Dollbaby: A Novel (12 page)

D
oll looked up when her mother came back in the kitchen.

“Miss Honey gone?” Doll asked.

Queenie chuckled. “Yes, thank the Lawd. Never seen her like that before, falling all over herself.”

“Good thing she didn’t mention the eye in front of Miss Fannie. Miss Ibby looks like a prizefighter who done lost the fight. We gone have to come up with some story, like maybe she tripped and fell in the backyard.”

“I know. I been thinking on it,” Queenie said.

Doll picked up a pecan from the bowl in the middle of the kitchen table and inspected it. “Maybe I’ll make me a pecan pie to take to the Fourth of July party out by the lake.”

Queenie crossed her arms. “What you mean, a party out by the lake? We got the church picnic that day. The Reverend Jeremiah, he gone be expecting you to help serve.”

“The party ain’t until later on. But there’s no way I’m gone miss it. It’s the last day Lincoln Beach gone be open.”

“Why they close the beach so early this year? Thought they waited until end of the summer.”

“They closing Lincoln Beach for good, now that Pontchartrain Beach, where the white folks swim, is integrated. The city says they is
no use having two public beaches no more, so what they do? They close the Negro beach.”

Queenie sat down at the table and leaned on her elbow. “You see what I’m telling you? If the government would have left well enough alone, they wouldn’t be closing the Negro beach. And by the way, did you see the front page of the paper today? There’s a big picture of your friend Lola Mae sprawled all over the floor at that sit-in on Canal Street. Could have been you.”

“But it wasn’t, Mama. You made sure of that.”

Queenie held up the paper and pointed at the photo. “Really? Take a closer look.”

Doll stared at the photo showing Lola Mae on the ground, a policeman standing beside her, and a bunch of wide-eyed Negroes looking on from their stools at the lunch counter.

“Look at the shoulder and the side of the head at the edge of the photo. Now, who you suppose that is?” Queenie narrowed her eyes.

“What you going on about? I don’t see nothin’.” But just then, Doll did see. In the corner of the photograph was her profile. There was no mistaking it.

“Don’t you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s you sitting there on that stool. Why’d you lie to me?”

“I’m sorry, Mama. I felt like it was something I needed to do.”

“You need to start thinking more about Birdelia,” Queenie said, “and less about yourself.”

“And why you think I gone down there—for fun? I’m doing it
for
Birdelia and everyone like her,” Doll said. “You just don’t seem to understand that.”

“Yeah, well, it ain’t gone do no good if she don’t have a mama around to take care of her no more. You got to be more careful. And don’t you dare lie to me again like that.” Queenie wagged her finger at Doll and threw the paper onto the kitchen table. “I’m telling you, ever since President Johnson said he might sign that new civil rights law
into place, it got people mighty jittery. Don’t want no trouble.” Queenie got up from the table and peeked into the dining room.

“Mama, come sit back down. Last time I looked, Miss Fannie was already in front of the TV, waiting for the game to come on.”

“It don’t start for another hour—why she just sitting there? Gone miss my stories,” Queenie fretted. “And where’s Miss Ibby?”

“She’s sitting right next to Fannie. I told her to sit with the bad eye toward the hall, but I don’t think you need to worry about Miss Fannie noticing Miss Ibby’s eye. She too busy watching the pregame show.”

The screened door creaked open, and a man who barely filled his overalls came through the door walking slowly, in a sort of back-and-forth shuffle to accommodate his bowed legs. He was carrying a brown paper bag folded over at the top.

“Come on in and take a load off, Crow,” Queenie said to him.

Crow set the bag on the table and pointed at it. “Queenie, wish you’d get Doll to run your errands. Them folks down at Haase’s Children’s Fashions gone think I’m some kind a queer, you keep sending me to buy things like that.”

Doll opened the bag and pulled out a pair of black patent-leather Mary Janes. “Thank you, Daddy. These’ll fit Miss Ibby just fine.”

Queenie handed a glass of sweet tea to Crow, paying no mind to his comment. “Doll, you finished with Miss Fannie’s dress you making for Ibby’s birthday lunch?”

“Almost.”

“Ibby’s, too?”

“Be ready tomorrow, Mama.”

Crow finished his tea and wiped his mouth with a red bandanna he’d pulled from the pocket of his overalls. “I can see you got other things on your mind. I’ll be out in the back washing Miss Fannie’s car if y’all need me.”

Queenie grabbed two sodas from the icebox and went into the front room and set them on the coffee table in front of Fannie.

“You want to come help me in the kitchen?” Queenie nodded toward the kitchen.

Fannie was so busy talking back to the television that she didn’t seem to notice that Ibby had followed Queenie out of the room.

