by Robin Talley
Bobby wriggles out of my grip. My heart thumps in my ears. How did they find out?
That phone call.
Oh, God.
Did she call?
Or was it someone else? Judy, maybe? It could’ve been anyone. The door was cracked open and—
No. The how doesn’t matter. What matters is what I’ll say to Mama and Daddy about it.
It was all a big misunderstanding. The two of us were talking, and it only looked like we were doing that, because we were—there was—
No. It’ll sound like I’m making excuses. I’ll say she forced me to—
No. That would be just as bad.
I’ll say—
“Well, come on,” Mama says.
I bow my head and follow her down.
“What’s Daddy doing home this time of day?” I ask to distract myself. I’m afraid I’ll fall down the stairs if I’m not careful.
“He’s only working three nights a week at the Gazette from now on.”
“Why? So he can have more time for the Free Press?”
Mama only says, “Mmm.”
It’s too late to think of an excuse. Daddy is sitting in his chair in the living room, looking the same way he did when Ruth got a C in Math on her sixth-grade report card.
Mama sits on the sofa and points me toward the love seat at the far end of the room. I sit down and smooth invisible wrinkles in my skirt, trying to keep my hands from shaking.
“I only have one question, Sarah,” Daddy says after a long minute. His jaw is twitching.
I close my eyes and pray, in a final flicker of hope, that this will all turn out to be a dream.
“Why did you disobey me?” Daddy says.
I open my eyes. Disobey? He’s never told me not to—I mean, not that he would’ve needed to, but—
“My instructions were very clear,” he says. “So were Mrs. Mullins’s.”
Mrs. Mullins? I’ve certainly never talked to Mrs. Mullins about—
“We said no extracurricular activities,” he says. “None. Did you think being my daughter made you an exception to that rule?”
Oh. Oh.
He’s talking about the choir. They must’ve found out about it somehow.
They don’t know what happened today.
I almost laugh, I’m so relieved. Mama and Daddy are still giving me that hard look, though, and I’m still sitting in the punishment seat.
“I’m sorry, sir.” This is easy. I know how to play the good child. I’ve been playing the good child all my life. “You’re absolutely right. I shouldn’t have disobeyed you. It was wrong to join the choir without your permission. I’ll go right in tomorrow and tell Mr. Lewis I’m quitting. You should give me whatever punishment you think is right. I could do all the dishes and the laundry for the next two weeks.”
Mama sits back in her seat, satisfied. Daddy is still watching me, though.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says. “I asked you why.”
Oh.
I try to remember what I was thinking when I walked into Mr. Lewis’s office and asked him for the sign-up sheet.
It was a terrible idea. I’m glad Mama and Daddy found out about it because now I can drop out easily enough. Then I won’t have to see her at practices anymore.
It was her fault I signed up in the first place. I decided to do it that day we listened to the Édith Piaf record. When I sang, I could tell she thought I was good.
Her thinking I was good made me feel like I could do it. Like I could do anything.
Plus I couldn’t shake the thought that one of us ought to join something. Ruth wants to join the cheerleading squad next year. I don’t want her to have to be the first.
Of course I can’t say any of that to Daddy. So I think quickly.
“I thought it would be good for the movement,” I say. “For the white people at school to see a Negro can sing as well as they can.”
Daddy rubs his chin. I wait for Mama to say something about pride being a sin, but she’s quiet, too.
I answered Daddy too well for my own good. He’s got the look in his eyes now that he gets when he’s working on a good story.
“Well, you might be right,” he says. “If they put you on that stage and you sing better than the white girls, they can’t help but take notice.”
“Robert,” Mama says, a warning in her voice.
Mama and Daddy lock eyes for a minute. Then Daddy turns back toward me.
“Sarah, go to your room,” he says. “We’ll call you back down to tell you your punishment.”
I nod.
Then I go sit on the top of the stairs, where Ruth and I always sit when we want to listen in on Mama and Daddy.
“They probably won’t give it to her to begin with,” Mama’s saying when I press my ear to the wall. “If we let her audition she’s only going to get her heart broken.”
Audition? For what? I’ve been in the Girls’ Ensemble for weeks. There was no audition, just a sign-up sheet. It said the Girls’ and Boys’ Ensembles are “open to all juniors and seniors with a love of music.” Freshmen and sophomores are stuck joining the Glee Club. The only group that requires an audition is the Balladeers.
Everyone in Davisburg knows about the Jefferson Balladeers. They sing at the pageant at city hall every Christmas. They won the state choir contest last year for the white schools.
She’s in the Balladeers.
But I wasn’t about to ask Mr. Lewis about the Balladeers. The white parents in this town would just as soon elect a Negro mayor as see a black face standing among their best and brightest on a competition platform.
“That teacher who called, that Mr. Lewis, said they only pick one soloist from her ensemble group,” Daddy tells her. “Plus one from the Glee Club and one from the fancy one.”
