“Girl, I’d knock her upside the head if I was you,” Doll said. “I wouldn’t take none of that from nobody.”
Queenie patted Ibby’s hand. “You still the prettiest gal in the class. Even with that big mustache.”
Ibby put her head down on the table. “No, I’m not. Y’all are just trying to make me feel better.”
“Did you hear that, Doll? She said y’all! Miss Ibby, you is one of us now!” Queenie ran her fingers through Ibby’s long brown hair. “You know, people would give their eyeteeth for hair like yours. You got a right nice figure with good-size titties for a girl your age. Got those from your grandmother.”
“Mama, don’t talk that way to Miss Ibby,” Doll scolded.
“Well, it’s true.” Queenie laughed. “You all growed up, Miss Ibby. Could pass for a young woman of twenty, not a young girl about to turn sixteen.”
Ibby waved her hand. “Not according to Fannie. I don’t think she’ll ever let me grow up.”
“That’s ’cause if you grow up, Miss Fannie thinks she gone grow old, and she don’t like being old. Could be the reason she done gone out and bought herself that new car this morning.”
Ibby stole a glance out the back window. “That big red convertible? That’s Fannie’s?”
“And that’s not all,” Doll chimed in. “Wait until you see the TV she done bought for herself on the way back from buying the car.”
“A brand new color TV,” Queenie gushed. “Come with a little clicker device so she can change the channels from where she sitting on the couch. She say she paid almost as much for the TV as she did for that new car, just so that she could get that channel changer that come with it.”
“I wonder why?” Ibby said.
“You do things like that when you’re old, just to make yourself feel young again. Ain’t that so, Doll?”
“How would I know?” she said. “But Mama, you what—close to sixty-five? When you gone get a new car?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Miss Fannie done give Crow her old blue Cadillac this morning. He already come over and picked it up. Bet he’s driving all over town right now showing it off.”
“How old is Miss Fannie? She old as you?” Doll asked.
“No, no. Miss Fannie, she a bit younger, maybe fifty-six last time I took a count.”
“That gone make her an old fart in a red Cadillac,” Doll chuckled.
“I wouldn’t say nothing like that around Miss Fannie.” Queenie pointed a finger at Doll. “No woman likes to be reminded about her age.”
“Queenie, is Ibby home yet?” Fannie called out from the dining room.
“She just got here!” Queenie yelled back. “I’ll send her right in.”
Queenie came over and gave Ibby a squeeze around the shoulders. “Now, you better get on in there, Miss Ibby. Mr. Rainold and Miss Fannie, they got something they want to tell you.”
“Why is Mr. Rainold here?” Ibby asked as Queenie guided her toward the door.
Emile Rainold was Fannie’s longtime attorney who came over once or twice a year to go over business matters. Ibby should have recognized his black Town Car in the driveway.
“Never you mind,” Queenie said.
But Ibby could tell by the way Queenie was averting her eyes that there was something she wasn’t telling her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Doll opened the door a smidgen so she could listen in on Fannie’s conversation with Mr. Rainold.
Queenie motioned for Doll to get away from the door. “Come back over here.”
She put her finger up to her mouth. “Hush, Mama. I want to hear what Mr. Rainold’s got to say. You know what it’s about?”
Queenie took in a deep breath. “Miss Fannie, she’s afraid her worst nightmare is about to come true.”
“What you mean?” Doll whispered.
“Just listen, baby,” Queenie said without looking up from the crab she was cleaning.
Doll could see Mr. Rainold sitting at the table in a blue pin-striped seersucker suit with a red paisley bow tie and a rumpled white cotton button-down shirt. She often wondered if that was his only suit, or if he owned a closet full of identical suits so he wouldn’t have to decide which one to put on each day. The only thing that ever seemed to change about Emile Rainold was his shoes—white bucks in the spring and summer, and brown suede bucks in the fall and winter. His straw fedora lay on the table next to his briefcase as he flipped through some papers, his cheeks billowing in and out like a puffer fish as he sucked on his pipe. Every so often he would push his gold wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose and smooth back his wavy gray hair with the palm of his other hand. He and Fannie were still arguing as Ibby took a seat across the table from him.
“That Mr. Rainold, he sure looks like he could use a good bath,” Doll whispered.
“He’s always been like that,” Queenie said. “Most of the time, his face is glistening like he done stuck his head in the oven.”
“He’s getting up in age. He looks older than Miss Fannie. Why you suppose he never married?”