The Only Black Girls in Town

by Brandy Colbert

December 24, 1955

  Mrs. Graham knows now, as well.

  I had no other choice but to tell her I’d been pushed out of my room and had no place to go. When she asked why, I burst into tears, so exhausted by the last couple of days that I couldn’t dredge up the energy for a lie.

  She stood up from the table and began pacing across the kitchen. For a moment, she stopped by the telephone and I thought, perhaps, that she was going to call the police on me. Or perhaps she wanted to call Mr. Graham and ask him what to do. Then she stood by the sink for several minutes, wringing her hands as she stared out the window at nothing.

  Finally, she sat back down across from me and said, “Constance, you know how much we appreciate you, but I’m afraid we can no longer employ you in our home.”

  “Please, Mrs. Graham. I have nowhere to go.”

  She looked down at the table as she said, “Mr. Graham and I are sympathetic to the struggles of your people. We truly are. But how would it look if we had a Negro house girl? Well, we’d be no better than the people from where you came.”

  “But no one has to know. You didn’t, did you?” I stared at her until she met my eye.

  “No, Constance, I didn’t.”

  Somehow, that was a relief. Before she’d slammed the door at my back, Mrs. Hansen had snarled that she knew there was always something off about me.

  I wondered who else knew. Patricia? Perhaps. Though I don’t take her to be that perceptive. Most of our discussions center on parties and the young men we might meet at them and the clothes we would wear to impress them. Well, that she would wear. I’ve never gone to one of the gatherings or dances she’s invited me to. I’ve taken my chances with a few people, but what if I fall in love? What if I had children and they turned out darker than me? My skin burned at the thought of Sanford. Was he thinking of loving other people, too? Of starting a family with another woman?

  “But, Constance,” Mrs. Graham said, “I’m afraid I can no longer trust you since you haven’t been truthful with us. If you’ve lied about this, what else will you lie about?”

  I felt so very low after that statement, I could no longer look her in the eye.

  But she is giving me a place to stay through the new year. And she has promised she won’t tell Mr. Graham or the children until I’m long gone.

  “Can I give you some advice, Constance?”

  I nodded as tears dripped down my cheeks.

  Her voice was the kindest I’ve ever heard it as she said, “Maybe this is a sign that it’s time to return home. Things are getting better down there every day. And I’m sure your family misses you very much.”

  I wiped the tears from my face before I looked at her again. “With all due respect, Mrs. Graham, if things were getting better I would never have felt the need to come so far and do what I did.”

  She said nothing. We sat silently across from each other until the telephone rang. It was Mrs. Ogden, confirming the Grahams would be at the Christmas Eve service that evening.

  Love, Constance

  Edie looks up at me, blinking rapidly. I think maybe she’s trying to hold back tears. “This is so sad, Alberta. She was definitely passing for white.”

  We sit with that for a few moments. As hard as it is to be black in a town where not very many people look like me or understand what it is to be me, I can’t imagine pretending to be white.

  “It seems like it would be so much harder… pretending,” Edie says quietly, as if she’s read my mind.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Things were different back then. Especially in the South. Like she said, it was bad enough for her to lie about who she was.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t think I could do it.”

  “You wouldn’t have to.”

  “What do you mean?” Edie says, frowning.

  “You’re light skinned.”

  “Not light enough to pass for white. And my dad always says I got the Whitman nose,” she says. “I’ve never seen a white person with this kind of nose.”

  “Yeah, but things were different for light-skinned people back then.” I pause. “Dad and Elliott say they’re different today, too.”

  A stubborn look deposits itself on Edie’s face, and I think maybe she’s mad at me. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.

  Then she mumbles, “Craig used to say that all the time. He’s dark, like my mom. My dad’s skin is about your shade. I’m the lightest one in the family.”

  “Is that weird?”

  Her voice is soft when she says, “Sometimes. People used to think I was Dominican. They’d look surprised when they’d see us all together.”

