An American Marriage(5)

From the other doorway Celestial entered, fresh, lovely, and smelling of tangerines. With me nestled in the recliner and my parents love-birding on the couch, there was no place for her to sit, so I tapped my knee. Gamely, she perched on my lap and we seemed to be on an awkward double date circa 1952.

My mother righted herself. “Celestial, I hear you’re famous.”

“Ma’am?” she said, and jerked a little to get up off my lap, but I held her fast.

“The magazine,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell us you were making waves in the world?”

Celestial looked shy. “It’s just the alumnae bulletin.”

“It’s a magazine,” my mother said, picking up the shiny copy from under the coffee table and flipping it to a dog-eared page featuring Celestial holding a cloth doll that represented Josephine Baker. “Artists to Watch,” announced a bold font.

“I sent it,” I admitted. “What can I say? I’m proud.”

“Is it true that people pay five thousand dollars for your dolls?” Olive pursed her lips and cut her eyes.

“Not usually,” Celestial said, but I spoke over her.

“That’s right,” I said. “You know I’m her manager. Would I let somebody shortchange my wife?”

“Five thousand dollars for a baby doll?” Olive fanned herself with the magazine, lifting her peach-preserve hair. “I guess that’s why God invented white folks.”

Big Roy chuckled, and Celestial struggled like a backside beetle to get free from my lap. “The picture doesn’t do it justice,” she said, sounding like a little girl. “The headdress is hand-beaded and—”

“Five thousand dollars will buy a lot of beads,” my mother noted.

Celestial looked at me, and in an attempt to make peace, I said, “Mama, don’t hate the player, hate the game.” If you have a woman, you recognize when you have said the wrong thing. Somehow she rearranges the ions in the air and you can’t breathe as well.

“It’s not a game; it’s art.” Celestial’s eyes landed on the framed African-inspired prints on the walls of the living room. “I mean real art.”

Big Roy, a skilled diplomat, said, “Maybe if we could see one in person.”

“There’s one in the car,” I said. “I’ll go get it.”

The doll, swaddled in a soft blanket, looked like an actual infant. This was one of Celestial’s quirks. For a woman who was, shall we say, apprehensive about motherhood, she was rather protective of these cloth creations. I tried to tell her that she was going to have to adopt a different attitude for when we opened up our storefront. The poupées, as the dolls were called, would sell for a fraction of the price of the art pieces, like the one I was holding. They would have to be sewn with a quickness and, once it caught on, mass production all the way. None of this cashmere blanket stuff. But I let her slide with this one, which was a commission for the mayor of Atlanta to be given as a gift to his chief of staff, who was expecting a baby around Thanksgiving.

When I parted the blanket so my mother could see the doll’s face, she pulled in a loud breath. I gave Celestial a little wink, and she was kind enough to reset the ions in the air so I could breathe again.

“It’s you,” Olive said, taking the doll from me, taking care to support its head.

“I used his picture,” Celestial piped up. “Roy is my inspiration.”

“That’s why she married me,” I joked.

“Not the only reason,” she said.

You know it was a charmed moment if my mother didn’t have a single word to say. Her eyes were on the bundle in her arms as my father joined her and stared over her shoulder.

“I used Austrian crystals for the hair,” Celestial went on, getting excited. “Turn it to hit the light.”

My mother did and the doll’s head shimmered as light from our everyday bulbs bounced off the little cap of black beads. “It’s like a halo,” my mother said. “This is how it is when you really have a baby. You ’ve your own angel.”

Now my mother moved to the couch and laid the doll on a cushion. It was a trippy experience because the doll really did favor me, or at least my baby pictures. It was like staring into an enchanted mirror. In Olive, I could see the sixteen-year-old she had been, a mother way too soon but as tender as springtime. “I could buy this from you?”

“No, Mama,” I said, pride barreling up from my chest. “That’s a special commission. Ten K. Quick and dirty, brokered by yours truly!”

“Of course,” she said, folding the blanket over the doll like a shroud. “What do I need a doll for? Old lady like me?”

“You can have it,” Celestial said.

I gave her the look that she calls my Gary Coleman expression. The contract specified delivery by the end of the month. The deadline was more than firm; it was black-ink-notarized in triplicate. There was no CPT proviso.

Without even looking at me, Celestial said, “I can make another one.”

Olive said, “No, I don’t want to set you back. It’s just that he’s so much like Little Roy.”

I reached to take the doll from her, but my mother wasn’t exactly releasing it and Celestial wasn’t exactly making it easy. She’s a sucker for anybody who appreciates her work. This was something else we were going to have to work on if we were going to make a real business out of this.