by Robin Talley
“Quiet, you!” I call after him.
“Aw, Sarah, let him have some fun,” Daddy says, following after Bobby with a toy gun tucked under his arm. Daddy took Bobby to see the Western matinee this afternoon. Before the movie starts, all the boys Bobby’s age line up outside the theater in their cowboy outfits and bandannas and toy horses and pretend they’re real cowboys. Bobby usually isn’t allowed to go, since we have chores on Saturdays, but Mama and Daddy have started letting us out of chores more often these past few months. Except me, with my month’s worth of laundry.
“Can I go out this afternoon, Mama?” Ruth says. She’s noticed our lack of chores, too. “Yvonne and I want to look at the new purses.”
“Which new purses?” I say.
“With the round handles.”
I know the kind she’s talking about. They’re all over school. Square pocketbooks with cloth covers and round wooden handles. You can buy different colors and prints to match your outfit.
She has one. All the popular white girls do.
Since when does my little sister want to look like a popular white girl?
“Don’t you think you spend enough time with Yvonne as it is?” I say.
“I wasn’t asking you.” Ruth glares.
“Of course you can go out shopping, honey,” Mama says. “Do you have enough money left from your allowance?”
“I think so.”
Now Mama’s ignoring me, too.
I’m tired of my family.
I’m tired of having to lie to everyone.
“Did Ruth tell you what she did at school yesterday?” I ask Mama. Ruth’s chin jerks up. She shakes her head for me to stop. Maybe now she’ll think twice about talking back to me. “She went right up to a gang of girls who were picking on Yvonne and said they were white trash.”
Mama bites her lip.
Ruth glares at me, but she should know better than to do stupid things like that. Bo’s gang went after her on the second day of school, just because she talked to a white girl in the locker room. That time Ruth wasn’t even being rude—all she did was tap the girl on the shoulder and tell her that her slip was showing, but the girl didn’t even listen. After class she told her boyfriend Ruth had come up to her. That boy told his friends, and the next thing we knew, it was all over school that Ruth had told a white girl she “smelled like cow shit.” I don’t think Ruth has ever said the word shit in her life.
Lord knows what could’ve happened to Ruth in the hall that day if she hadn’t stepped in.
And Lord knows what she even did that for. I used to think it meant so much. No matter how many awful things she said, I always remembered what she’d done that day. I was so convinced that day was proof that she wasn’t what she seemed to be. When it must’ve all been part of the same game she’d been playing the whole time.
“Well?” I ask Mama. “Aren’t you going to punish Ruth?”
“Ruthie, you know better than to use terms like that,” Mama says. “You should ask forgiveness when you say your prayers tonight.”
“That’s it?” If I wasn’t sitting at the end of a hot iron right now I’d jump out of my seat. “Think what could’ve happened if those girls had turned around and fought back! We aren’t supposed to talk back to the white people, it’s rule number one!”
“Stop being such a know-it-all,” Ruth says. “I can think for myself.”
“No you can’t. Not if you don’t see why that was a stupid thing to do. You’re just too immature and spoiled to understand it.”
“Quiet, both of you,” Mama says. “I can barely hear myself think. Now keep it down while I go get the hairpins.”
We nod as Mama goes up the stairs.
“You think Yvonne’s not good enough to be my friend,” Ruth whispers. “Bet it’s because she lives in New Town.”
“I didn’t say that!” I struggle to keep my voice down. “Look, you need to be more careful. You can’t always be watching out for Yvonne. You have to take care of yourself.”
“So I’m supposed to just sit there when people say things like that about my best friend?” Ruth bites her lip. “You should’ve heard. It was awful. About her father and her mother and how under her clothes she was probably covered in—I can’t say it. It was horrible.”
I sigh. I try my hardest not to listen when the white people at school talk about us, but I know the kinds of things they say. How we don’t bathe. How we have hooves. How we bleed dirty black blood.
“You should pray for her,” I say. “That’s the best help you can give.”
“That’s not enough. She’s my friend and I’m going to do what’s right. You’d do the same thing. Or the old you would have, anyway.”
I sit back, stunned. She doesn’t think I’d stand up for my friends anymore?
That’s not true. I tried to help Paulie in Study Hall that day, even though I got detention for it.
I suppose she’s partly right. Last year I wouldn’t have kept walking if I’d heard people saying nasty things about my friend. I wouldn’t have called them white trash, either, but I’d have tried to help.
Now it takes all the energy I have to keep walking in the first place. When it would be so much easier to just sit down on the floor and give up altogether.
Last week Bo and his gang finally figured out the routes I was taking to see Ruth between classes. Now, wherever I go, at least three of them are always in my way. They stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking the hall when I approach. If I try to go around them they’ll shuffle over to that side of the hall. If I try to go back they shuffle behind me.
They always keep straight faces at first, but before long one of them will snicker. Then the others will join in. Then people watching us will start laughing, too. Soon the whole hall is full of white people laughing at me.
Twice that first day I didn’t make it back to my own classes before the tardy bell. When I brought the detention slips to Mama and Daddy to sign I got a lecture about how I was setting a shameful example for the rest of the group.