  I’ve always noticed when people stare at my dads and me, trying to figure out how we fit together, but it’s never been because of the difference in our skin tones, which isn’t a very big difference at all. I’m not light skinned. I’m not dark, either, but I’m a darker brown than Edie. No one would ever guess I’m anything but black.

  Edie clears her throat. “I’m just saying, if Constance was light enough that she could pass for white but still had to leave the South, it sounds like it was pretty bad for anyone who wasn’t actually white.”

  “Does she talk about passing in the journals you have?”

  “No. Just her job at the department store, and the friends she’s making.” Edie pauses. “She seemed really happy in Santa Barbara. Maybe we should start looking for things about her life there?”

  I glance at Mrs. Palmer, who’s organizing books on a metal cart at the front of the library. “Denise said there’s something called microfilm that we can use to look up stuff. Maybe we can find any Constances listed in Santa Barbara. Or an old town directory… or maybe something about the department store.”

  “Good idea,” Edie says. “And we need to get to the end of these journals, stat.”

  “How many more are there?” The pile seemed endless when Edie first presented them to me.

  “A lot. But we can skip ahead, right? I mean, she has to have some connection to Ewing Beach. Otherwise, why were they all in my attic?” I look at Mrs. Palmer again, but before I can even say anything, Edie shakes her head. “No. We can’t ask her. What if she makes us give them all to her?”

  “She wouldn’t do that. Mrs. Palmer is really sweet.”

  But part of me is worried about that, too. We did find them in her mother’s old house. Maybe she and her sister and brother meant to take them but forgot about the box when they were moving out Mrs. Harris’s personal things. I know they’re not mine, but the more time we spend reading Constance’s journals and turning the same pages that she touched and wrote on, the more attached to her I feel.

  “Well, we can’t use the microfilm if we don’t ask her about it,” I say. “She won’t know exactly why we need to use it.”

  Edie still looks skeptical, but she follows me up to the front.

  “Mrs. Palmer, we need some help,” I say, trying not to sound as nervous as I feel. “Can we use microfilm to look up some really old stuff?”

  She cocks her head to the side. “Are they teaching you about microfilm in school now?”

  “No, our… family friend told me. She’s a journalist, and she said it might help us find something for papers we’re writing.”

  “Well, I can do my best to help, but it might take me a couple of days to pull up what you need,” she says. “Hold on a second.”

  She gets a piece of paper and jots down everything we tell her: Santa Barbara, 1956, Schiff’s Department Store, Betty Graham. I watch her face closely when I tell her the name Constance. Next to me, I feel Edie holding her breath. We’re both worried Mrs. Palmer is going to recognize the information from the journals and tell us it’s none of our business. Maybe she’ll shut this whole thing down before we’ve even really started.

  But she is completely professional as she takes the notes in neat, blocky handwriting. Edie has a couple of more names for her from the Santa Barbara journals she’s read.

  “How s
oon do you need the information?” Mrs. Palmer asks when she’s done.

  “Um, it’s kind of a long-term project,” I reply.

  “But the sooner we can start, the better,” Edie says quickly.

  “Understood. Okay if I give you a call when I have everything set up? I’m not sure how much we have in the Ewing Beach archives, and I might need to contact some other local libraries for help.”

  “Totally okay with us,” I say, and give her my number.

  “You’ll hear from me soon.” She slides the paper onto her computer keyboard and smiles at us again. “It’s nice to see girls your age taking an interest in history. Even if it is for a project. Most people these days think if it doesn’t exist on the internet, it didn’t happen.”

  Edie and I pack up our things and say good-bye to Mrs. Palmer before we leave.

  As we walk along Ewing Street toward home, Edie says, “I have to tell you something.”

  I look at her curiously, wondering if there’s some detail she didn’t mention about Constance. Something she didn’t want to say in front of Mrs. Palmer.

  But she pauses and says, “Today… Rashawn gave me something.”

  “Rashawn Carlson?”

