Wild Women and the Blues: A Fascinating and Innovative Novel of Historical Fiction

by Denny S. Bryce

Genres: African American Historical; African American Women's Fiction

Synopsis

"Perfect for fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo...a dazzling depiction of passion, prohibition, and murder.“ —Shelf Awareness

“Ambitious and stunning.” —Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author

"Vibrant…A highly entertaining read!” —Ellen Marie Wiseman New York Times Bestselling author of THE ORPHAN COLLECTOR
 
“The music practically pours out of the pages of Denny S. Bryce's historical novel, set among the artists and dreamers of the 1920s.”—OprahMag.com
 
Goodreads Debut Novel to Discover & Biggest Upcoming Historical Fiction Books
Oprah Magazine, Parade, Ms. Magazine, SheReads, Bustle, BookBub, Frolic, & BiblioLifestyle Most Anticipated Books
Marie Claire & Black Business Guide’s Books By Black Writers to Read
TODAY & Buzzfeed Books for Bridgerton Fans
SheReads Most Anticipated BIPOC Winter Releases 2021
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In a stirring and impeccably researched novel of Jazz-age Chicago in all its vibrant life, two stories intertwine nearly a hundred years apart, as a chorus girl and a film student deal with loss, forgiveness, and love…in all its joy, sadness, and imperfections.
 
“Why would I talk to you about my life? I don't know you, and even if I did, I don't tell my story to just any boy with long hair, who probably smokes weed.You wanna hear about me. You gotta tell me something about you. To make this worth my while.”
 
1925: Chicago is the jazz capital of the world, and the Dreamland Café is the ritziest black-and-tan club in town. Honoree Dalcour is a sharecropper’s daughter, willing to work hard and dance every night on her way to the top. Dreamland offers a path to the good life, socializing with celebrities like Louis Armstrong and filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. But Chicago is also awash in bootleg whiskey, gambling, and gangsters. And a young woman driven by ambition might risk more than she can stand to lose.
 
2015: Film student Sawyer Hayes arrives at the bedside of 110-year-old Honoree Dalcour, still reeling from a devastating loss that has taken him right to the brink. Sawyer has rested all his hope on this frail but formidable woman, the only living link to the legendary Oscar Micheaux. If he’s right—if she can fill in the blanks in his research, perhaps he can complete his thesis and begin a new chapter in his life. But the links Honoree makes are not ones he’s expecting . . .
 
Piece by piece, Honoree reveals her past and her secrets, while Sawyer fights tooth and nail to keep his. It’s a story of courage and ambition, hot jazz and illicit passions. And as past meets present, for Honoree, it’s a final chance to be truly heard and seen before it’s too late. No matter the cost . . .

“Immersive, mysterious and evocative; factual in its history and nuanced in its creativity.”
—Ms. Magazine

“Perfect…Denny S. Bryce is a superstar!”
—Julia Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of the Bridgerton series
 
“Evocative and entertaining!”
—Laura Kamoie, New York Times bestselling author
 
“Wild Women and the Bluesdeftly delivers what historical fiction has been missing.”
—Farrah Rochon USA Today bestselling author

Release date: March 30, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 386

Sample

On the fifth floor of the Bronzeville Senior Living Facility, I stand outside the smallest room in the world, doing my best to ignore the dropped ceiling and square linoleum tiles, stoking my claustrophobia.

No windows. No air. No natural light. Just stark-white walls out of focus like cheesecloth over a camera lens.

The old woman in the bed adds to my anxiety, as does the fact that I’m almost out of cash. But nothing will defeat me. Not this go-round. Not with the help of the old lady in the bed—Honoree Dalcour, my last great hope.

The backpack digs into my shoulder. I check the time on my cell phone, eight hours until my connecting flight to Paris. Six hours (fewer if I take a shuttle back to O’Hare) to coax the 110-year-old woman in the bed (who could die at any second or who could be dead now) into telling me a story to fix my life or more likely help me finish my film project.

You see, I’m a graduate student chasing a doctorate in media studies. My documentary thesis focuses on the legendary Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux in 1925. The project, however, has a gaping hole, smack in the center. A hole I haven’t thought about in over a year. Not since my sister, Azizi, was killed in a car crash with me behind the wheel.

