Felice Fabienne: The Volatile Chorus Girl Who Cursed Breeze Walker
Overview
Felice Fabienne is a secondary but pivotal character in Tia Williams’s A Love Song for Ricki Wilde. A young Creole chorus girl living in Harlem during the 1920s, she is the catalyst for the novel’s central supernatural conflict. Her relationship with Breeze Walker—the up-and-coming pianist who would later become the immortal Ezra—ends on Leap Day 1928 with a deadly curse. That curse sets the plot in motion: Breeze is cursed to live forever as a Perennial, and his true love is fated to die on the same date as Felice’s suicide, February 29. Though Felice appears only in flashback (Chapter 15: “You’re the Bee’s Knees, Breeze”), her actions ripple across the entire story, directly affecting Ricki Wilde, Ms. Della Bennett, and the novel’s themes of family expectations, fate and destiny, and sacrificial love.
Plot Role
Felice functions as the “dark origin” of the love story. She is the ex-lover who, after being rejected by Breeze, invokes black voodoo and sacrifices herself to curse him. Her suicide creates the immortal Breeze (Ezra) and establishes the countdown that Ricki faces seventy-six years later. The curse also becomes the reason Ms. Della—Felice’s daughter—enters the plot in a surprising way. Ms. Della’s childhood mystery (knowing only that her mother Felice died young and left her behind) is solved when Ricki discovers the truth. Felice’s haunting presence lingers in the pearl bracelet inscribed “BW + FF,” the boarded-up building at 225½, and the sheet music Ezra has composed for his soulmate. In the ending explained, Felice’s curse is finally broken by Ms. Della’s voluntary sacrifice, a mirror to Felice’s own death.
Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions
The text explicitly shows Felice as volatile, ambitious, and needy. Breeze reflects that “she had mercurial, unpredictable moods” and was motivated by “money, fame, fashion, and social status.” Her volatility is dramatized when she rages at chorus girls who snub her on Lenox Avenue, lunging after them with fists flying. She confesses to Breeze that a nude photograph from her past is harming her auditions, revealing deep insecurity and a history of exploitation. Her desire to advance her career leads her to use voodoo: she believes she hexed a rival dancer, Edith, causing her to break an ankle.
These traits suggest a woman fighting for visibility in a racially and gender-oppressive 1920s. She feels powerless and uses supernatural means to take control. Her mood swings are interpreted by Ms. Della later (Chapter 17) as possibly “mood swings or bipolar,” but the novel leaves the diagnosis ambiguous. What is explicit is that Felice’s love for Breeze is possessive: she wants marriage and a return to Louisiana to be reunited with her baby (Adelaide). When Breeze refuses, her hurt transforms into a vengeful curse. Her suicide is framed as both a sacrifice (to seal the curse) and an act of despair.
Chronological Arc
Felice’s entire arc occurs within a three-month period in early 1928, culminating on Leap Day.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Late 1927 or early 1928 | Felice meets Breeze; they begin a relationship. |
| February 26–27, 1928 | On the street, Felice is snubbed by other chorus girls; she rages. Later, she confesses to Breeze about the nude photos. Breeze buys her a pearl bracelet like Adelaide Hall’s. |
| February 28, 1928 | Lo Ellis, the choreographer, fires Felice for allegedly hexing dancer Edith. |
| February 29, 1928 | At a Leap Day rent party, Felice behaves erratically. Breeze takes her to the roof and gives her the bracelet. She becomes furious it’s not an engagement ring. She demands marriage and a return to Louisiana. Breeze refuses. She curses him with immortality and that his true love will die on the same date. She jumps from the roof and dies. |
Her daughter Adelaide is left behind; the baby grows up to become Ms. Della, who never knew her mother’s full story until 2024. Felice’s death is a secret that haunts Ms. Della’s life, leading her to buy the building where her mother died and to eventually sacrifice herself to break the curse.
Relationships
With Breeze Walker: Their three-month relationship is intense but toxic. Breeze admits he “wasn’t sure if he actually liked her” and that she was “a game he was addicted to playing.” She depends on him for validation and protection; he feels a caretaker duty because he has lost his cousin Sonny. The imbalance leads to Felice’s desperate proposal and Breeze’s rejection.
With her daughter Adelaide (Ms. Della): Felice left her baby in Louisiana with her own mother (Nana). She intended to “raise enough money to send for you,” per Breeze. But she died before that could happen. Adelaide grows up feeling abandoned and angry—“She’s a hole that’s never been filled in my life.” The lack of a relationship is a central wound for Ms. Della.
With other chorus girls: Felice is socially isolated and feels disrespected. She uses voodoo to retaliate, which only worsens her reputation. Her only ally is Breeze.
