by Robin Talley
Ruth and I nod, waiting for them to get to the point.
“Sarah is leaving for college,” Mama says. “She wants to leave right after graduation to work in Washington for the summer. And, Sarah, if that’s what you really want, then you have our permission.”
I close my eyes and say a quick prayer of thanks. Then I open my eyes and smile at my parents. “Thank you so much, sir, ma’am.”
“There will be none of this sending money home, either,” Daddy adds. “You won’t learn a thing about what it means to earn a living that way. You let us worry about us and you worry about you.”
“You didn’t tell me you were leaving so soon.” Ruth frowns at me.
“You should be happy,” I say. “You’ll have the whole room to yourself.”
“That’s true.” She brightens. “But I’m going to miss you.”
“Aww, Ruthie.” I reach over to hug her. She squirms away.
Mama smiles. Then Daddy gives us a look that shuts both of us up.
“Ever since your first day at Jefferson, we’ve been talking about what Ruth should do next year,” he says.
Ruth and I both bolt upright.
“You have?” Ruth says.
“We’ve made a decision,” Daddy says. “You’ve had a difficult year, and you’ve worked hard. What you’ve done has made a huge difference. Next year another fifteen Negroes will be starting at Jefferson, and there will be thirty more at other white schools in the district.”
“You’ve done enough, Ruthie,” Mama says. “But we don’t want to have you transfer back to Johns next year. That would look like we were giving up. Instead you can move back to Chicago. We’ve had it planned since March. You’ll live with your aunt and uncle and go to your cousins’ school.”
Chicago.
Our old school in Chicago was ten times better than Johns.
I can’t believe Mama and Daddy are giving me what I asked for. Something better than what I asked for, even.
It isn’t about sacrificing us for the movement. It’s about making hard decisions. Because somebody has to.
But Ruth shakes her head.
“I can’t do that,” she says. “Don’t you see? It wouldn’t be right.”
My sister is insane.
“Right?” I say. “What’s happening now isn’t right.”
She shakes her head again. “You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” I can’t believe my sister. I’m trying to help her and she’s just being her usual stubborn self. “You’re saying you want to go through another three years at Jefferson? By yourself?”
“I won’t be by myself,” she says. “I have my friends. And you heard Daddy. Next year there will be fifteen more of us. Who knows how many the year after that.”
“What about cheerleading?” I say. “Are you just going to give up on ever having a normal life in high school?”
“Who says I can’t cheer? They let you sing a solo at the concert. Maybe I’ll try out for the squad next year. Who knows what will happen?”
“You’re being crazy,” I say. “Mama, Daddy, tell her she’s being crazy.”
But Mama and Daddy are grinning. Even wider than Ruth grinned when she thought we were getting a dog.
“Don’t you see, Sarah?” Ruth says. “Someone has to do this. If we give up, nothing will ever change.”
Yes. I see.
“Well, you can always change your mind, sweetie,” Mama says. “It’ll be your decision.”
“I’ve decided,” Ruth says.
“All right, then.” Daddy stands up. “I have to say, I am very pleased with both of my daughters today.”
“And here you thought you were going to be in trouble.” I poke Ruth in her side.
“Ow!” She twists away.
She’s so little to be making such a grown-up decision.
But she’s not, really. Not so much littler than me.
I suppose Mama’s right. I suppose it’s her decision to make.
I suppose we all have to figure out our own futures.
* * *
I call her at Judy’s house and ask her to meet me in the school parking lot. I hate the school parking lot, but it’s the only place I can think of to meet at seven in the morning where we won’t be seen.
It’s still dark out when I arrive. She’s already there, sitting on a concrete barrier and wearing a faded striped dress I recognize as Judy’s. It’s strange to see her out of her usual fashion-conscious skirt-and-sweater outfits.
“Hi,” I say when I reach her.
“Hi.” She stands up and smooths her skirt. She bites her lip and looks off to the side. We haven’t talked in person since that afternoon in the alley.
“I’m leaving,” I tell her. I don’t know how else to say it. “Right after graduation. I have a summer job in Washington. My parents said they’ll let me go.”
She glances back at me for a second. Then looks away again.
“All right.” She swallows.
“You should leave, too,” I say. “You don’t like it here any more than I do.”
She gazes around the parking lot. The three stories of red brick that look more like a prison than a school. The scraggly trees and trampled grass that line the edges of the pavement. The street that leads downtown to the center of Davisburg. Linda’s entire world.
She’s been kicked off the staff of the school newspaper. Yvonne heard it somewhere. Next week the paper will print an apology for Linda’s column about Chuck, saying it wasn’t authorized and that the Clarion has a policy of not commenting on student disciplinary matters.
I don’t know if Linda’s heard the news yet. With no one talking to her at school, I might be better informed than she is now.
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she says, her voice cracking. “I thought I did, but it won’t work. It was all a lie.”
