Excerpt

Scenes From My Early Career
Sidda, February 1994

Most of all, I remember the Ya-Yas singing. I remember it from the time I was very young. They sang to us when we were toddlers. They did not sing traditional lullabies. They preferred adapting their favorite songs and singing them in a combination between torch and choir. I’m sure that the rest of the Petites Ya-Ya, like me, thought that “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” was a nursery song. And when Mama sang to us about buttoning up our overcoats when the wind blew free, and to take good care of ourselves because “you belong to me,” we thought it was our own special going-outside song, composed by our mother for the special occasion of our leaving the house.

Teensy sang in her spicy Cajun soprano, Caro sang a strong alto, and Mama sang what she called “sopralto,” which meant she moved anything to fit into her range. Necie always played the piano. She came to our house and sat down at the baby grand in the living room, and within minutes she’d pick out an accompaniment to whatever they wanted to sing. This well-worn Steinway had been in the family for years; it had been bought by my great-grandmother Delia for my Mama when she was a little girl. Delia gave her that piano over the objections of my grandmother Buggy, who said that no child should have something so extravagant. According to Mama, Buggy’s protests were not the polite demurring of someone receiving a too-elegant gift -- they were the jealous raging of a daughter who resented that her own mother, who had refused to get so much as a workmanlike spinet for Buggy, should show such generosity to her granddaughter.

The Ya-Yas had spent many an afternoon when they were girls banging out tunes on this piano. And later we did, too. After so much pounding, the baby grand showed the strain. If you examined closely, the gouges in the wood above the keyboard looked suspiciously like teeth marks. Sometimes frustration would get the better of us when we were practicing. When I was small, I would sink my teeth down into that wooden ledge and grind out the pain of perfectionism. My brother Shep favored sharp blows with whatever object was handy, making dents in the piano that theater prop masters now call “distressed.” It is telling that while Mama might go berserk over a broken favorite crystal ashtray, she thought the marks on the piano were hysterical. While she did not encourage beaverlike expressions of angst, she did not punish us either.

When it came to singing, Mama could and would do anything she wanted. What she lacked in pitch, she made up in sheer force of personality. She was the one who did the funny bits -- she would work with a cane and top hat, rolling her eyes and making suggestive jokes in between numbers. She didn’t have much of a voice, but God, she had stage presence! She played with whatever audience was in front of her, like they were her lovers and she couldn’t get enough of them. And like she knew they couldn’t get enough of her.

When the Ya-Yas sang harmony, they sounded sort of like the Boswell Sisters -- if two of the sisters had colds and Connie Boswell was a little tipsy. I imagine that kids who grew up around trained singers might have found the Ya-Yas lacking in talent, or maybe downright scary. But to me they were stars. They were my first inspiration as a theatrical director. I will never, ever forget my first directing experience.

It was at a dressy Ya-Ya Valentine’s Day cocktail party in the early 1960s when I was eight. The Ya-Yas could never make it all the way from Ash Wednesday to Easter without a celebration, so they always had a big Valentine’s Day party. It punctuated the Lenten season with sweet abandon. It was a big event -- almost everybody in town was there, all decked out in their most glamorous party clothes. Mama had it catered, and there were all the fanciest hors d’oeuvres, the names of which I still remember like they were part of a chant: Spiced Crab Canapé, Sherried Shrimp à la Ya-Ya, Mrs. Daniel Doiron’s Duck Paté, and Patsy Stafford’s Pecan Balls. The dessert table was filled with all kinds of chocolate goodies, along with Brandy Brioche, and my personal favorite, Queen’s Tart. Those pastry shells filled with that custard of pecans and Louisiana oranges and butter and cream and -- oh, it was just taste heaven!

For the Valentine’s Day parties, the Ya-Yas made special place cards quoting lines from musicals, and each person was supposed to guess where to sit according to the quote. The four of them were as delighted when guests found the wrong place as when they got the right one. Caro whispered to the others, “You learn so much about a person when they get things wrong!”

For this particular party, Mama hired Willetta’s young nephews to park cars, and they showed up wearing their Sunday clothes. Willetta must have planned the outfits, because it was not the kind of thing Mama would have ever asked them to do. The nephews --
Carver and Jefferson -- took their job seriously. They stood at the edge of the driveway and opened the doors for Mama and Daddy’s friends in their Lincolns and Cadillacs. Since the nephews also did yard work for most of the guests, you could hear the ooohs and aaahhs that came from the white people when they saw their Negro yard boys all dressed up in a shirt and tie. At the beginning of the party, my brother Little Shep tried to beat Carver and Jefferson at opening the car doors, and sometimes they got into a little scuffle.

