Dollbaby: A Novel (35 page)

The next morning Mr. Rainold came back with some papers for Ibby to sign.

“Bultman’s Funeral Home has placed the obituary in the newspaper. Fannie wrote it herself years ago.” He handed a copy to her.

Ibby glanced at it. The obituary was so lengthy it must have taken Fannie years to write. It included things Ibby hadn’t known about Fannie, such as that she had a baby sister who had died when she was only three and that she’d missed a beloved dog named Max she’d found as a stray when she was eleven. Then it listed about fifty charities she’d given money to over the years. “I had no idea,” Ibby said after a while. “Fannie never mentioned these things.”

Emile Rainold nodded. “She was a very mysterious but generous woman.”

“And where did this picture come from?” Ibby asked. “I’ve never seen it.”

“She had a photographer take it several years ago. It’s quite becoming, don’t you think?” he said. “She was a handsome woman.”

Queenie came in to serve coffee.

“It says she was sixty. Did she write that?” Ibby asked, squinting over at Mr. Rainold.

“No, she had left that blank,” he said. “I had to fill in some of the final details. She didn’t have a birth certificate, so I had to rely on her word.”

“That be about right,” Queenie said. “I think she was barely eighteen when she and Mr. Norwood moved into this here house.”

“The services are planned for Thursday morning at ten-thirty,” Mr. Rainold added.

“That gone give me only two days to cook. How many you think gone come by after the funeral? Couple hundred?” Queenie asked.

“A couple of hundred?” Ibby gawked. “I thought you said she planned a small funeral.”

“Small to Miss Fannie ain’t the same thing as small to you and me,” Queenie said.

“I think Queenie’s right. Fannie knew a lot of people in a lot of different circles,” Mr. Rainold said.

“I better get started.” Queenie rushed off toward the kitchen.

“Ibby,” he said in a low voice. “Are you up to going over the will? We can wait if you like.”

She took in a breath. “We’ve got to do it sooner or later so let’s get it over with.”

“There’s not much to it, really,” he said.

As Mr. Rainold read Fannie’s last will and testament, his words were all a jumble, floating over her head. She felt as if a bulldozer had
run over her, then backed up to make sure she was squished flat. Nothing was registering.

“It’s fairly straightforward,” Mr. Rainold went on. “Fannie wished for Queenie and Doll to take some memento from the house, anything they like.”

She fidgeted with the edges of her shirt. “Okay.”

“She took the liberty of paying off the remainder of your college tuition at Tulane, as well as Birdelia’s at Southern University,” he added. “So at least you don’t have to worry about that.” He put the document down on the table. “There isn’t much else left in the estate, except for this house, which she willed to you.” He pointed at various objects. “Now I see she has some things of value, such as those Drysdale paintings on the wall and all that Newcomb pottery in the china cabinet, which you could probably sell at auction.” He peered at her over his reading glasses. “And there’s about five thousand dollars in a bank account. But she never did keep much cash in the bank.”

“She never trusted banks after the Depression,” she said. “That much I know.”

He touched her hand. “I know this is all happening so fast. I’ll let you think on it. You don’t have to do anything about it now. I just wanted you to know where things stood.”

He got up and let himself out.

Ibby sat at the table for a good long while after he left. She thought about what Fannie had said after Purnell died. She said people should have proper funerals so everyone could say their last goodbyes. Fannie had spent so much of her life worrying about where she was going to be buried. In an odd way, it seemed strange that she wasn’t here to witness her own send-off.

Ibby could hear Queenie banging around in the kitchen. Whatever it was Queenie was cooking was making her hungry.

“Now, Miss Ibby, don’t you fret,” Queenie said as Ibby came into
the kitchen. “We gone take care of everything. I done this so many times I could put on a funeral in my sleep.”

Ibby forced a smile. “Thank you, Queenie. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Now listen, baby. This is what’s gone happen. By the time we get back from the burial, people gone be lined up at the door waiting to get in the house so they can get their fill of food and drink. They gone hang around all afternoon, and some into the night, before they take their leave. And they gone all tell you how much they adored Miss Fannie, whether they liked her or not.” Queenie gave out a light chuckle.

