Come a Stranger

by Cynthia Voigt

  Harriet didn’t like this. She came hippity-hopping over one early October morning to say, “Mrs. Edges? My father says I’m not getting the quality of instruction he expected. He wants to come in and talk to you about what I’m learning.” The rest of the corps de ballet stood behind her, nodding their heads to show that their daddies felt the same way, smirking to see a student win a power play over a teacher, any teacher.

  Mina couldn’t have stopped herself if she wanted to. She took one look at the scene and started to laugh.

  Harriet whirled around. “What’s so funny?”

  Mina couldn’t help it. “You are,” she laughed. “You and the rest of your corps de ballet here.”

  Harriet’s henchman, Sandy, the only one with whom Mina had any classes, looked at Mina, looked at Mrs. Edges, whose temper was starting to show; and looked at Harriet. She grinned at Mina. “Nice try, Harriet,” she said, “but she’s got you.”

  Mina stopped laughing. She told herself that she couldn’t just slam somebody on the head with her tennis racquet. It wasn’t even her own racquet, it belonged to the school, and what if it broke.

  “Wanna play a game?” Sandy asked her.

  Mina wanted to say no and walk away. She didn’t want to have anything to do with them. She didn’t want Sandy thinking that Mina would be grateful for this little friendly gesture. She’d seen what their friendship was worth. But she also wondered how she’d do, and it was a beautiful morning out there on the tennis courts, the air cool and tasting good, the sun warm, the leaves dark green on the tall trees. It was too beautiful a morning to let go to waste.

  “Sure,” she said. “Two out of three? Shall I serve first?” she asked, smiling with all her teeth, Uncle Tomming the girl.

  Sandy was dark-haired and round-muscled, with the body of a natural athlete. She was sure of herself, because she was the best of the corps. “Fine by me,” she agreed, her generosity put on as bright as her lipstick.

  Mina aced her, all four serves, one after the other. She overpowered the girl. That took care of the first game. When Sandy served, they had to volley, and Mina concentrated on always getting the ball back over the net. They crept up to deuce, then the add point went back and forth, with nobody able to take the final point that would end the game. Mina stopped thinking about beating Sandy and started to think about winning the game. When she did that, she had to admit to herself that it had been fun to play against Sandy. Mrs. Edges was so much better than Mina, their games weren’t really games; but Sandy made a genuine opponent.

  “That’s some serve you’ve got,” Sandy said. Mina nodded, but didn’t say anything more. “Is that what you call us, corps de ballet?”

  “Why not?” Mina asked. She had worked up a sweat winning the second game.

  “With you as Odile,” Sandy cracked.

  That got Mina’s attention. She looked down into the white girl’s tanned face and noted the crooked nose and short front teeth and the unmistakeable gleam of intelligence in the brown eyes. “Odile-Odette,” Mina answered.

  Sandy laughed, a short quick laugh, and went off to the gym for a shower.

  The next day, Sandy started off the class saying that she and Mina would take on anyone else in doubles. Mina said, no, but she and Bonnie would if anyone cared to play them. Bonnie wasn’t sure she wanted to, but Mina made her, without saying a word, just by assuming they would and summoning her onto the court. But the next day, Mrs. Edges took Mina aside at the end of class and said she was switching Mina’s sports assignment.

  “It doesn’t bother me,” Mina said.

  “It’s not that,” Mrs. Edges said, embarrassed. “It’s because you’re too good.”

  Mina’s jaw wanted to fall open, but she held it closed.

  “You’ve got excellent coordination and real strength. You move well, with natural grace. You’re unusually disciplined. I want you to be in an intermediate class, not a beginner’s. You’ll be behind at first.”

  “That’s okay,” Mina said.

  “But I think you’ll catch up in no time. Miss Bower—she’s the varsity coach—agrees with me. We want to build a tennis team. I think you’re a good bet for it. We want you to take tennis for your spring sport too, if you’d like to.” Mrs. Edges waited, and then added, “So would you like to do that?”

