Something savory Kitty couldn’t name engulfed her nose as the tempo of the music coming from inside pulsed through her body. The door opened, and a rush of heat hit her face as they all piled in, squeezing through the tiny spaces between dancing bodies and out of the back door to where tables sat in the open yard.
Kitty took a deep breath of air and the cigarette Maude handed her. She and Kitty had bonded earlier after learning they were each the lightest in their family. Maude’s family tree was a stump beyond her great-grandparents, but none of them were White.
“My father is White,” Kitty said, feeling defensive at the way Maude said it.
Maude seemed surprised. “You’re directly mulatto?”
“That means half and half?”
“Sorta, yes—who can keep up?”
A familiar group waved them over. Nina was already there and had changed from her dress into trousers and a button-up shirt.
“Nina, did you tell—” Cora started.
“Please, not tonight,” Laurie said, with a drag of her cigarette. She brushed some of her hair back, but it rose again, still untied and bushy. “I’m in a good mood, and”—she nodded toward the house—“Charles is here.” Laurie’s longtime beau didn’t know anything of her involvement with Blair House, atypical for the non-passing women there. Many of their husbands helped the mission, or were involved in their own efforts, but Charles thought Negroes should stop pushing for inclusion. He wanted to leave the country and be done with it.
“Tell people our hotels are hiring,” Nina said. “That’s the point.”
“Have you confirmed that?” Laurie said.
“Don’t worry.”
“I’ll put it in the newsletter.” Sammie, short for Samantha, drummed her plum-painted fingers on the table. She had just married an officer in the NAACP. She had a slender face, perfect for her short, coiled halo of brown hair.
“She’s a typist for the organization,” Edna, seated next to Sammie, said to Kitty from across the table.
“Mostly I get coffee and file their memos after the fact.” Sammie shrugged. “But at least I’m in the room.”
“And it’s an important one to be in,” Laurie said.
“Are you two sisters?” Kitty pointed between Sammie and Edna. Their skin tones varied by five shades, and their features didn’t match, but that meant nothing.
“Cousins,” Edna said.
“He could have not wanted you to work at all,” Lilly interjected. Being able to provide for a wife and three children was her husband’s biggest source of pride. Lilly, only ever having wanted one child, was overwhelmed with three. Kitty would later hear from Harriet, who tutored some of the Blair House kids on the weekend, that Lilly was often hours late to pick hers up. Harriet was a teacher’s assistant at an exclusive all-White preschool. The all-White aspect was an expectation, but not a rule, that Harriet was working to dismantle.
“Your husband’s a doctor; you more than make do,” Sammie said.
“We have a lot of responsibilities too—his mother just moved in.”
“If William was the only one working, we might not eat,” Sammie pointed out.
There was a strained laugh, acknowledging not only the difference in pay between White and Negro men but the economic challenges of activism. Like the NAACP, Blair House collected money for others, but it wasn’t a regular income. Those with access to disposable funds, like Nina, subsidized the needs of those in Blair House who were relegated to a lower class. This wasn’t always just about color; the ones among them who married uneducated White men, like Edna, struggled too. Later that night, Kitty would watch Edna waving from the bus stop as Sammie drove off in her husband’s Buick.
“That’s why I plan to be rich. Can’t depend on any man.” Wilma taught high school chemistry and mixed hair potions in her kitchen in her spare time. Last summer, she had suffered second-degree burns while experimenting with hair-straightening formulas.
“Not everyone is fortunate enough to be as educated as you,” Lucy said.
Wilma ignored Lucy and spoke to the table. “Hair like ours, you can’t even take a hot bath without it curling up at the edges.”
“So?” Laurie fluffed her own.
“So, nothing. I’ll be rich.” Wilma didn’t perm her own hair but wore wigs because she didn’t want to have to do her hair five days a week.
“If y’all stop covering it and straightening it, maybe it’ll grow,” Laurie said.
No one wanted to hear this.
“Not everyone wants to run around like who it did and why,” Lucy said. She wasn’t only referring to Laurie’s hair but her whole look; she was pretty but made no effort to accentuate anything. She reminded Kitty of Hazel.
Mamie appeared. “Wilma, you can use the bathroom in the back,” she said, as if she’d heard the conversation.
“See?” Wilma said. “I have a clientele.”
“It’s a party, and y’all are doing perms?” Laurie said.
“And I’m first,” Mamie said, running her hands through her short hair. Some looked surprised. “What? Plenty of fair Negroes like me have hair that curls up like a slinky at the slightest sweat.” She and Lilly followed at Wilma’s heels, the first two in a quickly growing line. Kitty would later learn that they and others were members of some elite Negro social clubs that Laurie and Liberty outwardly blasted for fragmenting the race.
Liberty arrived then, just as the table was clearing. Maude scooted over so she could fit between herself and Lucy. She looked like a Black Olive Oyl.
“Liberty writes a national column,” Lucy said to Kitty.
“Oh, you and your husband are both writers?”
Lucy explained. “We went to Holden’s.”
“Yes; my column runs in a few Negro papers,” Liberty clarified.
“She’s also writing a book.” Maude sounded proud. At this, Liberty smiled broadly.
“About all this?”
“I don’t know what it is yet.”
“Is Liberty your real name?” It sounded like a writer’s name.
“It is—my mother had a wicked sense of humor.” She was, she explained, named after her great-grandmother, who died a slave in Tennessee. “She lived to be a hundred and three. And she was tall and big like me.” She opened her palm to show how large her hands were. Kitty had baby hands next to hers.
“I’ve been helping Liberty uncover her family history,” Maude said.
“How?”
“I have access to the records.” Maude worked as a secretary for the Los Angeles Times.
“I’d like to help,” Kitty said, realizing a slight interest in her family tree.
Lucy shook her head. “The studio will keep you plenty busy.”
* * *
The women of Blair House represented every social class, allowing access to information from top to bottom. Because the network was so uniquely orchestrated, inclusion only came if there was a need to fill. Kitty had gotten lucky.
Of those who were passing, some had matched with well-to-do men, with generational wealth many times over, and were in positions to influence some of the most powerful men in the country who just happened to be their husbands, fiancés, and boyfriends. Regardless of social status, all the women were opinionated, cunning, and well read. They met every week to trade information, organize, and fellowship.
Kitty would have to memorize every lie, and would soon be able to identify them by the stories they told about their past lives: deceased parents, adoption, rich Northerners, poor Midwesterners. In one way or another, they had all been on the run. They didn’t get along with family, had big dreams, or faced violence at home that pushed them to roam. They said whatever was needed to elicit enough sympathy to make the past an impolite subject.
“Why?” Kitty sat in the kitchen of Blair House the next Saturday night for more instruction.
“We all must know the same information about everyone. That’s safest,” Cora said.