Celeste's Harlem Renaissance Read Free

at his food. I knocked mine down quick so I wouldn’t have to waste my taste buds on her rubbery chicken, watery greens, hard corn bread, and mushy turnips. My aunt gobbled hers down, too, but that was because she claimed she liked what she fixed. Nobody talked much at the table. Not since Momma passed. My aunt said she couldn’t stand all that jibber jabber around her food.
    Sunday was when Aunt Society let us sit in the parlor. It was the prettiest room in the house, reserved for guests, special occasions, and Sundays, with shelves of our books, the Thomas Day sideboard where we displayed Momma’s fanciest dishes, and our best rocking chairs and couch. Momma’s piano had been in there, too.
    Poppa lay down on the couch with his tea. “Turn on the Westrand, Cece,” he said. That was Poppa’s radio. He called it “the Westrand” like he owned the whole company. I carefully fiddled with the knobs, trying to bring in the
Sunday Evening Serenade
program from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while the radio popped, screeched, and spat static. “Maybe one day we’ll hear Aunt Valentina singing on a New York station,” I murmured to Poppa.
    Aunt Society rolled in in her wheelchair, with her lap full of muslin cloth to make into sheets. She was the only person I knew who loved to sit in a wheelchair, even though she didn’t need to. When she went to her own or a sewing customer’s house, she set everything in her wheelchair and pushed it where she needed to go.
    She poked me on the shoulder. “Straighten that thing out,” she said, pointing to the Westrand.
    “I’m trying.” I rubbed my arm. Her bony fingers felt as sharp as her sewing needles. By the time I had the Westrand right, the show was already on. I wrapped myself in Momma’s ivory-colored cashmere shawl and curled up in her rocking chair. “Isn’t that one of James Reese Europe’s songs, Poppa?”
    “Cece, be quiet so we can hear,” Aunt Society ordered. “That Mr. Europe was our most famous Colored composer and conductor,” she added. She poked her sewing needle in and out of the cloth in time to the music. “He performed in New York and Boston before the war, and in France during it. Your Poppa saw Mr. Europe and his band.”
    You ole jabbering thing, you forgot you just told me to be quiet!
I cupped my hand to my ear to hear better. She got the message and hushed up. The solemn notes of “Clair de Lune,” one of my favorite songs, swept into the room. I stretched out in the rocker to better embrace the sound.
    “Celeste, sit up like a lady,” she barked. I sat up, trying not to frown. Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag” bounced over the airwaves next. I tapped my foot and snapped my fingers until she told me to stop. “Taylor, your child’s soul will go straight to the Devil’s Pit if she keeps listening to that new ragtime stuff. Turn it off till another song comes on.”
    “Nothing’s wrong with ragtime. I guess she takes after me, ’cause I like it,” Poppa replied. While Aunt Society grunted and humphed, I went back to tapping and snapping until the song ended.
    After the last notes in the program faded, Aunt Society told me to turn off the Westrand and the electric lights. Momma kept our frosted carnival glass chandelier lights blazing and the radio on all Sunday evening. People used to drop in to talk and laugh. “Sunday used to be fun,” I said.
    “Sunday’s supposed to be set aside for the Lord, and ain’t nothing fun about that,” Aunt Society replied as she lit the oil lamps. Greasy oil stink flared up around me. My clothes always reeked of it. The oil funked up my bed worse than the lard she slicked down on what was left of my thin hair.
    I wiggled onto the couch beside Poppa. On this pretty spring night I wasn’t ready to go to bed with a cloud of oily smoke dangling over my head yet. “Poppa, tell me that balloon story again.”
    Aunt Society looked up from her sewing. “Not that old stale tale again, Taylor. You