As far as Ibby was concerned, the only thing she remotely had in common with this woman was their pageboy hairdo, a cut Vidrine had given Ibby after she’d seen a picture of Jackie Kennedy’s daughter in a fashion magazine. Ibby reached up and tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she used to do when it was long. It fell back into her face.
“What do they call you, young lady?” Fannie sat back and took a long drag from her cigarette.
Ibby put the urn on the dining room table, then pulled out her dress and curtsied. “Liberty Alice Bell, ma’am.”
“I know your name, for God’s sake, but what do you want me to call you? Certainly not Liberty Bell. I’d feel like I’d have to say ‘ding-dong’ every time I said your name.”
Ibby scrunched up her shoulders, not knowing how to answer.
“Speak up, or I’ll make up a name. How about—”
“She say her name’s Ibby,” Doll piped up.
“Ibby? What kind of name is that?” Fannie snorted.
Ibby kicked the ground with her tennis shoe. “When I was little, I couldn’t say Liberty. It came out sounding like Ibby.”
“What she gone call you, Miss Fannie? Grandma? Mee-maw? Tootie?” Queenie chuckled. “How about Granny Fannie? That one got a certain ring to it.”
Fannie waved her hand dismissively. “Just plain Fannie will do.” She leaned in toward Ibby. “Now tell me, dear, what happened to my boy Graham?”
Ibby glanced down at her red sneakers, the same shoes she’d had on the day it happened. She felt her chest tighten.
Queenie gave her a reassuring smile. “Take your time, child.”
It had been less than two weeks since the accident. Ibby had just sort of wandered around in a quiet daze since that day, secretly harboring the idea that if she never spoke of it, maybe the whole thing would just go away and her daddy would come back and say, “Morning, pumpkin,” like he always did and they would go on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Ibby wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about it, but Fannie’s eyes were set on her like a dog set to attack. It took another moment before she felt the courage to speak. Her words came out haltingly at first.
“Every Saturday morning . . . Daddy . . . he would take me for a bike ride down the hill and over to the bakery to get a doughnut. It was our little secret. Mama doesn’t like . . . for me to eat sweets. She would have killed Daddy if she’d known.” Ibby clamped her hand to her mouth, realizing her choice of words.
“It’s all right, child. Go on,” Fannie said.
“When we started back, it was drizzling. The road was slippery. Daddy turned his head to tell me to hurry up and bumped into one of the boulders on the side of the road. His bike slid out from under him. When I pedaled over, there was blood all over the side of his head.” Ibby stopped for a moment. It was all coming back to her now.
“Then what happened?” Fannie asked.
Ibby took in a deep breath. “Daddy managed to get up, so we rode our bikes back up the hill to the house. Mama was mad when she saw Daddy’s face.”
“Did you call a doctor?” Fannie asked.
Ibby shook her head. “Mama wanted to, but Daddy said no, he was fine.”
“Should of called a doctor,” Queenie said.
“Let her speak,” Fannie said.
“Daddy said he wasn’t feeling well, so he went to lie down. When I went to check on him later, he was asleep.” Ibby looked up. “He never woke up. They came and got him the next morning, and I never saw him again.”
“Bless her heart,” Queenie said.
“Weren’t your fault,” Doll said.
Ibby glanced over her shoulder at Doll. She didn’t tell them the rest of the story—that her mother had pointed a finger at her the next morning and told her it was indeed her fault, that if they hadn’t been sneaking around behind her back for a stupid doughnut, none of it would have ever happened.
Fannie pursed her lips. “Was there a funeral?”
“No, ma’am.”
Fannie slammed her fist down on the chair. “Then we need to bring Graham back here and give him a proper burial.”
“Daddy is here, Grandma Fannie.”
“What do you mean, he is here? Where?”
Ibby tilted her head toward the double-handled brass urn. “My mama told me to make sure and give him to you.”
There were three succinct gasps before Fannie grabbed her chest and her head plunked facedown onto the table.