Fifteen months and a lot of tequila later, I need something normal to aspire to, something ordinary and reasonable like finishing the damn film. God knows, something other than talking to my sister’s ghost, a conversation that unquestionably doesn’t constitute normal, ordinary, or reasonable.

“How long are you planning to stand in the doorway?” A young woman in navy-blue scrubs, pushing a medicine cart, stops next to me. “If you want to talk to Miss Honoree, you should go inside.”

Her no-nonsense style makes me wonder: Does she sense my fear of small spaces, which annoys her, or does she merely want me out of her way?

“Excuse me?” My version of indignant is a pitch too high for a man with my usually deep baritone.

She tilts her head and frowns. “I said if you have something to say, you should stand next to her bed. Then you’re not some faceless stranger, quizzing her from the other side of the room.”

I can tell she doesn’t like me. She’s looking at me as if I were a wad of gum on the bottom of her shoe.

“I’m giving her a few minutes to wake up,” I explain.

Blue Scrubs folds her arms over her stomach as her large brown eyes casually damn me to hell. This erases any hope of our having a future together.

By the way, this is my vivid imagination at work. She’s beautiful and my age. Midtwenties. Super-short natural hair. Dark skin and those luminous brown eyes. The color of midnight and stars. Also, I’m a romantic, and if I were normal, I’d have her number by now.

Blue Scrubs sighs impatiently. “Don’t ask her insipid questions about her secret to living such a long life. She hates that.”

I smile, but her contempt is soul-crushing. “I promise I’m only here to ask her non-insipid questions. I have some photos from 1925, and if she remembers where they were taken or can confirm who was in the photos with her, it could make all the difference for my film project.”

“Yeah. That is the reason you’re here, or the reason I overheard you babbling about at the front desk.” Her judgmental gaze skims over my perfectly groomed dreadlocks, my stylish but plain white tee, my faded jeans, and my expensive loafers. My shoulders tense. The examination feels too thorough. Can she tell I’m not wearing socks?

“You’re from Hollywood.” The sneer in her voice is buzzworthy.

I wiggle my fingers. “Comme ci, come ça. I’m more Los Angeles, well, Santa Monica, to be precise, than Hollywood,” I say in my defense. “What tipped you off to my roots?”

“I told you I heard you at the front desk.” Turning slightly, she peers into the room. “At least you’re not one of those obnoxious people from the networks who visit once a year to gawk at her.”

“Once a year? Why?”

“On her birthday. They come to see if she can still eat, talk, or hear.” Blue Scrubs gestures with an angry flip of her wrist.

I wince. “I want to talk about her life in 1925 and show her some photos. I may also record her, take an oral history of sorts?”

Her gaze is resolute. “As long as you remember, she’s not a freak show. Just because she’s lived longer than most and kept her wits about her, doesn’t mean people like you should use her as a ratings boost or clickbait.”

I sigh, exasperated by all the negativity directed at me, and I don’t even know her name. “I should introduce myself. I’m Sawyer Hayes. The Ugly American filmmaker.” I smile. She doesn’t. My obscure reference is just that—obscure—but I had hoped for a smile or a less pained expression. “It is a 1963 Marlon Brando flick. I’m a classic-movie buff.”

“I’m Lula Kent.” She extends a hand, and we awkwardly shake, touching fingertips only. “I’m a nurse’s assistant here.”

“Ms. Kent, or may I call you Lula?”

The go-to-hell expression answers my question.

“Okay, then, Ms. Kent. I only need a few minutes of her time.”

Her side-eye is a steel blade cutting across my face into my chest. Now, what did I do?

“Who gave you permission to visit Miss Honoree? I missed that part when I was eavesdropping at the reception desk.”

I like her for admitting to the flaw of nosiness, but I need a second to think. Truth is, my grandmother isn’t aware of my trip to Chicago, let alone my visit to the Bronzeville Senior Living Facility. Or that I borrowed a few items from her long-ago box, my nickname for the storage bin she keeps in her attic.

From the look in Lula’s eyes, I can’t dodge the question. I have to say something. I nod toward the woman in the bed. “My grandmother has been paying her expenses since 1985. I think the receptionist felt obligated to let me in.”