Ibby didn’t laugh.

“Come on, Miss Ibby. Got to carry on.”

Ibby looked up at her. “I just don’t feel like it right now.”

“I know you’re sad, but that ain’t the way Miss Fannie would have wanted it. She had a good life, all in all, and she loved you. That’s what you need to keep in your heart. Remember the good times. Like when that tree came through the window and Miss Fannie was trapped like a caged bird. Remember that? Remember how she looked?”

That brought a smile to Ibby’s face.

“That’s what I like to see.” Queenie patted Ibby on the back. “Now listen, I gone do all the cooking. Doll can whip up a nice black funeral dress for you. Crow can bartend. That’s about all there is to it.” She shook her head. “We sure gone miss that old lady.”

Ibby smiled again. Queenie always did refer to Fannie as “that old lady” even though Fannie was younger than Queenie.

Doll came into the kitchen. “Miss Ibby, Mr. Rainold told me to pick out Miss Fannie’s burial clothes. You care?”

“Why don’t you pick out a nice dress,” Ibby said as the doorbell rang.

“Oh, and another thing,” Queenie said as Doll hurried past them to answer the door. “I expect that doorbell gone be ringing every few
minutes. The second word gets out that Miss Fannie has passed, people gone start dropping off food.”

Doll came into the kitchen holding a brown paper bag. “Mr. Rainold done sent a honey-glazed ham over. Right good-sized one, from the looks of it.”

Ibby wiped a tear from her cheek. “Before I forget. Mr. Rainold said that Fannie wanted you each to have something from the house, so take whatever you like.”

Queenie pointed toward the front parlor. “Miss Fannie, she been real kind to us over the years. Real generous. But if you don’t mind, I know Crow be delighted to take that big TV off your hands.”

“It’s yours,” Ibby said. “Doll, what about you?”

Doll wrinkled her nose in a thinking sort of way. “I believe I’d like to have me that bust of Miss Fannie that’s in the upstairs hall.”

Queenie scrunched up her face as if it were the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “What you want that ugly thing for? They a reason she put that upstairs, you know, so nobody have to look at it.”

“Can’t explain it, Mama. Just kind of growed on me over the years. Less, a course, you want it, Miss Ibby.”

Ibby waved her hand. “You’re welcome to it.”

“Where you gone put that thing? Not in my living room!” Queenie balked. “Nosiree, not in my house.”

“Don’t worry, Mama, I find a good place for it,” Doll said.

“It better be a place out a my sight,” Queenie said. “That all I ask. It give me a heart attack just thinking about it.”

On Thursday morning, a limousine showed up to take them to the church. When they arrived, there was a waiting line to get into the front door.

“Lawd, look at all them people,” Queenie said as the limo turned the corner. “Think the whole city done showed up.”

“So much for a small funeral,” Doll added.

They were escorted through a side door to a private chapel to wait for the service.

“Look at that,” Ibby said, pointing to a sign over the door. “The Frances Bell Chapel. Fannie donated a chapel to the church. I wonder why she never told anybody about it.”

It was a beautiful little chapel with stained-glass windows and embroidered cushions on the pews.

“I bet they is a lot she never told nobody about,” Queenie said. “Could have lived to be a hundred, and we still wouldn’t know what she was all about.”

At precisely ten-thirty, a deacon led them into the church filled with music being played by a harpist and instructed them to sit in the front row. Fannie’s closed casket, decorated with a mound of white lilies, rested on a cloth-draped gurney at the bottom of steps that led up to the altar.

“I wish T-Bone could have been here,” Ibby whispered to Queenie. “That’s the one thing missing. Fannie would have loved for him to play at her funeral.”

“I know, baby. He would have liked that, but there was just no way to get him back in time,” Queenie said.