“Lawd, now you done it,” Doll said as she came over and lifted Fannie’s head.
Fannie’s eyes were open but unseeing. Ghastly. Dead. Empty. Just like the eyes on the bust on the upstairs landing.
Doll motioned for Queenie to help her get Fannie out of the chair. Queenie placed Fannie’s arm around Doll’s neck, and Doll lifted her up. As they carried her down the hall toward the bedroom at the back of the house, Ibby remembered the sneer on Vidrine’s face when she’d reminded Ibby to give Fannie the urn.
Then it dawned on Ibby.
This is exactly the way Vidrine had planned for it to turn out all along.
Chapter Five
Doll threw back the covers and settled Fannie onto the four-poster canopied bed. Fannie’s eyes were closed, her chest rising in shallow breaths. Doll placed the back of her hand on Fannie’s forehead. It was cold and clammy.
Doll reached up and tugged on the cord to the ceiling fan. The fan began to whir over the canopy, ruffling some papers on the rolltop desk across the room. Doll tugged on the cord once more to slow it down, then went into the bathroom and ran a washcloth under the faucet in the sink. As she was wringing it out, she heard Fannie groan.
“Be right there, Miss Fannie,” Doll said, giving the cloth a final twist.
When she came back into the room, Fannie’s eyes were open, and she was staring straight up at the canopy above her head.
“Why, after all these years, have I never noticed that the fabric on the canopy has a little pattern to it? I thought it was just plain blue damask. Now I see it has a tiny waffle pattern.”
Doll placed the washcloth on Fannie’s forehead and glanced up at the canopy. “Could be you look at something for so long, you see what you want to see, and not what’s really there.”
Fannie grabbed Doll’s hand and squeezed it. “You trying to tell me something?”
“No, Miss Fannie, just telling it the way I see it,” Doll said flatly.
“Maybe I should look more closely at the things around me.”
Doll nudged her hand away. “Maybe you should.”
Fannie peeled the washcloth away from her face and held it up for Doll. “I don’t need this anymore.”
Doll took it from her. “Whatever you say, Miss Fannie.” She was about to leave when she heard Fannie calling after her.
“Doll, come back over here. I want to ask you something.”
Doll crossed her arms and jutted her hip to one side. “What you want?”
“Something wrong?” Fannie asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you standing there like you have better things to do?”
Doll let her arms drop to her side. “What you want to ask me?”
“What do you think of Ibby?”
Doll didn’t really want to have this conversation. She glanced around, trying to figure a way out of answering.
“Do you like her?” Fannie asked.
“’Course I do. Why wouldn’t I?” she said a bit more defensively than she’d intended.
“She reminds me a lot of myself when I was her age. I remember how scared I was when my mother died,” Fannie said reflectively. “I was only—”
Doll cut her off. She’d heard the same story at least a dozen times over the years. “Yes, Miss Fannie. I believe I know about how you lost your mama.”
�
��It’s just . . . I don’t want that little girl to have to go through what I did.”
Doll shook her head. “That were a long time ago. Times different now.”
Fannie fixed her eyes on the canopy above her head. “Feeling unwanted doesn’t have a timeline attached to it.”
“Don’t I know,” Doll said under her breath.
Fannie kept talking. “Now that Graham’s gone, I wonder if Ibby would be happy living with Vidrine. Vidrine’s not exactly a loving person.”
“Like you is?” Doll interjected.
Fannie made a face. “You just don’t know me.”
“After all these years working in this house, I believe I do.”
When Fannie closed her eyes, Doll took that to be the end of the conversation and started toward the door.
“What if I kept her?” Fannie blurted.
Doll turned. “What you mean, Miss Fannie?”
“Well, what if I ask Vidrine if Ibby can stay here and live with me?”
That was the last thing Doll expected to come out of Fannie’s mouth. “Live here? With you? For good?”
“Is that such a dumb idea? She reminds me so much of myself. It would be nice to have a child in the house again.”
