“Thank you.” And I went home to wait.
18
WHEN PRETTY BOY DIED
The next evening at dinner was quiet, not the good quiet where you’re all thinking your own thoughts and smiling at each other, but the bad quiet where you’re walking on eggshells even though the mean words are still in your head. I was mad at Daddy for sending Judy away and mad at Mother for not standing up to him.
For their part, my parents seemed to have almost forgotten I was there. No one spoke, except to say “pass the salt” or “where’s the butter?” I wondered if this was what dinner was going to be like, now that Judy was gone. If so, I thought I’d run away to live at Granny’s too.
Halfway through dinner, I dropped my glass and spilled water all over my blouse. “Excuse me,” I said, and it sounded way too loud as I stood up and went into the kitchen.
I was just reaching for the dish towel when I heard Mother say, “There’s something I need to tell you, Richard.”
“What?” asked Daddy. They were whispering, but I was only in the kitchen so I could hear every word.
“You know that private school, T. J. Raney?” Mother asked. “The one Judy wanted to go to.”
“Yes.”
“It’s opening next week,” said Mother. “I’ve been asked to teach there.”
“Just tell them you’re not interested.”
“No,” said Mother. “I signed the contract this afternoon.”
Daddy started coughing.
“It’d mainly be the same students I would have been teaching at Hall High.”
“No.”
“And if I could help get the school started, then maybe Judy could come home,” explained Mother.
I crept over to the doorway. I didn’t want to hear them argue, but like a moth near a candle, I couldn’t pull myself away, either. Daddy shook his head. “Governor Faubus is just trying to find a way to get around the integration order. It’s going back on all the progress those nine students made last year.”
Mother said nothing.
“You knew I wouldn’t approve,” said Daddy.
“That’s why I didn’t ask you first,” snapped Mother. “Sometimes I think you care about those Negroes more than your own family.”
Daddy slammed his fist down on the table. “That’s not fair. Of course I’ll miss Judy, but we have to do what’s best for her education and—”
Mother stood up and walked out of the room. Daddy threw down his napkin like he was going to follow her, then changed his mind and sat with his head in his hands.
I wanted to sneak off and hide under my covers, but I couldn’t reach my room without going through the dining room. I considered going out the back door and climbing in my bedroom window like a burglar, but it seemed simpler to wait and see if Daddy would leave too.
Finally, he looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. “Marlee,” Daddy said automatically, “we weren’t . . .”
But I guess he realized there was no point in lying, because he sighed and said, “Sit down and finish your dinner.”
I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to storm off like Mother either. I decided, to keep the peace, I would take the high road and go sit down. Even if I couldn’t eat a bite.
“We’re all feeling stressed and . . .” Daddy rubbed his eyes. “You’re probably pretty angry with me.”
I didn’t answer. The answer to that question was yes.
Daddy took a deep breath. “Do you remember when we thought Pretty Boy had died?”
I wasn’t in the mood for a bedtime story. Pretty Boy was singing away in my room right now, so I was pretty sure he had lived through whatever misfortune had befallen him. But Daddy wasn’t deterred by my lack of interest.
“You were little, maybe four or five,” he went on. “David let Pretty Boy out of his cage to fly around, but then, after a while, he couldn’t find him. He searched everywhere. Finally he went up into the attic. There was Pretty Boy, lying on the rafters in front of the attic fan.
“Pretty Boy was lying awful still, not moving. David picked him up and gently stroked his feathers. Nothing. There wasn’t any injury he could see, but Pretty Boy didn’t move. David brought him back downstairs and put him in his cage. When I came home from work, that was where I found you all, gathered around Pretty Boy’s cage, crying.”
I vaguely remembered that. Not that I was interested in Daddy’s story, but . . . “You were already planning his funeral, but I wasn’t sure he was dead. I’d seen birds like that before, stunned, but if you left them alone long enough, they’d shake it off and be as good as new. So we put the cover on his cage and went to bed. And in the morning, when we took off the cover, there was Pretty Boy sitting on his perch, singing. Singing just as pretty as he ever had.
“What I’m trying to say is . . . our family is like Pretty Boy. Things might seem awful bad right now, with your new friend gone and your sister at Granny’s and Mother so angry with me, but we’ll get through this. You’ll see.” He patted my hand.
It was a nice story. But I wasn’t totally sure he believed it himself.
There was a knock at the front door, and Mother went to answer it. We could hear a man’s voice, low and gruff, but we couldn’t make out the words.
“Who is it?” Daddy called out.
“A policeman,” said Mother, and she sounded afraid.
All sorts of horrible ideas went through my head as Daddy and I ran for the front door. Maybe David had been in a car accident. Maybe Judy had run away. Or maybe the policeman was here to arrest me for trying to contact Liz. Daddy had warned me to leave her alone, and I hadn’t listened.
“Actually,” said the man, “I’m a federal marshal.”
Sure enough, he had an armband that read U.S. MARSHAL and held up a badge with an eagle on it for all of us to see.
“Does Mrs. Lillian Maurine Nisbett live here?”