Lula cranes her neck. “Mrs. Margaret Hendrickson is your grandmother?”

“Yes, and Honoree’s guardian angel, you might say.”

Lula visibly grits her teeth. “Her name is Ms. Dalcour or Miss Honoree. It is disrespectful to call your elders by only their first names, especially when you’ve never been introduced.” She returns to her cart and wraps her fingers around the handlebar, thinking about my throat, I imagine.

“Don’t stay too long,” she orders. “Miss Honoree needs her rest.”

Honoree Dalcour sashayed into the basement of Miss Hattie’s Garden Cafe a little after seven o’clock in the evening. A squirrel-collared coat hung over her arm, and a box purse dangled from her wrist. Weaving through crates of bootleg whiskey and burlap bags of sweet potatoes, she swung her hips with an extra oomph. It made the rhinestones on her drop-waist dress crackle—just like she wanted them to and with good reason.

The proprietor of the Dreamland Cafe, the ritziest black-and-tan nightclub on the Stroll, was holding a midnight audition at his establishment on State Street. Only girls Mr. Buttons had seen dance with his own eyes—and wanted to hire bad enough to risk a beef with another club owner—received an invitation. Rumor on the Stroll was an invite guaranteed a spot in the Dreamland chorus.

Honoree was no dumb Dora—and didn’t believe every note of chin music she heard—but this once, she ab-so-lute-ly, positively believed. And why not? An invitation had been pushed under her front door that very afternoon.

Hot diggity dog!

After three years of dance lessons, tap classes, practicing all day, peeling potatoes all night, and selling policy player dream books (a pamphlet of lucky numbers for gamblers) while keeping her boss, Archie Graves, and his fat fingers from creeping too far up her shift, and, well—just like that—she was on her way to the Dreamland Cafe.

All she had to do was stay clear of Archie, which shouldn’t be too tough. It was Friday, and he spent every Friday through Saturday morning in his office with an alderman, a madam, and, of late, an automobile dealer from Kenosha, playing poker, guzzling hooch, and smoking marijuana.

With Archie preoccupied, Honoree could skip the midnight show without too much trouble—and she’d had her share of trouble with Archie Graves. A small bone in her jaw still ached from the last time she was on the wrong side of his troublesome left hand.

Soon, she wouldn’t have to worry about the goons at Miss Hattie’s. A better class of coloreds patronized the Dreamland Cafe. Educated. Proud Black people. Fearless people. People who spat in the face of Jim Crow, not just getting by but living their lives.

The late Booker T. Washington had written the book A New Negro for a New Century, and Honoree kept a copy in her shopping bag. It was a gift from her childhood sweetheart, Ezekiel Bailey, given to her three years ago, before he disappeared.

She was sixteen at the time, and, of course, Ezekiel broke her heart. She didn’t cry the blues like most of the flappers in the neighborhood because her man ran off. She was better than that. Better than any of the chorus girls at Miss Hattie’s who wept over a man, good or bad, for months.

Honoree was a sharecropper’s daughter, accustomed to hard work and hard times. She had no desire to have a man for the sake of having one, and not for better or for worse, and she made no apologies for her independent mind. Just like she had no qualms about dancing at a ghetto speakeasy every night of the week, except Sundays because she had plans.

She glided over the sawdust floor, moving effortlessly down the hall toward the dressing room. Light as a feather, she twirled by the freshly stoked coal furnace, sweat dripping down her back, but the heat couldn’t stop her feet from dancing: step, shuffle, ball change, step, shuffle, ball change.

With a swing of her hip, the dressing room door opened, and the woodsy, damp smell of sawdust and talc powder filled her nostrils.

A dim bulb in the hallway bathed the sawdust floor in pools of light, and a tune came to Honoree’s mind from Shuffle Along, the all-Negro Broadway musical she planned to headline in one day, when it returned to New York City.

The rhythm took hold of her limbs.

She grabbed the strand of pearls around her neck, gave them a sassy twirl, and belted: “I’m gonna dance at the Dreamland Cafe!”

A shadow stepped from the darkness.

Honoree gasped. “Archie?” Her knees turned soft as tissue paper. She pushed the button on the wall, lighting up the room.