Key Decisions and Consequences
| Decision | Immediate Consequence | Long-Term Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Using voodoo to hex Edith | Gets fired from the chorus line | Confirms others’ view of her as dangerous; leads to final confrontation with Breeze |
| Demanding marriage and return to Louisiana | Breeze refuses | Felice feels utterly rejected and hopeless |
| Cursing Breeze and jumping to her death | Breeze becomes immortal; Ricki Wilde’s death is foretold | Triggers the entire plot; eventually leads to Ms. Della’s sacrifice and curse reversal |
Each decision grows out of Felice’s volatility and desperation. The text makes clear she had few options as a young Black woman in 1928 Harlem with a baby back home, but her choice to curse Breeze is framed as morally wrong—the novel later calls it a “dark voodoo” curse requiring a human sacrifice.
Theme and Symbol Connections
Family expectations and black sheep identity: Felice abandoned her own child, creating the fractured legacy that Ms. Della and then Ricki inherit. Ricki, too, is a black sheep of her funeral-home family. Felice’s inability to reunite with Adelaide mirrors Ricki’s struggle to be accepted by her parents.
Fate and destiny: Felice’s curse forces a preordained outcome: Ezra and Ricki are soulmates, but one must die on Leap Day. The fate and destiny theme is embodied in the “veil between worlds” on February 29 and the magical inevitability of their meeting.
Grief and healing: Felice’s death leaves unresolved grief for Ms. Della. In Chapter 22, Ms. Della finally writes a forgiveness note to Felice and buries it, symbolically releasing her anger. Felice’s suicide also contributes to Breeze/Ezra’s century of loneliness and guilt.
Harlem Renaissance legacy: Felice is a product of the 1920s Harlem scene—the rent parties, speakeasies, chorus lines, and voodoo practices brought by Southern migrants. Her story is part of the Harlem Renaissance legacy, a hidden history of pain behind the glamour.
Sacrificial love: Felice’s suicide is a sacrifice that enables the curse; Ms. Della’s death is a mirror sacrifice that breaks it. The novel suggests true sacrificial love—giving your life for another—can undo even dark magic.
Symbols: The pearl bracelet inscribed “BW + FF” symbolizes the connection between Felice and Breeze. It reappears as concrete proof of Ezra’s story. The piano left in the building represents Breeze’s art and his trapped soul. The night-blooming jasmine that Ricki smells out of season is a supernatural sign tied to Felice’s curse.
Questions and Answers
1. Why did Felice curse Breeze with immortality instead of killing him outright?
Felice’s curse is vengeful and poetic: she wants Breeze to suffer endlessly, watching every true love die on the same date she died. The text shows she was deeply hurt by his rejection; her curse is an expression of that pain. It is also consistent with her use of dark voodoo, which requires a human sacrifice (her own life) to summon the loa Met Kalfu. The immortality ensures that Breeze cannot escape the torment of loving and losing.
2. Was Felice mentally ill?
The novel offers two perspectives. Ms. Della speculates that Felice may have suffered from “mood swings or bipolar” or borderline personality disorder, noting that she herself has struggled with depression. The narrator does not confirm a diagnosis, but Felice’s explosive anger, jealousy, and impulsive suicide align with signs of severe emotional instability. The historical context (1928) means she had no access to treatment. The text leaves her psychological state as open for interpretation.
3. Why did Felice leave her baby in Louisiana?
She left Adelaide with her mother, Nana, because she moved to Harlem to become a dancer and earn money. Breeze tells Ricki that Felice “loved you so much” and was working “to raise enough money to send for you.” This suggests she intended to bring Adelaide north once she was established. The novel never clarifies why she did not take the baby immediately, but the implication is poverty and a stage career that could not accommodate an infant.
4. Could Felice have broken her own curse?
According to Eva Mercy’s explanation in Chapter 19, dark voodoo curses require a “mirror sacrifice” to be reversed. Since Felice died to activate the curse, only another voluntary human death could undo it. Felice could not have reversed it while alive; once she committed suicide, the curse was locked. Ms. Della’s death is the mirror sacrifice that finally breaks it.
5. How does Felice’s story connect to the theme of “black sheep” identity in the novel?
Felice was an outsider in Harlem—a Southern Creole woman with a past that included nude photographs and voodoo practice. She never fit in with the “respectable” chorus girls. This parallels Ricki’s experience as the black sheep of the Wilde family, ridiculed for her flower-shop dream. Both women struggle for acceptance. Ms. Della, the child Felice left behind, also felt like a black sheep within her own history. Felice’s abandonment created a legacy of not belonging, which Ricki and Ms. Della each confront in their own way.