“The Balladeers,” Mama says.
“Right. How many dang choirs does one school need, anyway?”
“You know how these white parents are. Everybody thinks their child’s got the voice of an angel.”
Daddy scoffs. “Well, Sarah’s probably better than all those Balladeers put together. She’s bound to beat out every last one of them, if this Lewis is as honest a man as he purports to be.”
I feel a tiny flicker of happiness. That’s just about the nicest thing I’ve heard Daddy say about me.
“If Sarah gets a solo in this spring show, well then, that’ll show them all, won’t it?” Daddy says. “They can argue about color all they want, but there’s no arguing with talent. Maybe this is the sort of thing we need to beat Jim Crow.”
The spring show? That’s what that phone call was? Mr. Lewis wants me to audition for a solo in the Jefferson High spring concert?
I’d have to audition in front of the whole choir. The girls who drop nasty notes in my purse. The boys who try to trip me every time I walk through the door. I won’t be able to make it through the first verse of my audition song before they shout me down.
She’ll see the whole thing. She’ll laugh at me with her friends.
If they haven’t killed me first.
“You’re losing sight of what matters here, Robert,” Mama says. “Sarah knew what the rules were, and she ignored them. And she deceived us to do it. Besides, we all agreed we should wait to integrate the extracurriculars until next year. Helen Mullins thought so, too. Let folks get used to black faces in their classrooms first. Put them in their clubs and teams second.”
“Well, after the first set of growing pains this integration has gone better than we expected,” Daddy says. “There’s been no violence. No one’s been expelled. It’s time we reassessed the plan. Let’s call Helen and see what she thinks.”
Daddy doesn’t think there’s been any violence?
&
nbsp; He thinks the integration has gone well?
Doesn’t he remember—
No. He wouldn’t.
He doesn’t know what happened to Paulie today. Because I didn’t tell him.
And he doesn’t know about the boy who grabbed me in the hallway. I didn’t tell him about that, either. I didn’t tell anyone about that.
But Daddy does know about the people throwing rocks and spitballs and pencils. I guess he chalked that up to “growing pains.”
My head throbs. I climb the rest of the stairs and sit in my room, ignoring Ruth when she tries to talk to me. I try to start my homework, but I can only stare at the closed cover of my History book.
It was stupid to think she might’ve called the house.
She’ll call her friends instead. And they’ll call their friends.
Tomorrow, when I get to school, everyone will already know.
She’ll tell them I attacked her. That I’m unnatural. Wicked. They’ll all believe her.
They’ll come at me in the parking lot. Or sooner. I close my eyes and see a horde of white people mobbing our station wagon. The others will get hurt, and it’ll be me that brought this upon us.
I can’t control it. It’s like it isn’t a part of me. It’s something foreign that’s taken over. Ever since she stepped in between Ruth and those boys in the hall. Ever since she watched me sing that day, with a smile on her face that looked like the sun was shining right through her eyes.
Seeing her like that—it felt like I’d found a place where I belonged.
Before I met her, I never knew it was possible to feel that way. That just being near someone could make your whole body light up. That having her look at you could make you lose your head.
It was enough to make me think there was another girl hiding inside her, buried beneath the part of her that spouted the usual segregationist claptrap. A girl who understood what was really going on. A girl who understood me.
But it’s not right. Not any of it.
I’ve gone to church every Sunday since I was born. I always try to do exactly what God wants of me. Not to stray into the path of temptation and sin.
I didn’t want to do what I did today. I didn’t want to feel any of these things.
I only ever wanted to be like everyone else.
I’m about to start crying again when Mama calls me back downstairs.
“You will be responsible for the family’s laundry for the next month,” Mama says before I’ve even sat back down. I nod fast so they won’t notice my chin quivering. “And you’ll continue to do the dishes after dinner. Your sister will continue to do the breakfast dishes. It wouldn’t be fair to take away her chores just because you’re being punished.”
I keep nodding. A whole month of washing everyone’s underwear, all by myself. It’s less than I deserve.
“Your mother and I have also made a decision,” Daddy says. He glances at Mama. She nods. “You should go ahead with the audition for this concert.”
“I really don’t need to,” I say quickly. “I should quit the choir altogether. It isn’t right for me to stay after I disobeyed you.”
“We’ll decide what’s right,” Daddy says. “You’re being punished for what you did, but it’ll be good for the white people to see some of you making contributions to the school. Tomorrow afternoon you’ll all meet at Mrs. Mullins’s house and she’ll tell you more about the new rules for extracurriculars. And when you audition on Friday you’ll do your very best.”
“I’ll help you rehearse,” Mama adds. “We can use the piano at church.”
I nod, but my face feels strained. Mama must notice because she adds, “Don’t be nervous, sweetie. You always loved singing with your friends in the concerts at Johns.”
Right. My friends. The people I’ve barely seen since I started at Jefferson.
Singing in the Johns choir feels like something from another lifetime.
