Dollbaby: A Novel (36 page)

She wandered over to the next door, to her father’s old room, and
opened the door. She rubbed her hands over her arms. It had been eight years since her father died. It seemed a lifetime ago. So many things had changed since then. She let her hand linger on the knob before heading over to Balfour’s room. When she tried the handle, it was also unlocked. The room appeared to have been left untouched since the day Balfour died. There were bubblegum wrappers crumpled up on the table beside the bed, and a pair of shorts lying on the floor. Except for the spiderweb hanging from the ceiling fan, it looked as if Balfour had just gone down the hall to take a bath. She felt the room was still waiting for him, so she left the door open.

“You’re all free now,” she said.

D
oll and Queenie were in the kitchen cleaning up after everyone left.

Queenie was at the sink washing dishes. “Let me ask you something, Doll. Miss Fannie, she say anything to you before she left in her car that day? You know, anything peculiar like?”

Doll dried the dishes as Queenie handed them to her. “Well, she say she thought I ought to open my own business, a dressmaking shop, but it weren’t the first time she brought that up. Why, Mama, she say something to you?”

“She said it about time I retire,” Queenie said. “Retire. Can you imagine?”

“Well, you are getting up in years, Mama. You almost seventy. And you been working since you were eleven years old.”

“What that got to do with it? How was I gone retire with Miss Fannie around?” Queenie leaned on the counter. “You think she drove off into the lake on purpose?”

Doll quit drying the dish she was holding and stared at the ground.

“You know something you ain’t telling me?”

Doll nodded.

“Spit it out.” Queenie wiped her hands on her apron.

“Mama, sit down,” Doll said.

“Just tell me.”

“No, Mama. Come sit. You’re not gone believe.”

She sat down at the table and Doll came and sat next to her. “Doll, you got that look in your eyes. She say something to you that day?”

Doll pulled Fannie’s pearls from her pocket and held them in the palm of her hand.

“What you doing with those? I thought they were lost when Miss Fannie went into the lake.”

“No, Mama. She done give them to me that morning.”

“Why she do that?”

“She called me into her room while she was getting dressed. Said she wanted to talk to me.”

The day started like any other. Miss Fannie was in her room getting dressed before Mr. Henry came by to take her bets. Doll was passing in the hall when Miss Fannie called out to her.

“Doll, that you?”

“Yes, Miss Fannie.”

“Come in here a moment, will you?”

Doll stopped, wondering why Miss Fannie was being so polite. She usually just yelled Doll’s name out as loud as she could so Doll would come running.

Doll stuck her head in the door. “You need something?”

Fannie was at her dressing table, staring at herself in the mirror. She motioned for Doll to come over.

“What you want?” Doll stood just inside the door. She wasn’t in the mood to listen to any of Fannie’s foolishness this morning.

“I just want to talk to you,” Fannie said.

“Well, hurry up ’cause I got lots of things to do.”

“Please, Doll. Come over here.”

Doll’s eyes grew wide. Miss Fannie never said “please.”

Fannie was holding her pearls.

“You need me to help you put your pearls on? That it?” Doll asked.

“You know how much these pearls mean to me,” Fannie was saying.

“’Course I do. Mr. Norwood give them to you on your wedding day. Not a day you ain’t had them on since.”

Doll was afraid Fannie was about to launch into the story of how Mr. Norwood had given her the pearls. But Fannie just sat there, staring at the string of pearls in her hand.

“Miss Fannie, something wrong? You thinking about Mr. Norwood?”

Fannie looked up at her with steely eyes. There was something funny about those eyes today.

“No, Doll, I was thinking about you,” she said.

“Me? Why you thinking about me?”

“Kneel down.”

“What? Why?” Doll thought it was an odd request, even coming from Miss Fannie.

“I want to talk to you face-to-face,” Fannie said.

“Well, okay, but you could stand up, you know,” Doll said as she dropped to her knees.

“I know how much you’ve always admired these pearls,” Fannie said.

“Well, yeah. So?”

“Give me your hand.”

Miss Fannie is acting mighty strange this morning,
Doll thought as she held out her palm.

Fannie placed the pearls in her hand. “I want you to have them.”

“What? No!” She tried to give them back. “You love them pearls.”

“That’s why I want you to have them.” Fannie closed Doll’s fingers around them and placed her hand on top of hers. “Because I love you.”

“Miss Fannie, you just feeling all sentimental this morning,” Doll said, trying to put the pearls back on the dresser.

Fannie waved her off. “Doll, I mean it. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I want you to have them.”

“Well, okay.” She stuck them in her pocket, sure Miss Fannie was going to change her mind later in the day. “I’ll just keep them for you until you want them back.”

“You do that,” Fannie said as she put on some lipstick. “And I want you to start thinking about that dress shop you’ve been wanting to open. Now is as good a time as any, don’t you think?”

Queenie shook her head. “Why didn’t you say nothing?”

“What I’m gone say, Mama? If I had told you, you would have thought the same thing I did, that she was just having one of her moments and was gone ask for them pearls back when she returned.”