“Yes,” said Mother. “That’s me.”
He handed her an envelope with a golden seal. “This is a restraining order forbidding you from working at T. J. Raney High School.”
“I don’t understand,” stammered Mother.
“There is a current contract on file placing you at Hall High School. You need to honor that contract.”
Mother took the envelope, but didn’t move to open it. “Oh.”
“Do you understand, ma’am?” the man asked. “You are not to teach at T. J. Raney. This is an order from the federal government, which supersedes any state laws. You need to remain at your old school. Even if there aren’t any students.”
“I understand.” But Mother didn’t look at him.
The marshal tipped his hat. “Good night, then. Sorry to bother you.” He turned and left our front porch.
Mother stood perfectly still in the hallway. Daddy opened his mouth, then closed it again. I went back to the dining room.
The silence was horrible, and I found myself wishing for the yelling. Thoughts were bouncing around my head like the balls in a pinball machine, and I didn’t want to hear any of them. Was Mother going to get arrested? Were my parents going to keep fighting? When was Judy going to come home? Would Liz show up tomorrow afternoon? I scraped all the leftovers into the trash and focused on doing the dishes, scrubbing each plate in clockwise circles. The area of each plate was pi times the radius squared. If I thought about that hard enough, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything else.
In the middle of the night, I woke up hungry. I decided to go into the kitchen and make myself a bowl of cereal and milk. But when I got halfway down the hall, I heard crying. I peeked into the kitchen.
It was Mother sitting at the table, holding a cup of tea.
Parents were not supposed to cry. They weren’t supposed to fight, either. And sisters weren’t suppose
d to be sent away. And if your friend was white, she should stay white, and not suddenly turn out to be a Negro.
I wanted to comfort Mother, but I didn’t know what to say. For a long while, I just stood in the hall and listened to her crying and thought, what if Pretty Boy hadn’t woken up? What if flying into the fan had killed him? Daddy had said sometimes birds shook off a collision and sometimes they didn’t. Which one would it be for us?
I crept back to my room and picked up the drape over the birdcage. Pretty Boy was sitting on his perch, his tiny chest moving up and down. I whispered, “Please don’t die.” Then I let down the drape and went back to bed.
19
COLORED
Friday afternoon finally came. I wasn’t sure what I should do. On the one hand, the federal marshal showing up the night before had spooked me. And Daddy had told me to stay away from Liz. On the other, I really wanted that math book. I’d earned it. There could be no harm in meeting her, getting the book and leaving. At least that’s what I told myself. But the truth was I just wanted to see Liz.
I meant for her to meet me by the lions, but she wasn’t there when I arrived. After a few minutes, I decided to walk around the zoo to see if she was waiting somewhere else. The monkeys were chattering at each other and ignored me. The flamingos slept on one leg, their heads under their wings. Even Ruth wouldn’t take the peanuts I offered.
I was in a foul mood. How dare Liz not show up? She probably wouldn’t even bring the magic square book if she did. She’d lied to me. She’d used me. Picked the dumb white girl for a friend, because even if I did find out her secret, I wouldn’t tell anyone. Part of me knew that didn’t make sense—if she’d wanted me only to stay quiet, why had she worked so hard at getting me to talk?—but as I walked around the zoo, my disappointment grew, and I nursed my anger like a jawbreaker that grew hotter and hotter as I rolled it around on my tongue.
I went back to the lion’s cage. There was a strange girl on the bench, with a bandanna tied around her head and big sunglasses and a patched coat. She was looking off in the other direction. I had just decided to give Liz five more minutes before I left when I noticed there was a book on the bench next to the girl. A big book. A math book.
“Liz?” I ventured.
The girl turned to face me. “You came,” Liz said.
“Of course I came,” I said. “I invited you.”
“You weren’t here when I got here.”
“I was,” I insisted. “You weren’t here, so I went to look around. Visited Ruth and her friends.”
We stared at each other for a minute, not exactly scowling, but not smiling either. Maybe Daddy was right—maybe now she was a completely different person after all.
Liz looked down at the ground. “Why don’t you just say it,” she said.
“Say what?” I asked.
“Ask me. Isn’t that why you wanted to meet me here?”
Questions swirled in my head: Why did you lie? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you like me at all, or was our friendship a story too? But what I said was the obvious question. “Are you really colored?”
Liz nodded.
I sat down next to her. “You don’t look colored.”
“It doesn’t matter what you look like,” said Liz. For the first time since I’d known her, Liz dropped her friendly mask. “I am colored. Do you have a problem with that?”
I wasn’t sure. If you’d asked me last summer if I wanted a Negro for a friend, I’d have said no thank you. I’m sure they are very nice, but I’ll stick to my own kind. Birds of a feather flock together, right? But this wasn’t some random hypothetical Negro—this was Liz. “I’m not sure,” I said finally. “Why did you—”
“I don’t know,” said Liz miserably. “My parents told me to go to West Side Junior High, so I went. Do you ever talk back to your parents?”
