Page 34 of The Killer Cupcake
Janey reached out,her fingers brushing Pinkie’s hand—a rare, tender gesture.“They pieced me back together,”Janey continued, the words rough with gratitude.“Gave me a name when I’d lost mine. Fed me hope with their cornbread and red beans, and kindness. Something even my sisters didn’t give when Brenda left me behind.”Her gaze drifted to the window, where moonlight silvered the magnolias.“Made me believe I could be human again.”A pause. The shadows deepened in the lines around her mouth.“…For a while.”
Willa leaned forward, the sherry glass trembling in her hand.
“Why tell me this?”she whispered, the words raw and urgent.“Why show me… all this?”
Janey set her glass down with a click.Her eyes locked onto Willa’s, sharp enough to cut.“Because on that platform at the train station,”she said, her voice low,“when I saw your face—those wide, shining eyes drinking in the city like it was holy water—I saw Pinkie, and then I saw myself.”She leaned closer, the lamplight carving shadows under her cheekbones.“You all young, finally free, stumbling off that train from Mississippi.Convinced you’d reached paradise. Believing you’d left the pain buried at the Jensens. ‘Here,’ I thought…”Janey’s smile was a bitter twist.“She thinks this is where negro girls come to prosper. That we ain’t just surviving.”
“Don’t you? Look at this place. You know what’s in Butt’s Janey. You know where I came from? This is paradise.” Willa said. She stared at the women with hope. Blank stares were all they gave her in return.
Willa’s spine straightened.The memory surged—the primal thunder of drums in Congo Square, the whirl of indigo and crimson silk as dancers spun under live oaks, the throaty laughter spilling from Storyville’s glowing doorways. This place was a dream, and she couldn’t be convinced otherwise.
A silent exchange passed between Janey and Pinkie—a language forged in shared suffering.
“Alive, oui,”Janey conceded, her smile bittersweet.“But paradise? Non, chérie. No Eden for women like us—not handed down. We claw it from the rot. Brick by bloody brick.”
Pinkie spoke: “You think that Thibodeaux boy’s heart flutters for you? Maybe it does… today. But men like Jean-Baptiste?”She spat the name.“They collect girls like us. Pretty dark birds to cage. He’ll whisper love, fill you with champagne dreams… use your body and convince you that you like it, then install you in some back-alley room. You’ll scrub his wife’s floors by day, warm his bed by night until you’re used up. Or until his sister finds you.”
“JB wouldn’t?—”
“Crois-moi.”Pinkie’s command cut like glass. With deliberate slowness, she rolled up her sleeve.
The scar wasn’t just skin. It was a landscape of torment—thick, ropy keloids snaking up her forearm, flesh melted and remade by agony.“Claire Thibodeaux. JB’sdearsister. Boiling water. Because her husband… he liked the way I looked servingcoffee. I was only ten, Willa.Dix ans.My skin slid off thick and bubbling.”
Janey’s knuckles whitened on her chair. Fury, cold and absolute, radiated from her.
“What happened? Did you… did he get punished?”
“We screamed for justice. But justice?"Janey's voice dropped to a venomous hiss."That door stayed locked. I hammered on it—begged Don Marcello who owned the cops, even confronted his appointed sheriff, Carmine Boanno, himself, to help us. Of course, all Carmine Boanno wanted from me was sex. And do you know what he said to me after I gave it to him? Let him abuse and use my body in some of the most wicked ways?”She leaned in, eyes blazing.“A burned colored girl?Who gives a shit?No one can tell with skin like that anyway.”
Janey took a deep breath, feeling her anger even more. Pinkie reached over and rubbed Janey’s arm to soothe her. Janey closed her eyes and spoke with them closed. “Claire's husband cried his pretty crocodile tears for the judges. Made a whole show of his wounded honor. And walked away clean. Not a damn stain on his shiny reputation in Creole society.”
Pinkie’s voice was flat, resigned.“Papa tried. Went to thegens de couleurcouncil. The next night, men dragged him to the levee. Left him broken. Walks crooked now. My word against Claire’s? Against a Thibodeaux?”Pinkie gave a bitter laugh, hollow.“Janey… she fixed things her way.”
“I went to the Thibodeaux myself, apologised, and entered their world. They had no problem welcoming a Elliot into their society, one of my sisters had passed through their doors and married well. She lives as a white woman in Oregon now. It wasn’t hard to make myself worthy.” A shadow crossed Janey’s face—something feral, satisfied.“Six months later, Madame Geneviève Thibodeaux took ill.Tragique.Bleeding from places a lady shouldn’t. Screaming like a banshee. Then Claire… ah,poor Claire. Such amysteriouswasting sickness claimed her, too. Three other Creole elite’s that were on the council fell ill and died. Doctors whispered of ‘cursed blood.’ Andrew, that saintly husband? Vanished.Poof.”Janey snapped her fingers, the sound sharp in the heavy air.“And Carmine?Mon mari? He fell ill, too. Nearly died. A problem, that one. Sicilian blood is supposed to curdle likecréolecream, but it was made of something stronger. At least his blood is.”
“That’s enough, Janey,” Pinkie whispered. “Stay calm. Carmine loves you. Remember? You forgave him.”
“I won’t be silenced in my home, Pinkie,” Janey turned on her. Pinkie only smiled and rubbed Janey’s hand like a parent would do for a spoiled child.
“Are you saying that you made them sick? Dead?” Willa gasped. Neither of the women spoke. “And your husband? Carmine? But you nursed him back,”Willa breathed, understanding dawning—terrible and bright.
“Kathy’s mother came and helped fix Carmine. She prayed with me. We decided he was mine. It’s our way as Elliot women. If they save our lives, like Henry saved Brenda, then we are theirs, faithful and strong. But if we decide to save theirs, then they are damned and belong to us, our pets, our slaves. My life for his life and his life for mine. He made the ultimate sacrifice by surviving my cherry. Just like All men must pay a price to be worthy. That is the key, Willa. Men must be worthy; if not, they should be judged.”
“Janey and I don’t agree on her methods,” Pinkie interjected. “Janey isn’t a killer. She’s simply saying that men should earn your love, not take it as a trophy.”
Janey waved off the correction and sipped her drink.
“That’s why you married him. Carmine? Because you love him?” Willa asked.
“I suppose. And it’s why Pinkie’s family stays,”Janey said softly.“Not servants.Gardiens.My shadows. My blades in the dark.”
Willa stared at these women—one forged in fire, one wrapped in silk and secrets both lethal and committed to one another.“Why’d you run? From Butts to Jackson and then here. To the Tremé ? What was chasing you? Kathy would never tell me.”
Janey’s amusement vanished. Her eyes, usually dancing with mockery, turned flat and hard as river stones.“That story stays buried deeper than Madame Thibodeaux. Now.”She stood.“Va. You heard the truth. Make your decision. Will you go to your Jean-Baptiste? Taste his promised world. Be the lamb instead of the prize?”
Willa stood. She glanced at Pinkie, who held a plea in her eyes for Willa to make the right choice. She then looked into Janey’s eyes, which were wild with mockery and delight over the dilemma. Wanting something to happen.
Willa’s grip tightened around her satchel strap. “JB wants something from me—I know that. I can see it when he looks at me. The way he licks his bottom lip when he talks to me.”Her voice was low, stripped of illusions.“And I know what men see when they look at all of us, especially me and Pinkie. Easy prey.”She met Janey’s gaze without flinching.“But I’m not you, Aunt Janey. I don’t have your… advantages or beauty.”
