The Heart of a Woman - Maya Angelou [2]
Wilkie laughed again. “I said you're sassy. Have you got some gin?”
There was one bottle, which had been gathering dust for months.
Wilkie stood, “Give me the keys. She'll like riding in a convertible.”
I didn't become nervous until he left. Then the reality of Lady Day coming to my house slammed into me and started my body to quaking. It was pretty well known that she used heavy drugs, and I hardly smoked grass anymore. How could I tell her she couldn't shoot up or sniff up in my house? It was also rumored that she had lesbian affairs. If she propositioned me, how could I reject her without making her think I was rejecting her? Her temper was legendary in show business, and I didn't want to arouse it. I vacuumed, emptied ashtrays and dusted, knowing that a clean house would in no way influence Billie Holiday.
I saw her through the screen door, and my nervousness turned quickly to shock. The bloated face held only a shadow of its familiar prettiness. When she walked into the house, her eyes were a flat black, and when Wilkie introduced us, her hand lay in mine like a child's rubber toy.
“How you do, Maya? You got a nice house.” She hadn't even looked around. It was the same slow, lean, whining voice which had frequently been my sole companion on lonely nights.
I brought gin and sat listening as Wilkie and Billie talked about the old days, the old friends, in Washington, D.C. The names they mentioned and the escapades over which they gloated meant nothing to me, but I was caught into the net of their conversation by the complexity of Billie's language. Experience with street people, hustlers, gamblers and petty criminals had exposed me to cursing. Years in night-club dressing rooms, in cabarets and juke joints had taught me every combination of profanity, or so I thought. Billie Holiday's language was a mixture of mockery and vulgarity that caught me without warning. Although she used the old common words, they were in new arrangements, and spoken in that casual tone which seemed to drag itself, rasping, across the ears. When she finally turned to include me in her conversation, I knew that nothing I could think of would hold her attention.
“Wilkie tells me you're a singer. You a jazz singer too? You any good?”
“No, not really. I don't have good pitch.”
“Do you want to be a great singer? You want to compete with me?”
“No. I don't want to compete with anybody. I'm an entertainer, making a living.”
“As an entertainer? You mean showing some tittie and shaking your bootie?”
“I don't have to do all that. I wouldn't do that to keep a job. No matter what.”
“You better say Joe, 'cause you sure don't know.”
Wilkie came to my defense just as I was wondering how to get the woman and her hostility out of my house.
“Billie, you ought to see her before you talk. She sings folk songs, calypso and blues. Now, you know me. If I say she's good, I mean it. She's good, and she's nice enough to invite us to lunch, so get up off her. Or you can walk your ass right down this hill. And you know I'm not playing about that shit.”
She started laughing. “Wilkie, you haven't changed a damn thing but last year's drawers. I knew you'd put my ass out on the street sooner or later.” She turned to me and gave me a fragile smile.
“What we going to eat, baby?” I hadn't thought about food, but I had a raw chicken in the refrigerator. “I'm going to fry a chicken. Fried chicken, rice and an Arkansas gravy.”
“Chicken and rice is always good. But fry that sucker. Fry him till he's ready. I can't stand no goddam rare chicken.”
“Billie, I don't claim to be a great singer, but I know how to mix groceries. I have never served raw chicken.” I had to defend myself even if it meant she was going to curse me out.
“O.K., baby. O.K. Just telling you, I can't stand to see blood on the bone of a chicken. I take your word you know what you're doing. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”
I retreated to the kitchen. Wilkie's and Billie's laughter floated over the clangs of pots and