I thought about the conversation with my father in the car. Meeting Liz probably qualified as talking back. “Sometimes,” I admitted.
“Well, I don’t,” said Liz. “They’re my parents. They have their reasons. I have to trust them.”
I waited. There was more she had to say. And if there’s anything a quiet girl knows, it’s how to listen.
Sure enough, after a moment Liz began to speak again. “My mother is real smart. She’s like you in math, it comes natural to her without even thinking. But she had to quit school when she was fifteen and get a job working as a housekeeper in a rich white lady’s house. When she should have been a scientist, designing one of those satellites.”
I gave Liz a surprised look.
“What?” she said. “You think white people are the only ones who dream about going to the moon?”
For the first time I realized, not only were there no women among those scientists on TV, there weren’t any Negroes either.
“We moved to Little Rock this past summer. My grandmother’s getting old, and she has a nice little house but no one to help her take care of it. So we moved in with her. And when Mama told me to go register myself at West Side Junior High, I did, and I didn’t ask any questions.
“I haven’t gone anywhere with my family in months, just school and home and the zoo with you. My grandmother and I even said our prayers at home. Then last Sunday, my little brother was getting confirmed at church, and we figured this one time, it would be okay for me to go.” She shrugged. “You know the rest.”
No, I didn’t. I mean, I knew about Sally and her mother, but what about Liz and me? What was going to happen to us? “Where are you at school now?” I asked.
“Dunbar Junior High,” said Liz. “The colored school. The official story is that I’ve been real sick and my grandmother’s been teaching me at home. But the truth is, everyone knows.” Liz was crying now, small silent tears that dripped out from behind those ridiculous glasses. “No one will talk to me. If I ask a question, they don’t respond. If I sit down at a table at lunch, the others get up and leave. Everyone ignores me as if I weren’t even there.”
I handed her my handkerchief, and she wiped her eyes. This wasn’t the Liz I’d known at all. The Liz I’d met at school was strong and confident, and this one reminded me a lot of myself.
Liz blew her nose and nudged the math book closer to me. “Here’s the book.”
“You don’t have to—”
“In your note you said to bring the book. I thought that meant you did the presentation.”
I nodded. “I did. The whole thing. Your part too.” I couldn’t keep the pride out of my voice.
“Good for you, Marlee,” Liz said, but she didn’t smile. “You earned it.”
This wasn’t how I imagined things. I wanted Liz to be proud and happy. “Won’t your mother miss her book?”
Liz shook her head. “She was so excited when I asked to borrow it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t for me.”
I picked up the book and clutched it to my chest. It was warm from sitting in the sun. The last of my anger melted away, and suddenly I knew, despite everything, that I still wanted to be Liz’s friend.
“Meet you here again next Friday?” I asked.
Liz shook her head. “Marlee, I can’t meet you here anymore. It’s dangerous. If the wrong person found out . . .”
She didn’t finish and I thought about what Daddy had said. You let your youngest walk to school tomorrow, she won’t make it. I guess that was why Liz had on the glasses and the bandanna. Though if she was trying not to be noticed, she probably should have picked something less conspicuous.
“Daddy’s already talking about moving again,” Liz went on, “but Mother has a housekeeping job she likes for once, and Grandmother has been here forever, so she won’t leave no matter what happens. Besides, Mama’s not the type to run. Even if it is dangerous.”
“Are you scared?” I a
sked.
“Yes,” said Liz. “I am.”
I was too. At least, I tried to be. It was hard to believe that someone would really try to hurt us, when the sun was shining and we were at the zoo, and everything seemed so normal.
“Well,” I said, “you can always take a deep breath.”
Liz snorted. “Imagine them in their underwear.”
“Two, three, five, seven, eleven.”
We both giggled.
Liz leaned over and put her head on my shoulder. “Aw, Marlee, you are a good friend. I’m sorry I can’t—”
“Please,” I said. “Daddy sent Judy away to live with Granny in Pine Bluff.”
“What?” said Liz, sitting up straight.
“She’s going to go to school there,” I explained.
“But who is there left for you to talk to?”
“Exactly,” I said.
Liz was silent for a long time. “I don’t have anyone to talk to, either.”
I held my breath.
“Give me the book for a minute.”
I handed the book back to her. Liz pulled a pen out of her coat pocket and began to write on the front leaf of the book. When she was done, she handed it back to me.
“The first two and the last two digits are the year,” said Liz.
I looked: 1958.
“The other five are my phone number.”
“Five, two, nine, three, seven,” I repeated.
Liz nodded.
“It’s not a magic square,” I said. “The rows don’t add up.”
“Oh, Marlee.” Liz laughed. “Only you would notice that. Ask for Elizabeth Fullerton when you call. Not Liz. Use my full name. Mother is worried about prank calls and won’t let me answer the phone.”
I nodded.
“Don’t bother calling until next weekend,” said Liz. “I’m going to be grounded for sneaking out today.”
I nodded again.
“And we need new names. My parents know I have a friend named Marlee at West Side.”
The Lions of Little Rock Page 8