Dollbaby: A Novel (19 page)

M
ost of the girls at Our Lady of the Celestial Realm had known each other since preschool and were from good Catholic families, a phrase that tumbled from their lips like one long word,
good-Catholic-families
. There were few exceptions. In Ibby’s sophomore class of twenty-five girls, there was only one non-Catholic—Ibby Bell. As far as Ibby could tell, the only reason she’d been accepted at Our Lady of the Celestial Realm was because Fannie knew the head nun, Sister Gertrude, although Fannie never would explain the connection. That was four years ago.

Today was the last day of school, and the girls were lined up like dominoes, in identical uniforms of green plaid skirts and white poplin blouses with initials monogrammed on their collars, as they made their way toward the chapel for the final prayer service. Ibby kept her head down in an effort to avoid being noticed by Sister Gertrude, who was trudging up and down the line like a drill sergeant, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking against the waxed-wood floor. Close to six feet tall, with piercing green eyes and thin lips that were forever pursed, Sister Gertrude could scare away the devil himself.

“Girls, girls, quiet!” she huffed.

The sound of Sister Gertrude’s booming voice was usually enough to make the girls stand at attention, but not today, with only an hour
before school let out for the summer. Our Lady of the Celestial Realm wasn’t air-conditioned, and the open windows along the hallway leading into the chapel offered no respite, serving only to let in the stifling May heat and a few hungry flies. The girls were getting punchy and restless.

“Silence! If I have to say it again, detentions for each and every one of you.”

Ibby held her breath as Sister Gertrude stopped beside her and tapped a ruler against her habit. The nun put out her hand to the girl in line in front of Ibby.

“Janice Jumonville, spit out that gum.”

The startled schoolgirl leaned over and let a gob of pink bubblegum drop into Sister Gertrude’s open palm. Sister Gertrude slipped the gum into the pocket of her habit and moved on. Ibby wondered how many wads of chewing gum she had in there, collecting lint.

The girl behind Ibby pushed her.

“Stop that, Annabelle,” Ibby said. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”

Puberty had not been kind to Annabelle. Her unruly red hair had taken on a brassy tone, the gap in her front teeth had grown wider, and her freckles had multiplied and run together, making her look like she had some sort of skin disorder. Even so, she still carried herself as if the whole world owed her a favor.

Annabelle pushed Ibby again, this time harder, and the yearbook Ibby had been holding fell to the floor with a thud. As Ibby bent down to pick it up, her eye caught the small wooden plaque over the chapel door:

THE GOLDEN RULE

Do unto others

As you would have them

Do unto you.

She wanted to point the sign out to Annabelle, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Annabelle would be forever stuck on the second line—
Do unto others
.

Sister Gertrude must have been watching the antics because she came over and yanked Annabelle out of line and marched her down to her office at the end of the hall without so much as a word.

“Serves her right,” Marcelle whispered when Sister Gertrude was out of earshot.

Ibby hated chapel because she was relegated to sitting in the back while all her classmates lined up in the aisle to take communion, something Ibby wasn’t allowed to do because she wasn’t Catholic. After four years of enduring this, it still made her feel like an outcast.

When chapel was over, Ibby walked with her friend Winnie Waguespack to the streetcar stop on St. Charles Avenue. As they were waiting, Annabelle drove by in a shiny blue Mustang convertible and shot the finger at them.

“I think that was meant for me.” Ibby kicked the ground with her saddle oxford shoe as the streetcar pulled up. “I don’t know what her problem is.”

“Don’t let her get to you, Ibby,” Winnie said in the syrupy Mississippi accent she’d inherited from her mother even though she’d grown up in New Orleans. “No one likes Annabelle. I don’t know who she thinks she is.”

Ibby handed a dime to the streetcar conductor and found a seat next to a window. Winnie slid in next to her.

“You know, Annabelle’s daddy gave her that blue Mustang for her birthday last year,” Winnie said, unleashing a mop of curly brown hair from a clip.

Ibby muttered, “I don’t even have my driver’s license yet.”

“Why not?” Winnie asked. “I got mine a year ago, when I turned fifteen.”

Ibby shrugged. “Fannie won’t let me. I guess she figures I’ll stay out of trouble that way.”

“Well, it’s not all that great really,” Winnie said. “I think Mama got me my license so I could run all her errands for her after school, so don’t feel so bad. By the way,” she added, “I hear Annabelle got a horse for her sixteenth birthday, a few weeks ago.”

Ibby looked at Winnie. “A horse? Really?”

“That’s what I hear,” Winnie giggled. “Can you imagine? I don’t know how her father affords it, being an accountant and all. Still”—she sighed—“it must be nice, being an only child. I can’t imagine what it’s like not having to share a bedroom with three sisters and a bathroom with four brothers. And I’d give anything not to have to change my little sister’s diapers.”

“It’s not all it’s cut out to be, being an only child,” Ibby remarked.

Winnie smiled a little too sweetly. “Bless your heart, I forgot.”

They were good friends, but the one thing that bugged Ibby about Winnie was that she had a way of saying things that sounded like one thing but meant something totally different. Ibby was pretty sure Winnie was trying to be nice, but it still came out sounding condescending.

“Must be hard not having any parents.” Winnie patted her hand.

Ibby pulled her hand away. “I have a grandmother . . . and a mother . . . somewhere.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .” Winnie shook her head and turned away.

Ibby let the awkward silence pass by staring out the open window. It had begun to drizzle, a warm rain that left the sidewalks steaming and the air sticky. She reached through the window and let the raindrops pool in her hand, wondering what it must be like to have a big family like the Waguespacks.

