Yankee Girl

by Mary Ann Rodman

  “Hey, Alice. It’s Valerie.”

  “Hey. We missed you at school today.” Which was a big, fat lie, but that’s what you were supposed to say. It was manners.

  “Thanks.” Valerie knew about manners, too. “I had the stomach bug.”

  “Oh.” Relief! So she hadn’t gone back to her old school. “You feeling better?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be back tomorrow. That’s why I’m calling. To see if we have any math homework.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got it right here.” I told her the page number and which problems we were supposed to work.

  “Thanks,” said Valerie.

  “You’re welcome.” Silence hummed across the phone line. Valerie was the one who called, so she was the one who was supposed to say goodbye. It was manners.

  “I didn’t really have the stomach bug,” Valerie said.

  “You didn’t?”

  “Oh, I threw up all right, but it wasn’t any old bug. It’s ’cause I was scared.”

  “What’re you scared of?” I could think of about a hundred things Valerie had to be scared of.

  “My daddy’s going over to Alabama with Dr. King. Help signing folks up to vote. Someplace called Selma, in a couple weeks. White people over there are crazy. All the time beating and shooting folks. I don’t want Daddy to go.” Valerie’s voice grew smaller and smaller until she was whispering. I sounded the same way when I was trying not to cry.

  “Why don’t you ask him not to go?” I said. “It’s not like it’s his paying job. Working for Dr. King, I mean.”

  “I know.” Valerie sighed. “But Daddy says that we’ll be paid a thousand times over when we get our equal rights.”

  “What’s he mean by that?”

  “I reckon he means that we won’t have to think all the time whether we can go here or there or do this or that. White people don’t think about whether or not they’re allowed in some place, do they?”

  “No.” It never crossed my mind that I might be in the wrong place because of my colour. Well, except for that day at the football game. “Do you think about it a lot?”

  “Yeah. But sometimes I just forget. Like last summer. Our family drove all the way to New York City to visit kin. Every time we needed to go to the bathroom, we had to stop the car and go in an empty Crisco can in the backseat.”

  “Why didn’t you just go to a filling station? They aren’t the cleanest bathrooms in the world, but it’s better than a Crisco can.”

  “’Cause white filling stations in the South won’t let Negroes use their bathrooms, that’s how come. There’s never a coloured station around when you need one.”

  “Oh.” I never thought about that.

  “It was all on account of the pie.”

  “Pie?” That didn’t make any sense. Maybe Valerie was sick after all.

  “We were someplace in Kentucky, and we saw this sign in a window of a bus-station lunch counter. It said FRESH HOME-MADE PIES. We’d been eating Vienna sausages out of the can and crackers, ’cause that stuff don’t spoil in the car. Suddenly, all we could think about was those pies.

  “Daddy said, ‘Lots of Negroes come through here on the bus. I’ll bet they’ll serve us.’”

  “Did they?”

  “I’m telling a story here,” said Valerie, so I knew that I wasn’t supposed to interrupt. “First, we looked for a WHITES ONLY sign. We didn’t see one, so we walked in. The place was empty, except for a grey-haired white lady behind the counter. Daddy asked if they served Negroes.

  “‘Why, sure,’ said the white lady. ‘What y’all going to have?’

  “I felt so special. I’d never eaten at a lunch counter with twirly stools before. I didn’t notice that the window screens were busted and there were flies all over. I didn’t see that the dishes were cracked and nasty brown, like somebody been using them for ashtrays. I didn’t see all that until later.

  “All I saw was that glass pie case on the counter. It was lit up like a jewellery-store window, with pies on shelves turning slow under the lights. Each one looked like the best kind of pie in the world. I picked coconut. Lucy wanted chocolate.

  “The lady took our pie slices behind the counter. She had her back to us, so I couldn’t see what she was doing. But when she brought our pies to us, I could see she had put whipped cream on them.

  “‘We didn’t ask for whipped cream,’ Daddy said. ‘How much extra does that cost?’ I knew we didn’t have any extra money.

  “‘Nothing a’tall,’ said the lady. ‘My treat. Now, them pies cost one dollar.’ Daddy paid her and she brought us our forks.

