Dollbaby: A Novel (22 page)

I
bby watched Birdelia’s skinny legs move with purpose beneath her marching uniform, the tassels on her boots flapping as she walked. She was intent on going somewhere, but it wasn’t the corner pharmacy.

“Where are you going?” Ibby asked. “Mozer’s is the other way.”

Birdelia gave her a sharp look. “You’ll see. Now come on, we don’t want to be late.”

On the way, they passed Annabelle Friedrichs’s house. It seemed unusually quiet. There were no cars in the driveway, and newspapers were stacked up on the front steps.

Birdelia cocked her head toward the house. “They gone.”

“Gone? Where?” Ibby asked as they hurried past.

“Heard my mama say that Miss Honey done took up with that neighbor fella, Mr. Jeffreys. Miss Honey’s husband found out, kicked her out. She and Miss Annabelle moved to an apartment down on Magazine Street last week.”

“Oh,” Ibby said. “I guess that’s not the kind of thing you hear about at school. Annabelle certainly didn’t mention it.”

“Bet not,” Birdelia said. “She the kind of person that pretends like her life is so perfect. She ain’t gone tell nobody that kind of thing.”

Ibby followed Birdelia up Jefferson Avenue, then up St. Charles
Avenue. When they reached Audubon Park, they crossed the street toward Tulane University and walked briskly through the campus until they reached Freret Street, where hordes of students were milling about in front of the ROTC building.

“What’s going on?” Ibby asked.

“They protesting the Vietnam War,” Birdelia said. “Mama told me to stay away. She don’t want no trouble, so don’t say nothing to her. You understand?”

Ibby and Birdelia fell in with the crowd that was heading down McAlister Drive. Ibby kept looking over her shoulder.

“You looking for somebody?” Birdelia asked.

“No,” Ibby replied.

Birdelia glanced over at Ibby as they made their way toward an open field just past the student union building. “She ain’t here.”

“Who?”

“Your mama, that’s who,” Birdelia said.

“How’d you know about my mother?” Ibby asked.

“My mama told me how Mr. Rainold came by and gave you a picture. He shouldn’t have said nothing. Now you got your hopes up, and I’m telling you, she ain’t here.”

“I don’t care if she is or not,” Ibby said defensively. “Besides, how do you know she’s not here?”

Birdelia stopped and put her hands on her hips. “Because I just do. And you do care, otherwise you wouldn’t be giving every person that passes us the once-over.”

Ibby shook her head. Birdelia was getting as bossy as her grandmother.

The edge of the field was crowded with students. Near the center, dozens of students wearing “Tulane Liberation Front” T-shirts were bantering around posters scribbled with antiwar sentiments like “Hell, No, We Won’t Go,” “I Want a Better America,” and “Whose War Is It?”

Birdelia waved her hand. “Stay with me, and whatever you do, don’t talk to none of the cops. They mean.”

Out of nowhere, one of the women began shouting, “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many babies have you killed today?”

Ibby glanced over at the student union building, where, on the second-floor balcony, onlookers gawked and cheered as campus security ordered the protesters to cease and desist. When they refused, kicking and spitting at the campus security, the New Orleans police charged in and began throwing them to the ground. People started running in every direction. In all the commotion, Birdelia somehow disappeared into the crowd.

“Here,” a young man said, shoving a copy of an underground newspaper into Ibby’s hand.

She was about to toss it onto the ground when a cartoon of a naked man on the front page caught her eye. She became so engrossed in the drawing that she didn’t notice a paddy wagon pull up nearby until a police whistle made her look up. She stuffed the newspaper into her back pocket and began searching for Birdelia as police handcuffed protesters and escorted them into the back of the wagon.

She finally spotted Birdelia standing on one of the metal benches that lined the perimeter of the field. The one black face in the all-white crowd, wearing a white sequined uniform, she stood out like a beacon, especially given the way she was waving her hands around.
Look behind you
, Birdelia mouthed to Ibby.

Ibby turned to find a woman in a scarf and sunglasses cruising down McAlister Drive in a red convertible, honking the horn and waving a “Bless Our Boys” poster. She was stealing the show from the protesters. Even the police turned to look. Birdelia was now running toward Ibby at full speed, shoving people out of the way to get to her.

“Look who it is!” Birdelia said, out of breath.

“Did you know Fannie was coming to the protest?” Ibby asked as she watched Fannie waving to the crowd.

Fannie put two fingers up to her mouth and gave out a sharp whistle.

“No—are you kidding?” Birdelia replied. “Didn’t know she could whistle like that neither.”

The students up on the balcony of the student union began to clap.

When Fannie stopped the car and got out, the crowd fell silent.

“Birdelia!” Fannie’s voice echoed across the field.

Birdelia hid behind Ibby. “What we gone do?”

Fannie gave out another earsplitting whistle. “Ibby Bell! Come on over here!”

The whole crowd turned to look their way.

“Just smile real casual and follow me,” Ibby said.

“But everybody is staring at us,” Birdelia whispered as they made their way to the car.

“Get in.” Fannie opened the door. “Birdelia, you stand up on the backseat and hold the sign. Ibby, wave your hands in the air and look proud.”

Ibby and Birdelia looked at each other as Fannie started down McAlister Drive, honking the horn. The crowd whistled and cheered as Birdelia waved the sign around like a flag.

Birdelia shouted at the top of her lungs, “My uncle T-Bone just got back from Vietnam! We mighty proud of him! You should be, too!”

When they turned off McAlister onto a side street, Birdelia fell down onto the seat, giggling hysterically.