I’m used to detention now. It’s only one more hour to get through.
The first time I had detention it was me, Chuck, two of the younger Negro boys and a roomful of white greasers with sideburns and hair slicked back with Brylcreem. Those boys are too poor to be part of Bo and Eddie’s gang, but just as mean. They spent the hour throwing bottle caps at us, trying to spin them at the right angle so the metal would slice into our skin. When we were finally dismissed, the teacher left first. Four of the greasers surrounded my desk before I could get up. One said, “Where you think you’re going, coon?”
While I was still calculating what to do—whether I could escape by crawling under the desk or if that would only make it easier for the boys to catch me—Chuck pushed the smallest of the boys out of the way, grabbed my arm and hauled me out of the room. We ran down the hall and were out of the building before we realized they hadn’t even bothered to chase us.
After that day, the greasers didn’t try to stop me from leaving. They settled for throwing things. Last time one of them lit a ball of paper with a match and was about to let it fly when the teacher saw and made him put it out.
My life doesn’t feel like my life anymore. The girl I was last year, when I went to Johns, might as well have been some other person. A distant cousin. Or someone I saw in a movie once.
Mama comes back into the room with a fistful of hair pins. She unwinds the last curl from the hot iron, pins my hair and says, “Well you’ll look pretty for your date, long hair or not. Go look in the mirror.”
I go, with Ruth trailing after me. We stand in front of the hall mirror. Mama’s done a good job. My hair is falling in soft curls around my face.
“Want to borrow some lipstick?” Ruth whispers.
“What are you doing with li
pstick?” Ruth and I aren’t allowed to wear makeup until we’re eighteen.
“Shh! I don’t want Mama to know.”
“Well, where did you get it?”
“It’s Yvonne’s.”
“I’m telling you, that girl’s a bad influence.”
“Oh, you’re worse than Mama.”
I roll my eyes. Ruth rolls hers back.
“What color is it?” I finally say.
Ruth laughs and leads me up to our room.
The lipstick is a dark, dark red. The kind Hollywood stars wear. Not a shade good girls in Davisburg wear to the movies. I try it on anyway and gaze at my reflection in the mirror.
I don’t look sick. I certainly don’t look like that kind of girl.
What does that kind of girl look like, anyway?
I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen another girl like me.
“Are you going to kiss Ennis?” Ruth asks, startling me into a blush.
“It isn’t right to kiss on the first date,” I say. Even though I’m planning to do exactly that.
“That’s old-fashioned, too. Everyone does it now.”
“Who’s everyone? Yvonne?”
Ruth shrugs.
I turn around. “I certainly hope you haven’t kissed anyone yet.”
“No, but I would. If I was out with a boy I wanted to kiss. Besides, kissing isn’t so bad, as long as you stop there. You remember what Great-Aunt Mabel always said—just keep your skirt down and your panties up.”
I start to laugh, but I stop myself in time. Sometimes I can’t believe Ruth and I are sisters. I would never have said anything like that when I was her age.
“Is there a boy you want to kiss?” I say.
Ruth shrugs again, but the corner of her lip curls up.
“Who is it?” I shouldn’t encourage her by talking about it, but I can’t help it. It’s sweet to think of my little sister liking a boy.
She shrugs again. “It doesn’t matter. He already has a girl.”
“That’s probably for the best. You’re too young to date. Besides, people will talk about you if you go around kissing everyone. And boys won’t treat you right, either.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to go around kissing everyone. Just that I don’t see what’s so bad about kissing someone. If he’s a nice boy, and you like him.”
“What’s bad is you get a reputation. And your reputation sticks with you forever. Remember Minnie Moore?”
Ruth nods. Minnie was in my class back at Johns. Someone saw her kissing Bucky Robinson in a car after the Harvest Dance junior year. It might not have been so bad, except her date for the dance had been George King.
By the next day everyone at school knew Minnie was fast. Now the only boys she can get dates with are the ones who’ve already left school and are working out on the tobacco farms. And everyone says those boys only date her for one reason.
“I know,” Ruth says. “I just think if you like someone enough you shouldn’t have to worry so much about what other people think. Shouldn’t it be about you and him being happy with each other?”
I wipe off my lipstick and send Ruth back downstairs.
When she’s gone I put on my garter belt and hose, my dark blue dress, and the one-and-a-half-inch heels I only wear on special occasions. After dinner Daddy gives me a dollar, the way he always does before dates “in case the young man needs gas money.” I’ve told him a hundred times no decent boy would ever take money from a girl on a date, even if it meant hitchhiking to the theater.
At six-thirty on the dot the doorbell rings. Mama shoos Ruth and Bobby upstairs and Daddy lets Ennis in the front door. Ennis says hello to Daddy, then smiles at me. He’s wearing his plaid button-down, creased brown pants and just-shined shoes.
It’s awkward, the way it always is on a first date. Even though Mama and Daddy have met Ennis dozens of times before, and even though they’ve known his parents for years, Daddy still looks Ennis up and down like he’s a stranger.