Doll wanted to say yes, that was the dumbest idea she’d ever heard. Miss Fannie couldn’t take care of herself, much less a child. Doll was about to say as much, but Fannie kept rambling.
“Then we could all be together, all of us, in this house.” Fannie smiled up at the canopy as if she had just solved the problems of the world.
Doll was silent for a moment. “Don’t want to burst your bubble, Miss Fannie, but you and Miss Vidrine don’t exactly get along.”
“I don’t think Vidrine ever really wanted that child. I think she had that baby just to keep Graham from running off.” Fannie reached over and picked up an empty perfume bottle on the bedside table. She pulled the stopper out and ran the bottle under her nose. “I’m out of perfume. When did I run out?”
Doll took the bottle from her and put it back down on the table. “You been out for a good number of years, Miss Fannie. Can’t remember the last time you had an occasion to wear none. Now back to Miss Vidrine. What makes you think she don’t want Ibby no more? Miss Vidrine just say she needed some time away. She didn’t say nothing about leaving Miss Ibby here for good.”
Fannie waved her hand. “Anyway, I don’t think Vidrine has once stopped to consider what Ibby must be going through. The poor child witnessed her father’s death, and instead of taking Ibby with her, she leaves her here with strangers. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but herself.”
“You ain’t a stranger, you her kin.”
Fannie sighed. “Lord knows what kind of nonsense her mother has filled her head with. You saw the way she looked at me just now.”
“Everybody looks at you that way, Miss Fannie. You could scare the stripe off a skunk. Why, just last week you ran that Fuller Brush man out of here. Left his case full of brushes on the dining room floor. Never did come back for them.”
Fannie went on. “Now Vidrine’s off on some mission to find herself. If that’s not selfish, I don’t know what is.”
“You got a point, Miss Fannie, but what makes you think she’d give up her only daughter? That’s the one hold she has on you, now that Mr. Graham has passed.”
Doll took in a deep breath. What Miss Fannie was saying got her to thinking. What if Miss Vidrine planned to move herself into this here house once Miss Fannie passed? Maybe she wouldn’t even wait that long. . . . Miss Vidrine knew Miss Fannie’d been to the nuthouse on occasion over the years. What if she tried to have Miss Fannie committed? What if she knew the truth about Miss Fannie? The thought of Miss Vidrine becoming mistress of the house made Doll sick to her stomach.
“Miss Fannie, you just had a shock, and I can see a bump coming out on your head where you hit the table. You ain’t thinking too clearly right now. Why don’t you take a little rest?”
“Yes, let me think on it some more.” Fannie closed her eyes. “Let me think on it.”
Doll glanced down at Fannie. She had a Cheshire smile spread wide across her face, the kind Doll had seen many times before.
Just pray it passes, Doll thought as she shut the door.
Chapter Six
The cane-seat stool squeaked across the linoleum floor as Ibby pulled it toward the kitchen table. Queenie was up at the sink humming to herself, her sturdy legs, with the stockings rolled down to just below her fat knees, swaying beneath her gray uniform. From the back, her head looked like a bowling ball, save for the tiny bun the size of a quarter set squarely in the middle of it.
The counter where Queenie was working was cluttered with tins of flour and sugar, a grease-filled coffee can, a ceramic container full of spoons and whisks, a cookie jar, a bread box, several wooden cutting boards stacked against each other, and a small transistor radio. She glided back and forth across the counter like a trolley on wheels—cutting, dicing, rinsing; pulling things from the shelves; stirring the big pot on the heavy relic of a stove; checking the oven and intermittently dabbing her forehead with a dish towel.
“Queenie?” Ibby asked after a while.
“Yes, baby?” Queenie answered without turning around.
“My grandma—is she going to be all right?”
Queenie tapped the spoon on the side of the pot, wiped her hands on her apron, then glanced over her shoulder and gave Ibby a motherly look. “Miss Fannie been mighty worked up ever since she got the news that Graham passed. And that urn you just set on the table in front of her about did her in. Doll took her into the bedroom for a little rest. She’ll be just fine. Just give her some time.”
