Ibby knew Fannie probably wouldn’t approve of her going out to meet T-Bone at a dance club. She hesitated. “With some friends,” she said.
“What friends?”
“You, know, just some friends from school. And I might meet up with Birdelia.”
“Where are you going?”
“Over to Union Hall to hear some music.”
Fannie peered over her reading glasses. “What do you have on?”
Crap, Ibby thought. She’s going to make me go upstairs and change my clothes. “Just a skirt,” she replied.
“You call that a skirt? Where’s the rest of the fabric? It’s so short, it looks as if your rear end might show if you bend over.”
“It’s the style, Fannie. Everyone’s wearing them.”
“Is that what young women wear these days?” She looked Ibby up and down.
Fannie removed her glasses, and gazed at Ibby with a blank expression. “Looks nice,” she finally said.
“Can I go?” Ibby fingered her suede shoulder bag nervously.
“Oh, all right. Don’t be late,” Fannie said.
Union Hall was an old storage warehouse adjacent to the wharves on the Mississippi River. It was nothing more than a big empty space with a stage at one end and a bar at the other but it was always crowded. When Birdelia and Ibby arrived, they had to stand in line to get in.
After a fifteen-minute wait, they paid the entrance fee and made their way through the crowd toward the bar, as two large ceiling fans buzzed overhead. There was no air conditioning, and everyone was sweating, but no one seemed to mind.
Ibby didn’t protest when Birdelia handed her a Cuba libre. She held the plastic cup up in the air, trying not to spill it, as they jockeyed their way toward the stage. When they were about twenty feet away, Birdelia gave up.
“This the best we can do!” she yelled over the roar of the crowd.
They spent the next hour sipping drinks, being jostled around, and sweating. It was close to ten-thirty before a heavyset black man in a T-shirt and blue jeans came up to the microphone.
“How y’all doing?” he said to the audience.
People in the audience raised their hands and whistled.
“Thank y’all for coming out tonight. You ready to get down?”
The audience went ballistic. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” they chanted.
It was so loud, Ibby tried to cover an ear with her free hand.
“That won’t do you any good.” The young man next to her raised his cup and smiled.
It was Wiley Waguespack, Winnie’s older brother, the one she had a crush on until Winnie told her he was only allowed to date Catholic girls.
“Where’s Marcelle?” Ibby asked. “Aren’t you dating Marcelle?”
“What?” he asked, cupping his hand to his ear.
“Never mind,” she said. She didn’t really want to know anyway.
Then the band came on stage and started playing a new sound called funkadelic and everyone danced in place. Near the back of the stage, T-Bone was swinging his trombone in a practiced rhythm with the rest of the brass section. Clapping and swaying with the people around her, Ibby tried to ignore the fact that Wiley had put his arm around her shoulders.
When some of the members of the band began to dance like James Brown, Ibby exclaimed, “I know how to do that!”
She wobbled her knees and shuffled her feet around the way T-Bone had shown her.
Wiley stepped back and watched. “How’d you learn to dance like that?”
Birdelia turned to look. “You must got some black in you somewhere ’cause I ain’t never seen no white girl dance like that.”
Ibby was disappointed when the band stopped playing. She checked her watch. It was one in the morning.
People were filtering out the front door, but Birdelia pointed the other way, toward the stage. “Let’s go find T-Bone.”
Wiley tugged on Ibby’s arm. “I’m heading over to Bruno’s Tavern. Want to come along?”
A part of Ibby wanted to go, but she knew Wiley and she could never be a couple, not according to Winnie. So what was the point? Besides, she’d come with Birdelia, and she didn’t want to disappoint T-Bone.
“No, I can’t. Thanks for asking, though,” she said.
She could see Wiley’s confused face when she headed in the other direction with Birdelia. She smiled to herself. Turning Wiley down had given her a certain sense of satisfaction.
When they got up to the stage, T-Bone jumped down to greet them.
Ibby tucked her sweat-soaked hair behind her ears. “You were fantastic.”
He grinned. “Thank you kindly, Miss Ibby. Say listen, I’m gone head over to the Ebony Lounge to watch the chicken drop. You want to come along?”
Birdelia shook her head. “I got to get the car back. Mama don’t know I took it.”
“Miss Ibby can come with me. We’ll swing by, pick you up,” he said as he placed his trombone in a leather case and snapped it shut.
“Naw. You go ahead,” Birdelia said.
Ibby whispered to Birdelia, “I’m not going without you.”
“Why? He ain’t gonna bite,” Birdelia said loud enough for T-Bone to hear.