“Then come with me.” I know I sound crazy, so I say the rest as fast as I can. “There are a lot of jobs in a city like Washington. The family I’m staying with, they live there. They must know people who could find you somewhere to stay. There are a lot of colleges there, too. You could find one that takes late applications, and then in the fall you could—”
“Stop,” she says. “Just stop. You know I can’t do all that. I’m not like you.”
“That’s not true. You’re the same as me. Except it’ll be easier for you because you’re white. You can go to any college you want, you can—”
“You have to be more than just white to pick up and start a whole new life.” She stares down at the pavement. “Your parents are the ones sending you to college. I bet that’s how you got the summer job, too.”
I don’t know what to say. I got the job for myself, but it wouldn’t have happened if Mr. Deskins hadn’t been friends with Uncle John.
Then I recognize that look on Linda’s face. It’s the same one she used to get when we’d argue about integration.
She doesn’t really know what she’s saying. She’s making excuses, the way she always does.
Because she’s afraid.
Linda’s never lived anywhere but Davisburg. She’s never lived with anyone she didn’t have to hide from.
She’s never even thought about what she really wanted.
I never did, either. Until now.
“Well what are you going to do, then?” I pose it as a challenge, the same way I used to when we’d argue. “Sit back and wait for someone to hand you a future? Or are you going to decide for yourself?”
That gets her attention. She looks up at me with shiny eyes. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“I don’t know, either,” I say.
We’re talking about more than jobs and college.
We’r
e talking about that day in the alley.
We’re talking about this strange thing between us that we don’t know how to talk about.
I don’t know the words for how I feel about Linda. I don’t know if it’s the same thing girls are supposed to feel about boys or if it’s something different. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong or somewhere in between. All I know is I’ve never felt anything like it before. And I’d like to keep on feeling it.
Is that enough?
I don’t know.
“If you don’t want to come to Washington you can go somewhere else,” I say. “You don’t have to come with me, but—is there anything for you here? Anything worth staying for?”
She gazes around the parking lot again.
“No,” she says softly. “I used to think there was. But no. There’s not a single thing.”
“Then isn’t it time you did something about that?”
She finally meets my eyes. “It’s past time.”
I take her hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back.
And even though there’s no one else here, it feels like I’m holding Linda’s hand in front of the whole world.
EPILOGUE
TRUTH #3
Ruth
“SARAH DUNBAR, WITH honors.”
We all stop breathing when they call her name.
Mama and Daddy are sitting on either side of me, gripping my hands. They’re squeezing so hard my palms are getting sweaty, but I don’t let go.
Sarah walks across the stage, her high heels clicking in the silent auditorium. Her back is so straight I bet you could balance an egg on her graduation cap and it wouldn’t even roll.
Principal Cole smiles when he gives her the diploma. Even from here I can tell that surprises Sarah, but she smiles back.
Sarah turns around to pose for the photo, holding her diploma against her shoulder. Mr. Mack, Ennis’s father, is taking pictures from up front. We all knew Daddy would be too nervous to work the camera.
The reporters snap photos, too. A dozen flashbulbs pop in Sarah’s face.
Then, we wait.
This is when the shouting will start.
This is when anything else that’s going to happen will happen.
That’s why Mama and Daddy are so nervous. They don’t talk about it, not around me, but I know it’s all they’re thinking about. It’s all I’m thinking about, too.
It could be an egg thrown on the stage. Or some spitballs shot from the audience.
Or it could be a gunshot.
Mama is praying under her breath with her eyes wide-open. The prayer bobs in and out of my head. Not the words, really. Just the rhythm. Like breathing.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done.
Nothing is happening.
Sarah is walking down the steps.
Nothing is happening.
It’s over.
Without thinking, I leap to my feet and clap.
Mama and Daddy hiss at me to get down, but when nothing happens to me, either, they start clapping, too.
So do the Ennis’s parents down front and a few other Negro families sitting near us. Even Principal Cole claps at Sarah’s departing back.
No one shouted at her. No one did anything.
My sister graduated from Jefferson High School. She’s the first Negro to do that ever.
“That was my sister,” I tell the white couple behind us. The man doesn’t look up, but the woman smiles at me. “My sister, Sarah.”
“All right now, honey,” Mama says, tugging on my arm. “Now sit down so the rest of the audience can see.”
I sit, but I don’t stop grinning.
She did it.
We did it.
Fifteen minutes later, it’s Ennis’s turn to walk across the stage, and Mama and Daddy tense up again.
But the same thing happens. Nothing.
Ennis crosses the stage, gets a handful of claps, poses for a photo and walks down again.
And when the whole class is done, and everyone throws their caps in the air, there are two black hands in the crowd of whites reaching for the sky.
All along, I was sure this would be worth it.
I was right.
