a bottle of champagne. Champagne was the only thing she drank that year. She drank it alone, drank it with everything. She claimed it was “clean.” Teensy poured me a tiny drop in one of the gold-stemmed champagne glasses that had been my great-grandmother Delia’s. And then Little Shep, Baylor, Lulu, and I were packed off to bed.
I was so excited that I had not noticed Lulu at all. She was still eating when we got into our twin beds. She had a handful of pecan balls she’d taken off the coffee table clenched in her little round hands.
“Lulu,” I told her, “you have got to stop eating. Give me those pecan balls.”
She handed them to me.
“You don’t even like these,” I said.
“I’m hungry.”
“Hungry? You have been eating for six hours straight. You are going to be big as a barn. You are going to have huge hips like the ladies on Daddy’s side of the family.”
“Stop trying to talk like Mama,” she said.
“Well, don’t come crying to me when they won’t let you into a movie theater because they’re afraid your big butt will break the seats.”
“Okay. I won’t,” she said.
She was quiet for a minute, then she said, “Sidda, did you really direct their show like Mama said?”
“Yes, I did,” I told her. “I directed every single note and every single movement. They did nothing but what I told them to,” I lied.
“Golly,” she said. I knew she was sucking her thumb by now.
“They are going to start paying me next time,” I said.
“Paying you? Like—with money?”
“What do you think people get paid with? Ritz crackers?”
“I wish I could direct something,” my little sister said.
“Pray to Saint Jude, Patron Saint of the Impossible,” I said, so full of myself I was about to pop. I lay there and tried to sleep, but I was still too keyed up to relax. “Hey, Lulu,” I said. “You awake?”
“No,” she said. “I’m sleeping.”
“Well, do you want to sing?”
“No,” she whispered, “I wanna sleep.”
“Come on, let’s sing ‘Side by Side,’” I said.
“You sing it. I don’t want to sing, Sidda.”
“Aw, come on—” I began to coax when I heard voices in the hallway. These were not usual party voices. These were upset grown-up voices.
I jumped out of my bed and ran to the bedroom door. Yet another mystery for Siddalee Drew. I cracked the door open, and the voices grew louder. I was used to hearing loud voices, that was nothing new. But this had a different sound to it. Higher-pitched or something. I tiptoed down the hall, opened the hall door, and peeked into the living room. In the middle of the room, with a pillow propped under his head, lay Mr. Mitchell Fontenot, my Uncle Pete’s law partner. He didn’t look drunk. He looked like he was in pain.
Little Shep came out of his bedroom, too. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “Mr. Fontenot is laying on the floor.”
“Is he drunk?” Little Shep asked. We were both used to seeing grown-ups on the floor, but usually that happened at the end of the party. The party was still going on. Everyone still seemed to be there.
Mrs. Fontenot was leaning down, talking to Mr. Fontenot, and then Daddy was kneeling down beside him, saying something.
“Come on,” I said to Little Shep, taking his hand. “Let’s go out and see what’s going on.”
“Don’t boss me around,” Shep said, withdrawing his hand.
“Okay,” I said. “Would you pretty please like to come out with me and see what is happening out there on the goddamn floor?”
“You better stop cussing so much, Sidda,” he said, but he was laug
hing. I had just started saying “goddamn” around that time. I only said it around my siblings and black people. Little Shep took my hand again, and hitched up his pajama bottoms with the other.
“Act all innocent, like they woke us up,” I whispered to him.
“Don’t you tell me what to do,” he whispered back.
We approached the large fallen body of Mr. Mitchell Fontenot, who was sipping a Scotch through a straw. I knew how different liquors smelled. When I fixed grown-up drinks, I memorized them. I could smell a certain drink and say Scotch or rye or gin.
“Daddy, what’s wrong with Mr. Fontenot?” I asked.
“Honey, Mr. Fontenot was doing the Twist with Chubby Checker, and he threw his back out.” Daddy was still by the lawyer’s side.
“Does it hurt?” Little Shep asked Mr. Mitchell Fontenot.
“Only when I smile,” he said, and winked at Little Shep.
“What’s going to happen?” I asked Daddy.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Your Mama and them are figuring it out right now. Yall better go back to bed now.”
Daddy was slurring his words, but he still had enough balance to kneel on one knee and not fall over.
“Did you like the number?” I asked him, hoping for the big Daddy compliment.
“What number?” he asked.
I was crushed. “The ‘My Funny Valentine’ number, Daddy! The one I directed.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, and dropped it. Just like that. Dropped it right on the floor next to Mr. Mitchell Fontenot.
But if it’s one thing I have, it’s manners. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, Mr. Fontenot, I hope you feel better soon.”
“Me too,” said Little Shep, “and I hope you don’t sue my Daddy.”