  Mina nodded her head while her mind was still trying to figure out words like natural grace and coordination. She wondered why Miss Maddinton had told her she’d grown up clumsy. She wondered why she’d believed that long-ago teacher. She wondered if Miss Maddinton just hadn’t remembered that people grew and kept on growing; she hadn’t looked with a long eye. Maybe, Mina thought, because a long eye wouldn’t show her what she wanted to see.

  “Thank you,” Mina remembered to say.

  Since things were going along so well, Mina decided that she’d pair herself up with Dicey Tillerman when the science teacher announced that he wanted them working in pairs for a rock classifying unit. It wouldn’t do Dicey any harm socially. Mina’s position in the class was becoming more what she’d expected. Everybody knew Mina Smiths, or knew who she was, or was going to. Moreover, she’d seen Dicey talking to a boy after school, while the boy played his guitar, so she thought Dicey must be coming out of her initial shyness. Then, which was most tempting, she’d seen Dicey’s face wake up a couple of times in English class in response to something Mina had said. For all of those reasons, but mostly because of Tamer Shipp’s Bullet, mostly for Tamer Shipp, Mina went over to sit beside Dicey Tillerman at the lab table in the back of the room.

  Dicey looked up, not exactly pleased. Mina piled her books onto the table. “I’m Wilhemina Smiths, Smiths with an S at both ends. My friends call me Mina. You’re Dicey Tillerman,” she added quickly, because she wouldn’t put it past this girl to not introduce herself.

  Dicey looked at her. Probably, like Mina, she was hearing the buzzes of conversation around them. Mina ignored her friends and met Dicey’s eyes. They were hazel eyes, and suspicious.

  “We’re the smartest ones in here,” Mina kept her voice low to say that, even though she thought it was true.

  Dicey didn’t say any of the things Mina expected her to say. The usual responses would be, “Oh I don’t think so,” with false modesty, or, “I know,” with pride, or, “Thank you,” for the compliment.

  “How do you know that?” Dicey demanded.

  Mina got busy arranging her books and kept her eyes on her hands to hide the laughter bubbling up in her. “I know about me,” she said, “and I’ve been keeping an eye on you.” That was certainly the truth, if Dicey only knew. “Don’t worry.” Mina looked back at the hazel eyes, which were entirely alert now in the narrow face. “I won’t eat you.”

  Dicey was surprised to hear that, and then she just grinned at Mina, mischief and confidence all over that face now. The eyes flashed some different colors Mina couldn’t catch. “I’m not worried,” the girl said, and Mina could have cheered aloud, if class hadn’t started in right then. Whoo-ee, she said, inside her head.

  They worked well together. Dicey knew how to work with someone, although she always knew what she thought, loud and clear. When they disagreed on what kind of a rock it was they were classifying, or what was the best proof, they argued back and forth about it. Sometimes it turned out Dicey was right, sometimes that Mina was right, and sometimes their arguments got them to a new answer, which they both recognized as better than either of their own suggestions. Dicey didn’t ask Mina any personal questions. Mina very carefully didn’t ask Dicey any personal questions either, but she figured they had begun to be friends. Mina could never boss Dicey around, and she liked that.

  When Mr. Chappelle assigned an essay in English class, Mina had such a good idea right away that she could barely stop herself from trying to talk to Dicey right then in the middle of class. She waited by the door for Dicey to come out. She told Dicey she had an idea she wanted to talk to her about.

  “Sure,” Dicey said, not e
ven slowing down.

  Mina suggested after school, and Dicey said she couldn’t. Mina suggested that the girl come by her house, but Dicey said she couldn’t. There was a sinking feeling at Mina’s heart—and a little anger at the way this girl just—dismissed her. She wondered if she’d been all wrong about Dicey and what she was like. Independent, just for starters. She didn’t think so, because she was pretty smart about people, but she was watching the sharp face and she knew she didn’t even have all of the girl’s attention. Mina decided to turn it into a joke. “You sure are a hard person to be friends with, Dicey Tillerman,” she said.

  She waited for some answer, but there was no answer given. Mina guessed that was a pretty clear answer.