When she turned back around, she noticed the young hippie couple sitting just across the way. The man’s long hair draped over the shoulders of his loose-fitting shirt, where a peace sign dangled from a leather necklace. He had his arm around a young woman in a halter top and batik skirt who was leaning casually against his chest.

It must be nice to be so free,
Ibby thought as she watched them.

By the time the streetcar reached Jefferson Avenue, the rain had all but evaporated into a thin mist rising from the street.

“Here’s my stop,” Ibby said.

Winnie tugged on her skirt as she got up. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“It’s all right.”

Winnie tugged on her skirt again. “Listen. My parents are throwing a birthday party for me in a couple of weeks. You’ll get an invitation in the mail. Want to come shopping with me to pick out a dress?” Winnie went on. “We can go down to Canal Street, to D. H. Holmes and maybe Maison Blanche, too, if we have time.”

Most of Ibby’s friends went shopping together on Saturdays, but they’d never asked Ibby because they knew Doll made most of her clothes.

“Sure,” Ibby said. “Thanks for asking.”

Ibby got off the streetcar and headed down Jefferson Avenue toward Prytania Street. Clouds left over from the earlier rain blanketed the sky, trapping the humidity beneath them. Ibby heard a low rumble in the distance. She glanced up at the sky. Thunder in New Orleans was sneaky. Just when you thought it was gone, it came up behind you and let out a big clap that resonated through your whole body. She’d never heard thunder like that before she came to New Orleans. It used to scare her. Not anymore. A lot had changed in the last four years. For one, she wasn’t a shy twelve-year-old anymore.

Ibby put her hand on the gate to Fannie’s house and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She remembered when her mother had dropped her off for the first time. The house had seemed so ominous and uninviting. It gave her a much different feeling now, like that of an old tattered blanket: it wasn’t much to look at, but it made you feel safe just the same.

The branches of the oak tree in the front yard were waving, as if welcoming her home. The poor tree had begun to lean considerably,
ever since Hurricane Betsy swept through the city in the fall of 1965. Ibby thought back to those hot days, when the power had been out and school was closed. Crow, Queenie, Doll, and Birdelia had moved in, fearing flooding in their neighborhood. She remembered eating cold food out of cans, barbequing in the backyard, playing card games to while away the time, and the never-ending search for ice to cool off. They had all complained, but looking back on it, it was the first time Ibby felt as if she were a real part of the family.

Every year after that, the tree had begun to lean a little more, so much that now it resembled the leaning Tower of Pisa. The neighbors had been on Fannie to cut the tree down, saying it was a hazard, but Fannie had resisted the idea. It was as if the tree meant something to her. In a way, that old tree reminded Ibby of Fannie—slightly off balance but clinging stubbornly to life.

Fannie had survived her trip to the hospital four years earlier, and many more after that. Ibby soon realized that Fannie needed an occasional escape from life. She had gotten used to Fannie’s ways, and everyone carried on as if it were all perfectly normal.

New Orleans was like that. A live-and-let-live attitude was ingrained into the fabric of the city; no one cared who you were or what you looked like—you had a place, and everyone respected that. There were a few exceptions, of course, most notably Annabelle Friedrichs, who had continued to be a nuisance to Ibby. Ibby had grown used to her taunts and ignored her as much as possible, but Ibby’s missing mother had become the butt of Annabelle’s jokes over the years—and that was something Ibby couldn’t tolerate.

No one wants you, not even your own mother. You’re an outcast. Why don’t you go back where you came from?

Ibby hadn’t heard from her mother since Vidrine dropped her off four years ago. And except for Annabelle’s occasional reminders, Ibby went on about her days as if her mother didn’t exist. It was just easier that way.

Fannie had tried to explain Vidrine’s disappearance as a simple case of wanderlust, but Ibby had a different word for a mother who would abandon her daughter and not even take the time to put in a call to say hello. As far as her mother was concerned, Ibby was never sure of anything, not even of what she might say to Vidrine if she ever did come back.

Ibby opened the gate and started up the driveway where two cars were parked—a very official-looking black Lincoln Town Car, and a brand-new red Lincoln Continental convertible with white leather seats. Ibby noticed Fannie’s old blue convertible wasn’t in the garage.

As she opened the back door, she found Queenie perched on a stool, cleaning softshell crabs at the kitchen table. As much as Ibby loved eating softshells, she could barely stomach watching Queenie clean them, the way their legs writhed as Queenie cut through the shell with a pair of utility scissors, then reached under and scooped out the white spongy lungs.

Queenie had slowed down a bit over the last couple of years. Her hair was now a salt-and-pepper gray, and she had taken to sitting at the table to do her cooking rather than standing at the counter, claiming her legs just didn’t want to hold her up anymore.

“Lawd, look at you. Your face, it’s as red as one of them Creole tomatoes,” Queenie said.

Ibby set her books on the table and wiped the sweat from her face. “That’s because New Orleans only has one season. Hot.”

Queenie tossed a crab into a tub of milk batter and wiped her hands on her apron. “No, baby, we got seasons. We got oyster season, crawfish season, shrimp season, crab season. Come to think of it, we got alligator season, hurricane season, Mardi Gras season. We got a whole mess of seasons around these parts. And baby, it’s only the end of May. Come September, even I begin to sweat.” Queenie tilted her head toward Ibby’s books. “Show me your picture in that there yearbook.”