Free Celeste's Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate Page B

thought would be safe. “Miss D and Gertie put white wrinkle cream on their faces, and Miss D put collard greens on her head.”
    “Yes, for her head-hurts. Did she use her Gullah talk? Like ‘enty’ means ‘doesn’t it’ or ‘isn’t it’ or ‘is it’ or ‘don’t you think so’? Sometimes I don’t know what she’s saying. She’s from around Charleston, and she believes in that make-do medicine, too, like my sister did. But Elizabeth never did that collard-green thing.”
    Praise God, she was talking! Anxious to keep her going, I asked, “Does Gertie live with her? I don’t want to have to put up with her mouth every time I turn around.”
    “She just babysits Gertie whenever her momma wants to run around. Seems like that’s been happening more and more lately. Miss D’s a sweet woman, but her daughter-in-law takes advantage of her.”
    Eager to unravel another mystery, I went on flapping my lips. “What did Miss D mean when she said you just got off the curb?”
    “It means that Miss D talks too much,” she snapped. She took off walking fast again. Oops. After that I couldn’t even get a grunt out of her.
    After a while I noticed Colored doormen in green and black fancy uniforms help Colored ladies in expensive-looking furs and Colored men in stylish suits into and out of new motorcars, then in and out of their swanky buildings. I’d seen people dolled up in fit-to-kill outfits at the Stackhouse Hotel but not like
these
Harlem folks. Aunt Valentina had dressed like this when she’d visited us in the past. I didn’t see many clothes like that in her room, though.
    Finally we stopped at a wooden one-story building where the marquee read IMPERIAL CLUB. Aunt Valentina smoothed my hair. “I have a job interview here, so just sit down in the lobby, take your coat off if you get hot, and stay put.”
    Hesitant to ask what
kind
of job, I only nodded, and trailed her inside to the lobby. Aunt Valentina introduced herself to a light-skinned, gray-haired woman behind the counter. The woman looked down her long nose at Aunt Valentina, then swept out of the room, my aunt behind her. The lobby was furnished with red upholstered Queen Anne chairs, matching thick carpeting, and red and emerald wallpaper. An enormous, lush Boston fern sat regally in front of the bay windows that looked out onto the street. I carefully crossed my legs at the ankles and settled my hands in my lap as I had learned to do in our etiquette class at school. But even so, in my old coat and my greasy hair, I was out of place there. I hoped that woman wouldn’t come back and give me the evil eye like she had my aunt.
    Just then a young Colored woman in a tall pompadour hairstyle and carrying a smart black coat walked past. A black glove fell from her coat. “Oh, miss,” I called, quickly grabbing up the glove. “Miss!”
    “Yes?” She turned around uncertainly, then spied the glove I held out. “Why, thank you. I’d have never even known where I’d misplaced it.”
    She smiled in such a friendly way that I got over some of my shyness. “You’re welcome. I’m waiting for my aunt. She’s a famous — uh, my favorite aunt.”
    “Oh, does she give lessons here?”
    “No, ma’am, she had to talk with someone.”
    “I see. My name’s Caterina Jarboro. I’m studying voice and piano, to be a concert singer. I just finished a lesson. You may have heard me singing.”
    “Oh, my.” I stared at her until I remembered my manners. “My name is Celeste Lassiter Massey, and I’m from Raleigh, North Carolina. I’ve never met a concert singer before. I play the violin and I call it Dede.”
    “After the violinist in New Orleans? How creative! I’m from Wilmington, North Carolina, but I live in Brooklyn now with my aunt. Small world, Celeste.” She reached into her bag, removed a small card, and gave it to me. “Call me sometime. We North Carolinians have to stick together. All right, I must run.”
    On the cream-colored card in