Dollbaby: A Novel (20 page)

As Ibby opened it to the page that showed her class, Queenie leaned
in to get a better look. “Who drew that big black mustache on your face, Miss Ibby?”

Ibby rolled her eyes. “Who do you think?”

Just then Doll came into the kitchen, humming. Doll hadn’t changed much. She still had a penchant for red nail polish and liked to wear her hair piled high on her head, although today she’d straightened her hair with Morgan’s Hair Refining Cream and rolled it under neatly at the bottom. Ibby thought the hairstyle made her look much younger than her twenty-seven years.

Doll leaned over to get a glimpse. “Miss Ibby, why you let that Annabelle do stuff like that to you?”

“I don’t
let
her. She’s just mean.”

“Girl, I’d knock her upside the head if I was you,” Doll said. “I wouldn’t take none of that from nobody.”

Queenie patted Ibby’s hand. “You still the prettiest gal in the class. Even with that big mustache.”

Ibby put her head down on the table. “No, I’m not. Y’all are just trying to make me feel better.”

“Did you hear that, Doll? She said y’all! Miss Ibby, you is one of us now!” Queenie ran her fingers through Ibby’s long brown hair. “You know, people would give their eyeteeth for hair like yours. You got a right nice figure with good-size titties for a girl your age. Got those from your grandmother.”

“Mama, don’t talk that way to Miss Ibby,” Doll scolded.

“Well, it’s true.” Queenie laughed. “You all growed up, Miss Ibby. Could pass for a young woman of twenty, not a young girl about to turn sixteen.”

Ibby waved her hand. “Not according to Fannie. I don’t think she’ll ever let me grow up.”

“That’s ’cause if you grow up, Miss Fannie thinks she gone grow old, and she don’t like being old. Could be the reason she done gone out and bought herself that new car this morning.”

Ibby stole a glance out the back window. “That big red convertible? That’s Fannie’s?”

“And that’s not all,” Doll chimed in. “Wait until you see the TV she done bought for herself on the way back from buying the car.”

“A brand new
color
TV,” Queenie gushed. “Come with a little clicker device so she can change the channels from where she sitting on the couch. She say she paid almost as much for the TV as she did for that new car, just so that she could get that channel changer that come with it.”

“I wonder why?” Ibby said.

“You do things like that when you’re old, just to make yourself feel young again. Ain’t that so, Doll?”

“How would I know?” she said. “But Mama, you what—close to sixty-five? When you gone get a new car?”

“Didn’t I tell you? Miss Fannie done give Crow her old blue Cadillac this morning. He already come over and picked it up. Bet he’s driving all over town right now showing it off.”

“How old is Miss Fannie? She old as you?” Doll asked.

“No, no. Miss Fannie, she a bit younger, maybe fifty-six last time I took a count.”

“That gone make her an old fart in a red Cadillac,” Doll chuckled.

“I wouldn’t say nothing like that around Miss Fannie.” Queenie pointed a finger at Doll. “No woman likes to be reminded about her age.”

“Queenie, is Ibby home yet?” Fannie called out from the dining room.

“She just got here!” Queenie yelled back. “I’ll send her right in.”

Queenie came over and gave Ibby a squeeze around the shoulders. “Now, you better get on in there, Miss Ibby. Mr. Rainold and Miss Fannie, they got something they want to tell you.”

“Why is Mr. Rainold here?” Ibby asked as Queenie guided her toward the door.

Emile Rainold was Fannie’s longtime attorney who came over once
or twice a year to go over business matters. Ibby should have recognized his black Town Car in the driveway.

“Never you mind,” Queenie said.

But Ibby could tell by the way Queenie was averting her eyes that there was something she wasn’t telling her.

D
oll opened the door a smidgen so she could listen in on Fannie’s conversation with Mr. Rainold.

Queenie motioned for Doll to get away from the door. “Come back over here.”

She put her finger up to her mouth. “Hush, Mama. I want to hear what Mr. Rainold’s got to say. You know what it’s about?”

Queenie took in a deep breath. “Miss Fannie, she’s afraid her worst nightmare is about to come true.”

“What you mean?” Doll whispered.

