“Fannie here?”
The voice was weak and raspy, but there was something familiar about it. Doll couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
“You know Miss Fannie?” Doll asked.
“You might say that.”
The woman’s loose linen dress was faded, and her toes had worn holes clear through the top of her sneakers. For the life of her, Doll couldn’t figure out who this woman was, or how she would know Fannie.
“You want something to drink?” Doll asked, thinking perhaps the woman was a vagabond.
She shook her head. “Ibby here?”
Doll took a step back. There was only one person who would ask such a question. She tried to think of a quick answer. “Why no, she ain’t here. Miss Fannie . . . she done . . . sent Ibby off to camp for the summer.”
Vidrine began to cough, a deep wet cough that lasted for several seconds. She peered up at Doll. “That’s good. I don’t want her to see me like this.”
Doll went down the steps. The woman was so thin, her head looked as if it might topple off her spindly neck. Her hair was sparse and wispy, and several of her teeth were missing. She looked nothing like the Vidrine Doll had once known.
“I’m dying, Doll,” Vidrine said flatly. “I don’t have much longer to live.”
“What you want? Money?” Doll knew Miss Vidrine must be mighty desperate if she was asking Miss Fannie for money.
Vidrine buried her face in the crook of her arm.
“You wait right here,” Doll said.
“Listen.” Vidrine reached up and grabbed Doll’s arm. “I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way. I meant to come back for Ibby. You’ve got to believe me. But then I got sick. I just need enough to get by for a few more months, that’s all. Just a few more months.”
The way Miss Vidrine was looking at her, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for the woman. “Where you living?”
Vidrine began to shake. “Wherever I can find a bed.”
“You homeless? That why Mr. Rainold ain’t been able to find you?”
Vidrine covered her face with her hands.
“You stay right here. Don’t move. You hear me? Don’t move.”
Doll ran inside, down the hall, and into Fannie’s bedroom, where she closed the door and locked it. She paced up and down trying to decide what to do. Should she ask Vidrine in? Should she let her stay until Miss Ibby came back? What would Miss Fannie do if she found Vidrine sitting in the house when she returned? Doll tussled with these questions for several minutes, then put her hand on her hip and looked up at the ceiling.
“Please forgive me, Lawd, but I don’t see no other way. You know something better, you better tell me right now. Show me the way.” She waited for a sign, anything, to let her know she was doing the right thing. “So unless you got something to say, this is the way it’s gone be.” When all she heard was the whirring of the overhead fan, she said, “Well, all right then.”
She opened the door to one of the massive armoires. The two upper shelves were filled with shoeboxes, but she’d learned long ago that these boxes didn’t contain shoes. Like many who had lived through the Depression, Fannie didn’t trust banks, preferring instead to stuff her mattress, cut holes in the floor, and hide cash wherever it suited her, sometimes even in places she’d forgotten about. These shoeboxes were just one of her many hiding places.
Doll took down a shoebox and counted out ten hundred-dollar bills, wondering how much Vidrine would need to live out the rest of her days in some semblance of comfort. She counted out another five hundred just for good measure, then stuffed the wad of cash into the pocket of her apron and headed back into the hall.
Queenie saw her coming out of Fannie’s bedroom. “Doll, what you doing in Miss Fannie’s room?”
Doll waved her off. “Just getting some cash to pay Omar the Pie Man.” She hurried toward the door. When she got outside, Vidrine was gone. Doll panicked, then heard rustling in the azalea bushes below the front steps.
“Miss Vidrine, that you?” Doll hurried down the steps.
She found two eyes peeping out from the bushes.
“I fell off the steps,” Vidrine whispered.
“You about scared the living daylights out of me.” Doll helped Vidrine up, brushed her off, and tried to hand her the money.
Vidrine stared at it but didn’t take it. “Does Fannie know?”
“No, and let’s keep it that way,” Doll said. “Now go on, take it.”
Vidrine stashed the cash under her clothing. “How is my baby girl?”
Her eyes were so pitiful, it almost made Doll want to cry. “Miss Ibby has turned into a fine young lady. You’d be right proud of her.”
