by J. D. Horn
“Oh, no, Miss Wills. You are special,” the dean continued, oblivious to everything save his own agenda. “Unless you face a spectacular reversal of fortune during your final examinations, Miss Temple assures us you are certain to graduate as your class’s valedictorian.” He raised his hand and pointed at her. “So you make sure to stay on course. Don’t go letting spring fever or the sight of some young buck turn your head.”
“No, sir,” Jilo responded.
“Fine,” the dean said, shifting his weight and pushing a bit back. “You have given this institution your best work, and we four have spoken. We all agree that we would be remiss if we didn’t band together and address the issue of what should come next for you.” He looked from her to his colleagues. Taking their silence as assent, he continued, “With that in view, we’ve invited you here to discuss your future.” He nodded toward Professor Ward. “I understand from Lionel that you have ambitions in the field of medicine.”
“Yes, sir, I do.” Jilo shifted forward on her seat, sitting up straight. “I believe more opportunities are available to me today than any of my sister graduates since the inception of this institution.” Enthusiasm overtook her, causing her to slide out of her seat and stand. “As you may know, three years ago the American College of Surgeons admitted its first Negro female into its ranks. My dream, no, my intent is to follow in her footsteps. I hope that you—”
“Miss Wills,” the dean said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender, “I have been apprised of your goals.” One hand waved her back into her chair. He waited for her to slip onto the seat, wiping his hand across his mouth as he seemed to consider how to proceed. “I do so admire your youthful passion.” His lips puckered, then bunched up into a reassuring smile. “But I worry that your youth and your passion may in fact work against you. Here, at this institution,” he raised his hands palms up and gestured widely around as if to take in the entire campus, “we seek to ingrain confidence in our girls. However, we must also educate them in regard to the greater world in which we find ourselves. Inject a bit of reality into their dreams.” Nodding, as if in agreement with himself, he tilted his head to the side. “It is true that a few women have succeeded in obtaining medical degrees. Some have even begun to practice medicine. But they are curiosities, the bearded ladies, if you will, of the medical profession. Medicine is, after all, a man’s profession.”
“Any man would refuse treatment from a woman doctor,” Professor Charles broke in.
“Then I will treat women . . . and children.”
A look that straddled the line between amusement and irritation rose up on the dean’s face.
“Miss Wills,” the registrar spoke for the first time. “I assure you,” she said, pushing her thick spectacles back up the bridge of her nose, “women would be no more inclined to seek out care from a female doctor than would a man. Important issues such as a person’s health shouldn’t be left to a woman’s discernment.”
The dean nodded approvingly.
She and Lionel had spent hours together, speaking of her dreams, discussing the changes that were coming about in the world. He had supported her. Encouraged her. In spite of her feelings for him in this present moment, she turned to him for support.
He shifted uncomfortably under the weight of her pleading eyes. “You must understand, Miss Wills”—she felt a chill creep across her heart at the sound of her lover’s voice speaking her name in such a formal, removed tone—“medical schools have a limited numbers of seats available for incoming students. Only a fraction of those seats are open to Negro students. You have to place your community’s needs before your own unrealistic dreams. Even if you could make it into medical school, even if we supported you in this effort, you have to understand that you would be stealing that seat from a deserving male student, a student who could actually help the Negro community.” His hand reached up to straighten the knot of his tie. “Besides, you’re a young woman. You will undoubtedly choose to marry, and children will follow. You’ll have to stop working at that point. So your entire career would last how long? Two years? Perhaps five? This type of education is a waste on a woman.”
She stared at him. Frozen. Knowing without a doubt that these were his true thoughts, and before, he had only spoken the words she’d wanted to hear. She turned back to the dean, “But I could help—”
“Miss Wills,” the dean said, his tone harsh now. As if realizing he’d gone off message, he drew a deep breath. “Jilo,” he said more kindly. “We seek to help you reach a more realistic goal. Miss Temple has kindly looked over your transcript and compared your course of studies with the requirements of our nursing program. Miss Temple?”