Maybe if I sing badly enough in the audition on Friday, Mr. Lewis will decide to kick me out of the Girls’ Ensemble altogether. It would mean seeing that much less of her.
But Daddy said I should do my very best. And I can’t imagine humiliating myself in front of a roomful of white people on purpose.
“Now go on up to your room and finish your homework,” Mama says. “Then come back down. There’s a load of laundry that’ll need hanging.”
I nod and leave without another word.
There is no punishment that would be enough for me.
Even prayer can’t help me anymore.
I’m going to Hell, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Lie #16
THE NEXT MORNING, I step onto the curb and wait for the shouts to start.
I don’t even know what names you call someone like me. I wonder if they’ll sound worse than the usual names. On the first day of school being called “nigger” felt alien. I thought I’d get used to it eventually, but I haven’t yet.
I wonder if I’ll get used to the new ones. Then I wonder if I’ll even have time to hear them before the beatings start.
I shiver. It’s not cold today, but I barely slept last night. The edges of my vision are blurry. I’d think I was still dreaming if I couldn’t feel the wads of parking lot gum sticking to the bottoms of my loafers.
Chuck walks out in front of the group. Lately he’s started smiling and waving at the crowd like he’s Miss America, even though it makes the white boys shout and throw things at him more than ever.
I walk behind him with Ruth and Yvonne. I wonder what Ruth will think when she hears what they’ll say about me. Just like on that first day, I want to put my hands over her ears.
The shouts begin.
“Niggers! Coons! Burrheads!”
I wait for the words to change. For the white people to see me in the group and charge at me. For them to pull me away from my friends and lay into me with kicks and punches.
My heart thuds. I should’ve warned the others. I don’t want anyone getting beaten on account of my sin.
I’m still waiting for it to start when we’re halfway across the parking lot.
But no one’s paid me any special notice. I might as well be any other Negro.
“Go back to the jungle!” a girl shouts from the middle of the crowd. Then she turns her back on us and goes on talking to her friends.
I recognize two of them. They’re in the Delta Tri-Hi-Y group. They must have heard the news by now.
But the Delta girls don’t even look at me. Everyone’s acting like it’s any other day.
Then I see her.
She’s standing with three girls I don’t know at the far edge of the crowd. Her back is turned. All I can see is the curl of her red hair and the slope of her chin as she leans down to say something to her friend.
Why isn’t she looking at me?
“Hey.” Someone’s pulling on my wrist. “Sarah! Wake up. We’ve got to keep going.”
I blink. I must’ve been staring at her for half a minute.
Ruth is gripping my arm, glaring. “Will you move, please?”
“Sorry.” I wrench my arm out of my sister’s grasp. We speed up to catch Chuck and Yvonne.
I can’t believe I let myself lose focus. None of us can afford to take risks like that. Anything could happen if we aren’t paying attention.
But I don’t understand. Why isn’t anyone coming at me?
Is it possible she didn’t tell them? That she wasn’t pulling a trick?
Is it possible she’s like me?
No. She is a perfectly normal girl. I’m the only freak.
She’s probably biding her time. Waiting until the right moment. I’ll have to stay on guard.
And I do. All day long I keep vigilant. Ready to d
eny it all. To pretend better than I’ve ever pretended.
But no one gives me a second look. Not even her.
I see her twice during the day. The first time is when she walks past my desk in French. I try to avert my eyes, but I’m too slow.
She doesn’t look at me.
She never used to miss an opportunity to narrow her eyes at me, but today I might as well be invisible.
She isn’t in the cafeteria when I arrive for lunch. I sit in my usual seat and try to join in the boys’ conversation about what happened on the last episode of Gunsmoke.
Then I realize Judy’s looking at me.
I start to panic. Any minute, she’s bound to stand up and tell the whole school what she saw.
But all she does is fix her eyes on my face.
She stares at me through the whole lunch period. I’m too nervous to eat. Ennis tries to give me his green beans but I shake my head and mumble that I’m worried about my English test.
I wasn’t really worried about my test, but I should’ve been. I didn’t study, and it’s only because I read the story we’re studying two years ago that I don’t fail altogether.
Nothing unusual has happened by the end of the day, but I’m so tired from all the worrying, I can’t even muster the energy to hold my head up when the white people chant “Nigger!” at me as I climb into the carpool to Mrs. Mullins’s house.
I catch my second glimpse of her in the parking lot as we pull away. She isn’t talking to anyone. She’s just standing there. At first I think she’s watching me, but she turns her head so fast I’m sure I imagined it.
I wonder why she isn’t with her regular group of friends. Maybe that’s part of the trick somehow.
The meeting at Mrs. Mullins’s goes on for hours. I sit on the floor next to Ennis, trying to keep my eyes open while she drones on about the new extracurricular activity policy.
It’s been nineteen hours since it happened. I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything since.
“Now then, if you’d like to join an activity, raise your hand,” Mrs. Mullins finally says.