Emilie Richards - Rising Tides

Clarence’s piano grew louder, backed up now by the thumping of a bass and the mellow moaning of horns and a clarinet. Voices grew louder in response, and laughter rang through the room. She started toward a new group that had just arrived, a casual mélange of colored and white.

She had lived in Paris for eight years, and she had seen and shrugged off a world of experience. But she still wasn’t used to the coal black hand of a man on the chalk white arm of a woman. Black and white in public together still startled her, just as the lack of racism among the French did. She continued to be haunted by childhood experiences. When she shopped in Les Halles, she expected to be ordered to the end of every line. Once, not long ago, she had awakened screaming when car horns blared in the street below.

She greeted three of the men, jazz musicians who often played in a rival nightclub. She smiled at the women and watched them assess her. Their gowns were straight off the pages of L’Art et la Mode, carelessly worn and supremely designed. All the women slouched in the current fashion, their boyishly bound breasts nudging their bodices. Nicky’s dress wasn’t worth the hem of a Poiret or Patou, but she was satisfied that her longer legs made up for the difference.

One of the men, a drummer named Tadpole Harris, embraced her, and she remained in his arms. She recognized Julia St. Cloud, known to her friends as Cloudy. A short woman with shingled blond hair and a long, narrow face, she was an heiress who sometimes served as a patron for promising Negro talent.

“Nicky Valentine’s the only reason we’d come to this joint,” Tadpole told them. “She can dance. Can this little gal dance!”

“And sing,” she reminded him. “I sing, don’t forget. Besides, you come to hear Clarence. You know you do.”

“Clarence’s her granddaddy,” Tadpole explained. “Watches over her like an old papa lion. And he can stomp those ivories, New Orleans style. Oughta be here sometime for a real grand splaz with Clarence. Best there is.”

Nicky glowed, as she always did when Clarence was praised. Much of the jazz in Paris was stale, the hashed-over sounds of a more fertile time and place. Cut off from their roots, some musicians had lost touch with their heritage and its soaring potential. Not Clarence. He jammed with every horn player and drummer just off the boat from America and learned the innovations going on at home.

She broke free from Tadpole’s hug, ready to lead his party to a table near the piano, when another man came through the door to join them. She was tall, and he was only a little taller, a broad-shouldered, large-boned man in his early thirties, with smooth dark skin and eyes that seemed to bore right through her.

“You haven’t met Gerard,” Tadpole said. “Gerard Benedict. Cloudy’s friend.”

Nicky smiled and murmured her greeting. Then she realized why the name seemed familiar. “Gerard Ben edict, the poet?”

He raised a brow. “You know my work?” he asked, in a voice accented with southern nights and disbelief.

She stood a little straighter. “Can you imagine that, sugar?” she said, softly slurring her own response. “Once ‘pon a time a nigger boy from Alabam’ learned to write a word or two, and a nigger gal from Looziana learned to read ‘em. Whatever’s this ol’ world comin’ to?”

Tadpole roared his approval. She made a graceful dancer’s turn and started across the floor. At the table, she turned on the charm, fussing over everyone, but she kept her back to Gerard. She had endured the occasional slight from white Americans who, even in the tolerant atmosphere of Paris, hadn’t quite buried their prejudices. But she couldn’t remember being treated this way by one of her own.

She was everybody’s darling, the sassy, rambunctious granddaughter of the revered Clarence Valentine. She had sung and danced for the Prince of Wales and the Princese de Polignac. Artists, writers and poets were as common in her world as busboys and horn players. She couldn’t imagine what she had done to one Gerard Benedict to deserve his derision.

She felt a hand at her wrist and fingers encircling it to keep her in place. “Then you’ve read my work?” a deep voice rumbled in her ear.

“Sure have.” She turned her head a little, so that she could see his face. “Can’t say I liked it much. All those folks swinging from trees and getting buried alive.”

“Maybe you’re just out of touch with life in America the beautiful. You look more white than colored.”

“Oh, I’m the best of everything. A real snappy piece of work.”

“Maybe you are.”

She met his eyes and gave him a lazy smile. She decided to forgive him. “You better believe it.”

She left the table, heading straight for Clarence. He swung into a peppy introduction without missing a beat. The rest of the band took it up. Les Américains was too small for the jazz orchestras of nightspots like the Théâtre des Ambassadeurs in the avenue Gabriel, which had once imported a sixty-three-member troupe from Harlem’s Cotton Club. But what Clarence’s band lacked in size, it made up for in moxie and bare-knuckle talent.

She clapped her hands to the rhythm, which was growing progressively bouncier. Someone flashed the spotlight right on her, and the din softened.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” she said after Clarence played a splashy finale. “And welcome to Les Américains, which tonight is proud to feature Clarence Valentine and the Valentine Sweethearts.” She stepped forward and folded her hands demurely. At Clarence’s cue, she began to sing a poignant ballad about a man in love. Her voice was halting. The room grew quieter. She ended the intro with one finger to her lips in sad contemplation. Then a breath, a pause, and she was off.

“Yes sir, that’s my baby!” Clarence and the band cut loose, and so did she. She wiggled and swung, her arms akimbo as she shouted the lyrics and began to Charles ton. Her feet flew, her hands flew, her short, dark curls whipped against her cheeks.

The room broke into applause as she shimmied her hips and a thousand glass beads on her dress sparkled in the spotlight. She smiled her naughtiest smile as she hammered out the words. She touched her hips and turned for a backside view. Her feet flew in double time, her hands and knees crossed with rubbery grace; then she locked her fingers behind her head and started all over again. By the time she was finished, the dance floor, which she’d had to herself, was filled with hot-blooded sheiks and shebas.

She accepted compliments before she retreated to Clarence’s side. She would sing and dance again when there was a lull.

“You’re a hit, Nickel.”

She waited until her breathing slowed to nearly nor mal. “You sure make me earn my keep.”

He chuckled, and she kissed his grizzled cheek.

“I saw you making eyes at that man.”

“Making eyes my foot!”

His hands flew over the keyboard. “I’m not gonna be here forever to watch out for you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t go doin’ nothin’ foolish.”

“I’m nearly twenty. I’ve outgrown foolishness.”

“You’re smack in the middle of it. Wish your father was here to make you behave.”

He almost never mentioned Rafe. “You’ve been like a father. Sometimes I forget you’re not.”

“You never forget.” He looked up. “Things would have been different if your daddy’d lived.”

“Miss Valentine?”

She swung around to find Gerard Benedict behind her. She moved away from the piano. The music slowed to fox-trot tempo. More dancers crowded the floor. A successful night at Les Américains was truly under way.

“Mr. Benedict?”

“Would you like to dance?”