“Fannie taking good care of her?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss Vidrine,” Doll said. “I can promise you that. She’s taking real good care of Miss Ibby. Real good care.”
Vidrine dropped her head. “When the time comes, tell Ibby I loved her. Will you do that for me?”
“When the time comes, I’ll tell her.” Doll’s words caught in her throat.
Vidrine pulled her wedding ring off her finger. “Here. Give her this. It’s all I have. Tell her I’m sorry.” She pushed herself up and started down the brick walkway toward the street.
Doll put the ring into the pocket of her uniform. “Peace be with you, you hear?”
Vidrine shuffled down the sidewalk like an old woman. As she disappeared around the corner, Doll wondered when was the last time she’d eaten.
“Vidrine, wait!” Doll cried out, wishing she’d made a basket of food for Vidrine to take along with her.
But Vidrine just kept walking as if she didn’t hear.
For a brief second, Doll wondered if she’d done the right thing. It’s what Miss Vidrine wanted, she reassured herself as a crack of thunder rattled the air.
“Too late for that, Lawd.” She shook her head. “Now, I know I said a lot of nasty things about Miss Vidrine over the years, and I’m sorry for that. Sure am. But what’s done is done.”
She went up to her sewing room, closed the door, and sat down behind her sewing machine. She picked up the doll she was making Ibby for her birthday and looked it in the eyes: “I sure hope I done the right thing.” When she felt for the ring in her pocket, it wasn’t there. “Lawd, what I done with it?” She emptied her pockets. “Well, I’ll be,” Doll said as she stuck her finger through a hole in one of her pockets.
She ran down the stairs and out the front door and began searching the front steps for the ring.
“Got to be out here somewhere.” Doll squinted, the rain blurring her vision. She scrambled around on her hands and knees for several minutes and was about to give up when she saw the ring sticking up sideways through a crack in one of the bricks. “Thank you, Jesus.” She stuffed the ring in her bra for safekeeping and was about to get up when Queenie appeared at the front door.
“What in the devil’s name is going on? Why you crawling around out in the rain like that?”
Doll scrambled to her feet and brushed off her wet uniform. “I slipped on the steps.”
“Uh-huh. Where the pies? Didn’t you say you were buying pies from Omar?” She pointed down the street. “And lookey there. Here come Miss Ibby. She all wet, too.”
Ibby stopped at the gate. “Doll, why are you standing there in the rain?”
“Well, Miss Ibby,” Doll said, “I could ask you the same thing.”
Chapter Thirty
When the day of her party arrived, Ibby sat in Doll’s sewing room all morning as Doll fussed with her hair, pinning and unpinning a hairpiece to her head.
“Why do I have to wear one of these? Can’t you just tease and spray my hair like everybody else?”
“Needs to be just right,” Doll said.
“But I feel so silly,” Ibby said, looking at
herself in the handheld mirror.
“You gone look beautiful—now hold still. After I finish with you, I got to go take care of Miss Fannie, and believe me, that’s gone take up the rest of the day.”
A branch of the oak tree rubbed against the window, making a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Doll winced. “Daddy was supposed to trim that tree for the party. Guess he didn’t make it to the branches up top. Hope he cleared the front walkway, or the guests ain’t gone be able to get in the front door. I don’t know why Miss Fannie won’t hire a tree man to come shape up that tree. It’s like she’s afraid to mess with it.”
“Why’s that?” Ibby asked.
“I don’t know. She’s always been that way about that tree, like it means something to her. It was here when she arrived, and I guess she wants it to be here when she’s gone.” Doll patted the hairpiece on Ibby’s head. “Okay, I got it looking right pretty. Don’t go messing up what I just done, you hear me? Now I got to go see about Miss Fannie.”
When it finally came time for the party guests to arrive, Ibby and Fannie stood in the front parlor—Ibby in her floor-length dotted swiss dress and an orchid corsage, Fannie in a knee-length robin’s-egg-blue peau de soie with a corsage of pink roses—waiting to receive their guests. The scent of Fannie’s Oriental Rose perfume filled the room. Doll had spent all afternoon making Fannie look presentable. She’d dyed Fannie’s hair and had given her a perm, done her nails, and even put on false eyelashes.
