When they got just inside the front door, Doll started up the wide staircase with a heavily carved banister. Ibby held back, her attention drawn to the front parlor, where dark Victorian furniture and red velvet curtains made the room feel heavy despite the soaring fourteen-foot ceiling. There was an empty ashtray on the marble-topped coffee table. Ibby noticed the house smelled of stale smoke.
Pocket doors led to a second parlor where a wood-consoled television left just enough room for a lumpy, moth-eaten couch. Just beyond that, a crystal chandelier hovered over a walnut table in the dining room, where a massive china cabinet on the far wall was brimming with silver serving pieces. Ibby got a weird feeling about this fusty old house that looked as if time had stopped a century ago.
“Well, what you waiting on? Christmas?” Doll tapped her fingers on the banister impatiently.
When Ibby didn’t budge, Doll came back down the stairs and motioned for her to hand over the urn.
Ibby reluctantly gave it to her.
“Why you keep looking at me like that? Don’t they have maids where you come from?” Doll took the urn from Ibby and placed it on the hall table next to a vase filled with wilted lilies.
Ibby scrunched up her shoulders, wondering how Doll seemed to know what she was thinking. “We never had one.”
Doll cocked her head to one side. “Who clean the house then?”
“Nobody,” Ibby replied.
“Nobody? That something.” Doll twisted her mouth to one side. “Well, let me tell you how it is around here. I’m the keeper of the house. I do the cleaning, the tidying up, and a bit of sewing here and there. My mama, Queenie, she do all the cooking, a little ironing, and is the keeper of the peace, which you gone find is a mighty big job around this here house. You understand?”
Ibby looked up at Doll, not really understanding at all.
“What now?” Doll scratched her scalp with the tip of her red fingernail. “Why you keep looking at me like I got two heads?”
Ibby blinked a few times, but no words would come out.
“Don’t they have colored folks where you come from?” Doll finally asked.
Ibby shook her head. “I never talked to one before.”
Doll rolled her eyes. “‘Colored folks.’ You can say it. That’s what we are. And you better get used to it on account there’s lots of us colored folks down here in New Orleans. Now we got that out of the way, I’ll show you your room, then we can come down and get you introduced to your grandmother right proper and all.” She started up the stairs and spoke to Ibby over her shoulder. “Hope that ain’t all you got to wear, Miss Ibby. Might want to change into something more suitable to meet your grandmother.”
Ibby followed Doll up the stairs, wondering what was wrong with her T-shirt and shorts.
The second floor opened onto a spacious hallway lit by two bronze chandeliers. At the far end, a mosaic of sunlight sprinkled onto the Oriental carpet through a stained-glass window. Ibby went over and touched the window lightly with her fingers, following the design of the large white flowers.
“They got them stained-glass windows in all these old houses around here,” Doll explained. “That one there is of magnolias. Not my favorite. They kind of smell like sour laundry to me.”
As Ibby backed away, her arm knocked against a stone object perched upon a pedestal in front of the window.
Doll hurried over. “Be careful, child.” She put her hand on top of the sculpture to steady it. “This here is a bust of Miss Fannie. Your grandfather, Mr. Norwood, he gave it to her as a wedding present, but Miss Fannie never liked it much. That’s why it’s up here, ’cause she don’t want nobody to see it.”
The perfectly chiseled features left no indication whether the bust was of a man or a woman. The eyes had no pupils and were flat but nonetheless gave Ibby the feeling she was being watched.
“The person made that thing, he sure knew your grandmother. You’ll see what I mean when you meet her.” Doll chuckled. “You got plenty of time to poke around up here later. Don’t want to keep Miss Fannie waiting.” Doll set her foot squarely on a smaller set of stairs nestled in the corner of the hall near the bust.
Ibby pointed to the four doors on the second floor. “Is one of these rooms for me?”
“No, baby. This floor’s all booked up, especially now that your daddy’s passed. Now follow me.”
They started up another set of stairs that got narrower and steeper as they went along. “I’ve never been in a house with a third floor,” Ibby remarked.
“Used to be the servants’ quarters, back in the day, when the house was built,” Doll said over her shoulder.