“For crying out loud!” Honoree yelped.

“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am.” A brown-skinned girl with big brown eyes stood, shaking like a skinned cat in winter.

“You scared the heebie-jeebies out of me.” Honoree crossed to the opposite side of the dressing room. The ragamuffin might be one of them crazy colored girls from down south. Only the other week, Honoree had a fearsome episode when one of ’em tried to grab her purse on State Street.

“I’m sorry.” The girl kicked at the sawdust, worn boots ready to fall apart. “Didn’t mean no harm, ma’am.”

Judging from her mud-caked clothes and bruised jaw, Honoree guessed the girl had fought her way from the Mason-Dixon Line to Chicago. “You’re supposed to make a sound when someone enters a room she thinks is empty.”

“I thought you saw me. I was sittin’ right there.” She pointed a shaky finger at a stack of burlap bags.

Honoree’s mind had been so full of the Dreamland Cafe, she would’ve missed Jack Johnson in a prizefight. “I didn’t ask where you were sitting.”

The girl’s eyes grew as round as MoonPies.

“You best hightail it outta here before Miss Dolly shows. She doesn’t tolerate no squatters.”

“I’m no squatter. My name is Bessie Palmer. I’m the new chorus girl Mr. Graves hired.”

Honoree’s throat pinched as if someone had grabbed her by the tonsils. Why would Archie hire a new girl? Had he heard the rumors about the audition? “Archie didn’t hire you.”

“Yes, he did. I can prove it.” Bessie dug into her coat pocket. “This is my contract. This is Mr. Graves’s signature.”

Honoree glanced at the papers. “I don’t care what you’re holding in your hand. Your legs are too short. Nose too broad, and you’re two shades too dark.”

Ugly words. Honoree expected to draw a slew of tears for her trouble, but Bessie raised her chin.

Honoree snatched the paper from Bessie’s hand and stared at the crumpled page. “These are the same paragraphs Archie called a contract when I signed one two years ago. When did he hire you?”

“Last week.”

Honoree handed her the contract with a sigh of relief. Archie had hired Bessie days before Honoree had heard squat about the audition.

“Don’t you believe me?” Bessie’s voice was as shaky as Jell-O.

Honoree shrugged but did not reply. The ragamuffin could stew for a few minutes—the price to pay for scaring Honoree half to death.

The other chorus girls would arrive soon, and this might be her only chance, without curious eyes watching, to pack up her costumes, makeup, and new coral-pink gown, a gossamer silk number, with rhinestones and tassels hanging from the hem.

She sat in front of the mirror, but Bessie stood behind her, chewing on her lip like a meal.

“What are you staring at?” Honoree demanded.

“I wanna ask you a question,” the girl said in a small voice.

“Go on, then. Ask.”

“I need a costume.”

“Goodness, gracious. Didn’t Miss Dolly give you a costume?”

“I never met Miss Dolly.”

Honoree removed her makeup pouch from her shopping bag. “Then who taught you the dance numbers?”

“I—I been rehearsing by myself.”

“Alone? How?”

“Don’t worry.” Bessie’s tone hardened. “I can dance.”

Honoree faced her, intrigued. The girl’s brown eyes were angry slits. “Miss Orphan Annie, you have a claw.”

“Why you wanna go and call me a name?”

Honoree arched an eyebrow, grudgingly impressed with her sass. “If Miss Dolly didn’t teach you, who did?”

Bessie opened her mouth, but Honoree interrupted before she could say a word. “Forget I asked.”

This was likely Honoree’s last night at Miss Hattie’s. What was the point of listening to a new girl’s story?

“I need a costume,” Bessie said, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Again, she was standing too close, right behind Honoree.

“Lord, stop sneaking up on me.”

“I don’t sneak.” Bessie pulled a piece of string hanging from her sleeve. “Been standing right here. Not moving since the first time.”

Honoree sighed. “Okay, then.”

She reached into her shopping bag and handed Bessie a pair of ruffled bloomers and a rhinestone-covered muslin bodice. “Now, stop pestering me.”

Bessie’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Thank you!”

“It’s a hand-me-down and won’t fit. So don’t get too excited. I’m quite a bit taller than you.”