The registrar cleared her throat. “Yes, that is correct. With a little creative interpretation on the part of Professors Ward and Charles of the coursework you’ve completed, we are delighted to offer you a degree in nursing.” She paused. “Of course, you’ll have to be tutored on certain practical aspects of patient care, dressing and cleaning wounds and the like, but your friend Mary has volunteered to get you caught up by graduation,” she said, tugging on the white gloves she was wearing, as puffed out and pleased as a preening chicken. “I hope you are aware that we would not go to this trouble for just any student.”
“But I don’t want to be a nurse.” Jilo said, and the room fell silent as Miss Temple’s face formed a sour pucker.
“The French have a saying,” Ward broke the silence, leaning forward and turning toward her, “roughly translated, it states that one must learn to put a little water in his wine, meaning one must ground his ambitions in reality.”
“And if I choose not to accept this nursing degree?”
“Well, young lady, that would be a mistake . . .”
“It will be my mistake to make,” she interrupted the dean, no longer caring if she lost his goodwill.
“In that unfortunate occurrence, we will, of course, issue you the bachelor of science you have earned, but it is our opinion that you will find it to be of very little practical use in the real world.”
What she wanted was to tell them all to go to hell. But she held her tongue and began to calculate the odds of this game. The nursing degree would get her into the medical field. Perhaps she could find a true mentor once she was in a hospital setting, someone who would see her value and help her to achieve her dreams. It wouldn’t be a direct route, but without this institution’s support, it might be the only one available to her.
“All right,” she said. “I will accept the nursing degree you offer.”
The dean slapped his palms happily down on his desk and pushed himself up. “I told you all she was a smart girl, that she’d see the reason.” He beamed at her as he held out his hand in an apparent offer to shake hers.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “May I be excused?”
As she made her way back to the boarding house, Jilo began to regret her capitulation, very nearly turning back and forcing her way into the dean’s office to make one more attempt to reason with him. Or maybe she should circle back to Lionel’s house later. She could throw herself at his feet, prostrate herself before him, beg him to step up to the promises he’d made in the past.
But that son of a bitch had betrayed her, and not just by making her a link in what she now guessed was a career-long chain of girls. He had manipulated her into thinking he believed in her. In her dreams. In her capabilities.
When she arrived home, Jilo eased the door open and closed it quietly behind her. Not wanting to talk to anyone, she did her best to creep past the pastor and his wife, who were deep in a discussion about the house’s finances, and flitted past the archway that opened onto the sitting room. She found the stairs and mounted them, carefully avoiding the steps that squeaked.
As she made her escape, it occurred to her that she wasn’t taking these precautions because she wasn’t in the mood to see a single living person. The truth, it pained her to realize, was that she felt ashamed. After years of har
d work, all her dreams had been dashed in a single afternoon. And she felt like it was her own fault. If she hadn’t let Lionel touch her, if she hadn’t given into her own need to believe he saw her as special, would he have respected her more? Would he have viewed her as being a serious enough woman to become a lady doctor? Had giving in to him cheapened her in his eyes?
Hot tears began to flow down her cheeks, but they stopped cold when she opened the door to her room and caught sight of Mary sitting at her desk. Mary, who turned to face her with a smile on her lips and a look of excitement in her eyes. Both of which faded as soon as Mary’s eyes took in Jilo’s face. “Why, Jilo,” she said, “what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“What,” Jilo began, her voice breaking, “is wrong?” She swallowed hard to force the frog down. “You lying, conniving Judas Iscariot.”
Mary pushed back from her desk, rising and drawing near Jilo, her arms held wide for an embrace.
“Don’t you”—Jilo held up a hand in warning—“don’t you dare come near me.”
Mary froze as tears of her own began to brim in her eyes. “I don’t understand. Why are you angry? What have I done?”