  But if Dicey thought Mina didn’t know the smell of prejudice when she ran her nose over it . . . if Dicey thought Mina was short on friends . . . it wasn’t Dicey Mina was interested in anyway, it was Bullet, if anybody wanted the truth of it.

  Kat said it one day, walking down the hall behind Dicey’s cold shoulder. “What do you want honky friends for anyway.”

  “The way you talk, Katanga Beaulieu.” Mina prissed up her lips and minced on down the corridor.

  Mina wrote her English essay the night before it was due. She had the house to herself that night. Louis was at Boy Scouts, Momma was at the hospital, and Belle had gone with their father to the meeting about plans for the Halloween party for teenagers. Halloween hadn’t used to be like that, Mina remembered. Halloween hadn’t used to need a party to keep the older kids at the church and out of trouble, or grownups going out with the little kids to keep them safe. On Halloween her father went out walking along the streets of the neighborhood, “doing his Mayor Lindsay act,” Momma had said.

  “Who’s he?” Mina asked.

  “He was Mayor of New York during the riots after Dr. King was shot,” her dad said. “He went out walking on the streets those nights, trying to keep trouble down. It was a brave thing, and it certainly helped.”

  “Those were terrible days,” her mother added. “You were just a baby, but . . . it was so terrible that Dr. King was shot, and the riots were so terrible, blacks tearing apart their own neighborhoods. I could sympathize, but I couldn’t sympathize, if you know what I mean. I was glad we were down here, you can believe that. Things were tense down here, but not terrible.”

  Mina sat at the kitchen table, with the dark empty house around her. The assignment was to write about a real person having a real conflict. She had decided right away to write about herself, and she wrote it pretending she was writing about someone else, so no one would know until the end who it was. She picked out examples of conflicts anybody could have, because when it came to the point, she didn’t want to write the real truth. She really wanted to write about dance camp, to say how bad it was the way those white people acted. More than that, she wanted to write about Tamer Shipp and wrap her memories around with words. But she didn’t want to write out her real feelings for anybody else to know.

  The essay sounded as if she wasn’t hiding anything, but she was hiding everything. Mina liked that. She knew, if they had to read them aloud, everybody would like it too, because they’d know it was Mina making her own form of mischief. It was a good essay. It made her laugh as she wrote.

  Everything was rolling along right for Mina that fall, except Dicey Tillerman. The intermediate tennis class was fun, classes were pretty easy, and wherever she went people liked her. She was even getting to know some of the upperclassmen. One of the ones she wanted to meet was that guitar-playing boy Dicey talked to, because she’d heard him playing out by the bike rack a couple of times and she liked the sound of his music. Besides, she said to Kat, who also wanted to meet him, he was pretty good looking, even if he was white. “Good looking?” Kat said, staring back at him, hoping he’d notice her. “He’s beautiful.”

  Mina was having a fine time in her life. Dicey Tillerman was no worse than a little splinter of discontent, the kind of little splinter that you can’t quite get out, although you are aware of its sharp and irritating presence. Mina would have liked to show Dicey, but that wasn’t anything to do with Dicey or anything Dicey actually did. Dicey didn’t pay any attention to Mina. To try to get her would be like letting the splinter work its way in closer to your bloodstream, deeper into your flesh.

  Mina got all A’s on her report card, and she asked her parents if they’d get her a tennis racquet for her Christmas present. “I don’t know if it’s too expensive,” she said. “The school has some, so it’s okay if it’s too expensive. But I’d like it.”

  “Why?” her mother wondered.

  “I’m good at it,” Mina said. “I’m not uncoordinated.”