  “I looked at my coconut pie, all golden and crispy under that fluffy cream, and decided to take little bitty bites, to make it last longer.

  “Good thing, ’cause when I put that pie in my mouth, something happened. I tasted sweet cream, and crunchy coconut, and then the worst taste I’d ever tasted. Mama and Daddy had funny looks on their faces. They put down their forks. Mama pinched Lucy’s leg under the counter, so’s she wouldn’t spit out her pie.

  “‘Just swallow it,’ Daddy said in my ear. ‘Don’t give that lady satisfaction.’

  “I swallowed. ‘What is it?’ I whispered. I wanted water bad, but the lady hadn’t given us any.

  “‘Salt,’ Daddy whispered back. ‘She put salt over the tops of these pies and covered it up with the whipped cream. Let’s just go.’ We stood up.

  “‘What’s the matter? Didn’t you like my pies?’ the lady said. ‘It’s my special recipe for niggers.’ She smiled. I didn’t know a smile could be ugly.

  “I wanted to smash my pie in her face. But Daddy said, ‘Keep walking. Don’t look back.’

  “The lady called after us, ‘You be sure and tell all your friends how we treat niggers here.’”

  Another humming silence. Through the receiver I heard a woman call, “Valerie! You hang up that phone right now and get to your homework.”

  “In a minute, Mama,” Valerie yelled back. Then not yelling, “I gotta go now, Alice. Thanks for telling me about the math. See you tomorrow.”

  Click. The dial tone buzzed in my ear.

  It was going to take more than Saranne Russell and the Cheerleaders to get rid of Valerie Taylor.

  A lot more.

  That night, I dreamed about Emmett Till again.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. But he acted like he didn’t hear. He had something to say.

  “What do you think would’ve happened if just one white person had stood up for me?”

  “You’d still be alive,” I said.

  “Maybe,” he said, his eyes round and sad. “Or maybe that white person be dead, too.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  JACKSON DAILY JOURNAL, Saturday, March 6, 1965

  CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS PLAN MARCH TO ALABAMA CAPITOL

  Spring came early in the South. Chicago in March was snow pants, snow boots, and piles of dirty snow. Mississippi in March was shorts and azaleas and biking to the Tote-Sum for ICEES.

  I sat cross-legged on the den floor, warm breezes from the screen door tickling my neck as I traced a map of Mexico for social studies. Mrs. Mateer perched on the couch, visiting while Mama ironed.

  “Y’all aren’t moving, are you?” Mrs. Mateer dug her cigarettes and lighter out of her shorts pocket. “Y’all just got here.”

  “Lord, no.” Mama dampened Daddy’s shirt with the sprinkler bottle. “What makes you ask?” A puff of steam rose where the hot iron touched the wet shirt.

  Mrs. Mateer tapped a cigarette out of her pack. “Coupla fellas in a pink Cadillac took pictures of your house while y’all were out the other day.” She flicked the lighter. “Real estate folks have big cars.” She blew a smoke ring, putting a period on her sentence.

  “Those weren’t Realtors,” Daddy said at supper. “They were Klan. I saw the car when I came in tonight.”

  “What? Why?” I said. The Klan! Right in front of our house, again!

  “They’re keeping track of us,�
�� Daddy chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?” I said. I didn’t think the Klan was a bit funny.

  “A pink Cadillac.” Daddy laughed. “The whole point of a stakeout is not being seen. You don’t sit in a pink Cadillac in broad daylight!” He shook his head. “Oh well, as long as those old boys are just shooting cameras, we’re okay. I hope they get some good snaps of me taking out the garbage.”

  “Why don’t we call the police?” I asked.

  “Well, Pookie, those fellas aren’t breaking any laws, just taking pictures. They’ll go away eventually. They won’t hurt us. I promise.”

  But they didn’t go away. When I came home a few days later, the Cadillac was there, but Mama wasn’t. The empty carport meant Mama was running errands. I got the house key from under the doormat and let myself in.

  Every sound seemed a thousand times louder in the empty house. I clicked on the kitchen radio and tuned it to WOKJ. The Supremes sang “Stop! In the Name of Love”, drowning out the noises. I danced through the living room to my room, closing the curtains so I wouldn’t see the Cadillac.