Finally Mama steps in. “I made some lemonade. Would you like a glass?”
“That sounds wonderful, thank you, Mrs. Dunbar, ma’am.”
Mama smiles at Ennis’s politeness. Even Daddy stops frowning. I knew this was a good idea.
We sit in the living room. Mama goes to the kitchen to get the lemonade.
“So, Ennis, how are things going at Jefferson?” Daddy asks.
Ugh. I wish we could talk about anything but school.
I can tell from the way Ennis hesitates that he doesn’t want to talk about it, either. Finally he says, “We’re getting by. I have to say, sir, your daughters are examples to us all. They’ve been handling it so well. And with Sarah singing in the spring concert, everyone is just so proud.”
I cringe. That was too much. I try to signal Ennis with my eyes to cut it out.
Daddy smiles at him. “Well, we’re awfully proud of her, too.”
“Now, Robert,” Mama says, coming in with a pitcher. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassing poor Sarah.”
Mama asks Ennis a question about his mother’s flower beds. Soon they’re talking about daffodils and Daddy is taking out his newspaper.
I cough and nod toward the clock over the mantel. Mama nods back and everyone stands up to say goodbye. Daddy shakes Ennis’s hand. Ennis helps me with my coat, and suddenly we’re outside. Alone.
Ennis opens the car door for me and gives me that same smile he’s been smiling ever since school started.
I can do this. I can make myself like Ennis as much as he seems to like me.
When we get to the theater, it’s clear Ennis was right. None of the white people from school are here. Instead there are white kids from the high school over in Fairfield, where they don’t have a movie theater. Some kids from Johns are here, too.
Girls always stand off to the side while their dates line up for tickets, so I go join the others while I wait for Ennis. Three girls from my old school are already there.
They say hello to me. I say hello back. Then they go back to gossiping, and I twist my hands together and hope Ennis hurries up. I haven’t seen these girls in months, and I have no idea what to say to them. Their lives are still the same as always. They barely even see white people most days. They might as well live on a different planet.
While two of them are talking, the other girl, Cookie—her name is Bobbie Jean Cook, but everyone calls her Cookie—keeps looking at me out of the corner of her eye. I pretend not to notice. Then she comes and stands right in front of me.
Cookie is known for picking fights. She’s the sort of girl who thinks everyone is looking at her funny, and who isn’t afraid to say so. I’ve always gotten along with her, though. I’ve always gotten along with everyone.
Not anymore.
“Why are you standing over here in the corner by your lonesome?” Cookie says. “You think you’re too good for us now, Sarah Dunbar?”
The other two girls look down, but neither of them argues with Cookie.
“Is that why you never call any of us, or come to our parties or talk to us after church?” Cookie goes on. “Do you think you’re white now that you’re up at that school?”
“Aw, come on, Cookie,” one of the other girls says. “Leave her be.”
I want to answer Cookie. The old me would have.
I don’t know what to say.
I certainly don’t think I’m better than anyone. Not after what I did.
I don’t know how to tell her I just don’t have the energy to keep up with my old friends anymore. That my life isn’t big enough to deal with all the awful things and still fit in everything that used to be important to me, too.
So I just shake my head at Cookie, trying to tell her she’s wrong without words. Until Ennis’s hand on my
elbow saves me.
Ennis greets the girls warmly, and they smile flirty smiles back at him. I smile up at him, too. Now I don’t have to make excuses.
Ennis and I say goodbye to Cookie and the others and climb the stairs to the hard wooden seats in the balcony, the Negro section. There’s plenty of space available on the main level below us, where the seats have soft upholstery and the ushers sweep the popcorn off the floor after every show, but neither of us says anything about that.
For this one night, I want to forget about color and all the rest of it.
While the movie’s running, I almost do. Forget about color, that is. I can’t forget about the rest.
The movie is a comedy, and everyone in the theater but me laughs the whole way through. Even Ennis keeps chuckling. Sometimes he’ll glance over at me to see if I’m enjoying it, and I try to smile a little. It’s a silly movie, about two men who dress up like women and play in a band with Marilyn Monroe, and I don’t see what’s supposed to be so funny about that. It isn’t natural. It isn’t Christian.
So I grip the large Coke Ennis bought me and drink it down as fast as I can. The Coke is full of ice and my fingers are freezing, but I don’t put down the cup. If I did, Ennis might try to hold my hand. The idea makes me jitter.
I look over at him from time to time. His eyes crinkle when he laughs.
This is what it will be like when we go steady. Every week we’ll come to the movies and sit in the balcony drinking Cokes. He’ll come over to my house for dinner sometimes, and he and Daddy will talk about the news. This summer we’ll go swimming at the creek and sit together at the church barbecues.
Next year, when we’re at college together, he’ll take me out to dinner at fancy restaurants in Washington. And later, when we’re married, he’ll—
Married.
Married.
Well, yes, of course. I’m supposed to be thinking more about marriage and children. My future.
But thinking about it alone in my bedroom is a different thing altogether from thinking about it next to a boy with a very nice smile in a very dark movie theater.
I like Ennis well enough, but marriage? What do I even know about marriage?