Bessie’s large eyes blinked back tears as her lips quivered.

“Don’t have a conniption.” Honoree eyed her up and down. “I’m taller than you, but we’re about the same size in the hips and bubs.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“After you’re done with the outfit, you give it back washed and ironed. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bessie hugged the clothes to her chest, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Honoree squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. She felt sorry for the child but also wanted to strangle her. She reminded Honoree of hard times. Plus, the bruises on her face turned Honoree’s stomach.

“Come here,” Honoree said gruffly. “I don’t like seeing anyone onstage, even at a brawling speakeasy like Miss Hattie’s, looking like they just took a doozy of a beating.” Honoree rummaged through her makeup. “We need to cover up those black-and-blue marks.”

“How would I do that?”

Honoree organized her makeup: face powder, black pencil, a small black brush, lipstick, and cake mascara. “Have a seat.”

Bessie grabbed a nearby crate and sat, fidgeting like her rump had landed in the electric chair with the warden’s finger on the switch.

“Sit still and pay attention to me.” Honoree dipped the pink puff into a powder tin and patted her cheeks. “Now, you do the same over your bruise.”

Bessie put more face powder in her lap than on her face.

“I swear, you gonna give me apoplexy.” Honoree picked up a cloth and dabbed it in a jar of hand cream. “Turn toward me.”

Holding Bessie’s chin, she wiped her brow, her cheeks, her chin. “Learn how to do this for yourself, and don’t mention I let you use my makeup. I’m not known for my generosity.”

After a few minutes, Honoree turned Bessie to the mirror. “See. Makes a difference.”

Bessie grinned at her reflection. “We have the same shape mouth.”

“I’ll admit a slight resemblance,” Honoree said begrudgingly, not wanting to burst Bessie’s bubble. “Though it won’t make you the next Queen of Sheba.”

Bessie winced. Honoree rolled her eyes, but a tinge of sympathy ran through her. “I guess we do have similar mouths,” she conceded. “Our lips are too thick for Clara Bow’s heart-shaped lips.” She picked up the lipstick. “Colored girls paint their mouths differently.”

Bessie puckered her lips.

“Stop acting up and watch me.” Honoree coated her lips with a dark red color, the shade of sunset. “Are you watching?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bessie said eagerly. “May I ask you another question?”

Honoree nodded.

“What’s your name, or should I call you ma’am, or is it miss?”

“Don’t miss or ma’am me. We save that for Miss Dolly out of respect ’cause she’s been here since before Miss Hattie died. My name’s Honoree, spelled with two e’s but pronounced Honor-ray.”

“You sure have a pretty name.”

“Yes, it is. And French. My father was Louisiana Creole.” She raised an eyebrow at Bessie and her bruised but young face. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen—”

“You look younger. Not old enough to do much of nothin’. Where are your parents?”

“Ain’t got no parents. Been on my own for a while.”

Honoree knew about being on her own. “Who beat you up?”

Bessie stared at the floor as if she were counting splinters.

“Go on, you can tell me; I won’t say anything.”

“A man I met who I thought would treat me better, but I was wrong.”

“You should leave him,” Honoree said, putting away her makeup. “I never get my bloomers in a bunch over a man, in particular when the man doesn’t treat me right.”

“I ain’t as pretty as you, and I don’t—I don’t have much to say.” Her voice softened. “I gotta take what I can get if I wanna man.”

“Then don’t want a man so bad.”

Bessie’s jaw fell like a poorly stitched hem. “Can’t help myself.”

“You’re sixteen years old. Sure you can.”

“My mama married my pops when she was fourteen.”

Honoree had fallen in love with Ezekiel when she was twelve, but what good had that done her?

“A woman who doesn’t leave a man who beats her is a fool.” Honoree applied another coat of lipstick. “I would never stay with a man who hit me more than once.” She patted her lips with a tissue. “I’ll never marry, neither. Those are my rules—rules a girl like you should keep in mind.”

The door banged open. The mirrors shook. Ms. Dolly James stood at the top of the steps, a hand on her hip, her generous bosoms heaving. “What are you two jabbering about?”

Honoree put down her lipstick.

Bessie grabbed her arm. “Who’s she?”

“Miss Dolly. The blues singer in charge of the chorus girls.”

