The third floor was tiny, consisting of a boxy hallway with one door, whose rusted hinges seemed reluctant to open no matter how hard Doll tugged. Doll kicked the door with the bottom of her foot. It finally opened with a creak to reveal a room just large enough for two twin beds and a diminutive chest of drawers. Doll switched on the overhead light, a single bulb hanging from the ceiling that sprayed a paltry glow on the faded yellow wallpaper peeling away from the wall in places.
“Didn’t expect you until tomorrow. Hadn’t had a chance to tidy up yet. Some animal been up here leaving droppings all over the floor. Never did find it. You run across it, you be sure and let me know.” Doll pointed toward a sliver of a door at the far end of the room. “That there’s the toilet. It only got a shower. You want to take a bath, you come down to the second floor and use the one in my sewing room. And there ain’t no closet. You can hang your clothes there.” She pointed to a wire suspended from the ceiling like a U.
Ibby looked disappointed.
“What?” Doll put her hands on her hips.
“Mama didn’t let me bring my radio. I was hoping the room might have a radio but I don’t see one.”
“You like music? Well, you come to the right place. New Orleans is known for good music. I’ll see what we can do about getting you a radio. Now then, Miss Ibby, you got a dress you can put on?”
Ibby made a face. She’d worn a dress only once in her life, and that was to a wedding a few years back.
“I take it that be a no.” Doll put her hand up to her face and tapped her cheek with her finger. “You bring anything with you, like a suitcase, for instance?”
“Oh no!” Ibby’s knees almost gave way. She’d been concentrating so hard on bringing the urn that she’d forgotten her suitcase. “It must still be in the car,” she said in a small voice.
“Not to worry.” Doll put a hand on her shoulder.
Ibby gave her a funny look. Doll seemed to be reading her mind again. At this point, she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
“You make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”
She turned and bounded down the stairs, leaving Ibby alone in the room with a decrepit oscillating fan on the dresser that was making noises like a jet engine. She sat down on the bed and began to twiddle a strand of hair with her finger, the way she did when she was nervous. She pulled aside the faded gingham curtains on the window, only to find it loosely boarded up. She let the curtains fall back, noticing the thick layer of dust on the bedside table. She ran her finger across it, leaving a thin line. Then, with one clean swoop of her hands, she wiped the table clean, sending dust scattering into the air.
Ibby leaned over and put her head on the pillow that had lost most of its stuffing and watched the dust particles sifting sideways about the room. If Doll hadn’t brought up her birthday a few minutes ago, she might have completely forgotten about it. Her daddy always made her birthday special. He’d come into her room in the wee hours of the morning to sneak a homemade birthday card under her pillow. She’d pretend to be asleep as he kissed her on the cheek, the soapy smell of his Burma-Shave tickling her nose. She scrunched her eyes tight. There would be no more birthdays with her daddy. When she pulled her knees to her chest, she felt her heart beating. Why had she been relegated to this tiny room in the attic when there were plenty of bedrooms on the second floor? She got the feeling that perhaps her grandmother didn’t want her here.
The next thing she knew, Doll was shaking her awake.
“You must be tuckered out from your trip. Gone five minutes, and you fall asleep. Here, slip this dress on.” Doll held out a perfectly starched blue cotton dress with a Peter Pan collar and puffy banded short sleeves, then shook her head. “Can’t do anything about them red sneakers you got on.”
“That’s a baby dress,” Ibby protested. “I’m not putting that on.”
“You a debutante or something? It’ll have to do until I can make you something more to your liking.”
“Whose dress is it anyway?”
“That don’t matter none,” Doll said. “Now put it on and be done with it.”
Ibby slipped the dress over her head. It was so starched, it puffed out like an open umbrella. Ibby felt silly.
Doll stood back and crossed her arms. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,” Ibby said, pointing down at her red sneakers. “I hate Dorothy.”
“Now listen here. From the way I see it, that ain’t such a bad thing. Dorothy got what she wanted in the end, didn’t she?” Doll gave an impatient tap of her foot. “Your grandmother is waiting. And one thing you never want to do is keep Miss Fannie waiting.”
Ibby put her hands on her hips and mashed her lips together. She didn’t want to go anywhere looking like this.
Doll said in a low voice, “Calm yourself. She ain’t gone bite.”
She ain’t gone bite. It was the second time in an hour Ibby had heard that, first from her mother, and now from Doll. Ibby reluctantly started toward the door.
Doll caught Ibby by the arm. “It’ll be all right, just you wait and see.”
Ibby didn’t believe a word of it.
And by the way Doll was grinning, Ibby could tell Doll didn’t believe a word of it either.
Chapter Four