* * *
We go to the bus station straight from the ceremony. I told Sarah that was silly. They should wait until later. They should at least go to the graduation party to say goodbye to their friends. Sarah said this was the only bus leaving all day, and anyway, she’d be back to visit. Then she said I should stop being such a busybody about everyone else’s plans.
So I’m still wearing my itchy new church dress when Daddy hefts Sarah’s last suitcase into the bus’s luggage compartment with a grunt.
“What’ve you got in these, girl?” he says. “Rocks?”
Sarah smiles, but her chin is quivering. Any minute now she’ll start crying like a baby.
I told her she shouldn’t leave so soon. Maybe from now on she’ll listen to me.
“You have Mr. and Mrs. Deskins’s address, don’t you?” Mama asks Sarah again. “You make sure to go straight there as soon as the bus gets in.”
“I remember, Mama.”
Mama nods. She’s blinking back tears, too. Soon our whole family will be bawling all over the Greyhound station parking lot.
The place is almost empty. Everyone else is still over at Jefferson. It’s the only high school in town, except for Johns—that private school the white parents were setting up, the Davisburg Academy, is still trying to raise money—so everyone in town goes to graduation. The only other people at the station with us are Ennis, those two white girls Sarah knows, and one of the white girls’ mothers.
One of the white girls, Linda Hairston, is taking the same bus as Sarah. She’s staying for the summer with her aunt in Alexandria, right outside Washington. I told Sarah I thought it was funny they were taking the same bus, and she told me they planned it that way. She said they’re going to spend some time together this summer, since they’ll both be in the city. I told her that was funny, too, the idea of a white girl and a colored girl acting like they were friends. She told me things were different in Washington and I should mind my own business.
Ennis is saying goodbye to Sarah over by the suitcases. I pretend to check the luggage tags so I can listen to them.
“Take care of yourself,” Ennis says. “I’ll see you when I get up there in September. Maybe we can catch another movie sometime.”
I hear the smile in Sarah’s voice. “I’d like that.”
I’d thought by now Sarah and Ennis would be going steady for sure, but he never asked, and she said that was fine with her. I don’t know what’s wrong with my sister sometimes.
Linda says goodbye to the other white girl and her mother and goes over to Sarah. Sarah waves at the other girl, too. The other girl, the brown-haired one who wears too much makeup, is holding her cheek and frowning.
The attendant steps down from the bus to say we’ve got two minutes until departure. He’s looking back and forth from us to the white girls, his brow furrowed. Wondering about these two girls of different colors getting on a bus together, probably. He doesn’t say anything about it, though.
Bobby is sitting on the curb, pouting. Ennis goes over to talk to Mama and Daddy. Sarah and Linda are whispering together.
I feel left out, so I sit on the curb with Bobby, tucking my skirt and crinoline under me so they won’t get mashed.
“Don’t you worry,” I tell Bobby. “She’ll be back for a visit before you even notice she’s gone.”
Bobby sticks his lip out farther. He always does that. He thinks it makes people feel sorry for him. It mostly just makes us laugh.
Sarah and Linda are still whispering. What cou
ld they possibly have to talk about? Aren’t they about to get on a bus where they can talk for hours?
Sarah leans down to move one of her suitcases over to the side. Linda puts her hand on Sarah’s back to steady her. I’m surprised she’d touch a colored girl after those articles she wrote in the school paper against integration.
Over on the sidewalk the other white girl clasps her hand over her mouth and her face wrinkles up, like she’s horrified to see them touching. That’s funny. I thought Sarah said that girl was all right with colored people.
“One minute,” the attendant calls.
Sarah hugs Mama and Daddy goodbye, then lifts Bobby to his feet and squeezes him tight.
She comes to me last. She’s finally crying. I am, too, but at least I have the decency to pretend otherwise.
“Be careful,” she tells me. “I don’t want to hear any reports about you acting reckless. It’s not worth it.”
“I know, I know.” I’ll be as careful as I want to be. I’m not the same person Sarah is.
“Listen.” She drops her voice. “There’s something I want to tell you. It’s important, so I need you to listen, all right?”
“I’m listening.” I shift from foot to foot. Sarah can be so earnest sometimes. It’s tiresome.
“Other people will always try to decide things for you,” she says. “They’ll try to tell you who you are. Remember, no matter what they say, you’re the one who really decides.”
I shift my feet again, playing that back in my head, trying to figure out what it means. “You’re not going to major in philosophy in college, are you?”
She sighs. “Just don’t forget it, all right?”
“All right, all right.” I nod the way I do whenever an adult tells me something they think is really important.
Sarah rolls her eyes. I roll mine back. We laugh.
Sarah and Linda climb up the steps of the bus. They turn around and wave to us. They’re both grinning, even though Sarah is still wiping tears from her eyes.
Then they turn around and wind their way into the bus. They sit together in the backseat. I can see them through the window.