“And she never came back,” Queenie mumbled.

“No, she didn’t,” Doll said, looking down at the pearls in her hand.

Queenie stood up and kissed her on the head. “I’m glad she gave them to you. You deserve them.”

“Yeah, but Mama, what’s Miss Ibby gone say? Miss Fannie should have given them to her.”

“We’ll let her know when the time is right. But not today. Just keep it to yourself until we can figure out how to tell her.”

“Think I should just give them to her, pretend Miss Fannie never gave them to me?” Doll asked.

“No, baby. Miss Fannie wanted you to have them. Miss Ibby will understand, once we tell her.”

“Okay, if you say so.” Doll put the pearls back in her pocket.

“When the time comes, we’ll tell her,” Queenie said. “I just got to figure out when that might be.”

I
bby was sound asleep at her apartment when the phone rang the next morning.

“Mama wants you to come by our house,” Doll said. “And she wants you to bring one of them dolls.”

“What? Why?” Ibby asked.

“She just do. Don’t matter which one,” Doll said.

“Okay, but I have to go over to Fannie’s house to pick one up. They’re up in my room where I left them when I moved out.”

“No hurry, just come when you can,” Doll said.

When Ibby pulled up in front of the house on Prytania Street, the weathervane on the roof was spinning around so fast the horse looked as if it were chasing its own tail.

“Well, I guess you’re free too,” Ibby said as she got out of the car.

She went in through the front door and stood in the hall. It was strange being in this house, all alone, the only sound coming from the swaying of the pendulum of the grandfather clock. The dining room table where Fannie usually sat in the mornings was empty, not even a place setting. Ibby caught her reflection in the gold-leaf mirror over the fireplace, just the way she had that first day when her mother dropped her off. She’d been a scared little girl who thought her life was
ending. She was staring back as a grown woman now who knew that her life hadn’t ended that day—it had just started.

Ibby went upstairs to her old room. She hadn’t been up here in two years, not since she’d moved out to go to college. Her record player was still sitting on the dresser, an album still in it. There had always been a funny smell to the room. Doll called it “that old house smell” that lingered no matter how much she tried to disguise it with Pine-Sol or room fresheners.

Ibby went into the turret room, where all the dolls Fannie had given her were sitting on the bed, leaning against the wall, staring back at her with unblinking eyes. There were seven of them, one for each birthday up until she started college. Ibby couldn’t imagine what Queenie wanted with the dolls. Maybe she was just feeling sentimental about Fannie this morning and wanted something else to remember her by.

When Ibby got to the Trouts’ home, Birdelia was waiting for her on the porch. She ushered Ibby inside with a sleepy half-smile. Crow was having coffee at a small dinette table.

“Morning, Miss Ibby,” he said wearily as he got up to greet her.

Ibby motioned for him to sit back down. “How is everybody?”

“All tuckered out,” he said. “But in one piece. That’s what counts.”

“Look, Miss Ibby.” Birdelia pointed at something on a table next to Fannie’s old television that had found a home near the far wall. “You like it?”

Ibby let out a small laugh when she realized she was looking at the bust of Fannie, adorned with a felt fedora and Mardi Gras beads.

Doll came toward them, dressed in a pair of slacks and a sleeveless green turtleneck. “Don’t tell Mama. She ain’t noticed.”

“Not yet, but she gonna soon enough,” Birdelia chuckled.

“Mama’s back in her room lying down. She still a little worn out from yesterday.”

“I can come back,” Ibby offered.

“No, no. She has something she wants to say.” Doll motioned for Ibby to follow her. When they got to the back of the house, Doll stuck her head in the door. “Mama, Miss Ibby’s here.”

Queenie waved Ibby inside. “Come over here, baby. Please excuse me for not getting up.”

The room smelled of lilac and mothballs. Queenie was still in her nightgown, her gray hair hanging loosely around her neck. Ibby cautiously sat on the edge of the bed, holding the doll that she’d asked her to bring.

“I remember that first time you came to visit Miss Fannie. You were a shy little thing. Had that Captain Kangaroo haircut, just like your grandmother. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. I was terrified,” Ibby said. “Mama had convinced me that Fannie was a witch.”

“Fannie was many things, but a witch wasn’t one of them,” Queenie chuckled. Then she grew serious. “Speaking of your mama. Listen, child, I know your mama passed a few years ago. I’m sorry.”

“Doll told you?”

“Sure she did. Miss Fannie knew, too. Mr. Rainold told her not too long after you found out. But Miss Fannie, she never said nothing on account you told Doll not to say anything. Maybe that’s why she never told you.”

“Told me what?”

“About all them birthday dolls, baby. Didn’t you ever wonder why she kept giving you dolls for your birthday?”

“Well, yeah, I thought it was odd, but after I got to know Fannie, it didn’t seem so strange anymore.”

“Believe she stopped giving you them dolls when you turned eighteen. There was a reason for that.”