  “Yeah.…”

  I wait for her to go on, but instead, I watch Edie’s tawny skin flush from the neck up. Finally, she stops next to a bench in front of the thrift store. She plops her backpack down, unzips it, and digs deep into the bottom. I’m definitely not expecting what she pulls out: a black rubber ducky.

  I giggle as she hands it to me. “Where’d you get this?”

  “From Rashawn.”

  “Why would he give you this?”

  Her face looks like it’s on fire. “He won it at the bottle toss… during Beach Night.”

  “But why would he give it to you?” I ask, frowning.

  “He said he watched us playing so much that night. He felt bad that we never won anything. So… he won and chose this because he thought I’d like it.”

  “But Beach Night was almost a week ago. Why did he wait so long to give it to you?”

  Edie shrugs. “Maybe he was nervous?”

  I feel hot, too. Embarrassed.

  “It’s weird, right?” she says in a small voice. “I barely know him.”

  I turn the ducky over in my hand. Rashawn knows Edie well enough to know she’d like a jet-black rubber ducky better than a regular old yellow one. It’s pretty cute, but I don’t really want to hold it anymore. I give it back to Edie.

  “What should I do with it?” she asks, dropping it into her bag. She zips it up but doesn’t put it back on her shoulders. A couple of seconds later, she sits on the bench and places the backpack on her lap.

  I sit down next to her. “Keep it, I guess.”

  “But what if he thinks it means something?”

  “I think it does mean something, Edie. He likes you.”

  She scrunches her nose. “But why? We’ve barely talked.”

  “I don’t know… but isn’t it kind of cool that someone likes you?”

  “I guess. Except now do I have to like him back?”

  I look at her. “Why would you have to do that?”

  “It’s…” She trails off, staring at the toes of her boots. “It’s just that it’s different here, right? Like, there are only two black guys at our school.”

  “So?”

  “So… I like black guys, but is it weird if I don’t like him? The ducky is sweet. And… I mean, he is kind of cute. But I just… I don’t really feel that way about him.”

  “I totally get it,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Rashawn’s family just moved here last year, and everyone kept asking if I had a crush on him. It was super annoying. They never asked me about anyone else… just him.”

  Edie nods. “Because he’s black. It’s so weird. Brooklyn is, like, a huge melting pot. Nobody thinks you should have a crush on someone just because they’re black or white or Puerto Rican or whatever.” She pauses. “What do I do? I don’t want to be rude, but…”

  But she doesn’t like him like that.

  “Are you allowed to date?”

  “Uh, no,” she says, laughing. “My mom says I’m trying to grow up too fast with the coffee and lipstick. So I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Yeah, just tell him that,” I say breezily. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Or like I would know anything about talking to someone who likes me like that.

  Edie turns to me. “Do you like anyone?”

  I shrug. “No, not really.”

  “Not really or not at all?” she asks, raising her eyebrow like she’s a sleuth in the mystery that is Alberta Freeman-Price.

  But that part of me isn’t interesting enough to be a mystery. I’ve had crushes; my first one was Leif, even though I denied it every time Laramie brought up the way I got giggly and shy around him. I guess I stopped crushing on him last year sometime. He’s still cute, but I noticed that I wasn’t getting that strange, butterfly-flapping feeling in my stomach when I was around him. After Leif, I decided I liked a guy named Tate, who always smiled and said, “Hi, Alberta”—not just hi—when he saw me, until Laramie said she had it on good authority that Tate doesn’t like girls. I guess I’m crushless at the moment.

  “Not at all.”

  “Not even Oliver?”

  “What? No!” I meet her grin with a suspicious stare. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You guys are cool with each other.”

  “We’re friends… and we know each other from surfing. But I don’t like Oliver.”

  To be honest, I hadn’t thought about it. Oliver is cute enough, and we do get along, but I’ve never thought about holding hands or kissing him or anything like that.

  She shrugs. “That’s fair. I don’t like anyone here, either. Yet.”