“Just listen, baby,” Queenie said without looking up from the crab she was cleaning.

Doll could see Mr. Rainold sitting at the table in a blue pin-striped seersucker suit with a red paisley bow tie and a rumpled white cotton button-down shirt. She often wondered if that was his only suit, or if he owned a closet full of identical suits so he wouldn’t have to decide which one to put on each day. The only thing that ever seemed to change about Emile Rainold was his shoes—white bucks in the spring and summer, and brown suede bucks in the fall and winter. His straw fedora lay on the table next to his briefcase as he flipped through some papers, his cheeks billowing in and out like a puffer fish as he sucked on his pipe. Every so often he would push his gold wire-rimmed
glasses up the bridge of his nose and smooth back his wavy gray hair with the palm of his other hand. He and Fannie were still arguing as Ibby took a seat across the table from him.

“That Mr. Rainold, he sure looks like he could use a good bath,” Doll whispered.

“He’s always been like that,” Queenie said. “Most of the time, his face is glistening like he done stuck his head in the oven.”

“He’s getting up in age. He looks older than Miss Fannie. Why you suppose he never married?”

Queenie dropped her hands and looked over at Doll. “Girl, why you think? He ain’t interested in no ladies.”

Doll couldn’t help but let out a laugh. Mr. Rainold must have heard her because he glanced her way. Doll eased the door closed an inch or two, not wanting to be seen.

“Nothing has changed, Fannie. The law is the law,” Mr. Rainold said.

“Emile, are you sure?” Fannie squinted one eye.

“Miss Fannie looks like she wants to jump right up out of her chair and wring Mr. Rainold’s neck. I wonder why?” Doll said to Queenie.

“On account she don’t like it when he tells her no.” Queenie shrugged. “They been in there a good two hours before Miss Ibby got home from school, arguing about something. What’s Miss Ibby doing?”

“She’s just sitting in her chair, listening,” Doll said.

Fannie spoke to him in a stern voice. “Vidrine left Ibby here and never came back. She hasn’t once corresponded with her daughter in four years. Can’t we do
something
?”

Emile Rainold peered over his glasses. “The only way to gain legal custody is to petition the court and ask it to declare Vidrine an unfit mother by proving she poses a threat to Ibby.”

“Well, she
did
abandon Ibby,” Fannie said.

“That’s not the issue. The issue is whether Vidrine poses a threat. She hasn’t been around her daughter in years. The only way to claim
she might be a threat is to say she left her daughter
with
someone who might be a threat.”

“You mean me?” Fannie balked.

“I’m just telling you the way the courts might see it, should you try to pursue it.” Mr. Rainold tapped his pipe in the ashtray and filled it with more tobacco. “The court wouldn’t view leaving Ibby with her grandmother as abandonment, in light of the fact that you agreed to take her for an unspecified amount of time. We just had no idea it would be indefinitely.”

“Why don’t we file a petition anyway and see what happens?” Fannie asked.

“The problem is, I have to know where Vidrine is living in order to serve the papers.”

Mr. Rainold’s empty coffee cup clicked against the saucer.

“Mama,” Doll whispered. “Mr. Rainold needs more coffee.”

She grabbed the silver coffeepot and brushed past Doll into the dining room.

“It appears Vidrine has gone peripatetic,” Mr. Rainold said.

“Yeah, pathetic,” Queenie said as she refilled his cup.

Mr. Rainold grinned. “Perhaps
pathetic
is right, Queenie, but what I said was
peripatetic
. It means Vidrine doesn’t appear to have a permanent address.”

Queenie turned to go, stopping just short of the kitchen door. “That’s what I said. Pathetic.”

Fannie crossed her arms and sat back. “So what you’re telling me is that Vidrine could walk in that door any minute and take Ibby away.”

“I’m afraid so. The law remains on the side of the mother.”

“So if I died tomorrow and left this house to Ibby, it would fall into the hands of her legal guardian until she’s eighteen, and as of right now, that’s Vidrine.”

“Yes, Fannie, that’s true, but . . .” He tapped his pencil on the table as if he were about to make a point.

“Then I better not die anytime soon.”