  Dead air followed the Supremes. Maybe the deejay went to the bathroom. The windows rattled in the warm March wind. The house creaked. The refrigerator hummed loudly. I had my hand on the radio dial to change to Rebel Radio when…

  Thunk! Something hit the living room window.

  A bomb?

  I had to escape!

  But where? I knew the Mateers had gone shopping.

  I peeked out my bedroom window. The men in the Cadillac looked asleep, but they didn’t fool me. They had probably thrown a Molotov cocktail, a bomb made with gasoline and a pop bottle. It just hadn’t gone off. Yet.

  Maybe Jeb was home now. With a shaking finger, I dialled his number.

  I always let the phone ring ten times because maybe the person was in the bathroom. I counted thirty-six rings. The Mateers weren’t home.

  Trapped. Windows in every room. Was there no safe place in the house?

  The closet. My bedroom closet.

  I checked out front. One of the Cadillac men leaned against the hood, smoking a cigarette. What would he do next?

  I slid open the closet door and dived in, pushing away a pile of shoes. I shoved at the skirts dangling in my face. The closet smelled like sweaty sneakers and mothballs. At least the Klan couldn’t get me. Could they?

  The house settle-creaked in the wind. Or was someone trying to get in the house? I couldn’t tell, because right then WOKJ came back on the air.

  Over the distant mumble of the radio, I could hear the door from the kitchen into the carport opening. I hadn’t locked it behind me. How stupid could I be? Was it the guy with the cigarette?

  Whonk! Something heavy landed on the kitchen counter. A gun? Would Mama find my bullet-riddled body spilling from the closet?

  “Alice Ann Moxley,” a voice bellowed from the kitchen. “You march yourself out here right this minute.”

  Mama! The something heavy was her wooden purse hitting the counter. I pushed open the closet door and gulped fresh air.

  Mama started right in. “You know better than to leave doors unlocked.”

  I started babbling about noises and pink-Cadillac men.

  “Calm down,” said Mama. “Something hit the living room window? Well, let’s go see what it is.”

  “I’m not going out there.” Not as long as the Cadillac was parked in front.

  “It was a robin,” Mama said when she came back. “The poor thing flew into the window. I found him dead in the gardenia bushes. You were scared of a dead bird.”

  Well, it could have been a bomb. I was never staying in the house alone again.

  A couple of nights later, Daddy came home only long enough to eat.

  “I have to go back to work.” He shovelled creamed corn onto his plate.

  “Nice of you to drop in.” Mama’s lips flattened as she speared a ham slice with a serving fork.

  Oh, chicken hips. Mama and Daddy were going to fight. Time to change the subject.

  “Valerie’s daddy is in Alabama with Martin Luther King. Someplace called Selma.” Valerie always got Daddy’s attention. This time it backfired.

  “You want to know why I work seven days a week, twelve hours a day?” Daddy sliced his ham into precise squares. “People like Dr. King and Reverend Taylor. To protect their rights.”

  “Why can’t you protect their rights from nine to five?” Mama spooned corn on her plate with an angry splat. “Why do you have to go in tonight?”

  “Inspector Ryan is here from headquarters.” Daddy checked his watch, then pushed back his chair from the table. Mama scowled as she followed him out to the car.

  I cleared the table, clashing silverware and plates as I stacked them on the drain board. I didn’t want to hear what was going on outside. Not that they would have a big fight in the driveway, where the neighbours could see them.

  No, they would be super polite to each other the way that people are when they actually hate each other’s guts. Mama thought yelling was “unpleasant”.

  I wondered if Daddy really was meeting with the inspector, or if he was doing something more dangerous. The bad thing about an FBI agent father was that you never knew where he was or what he was doing. He wasn’t supposed to talk about work, so I knew better than to ask him. He might be sitting in his office writing reports. Or he might be out in the country somewhere tracking down KKKers. You just didn’t know.

  For the millionth time, I wished that Daddy sold shoes or drove a milk truck. A job where you couldn’t get killed by the Klan.

  Mama was still grouchy from the fight when she drove me to Dr. Warren’s after school the next day.