As the preacher came down the aisle carrying a cross atop a wooden pole, a soloist in the choir balcony began to sing “Amazing Grace.” When she finished, the preacher took his place behind the pulpit.

“Please stand.” He raised his arms. “We are here to honor the passing of a very great lady. . . .”

The rest of his words were a blur, but the first ones stuck with Ibby.

We are here to honor a very great lady.

After a sermon, the preacher said, “Fannie’s granddaughter, Ibby, has asked Saphronia Trout to say a few words. Saphronia?”

Queenie scooted out of the pew and made her way up the steps. The preacher stepped aside, and Queenie came up and stood behind the pulpit.

“Hello, everybody.” She poked at the microphone, testing it to make sure it was on. “Miss Ibby asked me to say a few words about her grandmother, but I don’t know if just a few would be enough to say what I want to say about Miss Fannie.”

Queenie’s remark caused a buzz of laughter to erupt in the church.

“Miss Fannie, she were like no other lady I ever met,” Queenie went on. “I worked for her for over forty years, which is why Miss Ibby asked me to say something about her. I knew her longer than just about anybody here, with a few exceptions.” She nodded at Kennedy and Sister Gertrude. “But I think we can all agree, Fannie lived her life the way she wanted to. She didn’t worry about what other people thought. That’s because she didn’t need to. She was a giving-back kind of person, and each person she touched”—she pointed at the audience—“and you know who you are, will always remember it. That’s why just about everybody in this church is here, she touched all of you in some way.”

Ibby wept softly as she listened.

When Queenie finished, she came and sat in the pew next to Ibby. She patted Ibby on the knee. Ibby grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

Then the organist started playing “Flee as a Bird,” whereupon hundreds of white doves were let out of cages as the casket was wheeled out of the church. It was a beautiful gesture, Ibby thought as she watched the birds circle around overhead, then dart through the front doors over the heads of people leaving the church.

“Well, you knew she had to do
something
crazy,” Queenie said as they got in the waiting limousine.

After the service, they went to the cemetery, where Fannie was buried in the magnificent marble tomb she’d had built for herself. After the final words were said, Queenie threw in some baking powder for good measure, to make sure she rose up on Judgment Day and not the other way around.

By the time the limo pulled into the driveway at the house, people were lined up all the way down the block.

“Lawd, look at them all.” Queenie got out of the car and fussed at Crow. “Hurry up, old man. We got work to do.”

Pretty soon, there was a dull roar in the house.

Ibby didn’t feel much like talking so she made her way back to the kitchen. Queenie came in carrying an empty tray.

“What you doing in here, having your own pity party? You get on out there and greet them folks. They came ’cause of Miss Fannie,” Queenie said as she loaded up another tray with mushrooms. “You hear me? This ain’t about you.”

Queenie tugged at Ibby’s arm until she got up from the table, then she pushed Ibby into the dining room. There were so many people hovering around the table, picking at the food, that you would have thought no one had eaten for weeks. Ibby tried to squeeze past them, but a woman Ibby didn’t recognize tapped her on the shoulder and spoke to her as she stuffed boudin balls in her mouth.

“I’m so sorry about your grandmother,” she said. “She was such a fine lady.”

“Thank you,” Ibby said, brushing past her.

Mr. Jeffreys, Commander Kennedy, the Reverend Jeremiah, Sister Gertrude, Mr. Henry, Mr. Pierce—they were all there. The neighbors on Prytania Street came, as did their maids at the special invitation of Queenie. The mayor made an appearance. Even Lucy the duck lady rolled around on her skates, relegated to the front yard because Queenie wouldn’t let her in the house with her ducks.

When Ibby felt she’d spoken to everyone, she excused herself and went upstairs.

The stained-glass window looked naked without the bust of Fannie holding court in front of it. Ibby went over to the door just across from the stairs, that one that had remained locked all these years. To her surprise, when she tried the knob, it turned. She opened the door to find a bare room with a large brown stain on the floor not far from the window. Ibby decided to leave the door open.