  As we leave the bench and keep walking, Edie changes the subject to the collage project we started in art today. But I can’t stop thinking about all the guys at Ewing Beach Middle School, trying to figure out if there’s anyone I could have a crush on. I’d never admit this to anyone, but I even run over the list of sixth-grade boys who aren’t completely repulsive. I come up with no one.

  Really, though, I can’t stop thinking about that rubber ducky. Rashawn is nice, but I’ve never liked him as more than friends. So I wish it didn’t bother me so much that he likes Edie in a way he’s never liked me.

  SURF’S UP

  SATURDAY MORNING, ELLIOTT DRIVES ME TO THE community center, where I’m supposed to meet Irene and the rest of the kids so we can all go to the festival together.

  I look over at Elliott. He keeps rubbing his eyes behind his glasses and yawning, which makes me yawn. It’s earlier than either of us like to be up on a Saturday, but they didn’t want me to have to leave my bike at the community center or walk there alone.

  “Just imagine next year,” I say wistfully as I fiddle with the radio dial. “You, Dad, and me will be on our way to Pismo so you can watch me compete.”

  “If that’s what you want, I hope we will be, Al,” he says stopping at a light.

  “Why wouldn’t it be what I want?”

  “Well, sometimes things change. Our priorities. Interests.”

  “I’m always going to want to surf, Elliott,” I say, folding my arms in front of me.

  “I don’t doubt that. I am curious why you’re so interested in competing.”

  “Because it proves something. That I’m good enough to be out there with everyone else.” Nobody will even know how good I am if I’m sitting on the sidelines.

  “We already know you’re good enough,” Elliott says. “The best at camp, right?”

  “Yes, but that’s only what Irene said. Everyone gets a trophy, so there’s no proof.”

  Elliott tilts his head at me. “But if you know it in your heart, and your instructor said that’s what she thinks, too, why do you need a trophy to prove it?”

  I look down at my lap. “Nicolette told me Irene was o
nly saying that to make me feel better. About being different.”

  The light turns green, but Elliott takes a few moments to go. He’s just staring at a point over my shoulder. For so long that a car finally honks at him to get moving. And it takes a lot for people to honk at anyone in Ewing Beach.

  “She said that to you?” he asks, finally putting his foot on the gas.

  “Yeah… right after Irene walked away.”

  Elliott looks mad. And he usually tries not to get angry in front of me, so this must be a big deal to him. “I’m sorry, Al. She should never have said anything like that to you. She shouldn’t even think like that, but…” He trails off, shaking his head.

  Maybe I’m the one who shouldn’t have mentioned anything. I don’t want to make Elliott angry, especially not so early in the morning. Neither of us says anything else the rest of the way.

  Irene is standing outside the community center next to a giant white conversion van. I’m relieved not to see any surfboards sitting on top of it or sticking out of the back. At least I’m not the only one who won’t be competing today.

  Elliott gives me a hug, carefully holding his travel mug, before I get out of the car. “I’m sorry you have to put up with ridiculous things like that, Al,” he says into my dreads. “Ridiculous people. You know what she said isn’t true, right?”

  I nod as we pull away and start to open the door.

  “Al?”

  I look back at Elliott, whose face is full of concern. “I really want to know you hear me when I say Irene didn’t tell you that because you’re black. She told you that because it’s the truth. Okay?”

  “I hear you,” I say softly. I’m a little embarrassed at how serious he’s being. “Thanks, Elliott.”

  “And next year is your year to get out there and compete.”

  I smile at him and kiss his cheek before I get out of the car.

  “Hey, Alberta,” Irene says, waving as I walk up. Her hair is pulled back in its usual ponytail, the red strands gleaming like copper in the sun. “There are pastries and juice inside if you haven’t eaten breakfast. We’re taking off in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes on the dot,” says Jed, who’s sitting in the front passenger seat, his legs hanging out of the open door. He gives me a lazy smile.