“I don’t understand,” Ibby said.

“Miss Fannie wanted to make sure them dolls were kept in a safe place, up in that little attic room of yours, until the right time come.”
She shook her head. “She hoped you’d live in that house after she was gone, you know.” A pained look came across her face.

Ibby put her hand on Queenie’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? Are you worried that if I don’t move back into the house, you won’t have a job?”

Queenie crinkled up her forehead. “Oh, no, Miss Ibby. That ain’t it at all. My back’s just aching a little. I’m old. Maybe it’s time for me to retire. Been working in that house for close to fifty years, you know.”

“Are you worried about the money if you retire?”

“Oh, no, baby. It ain’t about money. Miss Fannie, she took real good care of us. She took care of you, too, in her own way.”

“‘In her own way’—that’s a good way of putting it.”

Queenie shook her head. “No, baby, you don’t understand. After your daddy passed, Miss Fannie was afraid Miss Vidrine might have plans to move into the house and take over. That was one thing she swore she’d never let happen. So the day you arrived, she came up with a plan to make sure your mama wouldn’t get her hands on any of your inheritance.” Queenie opened the drawer to her bedside table and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Now, hand me that doll.”

She lifted up the doll’s dress, put the sharp end of the scissors into the fabric, and jerked down until the doll split open.

Ibby gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Where you think all your grandmother’s money disappear to?” She pushed her hand inside the doll and began to pull out wads of cash. “She hid everything in here, up until you turned of age. That way no one could take it away from you.”

Ibby’s mouth fell open. “They always did have an odd smell about them. It was the money!”

“We held our breath all those years, afraid you gone figure it out, but after a while, when you quit paying attention to them dolls, we didn’t worry about it no more. So like I said, Miss Fannie done took real good care of you.”

“Who came up with the idea of making dolls?”

“Miss Fannie never did trust banks. You know that. She hid most of her money in the walls, or in boxes in her closet, or anywhere else she could think of. She knew Doll could sew something right pretty for you. So she had her make them dolls.”

“How much is there?”

“My recollection? Pert near a hundred thousand dollars each doll,” Queenie said. “And that don’t even count the jewelry and stock certificates she got tucked in here.” She pulled an envelope from the doll and handed it to Ibby. “Miss Fannie invested in the oil business early on. Believe those stock certificates for Esso worth a fortune.”

“I want you to keep some of it.” Ibby pushed the pile of money her way. “It’s only fair.”

Queenie pushed it back. “That’s your inheritance, Miss Ibby. We done just fine by Miss Fannie. Bought us this house. Gave Crow that car. Doll’s been talking about opening her own dress shop for years—she even got a spot picked out over on St. Claude Avenue. Miss Fannie gave her the money to do that a long time ago, she just never got around to it. And Birdelia, she’s in college. First one in the Trout family to earn a college degree! Imagine that! And T-Bone? He’s off doing what he always wanted to do, playing music all over the world. No, Miss Ibby. We don’t need that money.”

Ibby wiped a tear from her cheek.

“No need for tears, Miss Ibby. But there is one more thing. Miss Fannie made me swear not to tell you as long as she was alive. Well, she ain’t here no more, God bless her soul, and it’s about time you knew the truth. Remember the night you found us in that hole in the front yard looking for them bones?”

“Of course I do. You told me the story of Muddy.”

Queenie squeezed her hand. “That weren’t the end of the story, baby.” Queenie went on. “You remember how I told you Miss Fannie locked herself in her room after Mr. Norwood fell into the river? I came to the house every day after that, talked to her through the bedroom door, left meals for her. And every day I’d come back to find the
empty tray outside her door. This went on for a long time, baby. Months. Until one day I heard screams coming from Miss Fannie’s room. The neighbors, they probably thought she was just having one of her spells. But I could tell this was different.”

The first thing Queenie smelled when she opened the back door was the metallic scent of blood. She rushed down the hall to Fannie’s bedroom door and banged on it. When there was no answer, Queenie tried the handle. To her surprise, it was unlocked. When she opened the door, she found Fannie in bed, lying on her back. Even with the sheets pulled up, there was no missing that big belly.

“Lawd, Miss Fannie. Why you never say nothing?”

When Queenie threw the covers back, she found Fannie covered in blood. She suspected the reason Fannie was in so much pain was that the baby was breech. She knew she needed to do something quickly or she was going to lose both Fannie and the baby. She hurried to the bathroom, grabbed some towels, and soaked a washcloth in some warm water.

When she came back into the room, she placed the folded washcloth on Fannie’s forehead. “Here, Miss Fannie. Hold this on your forehead. Make you feel better.”

Fannie grabbed it and threw it onto the floor.

“Listen to me, Miss Fannie. I’m gone have to turn this baby before it’ll come out. Understand?”

Queenie had her hand on Fannie’s stomach, feeling for the head. When she found it, she nudged the baby around by pressing on Fannie’s stomach on either side of her belly. Fannie let out another scream. She was sweating profusely.