“You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
Jilo didn’t expect Mary to out-and-out lie; Mary was not a liar. But she did expect her at least to feign ignorance of what she meant. Instead, Mary tilted her head, looking more confused than guilty. “But the dean told me not to say a thing till he could talk to you. He said they were going to look out for you, keep you from making a big mistake, and they needed my help.” For a moment her smile threatened to return. “I get to help catch you up on all the practical things you missed out on. Dressing wounds, rolling bandages . . .”
“I do not want your blessed help,” Jilo cut her off. “You knew this isn’t what I wanted. My sister is a nurse. I know what it is to be a nurse, and it was never my dream.” She clenched her fists in frustration. “You know that. I can do more. I can do better.”
Mary stumbled back a step, her shoulders slumping forward like Jilo had just knocked the wind clean out of her. She raised her wide-open eyes to meet Jilo’s gaze. “Well I am sorry,” she said, straightening as she did. “I am sorry if nursing isn’t good enough for you. If it isn’t your dream. ’Cause it is my dream. It always has been, since I was a little girl. And it was my mama’s dream for me, too. She saved every penny she could after feeding my brother and me to make it possible for me to come here. After daddy died in the war, she started working nights and weekends, scrubbing floors and taking in laundry. And you know what? After I finished my schoolwork, I would be right there with her, down on my knees, scrubbing at her side. So I am sorry, Miss Jilo Wills, who has plenty of money in her pockets and all the pretty dresses in the world, if my dream isn’t good enough for you . . .”
“Now, Mary,” Jilo found herself shift to the defensive, “you know I didn’t mean it quite like that.”
“Oh, yes, you did mean it. Quite like that.” Mary raised her chin and pulled her arms up around herself. “And fool that I am, I was happy to have the opportunity to help out my best friend. When I learned what the dean intended, I marched right out and got you a job. With me. At a fine hospital right here in Atlanta. The Greelies.” Mary said the name of the hospital with such obvious pride, and despite Jilo’s bitter disappointment over this turn of events, she felt like an absolute ass. Jilo took a step forward, but it was Mary’s turn to pull away. “I went to the hiring supervisor at the Greelies. Told him that if he thought I was good enough to bring on, he would be over the moon to have you on duty there.”
Her forehead bunched up into angry folds, and her eyes narrowed the way they always did when she remonstrated with Jilo. “I told him that, even though I knew I’d be the one who would need to catch you up and cover for you until you actually learned how to handle a patient.” Her features smoothed, but her lower lip pushed forward. “I was so looking forward to telling you.” And with those words, the tears started in earnest. “I thought the two of us could stay on here at the pastor’s. Together.”
“Well,” Jilo said, daring to draw near, “I don’t see why we can’t do just that.” She slipped an arm over Mary’s shoulders and pulled her into an embrace.
SIX
June 1953
It was a busy night at the Kingfisher Club. The music was fine, and everywhere around Jilo couples danced.
Classes were over. Jilo had her diploma in hand, a hell of a lot of good it looked like it was going to do her. Still, she wanted to celebrate. Kick up her heels a bit. She’d even managed to coax Mary out to the club by loaning her an orchid-colored rayon-satin dress Mary had been admiring for two years. The two had arrived together, but they were barely across the threshold before the men descended on sweet, demure Mary like ants on a church picnic.
Jilo sat alone nursing a bourbon.
Every so often, Jilo caught sight of her friend. Each time Mary flitted by, she seemed to be in the arms of another fellow. Jilo was glad Mary was enjoying herself, but damn.
Wasn’t she pretty enough? Jilo cast an eye around the teeming room. She wasn’t vain, but she knew she looked as good as many, if not most, of the other women in the club. Mary had done a fine job on the McCall’s pattern dress Jilo had paid her to sew. Ice-blue chiffon, a respectable scoop V-neck with beaded lining, the shape echoed by the darting around her tiny waist. She’d done spins before the mirror, loving how the skirt flared up. She wanted to take it out on the floor and show it off. But here she sat without a single taker.
