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.”
Chapter Forty-One
Ibby 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.”