“Lord almighty,” Bessie muttered. “She looks something fierce.”

A gloriously healthy woman, Miss Dolly was impressive if for no other reason than the breadth of her backside and the size of her bubs—which drew as much attention as her rugged alto.

“I asked a question.” She thundered down the steps, dragging her beaver coat behind her and waving her prize possession, a silver flask, like a pointer. “Is anyone gonna answer me?”

Honoree signaled Bessie with a nod. “Go on over there.”

Bessie moved from Honoree’s side and turned toward Miss Dolly. “Evening, ma’am.”

“Who the hell is she?” Miss Dolly asked Honoree. Bessie eased into a corner.

“Speak up,” Miss Dolly ordered. “What’s your name?”

“Bessie Louise Palmer.”

“Bessie, you say?” Miss Dolly flung her fur coat over her chair, the only chair in the room, and sat in front of her piece of mirror. “The two of you need to get dressed,” she said, pulling a Victorian hatpin from her cloche. “Where are those other witches?” She lit a cigarette. “I’m still waiting to learn what you two were gossiping about.”

A busybody, Miss Dolly always wanted to be in-the-know, but before Honoree could speak, Bessie had stepped up to the plate. “We were only wondering what would happen if we got discovered at Miss Hattie’s by—by Eubie Blake.”

Honoree hid a smile. She liked a girl who could weave a quick lie.

“Nobody’s coming to Miss Hattie’s to take neither one of you to Broadway.” Miss Dolly aimed her flask at Bessie. “You: too dark-skinned. And you”—she aimed at Honoree—“you might pass a brown-bag test, being high yellow with good hair and all, but you’re always daydreaming.”

“I don’t daydream. I make plans,” Honoree said, her voice firm. The blues singer had talent but no ambition other than to work at Miss Hattie’s and drain a flask of hooch every hour and wait for Archie Graves to love her back.

The Archie business made Honoree feel almost sorry for Miss Dolly. Honoree had fallen for his charms briefly, too. Oddly, he was capable of showing kindness, and even some wit now and then. Drunk on his behind, he could give you plenty of reasons for the man he had become. Almost lynched at twelve and orphaned a year later, after burying his parents, he found his way to Chicago and raised his younger brother, Dewey, best he could. By then, life had ruined him, left him angry, greedy, and willing to do anything to survive.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with daydreaming,” Bessie was saying. “I ain’t that black, neither. If I were, Mr. Graves wouldn’t have hired me.”

“I got no idea why Archie hired you.” Miss Dolly popped a cigarette between her teeth. “Must’ve owed somebody something.”

“I’m an excellent dancer.” Bessie had gone from cowering in a corner to looking Miss Dolly dead in the eye. “Florence Mills or Josephine Baker might come in here one day—see us perform and—”

Honoree snapped her fingers. “Just like that, we’d be on our way to Broadway or Paris, France.”

Miss Dolly unscrewed the lid on her flask. “And I’ll be singing at the Palmer House while y’all be dancing right here until the day you die.” She laughed. “Unless Archie doesn’t like what he sees tonight and fires you on the spot. By the way, he’ll be watching all night long.”

Honoree’s leg twitched hard, kicking over her shopping bag beneath the table. “All night long? Archie ain’t playing poker tonight?” With Trudy filling her spot, slipping away would be twice as hard with Archie roaming about. “He never cancels his poker game. What happened?”

“I ain’t no postman.” Miss Dolly held the flask to her lips. “You want to know why he ain’t playing poker tonight—ask him yerself, if you dare.” She took a swig. “Anyways, you should be smarter than to nose around in his affairs.”

Virginia and Edna Mae, two of the other chorus girls, entered the dressing room laughing and cursing, and chatting like children in a playpen until they set eyes on Miss Dolly and clammed right up.

“Where’s Trudy?” Miss Dolly asked.

Edna Mae shrugged. Having worked at Miss Hattie’s since before Prohibition, the tough-talking blues singer didn’t ruffle her. “I ain’t got no idea.”

Pressing rouge into her cheek, Honoree could only guess at Trudy’s whereabouts; the bleach-blond chorus girl could be anywhere. Gary, Indiana. Detroit. A North Side juice joint—anywhere partying with anyone, including Hymie Weiss and his North Side gang.