  “I know you’re not uncoordinated,” her mother said, “but—”

  Mina’s mood got out of her control at that “but.” She didn’t know why, except that she’d felt sad all day, maybe because she’d dreamed about Tamer Shipp, dreamed that she was looking for him and couldn’t find him. Maybe some of it was the strain of convincing herself that she was more interested in the many friends she did have than in the one she didn’t, or pretending to herself that she didn’t care if Dicey was the kind of person who rejected someone because she was black. Maybe she was just tired of waiting around for her English essay to come back, tired of Mr. Chappelle’s weak excuses. Whatever the reason, she heard her voice get high and say, “You don’t understand, you just think everything has to do with being black, or female, you just don’t know anything about me and you act like you do. I’ll save up and buy the racquet for myself since you feel that way.” She burst out of the room and up the stairs to her own room. Up there, she slammed the drawers for a while until she felt a little better.

  * * *

  The day Mr. Chappelle finally returned their essays, he said he wanted to read a couple aloud. Mina’s was the first one he chose. She wasn’t surprised. She listened to it, to how it sounded, and listened to the response it got. It was the response she expected. She kept her eyes down, enjoying herself. Then she started listening to what she’d written, and she stopped enjoying it, because she hadn’t told the really important things. She’d talked about laughing and crying and seeming confident, but being insecure. She’d made it sound like she was being perfectly frank and open. But she hadn’t had the courage to tell the real truth.

  Mina wasn’t any too pleased with herself, even though at the same time she was really pleased with herself. She wondered if black people just never did talk about what was true, the way she hadn’t. And if that was the case, how could they expect whites to understand? Maybe they really wanted to stay back angry, maybe she did—so she wouldn’t have to face up to things. Really face up to them. Mina sat there, enjoying how smart she was and wondering, but hiding the wondering. It was nobody else’s business, was it?

  When they got to the last line of the essay, where she identified herself as both writer and subject, everybody thought it was terrific. Mr. Chappelle got her to stand up. He was pleased with her, because reading her essay made him look good to the class. Dicey was impressed and didn’t try to hide it. Mina was pleased and didn’t try to hide it from herself. But even as she sat down again, smiling broadly, she knew what she hadn’t had the courage to do.

  Mina settled back to listen to the other essay. This was about someone called Mrs. Liza, and about one sentence into it, Mina realized that somebody was talking right to her heart, right from whoever’s heart it was that wrote it. The essay wasn’t about feelings, but it touched Mina’s feelings about this poor lady who lived with her kids and no husband, who walked “like a song sung without accompaniment.” Mina could see that, even while her memory supplied a better word, a cappella. This person told the real truth. Whoever wrote it had the courage for that. When it ended, with Mrs. Liza somewhere absolutely alone, worse than where she’d started out, Mina thought it was about anybody who’d ever been beaten down, by one other person or a bunch of other people or society. She didn’t know who
Mrs. Liza was, but she’d met her before, a hundred times she’d bet. Miz Hunter’s great-grandaddy was Mrs. Liza, and so was Miz Hunter too, and Mina sometimes, and Mr. Shipps’ bassoon voice because there was something helpless in it, something lost, something good just thrown away.

  Mina felt as if she could have cried for how true the essay was. Instead, she broke the silence by making a joke. “That surely is a horse of another color. I guess it beat me around the track before I even got out of the starting gate.” She looked around, to see who had written it, because she meant what she said. She didn’t mind being beaten out by something that good. She’d only mind not getting a chance to say how much she liked being beaten out by something that good.

  Even, she realized, watching how hard Dicey was fighting to keep her face expressionless, if it was Dicey Tillerman. She wondered, for a minute, who the lady was, maybe the grandmother who was supposed to be crazy anyway. Mina let the class talk on around her, her heart still reverberating from what she’d heard. She wished, she really wished—she thought, her eye on Dicey’s profile with its straight nose and large mouth—she thought, angrily, that Dicey should know that Mina was a friend worth having. Except Dicey didn’t seem to think that.

  After some questions back and forth, Mr. Chappelle told Dicey to stand up, because she had written the essay. Mina made herself smile across the room—because it was good, whatever else Mina was thinking—but Dicey just stood there, her eyes fixed on Mr. Chappelle’s face, as if she knew something nobody else did.

  “Do you have something to say?” Mr. Chappelle asked Dicey. Mina heard it in his voice: He thought she hadn’t written the essay herself.