Dollbaby: A Novel (21 page)

“The river is amazing, isn’t it?” he said as he came up beside her. “The Army Corps of Engineers has tried to tame her, but she’s got a mind of her own. She’s never at rest.”

A flock of brown pelicans swooped overhead and surrounded the boat. They were graceful, gliding through the air with outstretched wings, their heads held back on their shoulders and their bills resting on their necks. They flew so low, Fannie felt as if she could reach up and touch them. Norwood grabbed a fish from the bucket and held it up in the air as one of the birds snatched it and tipped it into its bill.

“That one there is Whitey,” he said. “Call him that on account he’s got white tips on the end of his wings. Got names for all the birds.” He held up another fish. “That one there is Sandy. She’s got tan streaks on her underbelly—looks like sand.”

She watched as the birds came in, one by one, as if in some pecking order. When he ran out of fish, a few of the birds nose-dived into the water looking for more, disappearing completely beneath the surface, while the others bobbed up and down like buoys.

“I always wished I could float like that,” Norwood said, pointing at one of the birds. “They got hollow bones that make it so they can float. You or me go in that water, that would be the last anyone would see of us.”

He pointed upriver. “The river doesn’t flow smooth. It snakes around, sometimes at one-eighty-degree angles, and when the water hits the bank at one of the bends, it roils, driving the current straight to the bottom of the river. The diving current creates holes, some hundreds of feet deep, and eddies that jump up from nowhere. Can swallow a person down.”

He was staring straight out into the river with his hands in his pockets.

“The river’s like an uncoiling rope. It can snap like a whip. Anytime. Anyplace. Just when you least expect it.” He paused. “You can’t tame the river. But it can tame you.”

Fannie dropped her head for a moment. “One day your grandfather left for a stint on the river,” she told Ibby. “He never came back. I don’t think he really meant for it to happen that way. I think he went out with the pelicans.” She gazed sideways at her granddaughter. “Life goes by so fast. Remember that, Ibby. Turn around one day, and life as you know it . . . is gone.”

“Fannie?”

Fannie glanced her way.

“Did you bring me here because you think I’m going to leave you, too?”

“Listen, honey.” Fannie’s eyes grew dim. “I’ve come to realize that you must be willing to live the life that is waiting for you. That life may not be the one you planned. You have to learn to let go.”

Ibby wasn’t sure if Fannie was talking about her own life or was trying to prepare Ibby for what lay ahead.

“Fannie?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Does that mean you think Mama’s come back for me?”

Fannie took her hand and stroked it. “I have no idea. But whatever happens, I want you to know I love you, just as I have loved all my children.” She looked away. “All of them.”

Workmen began hammering on a scaffolding surrounding a tomb under construction nearby.

“Come on, dear. I can’t think with all that racket.” She got up and started toward the car.

Ibby followed her, admiring the magnificent tomb that was being built with Palladian columns and a stained-glass window. It was so large, it looked as if a dozen people could be buried inside. Ibby was just able to make out the name on the tomb. She stopped in her tracks.

“Fannie, that tomb over there—the one they’re building. The name on it. It says Bell.”

Fannie waved her hand. “Don’t worry, Ibby darling. I’m not going anywhere. Just planning ahead, for a time when we can all be together.”

“What do you mean, ‘all be together’?” Ibby asked.

“One day we might all be buried there together, in that tomb,” Fannie said, then added, “It’s better than being buried out in the woods like some wild animal, don’t you think?”

W
here’s Miss Fannie off to this morning?” Doll watched Fannie back the car out of the driveway.

“I don’t know,” Queenie answered from the kitchen table where she was reading the
Louisiana Weekly,
the local Negro newspaper. “Ever since she got that new car, she’s been joyriding all over town. Never do say where she going or where she been. But she’s up to something. She had Mr. Henry bring her a poster board and some felt-tip markers this morning. Been in her room ever since, coloring like a child, then came in the kitchen and snatched the broom from the closet. If I didn’t already think she was tetched in the head, I’d say she was tetched in the head.”

Doll came over to the table and took a seat next to her mother.

“Lookey here.” Queenie pointed to the headline. “It says three slain in fifty-hour period.”

“No sense worrying about things you can’t change.” Doll tried to snatch the paper from her.

Queenie slapped her hand away. “Still worry. Worry about T-Bone. Worry about Birdelia. Worry about . . .”

“You thinking about Purnell, ain’t you?” Doll said.

Queenie blinked a few times, as if the question had drained all the life out of her.

Doll wagged a finger at her mother. “When’s the last time you seen Purnell? A year ago, maybe? And why did he come by?”

Queenie drew her lips in tight and began to rock back and forth in her chair. Doll hated when her mother got this way, all sentimental and sad over a lost cause like her older brother, Purnell.

“You know why he ain’t been around, Mama. He only comes by when he needs money. Otherwise, he’s out there running the streets. That’s why Daddy kicked him out of the house in the first place, remember?”

Doll was trying to get her mother to react, but Queenie just kept staring out into space.

“You know I’m right, Mama.”

“He’s still my boy,” Queenie said in a low voice. “I’m his mama. Can’t help it. Still worry about him.”

“That newspaper, it’s got you all stirred up.” Doll grabbed the paper and threw it into the trash can. “Why don’t you drink some bush tea, make you feel better.”