Queenie must have noticed the sweat running down the side of Ibby’s face. She took a rag from the drawer and ran it under the faucet.
“Hold this up against your cheek. It’ll cool you off. Ain’t no air conditioning in this old house. You’ll get used to it after a while.” Queenie grabbed a bottle from the icebox and tapped the metal top on the edge of the blue Formica counter until it popped off. She stuck a straw into the bottle and handed it to Ibby. “Here, drink this. Maybe something cool will help.”
Ibby couldn’t decide if she liked the almond soda, called Dr. Nut, but it was cold, and that was all that mattered. She glanced out the back window, where, beyond the reach of the tall pecan tree, several sets of sheets flapped from a clothesline. Just off the back of the house was a screened porch with a picnic table. Above the table, six or eight plastic bags filled with water dangled from the rafters, glistening in the sun like uncut diamonds. Queenie saw her staring at them.
“Those called penny bags. Each of them got a brand-new penny on the bottom. The light reflecting off the penny supposed to confuse the flies, so they don’t come around and bother the food, although every time I see a fly, they confused enough already. Know what I mean?” Queenie chuckled.
The smell from the cast-iron pot filled the air.
“What are you cooking?” Ibby asked.
“This here’s redfish courtbouillon.” The word came out of Queenie’s mouth sounding like koo-bee-yon. “Kind a like a fish stew. It got to cook a good while, know itself first, before it be done. Just waiting on the redfish that Mr. Pierce the fish man gone bring by the house later.” She began dicing up some vegetables and tossing them into a bowl. When she finished, she tilted the bowl so Ibby could see what was inside. “This here is the Holy Trinity. Onion, celery, and poivron, or what some folks call bell pepper. Along with a touch of garlic and a smidgen of cayenne pepper, the Holy Trinity goes into just about everything I cook. Can’t use too much pepper, though. Miss Fannie gets indigestion, and believe you me, you don’t want to be around when that happens.” She tossed the contents of the bowl into the pot, stirred it a few more times, then put the lid on.
Doll came int
o the kitchen and tugged at her hair. Ibby was aghast when Doll pulled it completely off her head.
“Miss Ibby, you gone catch one of them flies in that mouth if you don’t close it,” Queenie said.
Doll laughed when she saw the look on Ibby’s face. “You thought that was my real hair? No, baby, just a wig.” Doll tossed the hairpiece onto the counter by the back window.
“How’s Miss Fannie? Should we call the doctor?” Queenie asked.
“She got a mighty fine bump on her head, but she’ll be all right.”
“You sure we don’t need to call the doctor?”
“No, Mama, she just needs a little rest, that’s all.” Doll sat on a stool near the back window and stared out into the backyard.
Ibby could tell something was on her mind.
Queenie placed a bowl in front of Ibby. “Go on, eat up, baby. You must be hungry after your trip.”
Ibby poked at the white blob in the bowl with the spoon. “What is it?”
“Taste it first, then I’ll tell you,” Queenie said.
Ibby didn’t like that answer. That was the kind of answer her mother used to give her when she was trying to get her to eat cauliflower, and the one thing she hated more than anything was cauliflower. She gingerly pinched off a minuscule portion and examined it before letting the tip of her tongue linger on the spoon, trying to decide if it was to her liking. To her surprise, the stuff was pleasantly sweet. She noticed Queenie watching her.
“You never had clabber before, I can tell,” Queenie said.
Ibby shook her head. “What is clabber, exactly?”
“You let the milk sit out for a day or two until it sours and the top part congeals. I sprinkled a little nutmeg and cinnamon on top to give it some punch.”
Ibby pushed her empty bowl away. “Glad you didn’t tell me what it was before I ate it.”
“Doll here tells me you like music,” Queenie said. “What kind you like?”
“Moody Blues,” Ibby said.
“Blues? We got plenty of blues in New Orleans,” Queenie said.
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