“That was the funnest I had in a long time,” she said.

“Mind me asking what you two were doing there?” Fannie asked.

Ibby couldn’t tell by her tone if it was a question or an inquisition, so she let Birdelia do the talking.

Birdelia gave Fannie a wide grin. “We could ask you the same thing, Miss Fannie.”

“Fair enough,” Fannie said.

“We just happened to see people all going the same direction, so we followed them,” Birdelia said.

“Uh-huh,” Fannie said.

Ibby could tell she wasn’t buying it.

“What about you?” Birdelia asked. “Why you go?”

“We should support the boys that fight for this country, like T-Bone for instance,” Fannie said.

“Mama say not everybody thinks that way, especially about colored boys. Some say they don’t matter.”

“Exactly why I went,” Fannie said.

Birdelia tapped Fannie on the shoulder. “Miss Fannie, you can’t tell my mama. She gone tan my backside if she finds out I was at that protest. She told me not to go near it, afraid I might get arrested or something.”

Fannie patted Birdelia’s hand. “It’ll be our little secret.”

When they got home, Doll was standing at the back door, on the top step, with her hands on her hips. She peered down at Birdelia. “Where you all been?”

“Mozer’s,” Birdelia replied nonchalantly.

“For two hours?” Doll narrowed her eyes.

“Took our time.”

“Uh-huh.” Doll tapped her foot. “Where’s Miss Fannie’s lipstick, the one you were supposed to get for her?”

Birdelia’s eyes opened wide.

Without missing a beat, Fannie pulled a tube of lipstick from her purse and showed it to Doll. “She already gave it to me. I happened to see them walking from Mozer’s and gave them a ride home.”

“I see,” Doll said. “You girls better not be up to any mischief.”

“No, ma’am, we ain’t.” Birdelia brushed past Doll and went into the house.

“Where you think you’re going, Birdelia Trout? You march on upstairs and help me with the ironing,” Doll said. “And Miss Fannie, Wimbledon about to come on in about twenty minutes, the match you been wanting to see, the one between Margaret Smith Court and that woman who look like a man.”

Fannie glanced at her watch. “Where does the time go?” she said as she walked through the kitchen.

Ibby hurried behind Fannie into the front parlor. Queenie came in a few minutes later with two plates.

“It’s lunchtime, Miss Fannie. Made you a softshell po-boy, dressed the way you like.”

As she was putting the sandwiches on the coffee table, the midday news came on the television.

“There was a demonstration today on the Tulane campus. Hundreds of students protesting the war were led away in handcuffs,” the reporter said.

“Where is that thing?” Fannie began searching the folds of the couch.

The camera cut to a red convertible driving down McAlister Drive. Ibby held her breath as Queenie stepped closer to the TV.

“That Birdelia standing in the back of that car?” she asked.

By now, Fannie had found the clicker but was having trouble with the buttons.

Queenie leaned in. “Miss Fannie, that you driving that car?”

“What would I be doing at a protest?” Fannie said flatly as she pointed the clicker at the TV. The channel finally changed.

Ibby had to stifle a laugh.

Queenie gave Fannie a sideways glance. “I’m gone pretend I didn’t just see that.” As she turned to go, she called out over her shoulder, “By the way, Miss Fannie, guess you missed the word of the day.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Fannie asked.

“
Eccentric
. It means ‘unconventional and slightly strange.’ Might be a good word for me to know,” Queenie said, going back into the kitchen.

“Ha-ha.” Fannie changed the channel to the tennis match.

After the match was over, Ibby sneaked up to her room. She opened the window, turned on the fan, and sat on her bed among the dolls she’d gotten for each birthday since she’d been living with Fannie. She shoved them aside, wondering why Fannie gave her such a silly gift every year. She took the newspaper from her back pocket, carefully unfolded it, and laid it on the bed. The poorly mimeographed paper
was called
The Express,
an underground rag put out by a radical group on campus that was anti everything except drugs. Whenever she went anywhere near the Tulane campus, someone shoved a copy of
The Express
in her hands. She usually crumpled it up and threw it away without reading it. Not this time.

Ibby couldn’t take her eyes off the cartoon of the naked man with long hair and a scruffy beard. He had a peace sign tattooed on his rear end and a penis that stuck out farther than his feet. He was holding up a newspaper in one hand and little round glasses in the other. The caption read, “What kind of man reads
The Express
?” Ibby had never seen a naked man. The image was stirring up something in her. She turned the fan on her face, then went back to studying the cartoon.

She became vaguely aware of a noise just outside her window, but she was too absorbed in the newspaper to bother finding out what it was. It sounded like the branches of the oak tree scraping against the side of the house, so she paid it no mind. Then a banging on the other side of the wall caused clouds of dust to fall from the ceiling. She jumped up and was about to run from the room in a panic when she heard a voice.

“Miss Ibby, that you?” A young black man peered through the doorway. “T-Bone. Remember me?”

Ibby didn’t quite know what to think as T-Bone stepped lightly into the room. She never would have recognized him. She remembered him as a wiry teenager of sixteen full of bravado. He was now a man with a strong, sure face. Birdelia had told her that Vietnam had changed T-Bone, made him different, more serious.

“What are you doing up here?” Ibby stuffed the newspaper into her pocket.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, Miss Ibby. I was sanding down the house to prep it for painting when I ran across a window hidden under the turret roof. When I crawled in, I found an empty room and a door with no handle. So I pried the door open with a crowbar.” He looked down at his feet. “Didn’t think nobody was up here.”