“Doll did a nice job on your dress. I hope you told her so,” Fannie said.
“She did a nice job on you, too,” Ibby shot back, still mad at Fannie for making her wear an old-fashioned long dress.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed, a reminder that eight o’clock had now come and gone. It was an hour past the party time, and still no guests.
Crow was busy rearranging the bottles on the makeshift bar that had been set up in the front parlor. Birdelia was in the kitchen rewarming the hors d’oeuvres for a second time as Doll set another platter of food on the dining-room table. Through the front window, Ibby could see T-Bone and two musician buddies of his sitting in the rockers on the front porch.
Birdelia came into the room and held a silver tray out to Ibby. “Cheese puff?”
“No, thanks.” Ibby swatted at a paper lantern above her head.
It was the first time she’d ever seen Birdelia in a maid’s uniform. She knew Birdelia hated wearing it, but Doll had given her no choice.
Birdelia narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get used to it.”
Crow was straightening the glasses on the bar. “Queenie borrowed this here tuxedo from Mr. Lionel, the undertaker.” He tugged on the lapel. “Don’t fit quite right.”
“You look just fine, Poppy.” Birdelia patted her grandfather on the back. She put the tray of cheese puffs down on the bar and yanked on her apron. “Mama’s uniform don’t fit me quite right neither.”
Crow said, “Birdelia, why don’t you go ask T-Bone if they need a drink of water before the guests arrive?”
“I just did that not fifteen minutes ago, Poppy,” Birdelia protested.
“I’ll go,” Ibby offered. She started toward the front door.
Fannie grabbed Ibby’s arm with her gloved hand. “Be patient, dear. You never want to be the first to arrive or the last to leave. It’s fashionable to be late.”
“Except to a funeral. It’s not fashionable to be late to a funeral,” Crow chimed in.
Queenie came into the dining room to check on the food. “Lawd, this rate, I’m gone have to take it all back into the kitchen and warm it up again.”
“The guests will be here shortly,” Fannie said, taking a quick glance at her watch.
Everyone’s attention was drawn to a noise that sounded like the howling of the wind.
“It supposed to rain tonight?” Queenie asked.
“No,” Doll said, “that’s the oak tree in the front yard scraping against the house. Always scares me when I hear it ’cause it sounds like an old woman crying.”
“Crow, didn’t I ask you to trim that tree back for the party?” Fannie asked.
“I did, Miss Fannie. Cut off a big limb that was blocking the front walk, but that’s a big tree. Couldn’t do nothing about some of them other branches leaning against the house.”
There was a shuffling on the front porch as the first guests arrived. Sister Gertrude burst through the front door, her robes swinging with every step. She embraced Fannie in a hug that seemed out of character.
“Fannie dear, I’m so happy to see you.” She gave Fannie a kiss on the cheek. “Am I late?”
“No, Gertie dear. You’re right on time. Come on in.” Fannie gestured toward Ibby. “You know my granddaughter.”
“One of our best students.” Sister Gertrude patted Ibby lightly on the shoulder.
“I’ll catch up with you as soon as the rest of the guests arrive,” Fannie said before turning her attention to a man that came in right behind Sister Gertrude. “Why, hello, Kennedy. Been a long time. I see you’ve risen in the ranks. You’re a commander now. It’s about time.”
He kissed Fannie’s hand. “Thank you. So nice to see you.” Then he turned to Ibby. “I believe we’ve met.”
Ibby shook his hand. “Yes, sir. Thank you for coming.”
“Kennedy, dear, would you mind escorting Sister Gertrude to the bar?” Fannie asked.
“My pleasure.” He held his elbow out for Sister Gertrude.
Emile Rainold came next, followed by several of the neighbors, including the Jeffreyses.
“How do, Miss Fannie. So nice of you to invite me.”
Ibby turned to find Annabelle Friedrichs and her mother, Honey, dressed in matching pink taffeta frocks. Mr. Friedrichs wasn’t with them.