“I don’t want no bush tea.”

“Well, let me tell you something, Mama. Fretting about Purnell ain’t gone change nothing.”

Queenie quit rocking and set unblinking eyes on Doll.

Doll knew that look. “What?”

“There is something I ain’t told you,” Queenie said softly. She crossed her arms over her belly and began rocking again. “Last week I ran into Rosie Washington over at the Piggly Wiggly. She pulled me aside and told me about what happened over at the public pool on the West Bank.”

“What happened? I ain’t heard nothing about it.”

Queenie stopped rocking. “If you shut your mouth, I’ll tell you.”

Doll rolled her eyes. “Go on.”

“Her grandson was swimming over at the pool. There was a nice young white fella lifeguarding over there, teaching all the young ones how to swim. Rosie say her grandson really liked this fella ’cause he treat all them real nice, liked to play with the kids in the pool.”

“Yeah. So?”

“One day, a week or so ago, a bunch of black boys wearing Black Panther T-shirts break into the pool while they there. They go up to this fella, the lifeguard, and ask for money. All the lifeguard got on him is ten dollars. This group, they ain’t happy. They talk about killing this fella right in front of all the kids in the pool. The kids, they all jump out, yelling and screaming, thinking these young men gone kill them, too. Finally, the young men decide there ain’t nothing else for them there, so they go to leave. Right then Rosie shows up to pick up her grandson. She saw the group leaving. Didn’t think nothing of it at the time, not until later, when her grandson told her what happened.”

There was fear in her mother’s eyes as she spoke.

“So what’s this got to do with anything except we got some angry brothers running around scaring little kids at a pool?”

Queenie sighed. “Because Rosie, she tell me, she could have sworn one of the young men she saw leaving the pool that day was Purnell.”

Doll sat back. Now she, too, had a worried look on her face.

A few minutes later Birdelia came in the back door in her school marching uniform made of stretchy white satiny material, with silver sequins sewn all over it. She had on short white marching boots with tassels and was holding a baton.

“Somebody die?” she asked.

“No, baby,” Doll said.

“Then why you all so quiet?”

Queenie’s mood brightened at the sight of Birdelia. “Come on over here and give your grandma some sugar.”

Birdelia propped the baton by the back door and went over and gave her grandmother a kiss. “What’s going on, Mee-maw? Why you so sad?”

“She ain’t sad. She just being Queenie. Don’t your mama deserve some sugar, too?”

Birdelia gave Doll a kiss and sat down at the table. “Band practice done tuckered me out.”

Queenie pushed herself away from the table. “I know what that means—you hungry. You always hungry. Growing like a weed. You as tall as your mother, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you two were sisters you look so much alike, except for the way you wear your hair up in that braided ponytail all the time.”

Ibby came into the kitchen, carrying a magazine. “Where’s Fannie?”

“I don’t know, and she don’t say.” Queenie placed a bowl of clabber in front of Birdelia.

Ibby sat down at the table. “She took me out to the cemetery the other day. She evidently goes there a lot.”

“That so? Maybe she gone have her own little parade out at the cemetery.”

“What do you mean?” Ibby asked.

“Miss Fannie, she made some sort of sign this morning and taped it to a broom handle,” Doll said. “That’s what Mama’s going on about.”

“Why?” Ibby asked.

“You been here four years now, and you still ask why Fannie does what she does?” Birdelia interjected.

“Miss Ibby, you got Miss Winnie’s party in a few days. What kind of dress you want me to make?” Doll asked.

“I’ve got one all picked out.” Ibby flipped the magazine on the table to a page she’d earmarked. “One like this.”

Doll picked up the magazine and shook her head. “You want a Nehru-collared dress? That paisley print won’t do, Miss Ibby—not dressy enough.”

“What about if we take off the sleeves and make it in another fabric?” Ibby suggested.

“Okay. If that’s what you want.” Doll tore the page from the magazine and tucked it into the pocket of her uniform. “Got some nice blue silk left over from one of Fannie’s dresses ought to do just fine.”

Birdelia pushed the empty bowl away and stood up. “I’m going.”

“Where you off to?” Doll asked. “Could use your help.”

“Miss Fannie asked me to pick her up some lipstick from the pharmacy.”

“That so?” Queenie put her hands on her hips.

“Yes’m, she sure did.”

“When she do that,” Doll said, eyeing Birdelia, “when you ain’t even been around all morning?”

“She asked me yesterday, before we left to go home. I told her I’d pick it up on my way back from marching practice this morning. I plumb forgot.”

“Miss Ibby, why don’t you go along with Birdelia? A little fresh air do you some good,” Queenie said as she tried to shoo the girls out the back door.

“You don’t mind, do you, Birdelia?” Ibby asked.

Birdelia hesitated a moment before waving her hand. “Come on.”

As soon as they left, Queenie sat down at the table and picked up the paper again. After a few moments, she lowered it and looked over at Doll.

“Mama, you ain’t gone to start that again, are you?”

“No, baby, I just thought of something.”

“What?”

“You don’t think Miss Fannie is driving around looking for Miss Vidrine, do you?”

Doll sat back in her chair and made wide eyes. “I hope not. What she think she gone do if she finds her?”

Queenie shook her head. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”