Daddy finally came out and said, “Son, let these boys do their jobs.”

Little Shep begged, “But Daddy, why can’t I park the cars? They get to do everything around here.”

“Son, you’re not old enough. When people drive up, you can open car doors and greet them, but that’s it.”

Jeff and Carver hung their heads. You could tell that they were angry. This was part of their job. They didn’t like Little Shep stepping in on their territory.

Little Shep was all excited, until Daddy turned and said: “Now, Shep, don’t you be taking any tips from my padnahs here. Jeff and Carver get all the money, you hear me, buddy?”

This wasn’t what Little Shep had in mind at all, but Daddy said, “Don’t give me any lip. Just let me hear you say ‘Yessir.’”

“Yessir,” my brother said. But I know that he kept some of those tips. After all the guests had arrived, he came in and emptied his pockets, bragging about how rich he was.

That evening the house was jumping. Moreau, my Daddy’s Cajun buddy, came in with big pans of food -- duck gumbo, dirty rice, homemade garlic French bread. Daddy always said that Moreau was the best damn cook in the world, and that included anybody at Gallatoire’s, Antoine’s, and places in Europe, too. Even though it was just a cocktail party, he refused to let Mama serve only finger food. “You got to feed people when they come to your house,” he said.

Caro, Teensy, and Necie had arrived early with their outfits in blue plastic bags from the cleaners, carrying their train cases filled with makeup. One of the things I loved most about the official Ya-Ya parties -- as opposed to just an ordinary dinner party -- was that all the women got dressed together. They took over the entire hall and bathroom and Mama’s dressing room. It was a glorious thing to watch them getting ready. Some of my friends talk about the romance of watching their mother and father get ready for a party, but I never actually saw much of Daddy before a party. In the long hallway, Mama had moved the coatrack to one side, and all the ladies’ outfits were hanging from the rack, like characters they were waiting to become. On that Valentine’s Day, it was actually cold outside, a rare occasion in the state of Louisiana. Just the thing to make the Ya-Yas get their furs out of storage and bring them to the party. Mama was the only one who did not own a fur. She said, “I eat enough dead animals. I don’t want to wear them.”

Actually, Teensy wore her knee-length mink to parties often, anytime she felt like it. Daddy always said it was because she never knew when she’d end up buck-naked and needing something to keep her warm. Stripping was something Teensy had done since she was a little girl. We had seen her do it since we were born and never thought twice about it. Back in Mama’s dressing room, the small square 45 rpm record player was turned up loud. The Ya-Yas were listening to their “getting dressed music.” Depending on their mood, this was Judy Garland, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and later, Dinah Washington. Every once in a while, they would get hooked on a particular song that wasn’t by any of their “Tune Ladies.” One year they flipped over “The Girl from Ipanema.” They played that song so much, it about drove my father batty, but they could not get enough of it.

We kids were supposed to stay back in the indoor playroom with Ruby. She was babysitting us so we wouldn’t try and take over the party, like we had been accused of in the past. We had the TV on in there, a bunch of games spread across the floor, and Baylor was playing with his paint set. Only the four of us were in there, since the other Ya-Yas had left their kids at home with their own sitters. Usually they liked to hire one sitter to take care of all of us. But Mama told me that Willetta had refused to let Ruby come back if they dumped all of the Ya-Ya kids on her again. The playroom was a nice enough place. Lord knows, we had just about everything we could have wanted back there, plus an ice chest full of Cokes and a box of petits fours Mama ordered specially for us.

But we knew the real action was happening in the front of the house.

As I sat on the couch with the rest of the kids, watching TV, I heard something that I thought I’d better check out. I was deep into a Nancy Drew phase. Every single thing that occurred -- a car on the gravel road, Willetta claiming someone stole her favorite pot for
cooking starch, a creak in the floorboards -- presented itself as a mystery begging for me, only me, to solve. I tiptoed backward out of the den -- girl detective, hoping no one would follow.

I crept toward my bedroom door, and I found them: all four Ya- Yas, spilling out of the dressing room, touching up their makeup. Mama, in her slinky black cocktail dress, was applying bright red lipstick to her lips. Necie wore a very romantic-looking pink chiffon number that I just loved. She was piling her luxurious long brown hair up on her head and spraying it into place. Caro had on black, too, a longer dress with an uneven hemline that looked vaguely 1920s. She had finished primping and leaned against the wall, smoking. Teensy was wearing a flaming red low-cut dress that was by far the shortest dress in Garnet Parish that year. When Mama finished putting on her lipstick, Teensy took that flame-red color from her and put some right on her own lips.

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 store bought 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 greatgrandmother Delia’s. And then Little Shep, Baylor, Lulu, and I were packed off to bed.