He puffed on his pipe. “Not for at least two years, Fannie.”

Doll stifled a laugh and whispered to her mother, “Mr. Rainold’s trying to make a joke, but Fannie’s not laughing.”

Mr. Rainold looked over at Ibby. “There’s something your grandmother and I were discussing before you got here, something I think you should know.”

“Please, Emile. Is this really necessary?” Fannie asked.

“I feel I have an obligation to tell her,” he said to Fannie before turning his attention back to Ibby. “One of my detectives thinks he may have spotted your mother recently.”

Ibby’s hand flew to her mouth. Her elbow accidentally hit a pedestal, sending a vase crashing to the floor.

“Lawd,” Doll whispered.

“What was that?” Queenie asked.

“That ugly old Chinese vase,” Doll said. “Done broke into a thousand pieces when Mr. Rainold told Ibby about her mama.”

“Don’t matter,” Queenie said. “Miss Fannie always hated that vase. It came with the house.”

“I wish you wouldn’t have said anything, Emile,” Fannie said.

“Ibby, I want you to take a look at this.” Mr. Rainold slid a photograph across the table. “One of my detectives took it a few days ago. We’re not a hundred percent positive it’s your mother. Could be someone who just looks like her.”

“You mean my mother is here, in New Orleans?” she asked.

Mr. Rainold said, “That photo was taken on Ursulines Street in the French Quarter, in front of a building owned by a middle-aged woman named Maude Hopper, who calls herself Avi. She’s well known around the French Quarter, a flamboyant nutcase who runs a sort of free-wheeling boardinghouse for transients.”

Ibby was studying the photo hard. Doll could see her hands were shaking.

“It’s obvious I’ve upset you, Ibby. I’m sorry. I only mentioned it in case Vidrine shows up unannounced. As I said, we’re not even sure if
the woman in the photo is Vidrine.” He looked at his watch. “Oh gosh, look at the time. I’m sorry to have to rush off, but I’m late for another appointment.”

Fannie saw Mr. Rainold to the door.

Doll turned toward her mother. “You don’t think Miss Vidrine’s planning on showing up here, do you, Mama?”

“It’ll break Miss Fannie’s heart if Miss Vidrine comes back and take Miss Ibby away.” Queenie put her face in her hands, then looked over at Doll. “She come back here, she asking for trouble.”

A
fter Emile Rainold left, Fannie came back into the dining room and grabbed Ibby’s hand.

“Come on,” she said. “We’re going for a ride.”

When they got in the car, Fannie tied a scarf around her hair and backed out of the driveway, sending oyster-shell gravel flying in all directions. She turned onto St. Charles Avenue, puffing furiously on a cigarette. Ibby looked over at Fannie, wondering where they were going in such a hurry.

Fannie had kept her hair dyed a soft auburn ever since that day they went to Antoine’s for Ibby’s twelfth birthday, and she’d made a concerted effort to keep up her appearance, wearing smartly tailored dresses that Doll made for her. Today she had on rouge and lipstick. Ibby could tell she was thinking hard about something.

It wasn’t until they got to the river bend, where St. Charles Avenue meets Carrollton, that Fannie finally spoke: “I know you’re probably a little unnerved, hearing your mother might be in town.”

The truth was, Ibby wasn’t sure how she felt about her mother, but she didn’t want to upset Fannie by giving a wrong answer. “I don’t know.”

“Do you like living with me?”

Fannie’s question made Ibby pause. “Of course I do, but . . . wouldn’t I have to go with my mother if she said I had to?”

Fannie flicked her cigarette out onto the street. After a while, she handed Ibby an envelope. “Here. This came for you today.”

Ibby noticed the envelope had been opened.

“I know I had no right to open it, but I was afraid after what Mr. Rainold told me this morning that it might have been from your mother. It’s not.”

Ibby slid the card from the envelope, admiring the blue linen paper with the white embossed lettering. “Oh. It’s an invitation to Winnie Waguespack’s sweet sixteen party. She told me about it on the ride home from school today.”

“You have a birthday coming up, too. That invitation gave me an idea. I’m going to throw you your own sweet sixteen party.”