Dammit, she felt pretty, but she couldn’t get more than a smile and a nod from any of the passing men. The next time Mary swung by with her umpteenth gentleman, Jilo couldn’t help but feel a little bitter.
A tall fellow in a well-cut suit drew close to Jilo’s table. She raised her chin and pulled back her shoulders. She smiled at him and—God help her—batted her eyelashes. For a moment it seemed he would say hello, but then he froze in his tracks, gave her a quick nod, and turned sharply away. Her eyes fixed on his shoulders as he bounded off like some kind of scared jackrabbit.
“Oh, you’re a pretty one all right,” a man said from behind her, seeming to read her thoughts. His voice was deep and rich. The speed with which the other fellow had taken off suggested this newcomer might be a bit dangerous. “That isn’t the problem. I’d even say you’re beautiful when you aren’t scowling at the whole damned room.” The way he spoke, slow, the vowels a bit too long, gave his words an exotic flavor. A picture of the speaker rose in her mind’s eye, a picture that unleashed a swarm of butterflies in her stomach, and equally ticklish sensations in lower regions.
She kept her eyes on the receding back of the last man to reject her. She wanted to turn and look at her new companion, but she feared that her Cupid would be the Kingfisher Club’s equivalent of a winged serpent. She felt a little ashamed of herself. She’d been sitting here for an hour hoping and praying a man would approach her. Maybe she was being shallow? No, she realized, she wanted a taste of magic, just once in her life, and she knew it was pretty damn unlikely that the man speaking to her was some kind of prince. She just wanted to stretch the mystery out for as long as she could.
“No, the problem is that you scare half these fellows to death. That’s why you aren’t dancing.” She sensed his approach. A finger traced along her forearm, sending a tingling sensation through her.
She felt her heart thud in her chest, and in spite of herself, she turned to face him. The image she had held in her mind was put to shame.
Smiling down at her was the most beautiful man she’d ever laid eyes on. His hair was trimmed close to his skull, not all slicked back like most of the men here wore theirs. The light in the club was dim, so she couldn’t quite make out the color of his eyes, but she thought they were a clear brown, maybe hazel. His nose was straight. His lips full, the lower one a tad more so than the upper one that curled a bit beneath a well-defined philtrum. His chin strong and with a cleft. �
��And the other half?” she asked, though her mouth had gone dry.
His nose crinkled up, followed by a raise of his eyebrows. “They just know they’re not man enough to handle a woman like you.”
Feeling herself flush, Jilo lowered her eyes and took a sip of her sour mash, her lips puckering at the taste. She only looked up after she had set the glass back on the table. “So who the hell are you?” she asked.
His eyes lit up, and he leaned in like he was about to confess the darkest of secrets. “I’m the man who’s going to ask you to dance.” He pulled back and lowered his eyelids. “When I’m good and ready to, that is.” He placed his hand on the chair she’d been saving for Mary. “May I?” he asked. But he pulled the seat out and joined her before she could say no.
As if she would say no.
“Aren’t you scared of me, too?” she asked, looking directly into his eyes.
“A little, but I kind of like that.” He slid his hand over toward hers, the space between them not even wide enough to accommodate a sheet of parchment.
Jilo burst out laughing. At him. At herself. “Shit.” She swiped up her whiskey and downed what was left.
“That’s no way for a lady to speak,” he said.
Jilo returned the glass to the table and cast an eye over her shoulder in each direction. “I don’t see any ladies here.”
His hand shot out and caught hers. “I do. Right here.” He turned her hand over, tracing his finger along her palm like he was some kind of sideshow fortune-teller. “You can try to pretend otherwise, but you’re a good girl.” He released her and leaned back, eyeing her like he was surveying her. “I might even go so far as to say ‘respectable’ if you weren’t sitting here by yourself sucking on that swill.”