She was the only chorus girl who could dance Honoree’s solos without Archie having a conniption.

“Trudy’ll be here soon enough,” said Edna Mae, the cafe’s burlesque dancer. Naked from head to toe, she lifted and tugged at her bare breasts, comparing one to the other—her usual routine. Once she finished playing with her bubs, she strolled toward Honoree’s crate, smacking Wrigley’s Spearmint gum.

“She’ll come falling through the door at the last minute, raring to go.” Edna Mae stopped next to Honoree. “Don’t worry. She’ll be here.”

“She better show.” Miss Dolly lifted her skirt and slipped her hip flask beneath her garter. “I ain’t explaining a missing girl to Archie. Not tonight.”

She clapped her hands twice. “Y’all hurry up, get dressed, and get up them stairs. And don’t forget to throw a robe on over your costume. King Johnny and the band are winding down.” A cigarette dangled from her lips. “Come on now. It’s showtime, ladies.”

Friday, June 5, 2015

Lula Kent walks away from me, straight-backed and righteous as hell, pushing her medicine cart of indignation. Quite the cross to bear for a girl her age, but she is not my concern.

I take a deep breath and step into Honoree’s room (excuse me—Miss Honoree’s room) and tread across the linoleum to the foot of one of those sturdy hospital beds, cranked two feet off the ground.

This close, Honoree Dalcour is all angles, thin arms and legs, jutting from beneath stiff white sheets. Propped up with pillows behind her head and under her elbows and knees, she reminds me of one of the broken dolls my sister used to bury in the backyard.

“Ma’am. Excuse me? I don’t mean to disturb you, but—”

Honoree opens her eyes. “Who’s there?” Her voice booms, bold and vigorous.

My chest tightens. I expected a weak whisper.

“Do you understand me? Speak up.”

“Good afternoon, my name is Sawyer Hayes.” I remove my backpack and place it on the floor. “How are you doing today?”

She stares at me as if there’s food in my teeth. Then again, she may not be able to see me with her 110-year-old eyes.

“My name’s Sawyer Hayes,” I repeat. “I’m a film student from California. I’m here to talk to you about Chicago in the 1920s.”

Pushing aside my phobia as best I can, I circle to the side of the bed. “Margaret Hendrickson, or Maggie White, the name you knew her by, had old photographs of you in her attic. On the back of each photo was this address and the name Honoree Dalcour and the year 1925—I assume the year the photo was taken.”

I don’t mention the other items in my grandmother’s long-ago box, including the most important find—a reel of film I sent to a restoration company in LA. From the scribbling on the canister, it could be a lost Micheaux—I am holding my breath because it is almost too much to hope for—but if it happens, my interview with Honoree will be the second most important thing I do this summer.

My documentary about a lost film would be a significant contribution to film history. How wild would it be if my thesis includes an exclusive interview with one of Micheaux’s performers? I might even make my dad jealous.

Honoree clears her throat, not a pleasant sound. “How’d you get in here?”

I nod toward the hallway. “I checked in at the front desk.”

“Don’t mean you can walk into my room, happy as you please.”

“Margaret Hendrickson gave me permission.”

“She’s the same person as Maggie White, huh?” Honoree’s tone is not so much surprise as irritation.

“Sorry, I forgot to mention: Maggie is my grandmother.”

Honoree gasps, a sharp inhale of surprise, or someone walked over her grave. “Well, ain’t that some shit!” She lets loose a coarse, bitter laugh.

I take a step back and put a little distance between us. An old woman can curse, but the laugh creeps me out. I switch gears. “Lula Kent told me you have the memory of an elephant.”

Honoree isn’t looking at me. She’s focusing on the space surrounding me. Maybe she sees ghosts, too, but I’m not ready to swap ghost stories.

“Lula talks too much, but only when she has a reason,” Honoree says. “What did you do to her?”

I raise my hand, palm out. “I swear, I didn’t do anything to Lula.”

“You had to do something.” Her eyes slam shut, and her breathing is shallow and weird. Panic grips me.

“Miss Honoree? Are you okay?”

Her eyelids flutter open. “Maggie. . .