“A party? For me?”

“Yes, dear. I’ve already arranged for T-Bone to start painting the house.”

T-Bone had just gotten back from Vietnam a few weeks ago and was looking for work. Ibby hadn’t seen him since that day at the True Love Baptist Church all those years ago. She wondered what he looked like now.

“Ibby darling, did you hear what I just said? We need to make a list,” Fannie went on. “I will invite your classmates, of course. And Sister Gertrude.”

Ibby’s head shot around. “Sister Gertrude? Why on earth would we invite Sister Gertrude? She’ll ruin the whole party. No one will come if they know she’s invited.”

“Don’t be silly,” Fannie said.

“It’s true, Fannie. Everyone hates Sister Gertrude.” Ibby crossed her arms and let out a harrumph.

“Now, dear, Sister Gertrude was one of the first people I met when I came to New Orleans. She went out of her way to be nice to me when I didn’t know anybody. It would be rude of me not to invite her.”

“How exactly do you know Sister Gertrude anyway?”

“She taught me how to dance.”

Ibby balked. “Sister Gertrude knows how to dance?”

“She’s quite good at it, or at least she used to be. A lot of things about Sister Gertrude might surprise you. She wasn’t always a nun, you know.” Fannie glanced her way. “Now, how about boys? Do you know any boys?”

“Not really,” Ibby said.

Fannie tapped the steering wheel with her thumb. “That just won’t do.”

“Well, you
did
send me to an all-girls school. How am I supposed to meet boys?”

“How indeed.” Fannie appeared to be thinking on it. “We’ll have to come up with a list. Winnie Waguespack has a couple of brothers, doesn’t she? I’ll get Doll to see if she can borrow the De La Salle school directory without Winnie’s mother knowing about it.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

“Her maid Bertha comes to the house every morning to place Myrtis Waguespack’s bets. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Ibby fingered the dashboard. It was full of fancy new features, such as automatic temperature control and an eight-track tape player. “What made you go out and buy a new car?”

Fannie gave out a sigh. “When I got off the train from Mamou all those years ago, just a starry-eyed young girl with no money in her pocket, the first thing that caught my eye was a beautiful red Packard convertible. I promised myself that one day I’d buy myself a big red convertible just like that one. When I woke up this morning, I knew this was the day.”

“Why today?”

Fannie shrugged. “I don’t know. I probably should have done it a long time ago.”

“Will I ever get to drive it?”

“All in due time, dear,” Fannie said, flicking her cigarette out of the car.

They were passing through Mid-City, where the Victorian houses and Arts and Crafts bungalows soon gave way to dozens of cemeteries.

“They call these cemeteries ‘cities of the dead’ because the raised tombs resemble miniature houses from a distance.” Fannie turned in to one of the cemeteries lined by an old iron fence. “When the Spanish first settled in the city soon after the French, they found that when they buried the dead, the water table pushed the bodies back up from the graves. Burying the dead above ground seemed the only way. Look at that one there, with the pillars. Isn’t it lovely?”

They meandered through the cemetery on a narrow lane and eventually parked in front of a small gray marble tomb with a domed top, the entrance flanked by two columns. On either side of the steps leading up to the tomb were copper vases that had faded to a pleasing green patina. Ibby noticed there were fresh flowers in the urns, white lilies, Fannie’s favorite. Above the entrance to the tomb, Ibby could make out two names—Balfour and Norwood. Queenie had told her never to ask Fannie about her grandfather Norwood. And the last time Balfour’s name was mentioned, the day hadn’t ended so well.

Fannie wandered over to a stone bench nestled beneath an oak tree.

“Come sit by me.” Fannie undid her scarf. “Isn’t it nice here? I planted this tree when Balfour died. It must be almost thirty years old now.”

Ibby waited to see if Fannie’s hand would shake at the mention of Balfour’s name, the way it often did when she was thinking about someone she loved who’d died, but Fannie seemed calm, almost at peace in the cemetery.

“Do you come here often?” Ibby asked.

“Whenever I can,” Fannie said. “See those pelicans circling overhead? They’re always here when I come. I often wonder if they followed Norwood from the river.” She was quiet as she watched the birds glide across the sky. “He was a tugboat captain, you know.”