Annabelle cordially stuck out her hand and forced a smile. “Thank you for having me, Ibby.”
Ibby shook her hand and was busy watching Annabelle sashay off into the crowd when she heard Winnie’s voice.
“Miss Fannie, may I introduce my parents, Myrtis and Winkie Waguespack, and my three brothers, Wiley, Whitfield, and Werner.”
“Fannie.” Myrtis Waguespack shook Fannie’s hand, then turned to Ibby and smiled ever so sweetly. “Why, Ibby Bell, don’t you look a picture! Such a pretty yellow dress. Bless your heart, where did you find such a thing?”
Myrtis Waguespack’s remark seemed less like a compliment than a veiled insult. Ibby could tell by the look on Fannie’s face that she was not pleased by it either.
“Doll made it for her,” Fannie replied.
“My, aren’t we lucky to have somebody like Doll to do our sewing for us,” Myrtis Waguespack said.
Fannie returned the favor by eyeing Myrtis’s green-and-blue-plaid dress, which made her round torso look like an overstuffed chair. “Isn’t that one of your mother’s dresses? Yes—I believe I remember seeing her in it at Ida Brewbacker’s funeral a couple of years ago.”
Myrtis Waguespack smiled, but her eyes were simmering. “Why no, you must be mistaken, Fannie dear. I had it made for Winnie’s party, but thank you for noticing.”
Wiley Waguespack stepped forward and nudged his mother out of the way. “Ibby, nice to see you again.”
Ibby’s eyes met Wiley’s as she shook his hand. She had danced with him at Winnie’s party last week. His cheeks carried the familiar Waguespack ruddiness, which was not very attractive on Winnie but was boyishly charming on her brother. Ibby couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“I think that’s the last of the guests. Let’s go join the party,” Fannie said.
Ibby lingered by the front door.
“Ibby dear, are you expecting someone else?” Fannie asked.
Ibby was still harboring the notion that her mother might show up. It was foolish, she knew.
She g
ave a small shake of her head. “No, Fannie. There’s no one else.”
Fannie went in to join the party, but Ibby hesitated, gazing through the glass in the front door as she pulled off her white gloves and tossed them onto the table in the front hall.
Doll came over with a tray. “What you doing standing here in the hall all alone?”
“No reason.” Ibby shrugged, taking one last glance at the door.
“Miss Ibby, you waiting for your mama to show up?” Doll asked. “Get that thought right on out of your head and get on in there and chase after that boy you got your eye on.” She nudged Ibby with her elbow.
“What boy?” Ibby said.
“You know darn well which one. I seen the way you looked at that Wiley fella when he came in. Now go on.”
Ibby noticed Sister Gertrude standing next to the bar sipping on an old-fashioned and talking animatedly with Fannie. She never did understand how the two could be friends. She wandered into the dining room and dipped a fried oyster into the bowl of cocktail sauce. She spotted Wiley Waguespack chatting with one of her classmates, Marcelle de Marigny, across the table. Ibby couldn’t hear what Marcelle was saying, but the ruddiness in Wiley’s cheeks had deepened. He glanced up for a moment but took no notice of Ibby.
Winnie came up and stood beside Ibby. “I see Marcelle is putting the moves on my brother.”
“He’s so handsome,” Ibby remarked.
“Well, you might as well forget about my brother.”
“Why, is he seeing someone?”
Winnie looked at her with exasperation. “Wiley told me he thought you were cute, but it would never work out.”
“Why not?”
“Because my brothers are only allowed to date good Catholic girls, that’s why.”
Ibby dropped the oyster back onto the platter, not caring if anyone noticed. “Will you excuse me?”
Ibby was trying hard to quell the urge to slap Winnie Waguespack as she wandered through the crowd. She spotted Emile Rainold entertaining a short bald man in conversation. Mr. Rainold was perspiring profusely, occasionally wiping his brow with the back of his hand. Across the way, Honey Friedrichs was flirting with their next-door neighbor Mr. Jeffreys. Ibby noticed Mr. Jeffreys’s diminutive wife, Inez, standing on the other side of the dining room, watching her husband’s antics.
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