“Better get used to Mama’s ways, Miss Ibby.” Doll pointed a fork in her mother’s direction as Queenie filleted the fish. “She could have got Mr. Pierce to fillet that fish for her, but Mama’s way too picky. She likes to get every scrap a meat off them bones.”
“No use wasting.” Queenie wrapped the fish fillets in a milk-soaked cloth and put them in the icebox. Then she placed all the bones, including the head, into another piece of cheesecloth and tied the four corners up into a knot. “This here is what gives the stew its flavor.” She tossed the bag into the pot and put the lid on. Then she tilted her head and looked over at Ibby. “Miss Ibby, now you brought it up, I’m curious. Your mama, she say anything else?”
Vidrine had been full of all sorts of directives this morning: Give the urn to your grandmother. Don’t say y’all. Be a good girl and don’t give your grandmother any trouble.
She’d said something else, too, when they got into the car at the airport, but Ibby hadn’t quite understood what she meant. Now she repeated it, just the way her mother had said it: “She said not to listen to anything those two wily niggas tell you about me.”
Queenie and Doll looked at each other. Queenie made a face like she’d eaten something sour, then the meat cleaver came down so hard, Ibby thought the table might split in two.
“How dare that redneck call us wily! Just who she think she is!” Queenie hissed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything wrong. I was just repeating what my mama told me,” Ibby said.
“Ain’t nothing we ain’t heard before,” Doll said, shaking her head, trying not to laugh.
Queenie looked over at Ibby. “Miss Ibby, why don’t you go upstairs for a while, take a little rest? Been a long morning.”
After Ibby left the room, she turned to Doll. “Just curious, after the way you been acting all funny this morning. Miss Fannie, she say anything to you when you were in the room with her earlier?”
Doll shrugged. “Miss Fannie picked up an empty perfume bottle and talked about how she needed to get some more.”
“No, I mean about Miss Ibby. She say anything about her?”
“Well, yeah. She say she want Miss Ibby to come and live with her.”
“You mean for good?”
“Yeah, Mama. That’s what she say.”
“I’d hate to know what Miss Vidrine might think about that.”
A loud voice in the hall startled them. “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?”
“Oh, Lawd.” Doll’s head jerked around. There was no mistaking that voice.
“What she doing here?” Queenie said under her breath.
Doll peeked through the kitchen door to find Vidrine standing in the hall holding a small suitcase.
Doll whispered to her mother, “Miss Ibby forgot her suitcase in the car this morning. Looks like Miss Vidrine done come back to give it to her. I thought she had a plane to catch. Why she still here?”
“You ever know Miss Vidrine to tell the truth?” Queenie said. “Maybe she planning to drive off into the sunset and join a cult. I don’t know. Never can tell with her. Don’t matter now. She’s here, and you got to go out and get her before Miss Fannie comes out of her room and have a heart attack at the sight of that woman.”
“No, unh-unh. I ain’t going out there. You go.”
Queenie went over to where Doll was standing and peered through the door under Doll’s arm.
“Liberty?” Vidrine yelled up the stairs.
Queenie winced and put her hands to her ears.
Vidrine surveyed her surroundings as if she were taking inventory, bending over to a painting on the wall, rubbing her hand along the hall table.
“Look at her,” Queenie muttered. “She still got those awful eyes that are way too big for her head. Make her look like she stuck her finger in an electric socket.”
Doll never did understand Mr. Graham’s attraction to the woman. Besides the manic eyes, Vidrine had the habit of looking sideways over her nose as if she were constantly smelling poop. Thank goodness Miss Ibby looked more like her father, Doll was thinking.
Queenie nudged her. “Go on out there and get Miss Ibby’s suitcase like I told you.”
“Maybe Miss Vidrine will just leave it in the hall and go,” Doll said, not budging.
Queenie craned her neck. “Don’t look like she going nowhere to me.”
“Liberty Bell, come and get your damn suitcase!” Vidrine screamed.
The door to Miss Fannie’s room opened, and there were footsteps in the hall.
“Now look what you done,” Queenie said. “Miss Fannie’s coming out. Hurry. Go out there and see if you can stop her.”
But it was too late. Fannie was already making her way down the hall toward Vidrine. To Doll’s surprise, Fannie was dressed and had on a bit of makeup.
“Why Miss Fannie smiling? She hates that woman,” Queenie said.
“Oh no,” Doll said.
“What?” Queenie nudged Doll. “What now?”