“No, Fannie. You’ve never told me much about Grandfather Norwood.”

“He knew the river like the back of his hand.” She looked away, as if gathering the strength to talk. “Your grandfather had names for all the pelicans on the Mississippi River. Oh, how he loved those pelicans. Sometimes I used to think he loved those pelicans more than he loved me.”

A few days after they were married, Norwood took Fannie down to the river, to see his tugboat. They stood on the pier, admiring it together.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” He waved his hand at the boat, the
Pelican II.

Fannie had seen the tugs only from a distance, on the river, where they were mere specks behind the massive barges they pushed. She’d never been on one and was surprised at how big it was and how low it sat in the river, only three or four feet above the water.

“Over a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide. The wheelhouse sits way up high like that so you can navigate the river. You feel like you’re in a crow’s nest when you’re up there. Come on. I’ll take you for a ride.” He jumped into the boat and dangled his hands over the side. “Give me your hand, and I’ll pull you up.”

He lifted her up as the breeze from the river tousled her hair. The wake from a passing ocean liner jostled Fannie. She reached behind her, looking for something to hold on to.

“Be careful, honey.” He grabbed her elbow to steady her. “I’d sure hate to lose my bride the first week we were married.”

She followed him across the deck to the wheelhouse, then up the steep metal steps. He held open the wheelhouse door for her as she stepped inside.

“This is my home away from home,” Norwood said as he plucked his captain’s hat from a shelf and placed it on Fannie’s head. He took her hand and pulled her over to the podium where the wheel was mounted. “You want to drive, honey?”

“Oh, no. I’m not even good at driving a car,” she said, fingering the pearls around her neck, the ones Norwood had given her as a wedding
present. She took the captain’s hat and placed it on Norwood’s head. “You show me how.”

A few seconds later one of the deckhands appeared at the wheelhouse door.

“Captain Woody, I brought you them bucket of fish you asked me to. Left it up against the side of the wheelhouse in the front of the boat.”

Fannie smiled at Norwood. She’d never heard anyone call him Woody before.

“Listen, Chappy, I want to take my new bride out for a spin, show her the river. You got some time?”

“Sure, Cap,” he said.

“Once I get the boat out, think you could handle her while I go on deck for a few minutes?”

The young man’s eyes lit up.

“All right then.” Norwood pressed a button and moved a lever forward.

The engine revved, sending muddy water gurgling from beneath the boat. Norwood guided the boat out onto the river. After a few minutes, he gave a signal to Chappy to come over and take the wheel. “Bring her just beyond the bend at Algiers Point, then turn her around.”

Chappy took the wheel. “No problem, Cap.”

Norwood slipped a life jacket over Fannie’s head. “Here, put this on and tie it up tight.”

“Aren’t you going to put one on?” she asked as she slid the ropes through the metal fasteners on the life jacket.

He shook his head. “You don’t want to make me out to be a sissy in front of Chappy, do you? Now come on.”

She followed him down the steps. He motioned for her to go toward the bow. The boat was so low in the water that the waves were lapping over the edge. She hesitated.

“Hold on,” Norwood instructed, pointing to the small metal railing that ran the length of the wheelhouse.

Fannie held on with both hands, stepping sideways along the wheelhouse wall as he steadied her. When they got to the front, water was splashing over the sides of the boat. She was scared out of her wits but didn’t want to let on.

“Hold on to the back of my belt,” he said as he picked up the bucket of mullet Chappy had left for him.

She followed him out onto the bow, holding on tight. Norwood grabbed her arms and pulled them around his waist.

Between the roar of the engine and the sounds of the river raging by, he had to holler for her to hear. “Don’t let go!”

“Don’t worry,” she said, leaning her head against his back, glad now for the life jacket.

After a few moments, Norwood gave Chappy the sign to cut the engine. The boat leveled off, traveling close to the far bank of the river at a steady cruising pace. As the engine died down, Fannie was able to let go and stand on her own. She gazed at the river, how it seemed to swirl about instead of flowing by, crashing up against the side of the boat from all directions.