To the Family of 121b

A chronicle following a family during the Harlem Renaissance. Updated weekly. 

Chapter 2: Lilacs for Lila 

While his sister pictures shiny possibilities under neon lights, the young man of 121B has been sauntering down the other side of the street, money in tanned palm and loafers on tapping feet. He whistles his way past the butcher’s, past the Jones’s crumbling bungalow, and finally reaches the corner store. Inside, he gives the young man on duty a curt nod, receiving a wide blue-eyed gaze in return. Newbies, he rolls his eyes. He’d once worked here, as an assistant back when the LaBerres had actually kept the shop themselves.

 “It’s a family institution, this place, one of the last of its kind. And a family institution it’ll stay!” he could hear Mr LaBerre, the aging patriarch, booming in his gravelly voice, ringing the bell for one of the assistants to come by with his tea. LaBerre had had two sons one of whom had immigrated to Chicago to find work. Something to do with telephones; he’d trained to be. Goodness knows he’d made money, though. Joined the mob up there, his mother had always predicted darkly. Maybe he had- but the bottom line is, when old Mr LaBerre passed from kidney disease, his eldest and Chicago-living son sold the store and gave his younger brother a job in the Windy City, too. A job in the company he owned, it seemed. Again, 121B’s matriarch had shaken her head. Al Capone’s company, more like, had been her only response when he’d informed her of the entire LaBerre family moving. They’d given him and all the other assistants recompense: a handsome sum of six dollars, and the opportunity to keep working for the new owners. His mother had sternly declined that offer: no son of hers would work for strangers, thank you very much. That too, strangers from all the way uptown! She’d shuddered at the very proposition.  Stay home for all I care, she’d huffed, and wait till you turn 20 so you can join your father. But you’re not working there, for those…people.

So it was with great pompousness and an air of disdain that any family member, or even any neighbourhood resident, came to LaBerre’s anymore. Thank the Lord that the new people kept the name and the sign intact, the young man chuckles in his head, or there would’ve been riots. He places his order with an appropriately wrinkled nose, and the bewildered young fellow at the counter scuttles to find the stamps, blonde fringe falling across his sweaty forehead. Finally placing a handful of stamps on the glass counter between them, he stares up at his customer, who very carefully and after much deliberation, chooses three of them. The customer then proceeds to ask how much they were for, and sniffs at the price before handing over a few cents. He has a fairly large sum left over, and the assistant awaits his next request. I’ll spend what’s left on a gift to give Lila tonight, and I ain’t finding that here, the customer smirks, ordering for a bag to carry the inch-sized sheets of paper. The ever-helpful blonde behind the counter hands him a paper bag for them, even packing them in with shaky fingers and knitted eyebrows. The young man of 121B considers berating the poor boy for crumpling his stamps, but decides against it. He has places to be, gifts to buy and girlfriends to meet, after all.

His sister has also taken her decision. Tonight, she will sneak out to Delaro’s- she knows exactly where it is, having wistfully gazed at the ‘cool’ crowd in their feathers and bow ties duck under the neon sign quite often.  Who says it’s only for the ‘cool’ kids? She tosses her hair in a sudden, foreign, burst of confidence and struts back to her own door. She looks at the shimmering metal 121B, so bright in the sun that it almost hurts her eyes, and back down at the ticket.  It has a pretty girl, with her short and presumably straightened charcoal hair falling dramatically down the sides of her face, a red-feathered hat on her head and heels that seem as tall as the buildings over on Manhattan island. She wears a glittery dress, so sequinned that it seems like all the stars of the night sky had somehow fallen to earth as glimmering red-plastic circles and been stuck on the silk that is draped across this picture-girl’s body. The dress is indeed short- short enough that, had her mother seen anyone in it, she would have gasped and averted her eyes before lecturing her daughter on ‘scandalous clothes’.

Does everyone dress like this for jazz night? A sudden shadow of doubt falls across the girl’s mind. I have nothing like this to wear. My best dress is twice as long and nowhere near as glittery. Perhaps a trip to Millie’s Boutique is in order.

Her best dress is a below the knee, ‘sensible’ (in her mother’s words) ‘old-lady’ (in her brother’s opinion) pinstriped green dress. It has a turtleneck that her father had deemed ‘gorgeous’ upon purchase, but she suspects that was because it had been her mother’s choice, and her mother had been standing right there with her infamously stern glare on full force at the time. Millie’s Boutique over on Lenox Avenue- where Josie Canard, the most popular girl in Machesney High School, shopped- did stock pieces of clothing similar to the one on the glossy ticket. I’ll go shopping tomorrow, the girl decides. When will I ever get another chance to see the high life like this? Maybe I’ll even meet Josie and her crowd, and once they see I’ve been invited to Delaro’s they might even talk to me properly, or even…

Her mind wanders off into perfect scenarios, taking place under the disco lights inside Delaro’s, which would forever change her place on the social ladder. Snapping out of her daydream to knock on the door, she realizes it’s open and walks across the newly- waxed linoleum to the kitchen- only to see a her father clenching his jaw and nursing his left hand, while her mother, turned pointedly to the stove, clutches a spatula. The daughter doesn’t even want to think about what happened here, and trudges back to her room.