  “Working sixty, seventy hours a week,” she grumbled. “Even Martin Luther King takes a day off now and then.” She griped all the way to the doctor’s office and all the way home.

  We could hear our phone ringing when we pulled into the carport. Mama ran in to answer it.

  Jeb was in his driveway shooting baskets. “Wanna play horse?” he called.

  “Sure. Let me put my books in the house.”

  Mama hung up the phone as I came in. “I’m going to pick up Daddy. Do you want to come with me?”

  And listen to her gripe some more? I shook my head. “I’m going over to Jeb’s.”

  “All right. We’ll be back in half an hour.” I was out the kitchen door before she finished her sentence. Mama fired up the Chrysler and drove away as Jeb tossed me the basketball.

  I lost two games in a row.

  “Play again?” Jeb spun the ball in his hands.

  “Kind of dark, isn’t it?” I squinted at my Timex. Six-fifteen? That couldn’t be right! “Mama should be home by now.” I tried not to sound scared.

  Mrs. Mateer stuck her head out the kitchen door. “Supper, son.”

  “Alice’s mama’s gone to fetch her daddy and they ain’t home yet,” Jeb said. “She’s kinda worried.”

  Mrs. Mateer could tell I didn’t want to be alone because she said I could stay with them until Mama and Daddy got home.

  “Why don’t you call the office, hon?” she said. “Your daddy might be detained at work.”

  “Federal Bureau of Investigation, how may I help you?” It was Grady, one of the clerks. For some reason, the FBI clerks were always called by their first names, instead of “mister”.

  “Grady, this is Alice Moxley.” It felt good to hear a familiar voice. “Has my father left yet?”

  “Let me check.” I heard the phone receiver clunk on the desk and Grady walking away. Then footsteps coming back.

  “Alice, you still there? He clocked out at 5:20. He isn’t home yet?”

  Almost an hour ago! My stomach turned to ice.

  “I haven’t looked in a while,” I said. “I’m over at the neighbours’.”

  “I see.” A long humming silence. “Well, they might be home now and wondering where you are,” Grady said in a fake cheerful voice. “But, Alice…”


  “Yeah, Grady?”

  “If they don’t turn up soon, give me a call, okay? I don’t want you to be there alone.”

  I hung up.

  “He left already.” I tried not to cry in front of the Mateers, eating their supper at the breakfast bar. “Maybe they’re home by now. I’ll go look.”

  They weren’t.

  “I’ll make a few phone calls,” said Mrs. Mateer in a take-charge voice. “Jeb, Pammie, take Alice home and stay with her.”

  “I can’t. I’m baby-sitting, remember?” A car honked in the driveway as Pammie gathered up her schoolbooks. “Don’t worry, Alice. Your parents are fine.” She gave my arm a squeeze on her way out.

  Jeb and I stepped out into the warm, windy night. The air smelled like damp earth and azaleas. A full moon glowed in a star-flecked sky. Such a soft spring night. For a minute, I felt happy.

  Then I looked across the street. The pink Cadillac was gone. Of course it was gone. Those guys were off kidnapping my parents.

  My stomach hurt.

  I unlocked the back door and fumbled for the light switch. Even with the lights on, the rooms had a spooky, empty feeling. Jeb flopped on the den couch, air whooshing out of the vinyl cushions.

  “The Beverly Hillbillies is on,” he said. “Wanna watch?”

  “I don’t care.” I turned on the TV, and canned laughter filled the room. “Jeb, what’ll I do if they’re dead?”

  He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “Skipper’s mama died last year. Our class took up money for funeral flowers. Everyone was extra nice to him. For about a week.”

  Life without Mama and Daddy? I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t want to imagine it.

  “This is a dumb show,” griped Jeb. He twisted the TV dial to the other channel. “Nothing on.” He wandered into the living room.

  I joined him there and pressed my forehead against the cool window glass. Who would tell me my parents were dead. Grady? The police? Mrs. Mateer?

  “Hey, Alice,” Jeb said softly. “Don’t worry. They’ll be okay. You’ll see.” He sounded so gentle and un-Jeb-like that it scared me.

  He thinks they’re dead, too.

  Far down the street, the bobbing headlights of a car came towards us, passing under a streetlight. The Chrysler. My parents were home.