As Ibby sat down at the kitchen table, Queenie asked, “What kind of cake you want for your birthday? You ever had
doberge
?”

“What’s
doe-bash
?”

“They a specialty around here, a cake that’s got about twelve paper-thin layers filled with pudding. They a favorite of Miss Fannie’s.”

“I guess so,” Ibby said, then added, “Who’s Crow?”

Doll was sitting on a stool over by the back window, eating her lunch. “Crow’s my daddy. Matter a fact, he’s out back shining up that old Cadillac of your grandmother’s so he can drive you to your birthday lunch.”

Ibby looked over at Doll. “Is Crow his real name?”

“No, baby,” Queenie answered. “His real name is Cedric Cornelius Trout, bless his sorry soul.” Queenie pointed toward the back window. “The way his mama used to tell it, he was so ugly when he came into this world that he scared all the crows out of the field, every single one of them. So she nicknamed him Scarecrow. Later on they just start calling him Crow.”

“Mama’s just kidding,” Doll said.

“No, I ain’t,” Queenie shot back. “That’s the Lawd’s truth.”

“You never told me that story about how Daddy really got his name.”

“You never asked,” Queenie said before turning to Ibby. “Now, Miss Ibby, why don’t you run out back and help Crow wash that car? He’s looking mighty lonely out there. Just don’t go messing with my vegetable garden, you hear?”

After the screened door slammed shut, Doll turned to her mother. “You just trying to get Miss Ibby out of the house so Miss Fannie don’t notice the eye, ain’t you?”

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Later that afternoon, Doll yelled through the screened door, “Daddy, get on in here!”

“What now?” He tossed his sponge into the bucket and turned off the hose.

“Just come on,” she said urgently.

Doll held the door open for her father, then settled herself onto a stool by the window. Ibby came in a few minutes later.

“Why’s everybody so quiet?” Ibby asked.

Doll put her finger up to her mouth. “Just listen.” She tilted her head toward the radio. “The president’s about to come on and give an address.”

Queenie had her elbows on the kitchen counter with her head bent toward the transistor radio. Crow took a few steps closer to Queenie as she reached over to turn the volume up.

“The following announcement is broadcast from the East Room of the White House,” came a voice on the radio. “I give you Lyndon B. Johnson, the president of the United States.”

There was a ruffling noise, like papers being shuffled, and then another voice came on the radio. “My fellow Americans.”

“Think he really did it?” Doll whispered to her mother as she fidgeted, barely able to control her excitement.

Queenie put her finger up to her mouth.

“I am about to sign into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I want to take this occasion to talk to you about what the law means to every American.” President Johnson cleared his throat. “One hundred and eighty-eight years ago this week, a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor not only to found a nation, but to forge an ideal of freedom—not only for political independence, but for personal liberty.”

Doll noticed Ibby was swinging her feet back and forth as if she
were bored. She had to fight the urge to go over and shake her. She wanted to say
Listen to what the president is saying!
Listen!
She closed her eyes, the sound of her own breathing resonating in her ears.

“This is a proud triumph. . . . Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders. We believe that all men are created equal. Yet many are denied equal treatment.”

Doll opened her eyes and glanced over at Crow. There were tears in the corner of her father’s eyes.
Poor Daddy,
she thought.
If anybody understands the meaning of what the president is saying, it’s him. Lawd knows he’s been through the wringer, knows firsthand what Jim Crow can do to a man, make him feel lower than a barn animal.

“The purpose of this law is simple,” the president said, emphasizing the word
simple
. “It does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others. It does not give special treatment to any citizen. It does say the only limit to a man’s hope for happiness, and for the future of his children, shall be his own ability. It does say,” the president continued, “that those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public.”

Crow was nodding with every word the president uttered, and Queenie was staring at the radio with ferocious intensity.

“Its purpose is to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom, a more constant pursuit of justice, and a deeper respect for human dignity. . . . This Civil Rights Act is a challenge to all of us to go to work in our communities and our states, in our homes and in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in our beloved country. . . . My fellow citizens, we have come now to a time of testing. We must not fail. Let us close the springs of racial poison. . . . Thank you and good night.” There was a loud noise as the microphone was pushed away.

Everyone sat quietly in their own thoughts as the president’s words lingered in the room like an elephant, heavy and fat.

“That new law gone change everything,” Doll said after a while.

“It ain’t gone change nothing.” Queenie spat out her words as if there were a bad taste in her mouth.

“We ain’t what we want to be. We ain’t what we gonna be. But thank God we ain’t what we was,” Crow said, his head bent toward the floor. “Still, far as I know, there ain’t a white man ever been born that understood what the colored man’s thinking, what he’s feeling. Heck, half the time, that colored man don’t know hisself.”

“What you mumbling over there, old man?” Queenie snapped.