Leigh

by Lyn Cote

  “Do you feel weird about this?” Mary Beth whispered.

  Leigh glanced at her. And then raised one eyebrow. Did Mary Beth mean about getting together with her or visiting Cherise?

  “I’ve never been in a Negro person’s house before,” Mary Beth admitted, as if embarrassed about revealing this private information, but unable to stop herself.

  Ah, it was Cherise’s being different. Leigh thought of Aunt Jerusha, whom she and Grandma Chloe had visited last weekend. In her late eighties, Aunt Jerusha, Frank’s great-grandmother, lived in a neat little cottage behind Ivy Manor, close enough for Grandma Chloe to check on her every day. What would Mary Beth say if Leigh told her that?

  Mary Beth nudged Leigh’s arm, bringing Leigh back to the present.

  “This isn’t my first time,” Leigh said, leading Mary Beth up the steps.

  “You probably think I’m dumb for feeling odd,” Mary Beth muttered.

  “No, feelings are feelings. I wouldn’t try to deny yours or tell you not to feel them.” Like my mother always tries to make me feel what I should, not what I really feel. “Maybe Cherise,” Leigh suggested, “will feel funny having us over.”

  “I didn’t think about that.” The other girl brightened.

  Leigh and Mary Beth reached the door of the white-frame bungalow on a quiet street of small neat homes and lawns. Leigh knocked. A pretty Negro woman opened the door. “You must be Leigh and Mary Beth.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Langford.” Leigh held out her hand.

  Eying them thoroughly, Cherise’s mother welcomed them inside and sent them upstairs, after calling out, “Cherise, your classmates are here!”

  Leigh’s mind went back to Ivy Manor again. The afternoon spent with Aunt Jerusha had brought back what Frank had said about how their two families were related. Frank.She resisted the urge to trace the outline of his letter within her purse. Over the past few days, she’d changed it from purse to drawer and back again-it was crumpled and finger-smudged, worn from her touching it over and over. But she still couldn’t decide whether or not to reply.

  Obviously still in her church outfit, Cherise met them at the top of the stairs and led them to her room. “Have you listened to the news?” Cherise motioned toward a small black-and-white TV with rabbit ears in the corner of her pink-and-white Early American bedroom.

  “Wow,” Mary Beth breathed, “you’ve got a TV in your room.”

  Cherise chuckled. “Mom and Dad got a new color set in the living room, and I got the old, small one for here. I had to promise it wouldn’t interfere with my homework.” Cherise gave them a look to show how silly parents could be.

  On the small black-and-white, slightly fuzzy screen, Walter Cronkite was talking to some NAACP officer about a tragedy that had just occurred in Alabama. Leigh perched on the side of the sheer-white canopied bed, folding one leg under. In green pedal pushers and matching blouse, she felt as if she’d dressed too casually for the very feminine setting. “What happened?”

  Smoothing her straight skirt carefully as if not wanting to wrinkle it, Cherise sat down beside Leigh. “The KKK blew up part of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and killed four little girls.”

  Leigh took it in. “They blew up a church?” The news was unreal, like saying the Martians had landed. A bomb set in secret. A cowardly act of intimidation, of violence. The Klan didn’t want to be photographed doing their dirty work, but didn’t they realize that its results were just as overwhelming? It caught in Leigh’s craw, especially knowing that Frank would hear about it at boot camp, probably on someone’s transistor radio. He’d be angry.

  “That’s creepy,” Mary Beth commented, staring at the TV while settling herself on Cherise’s other side. Even though Mary Beth wasn’t wearing her school uniform, the top button of her plain blouse, the one most girls left undone, was buttoned up tight at her neck.

  “I guess the KKK still thinks they can hold back integration with violence,” Cherise said. “You’d think they’d get the message. The day has come for the end of segregation.”

  “Well, in the past, violence and intimidation served them—before nationwide news coverage,” Leigh pointed out. She remembered Frank’s bitter tone when he’d told her about sitting in at the lunch counter. “The KKK burned a cross on my grandparents’ lawn back before World War II.” The words just slipped out.

  “Why’d they do that?” Mary Beth wanted to know.

  Leigh wished she’d kept her mouth shut. But she couldn’t refuse to answer. “My grandparents took in a Jewish immigrant.”

  Both girls stared at her. Walter Cronkite began repeating the story of the day, the four little girls who’d died at church this morning, another day of tragedy in Alabama. Leigh shifted her attention to him, but it was just a cover. She studied the other two girls on the bed surreptitiously.

  Cherise was very pretty, light skinned, and dressed in a very feminine pink blouse with a Peter Pan collar and a black straight skirt, hose, and black flats. Somehow she wore the clothing as if it were finer than it was. Cherise had an air about her that drew attention—favorable attention—to herself. Leigh had observed her over the past two weeks at St. Agnes and she’d noted that about her. Cherise was very good at getting people to like her. She’d bowed out of the Scribe editorship and Mary Beth had gotten the job. And in the process, Cherise had won quite a bit of good press for herself.

  Leigh wondered why she was studying and analyzing the new girl’s every move, every word. Was it prejudice? Or did it have anything to do with her friendship with Frank?

  Mary Beth wore brown plastic glasses, a very plain white blouse, a pleated black skirt, white bobby socks, and white tennies. Her hair was a nondescript brown, and her eyes were lost behind thick lenses. Mary Beth was the epitome of dogged.She staked out her goal, and heaven help the person who got in her way or wanted the same plum. Last month this had irritated Leigh; now it amused her. And she didn’t know why she’d changed.

  And what would Cherise and Mary Beth say about her?

  A commercial for Pepsodent came on. Cherise got up and switched off the TV. “It’s depressing, and we’ve got homework to do. I need help with my French. I thought it would be good to practice the conversation we’re supposed to memorize and recite.”

  Leigh decided suddenly to take a chance, to upset the apple cart and see what popped out. “What do you two think about interracial dating?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Both Mary Beth and Cherise stared at her, wide-eyed. Through the open window, sounds from outside—someone raking grass clippings, rasping the ground and then sidewalk with a rake, little children giggling and calling to each other in a game of tag, cars passing—filled the silence in Cherise’s bedroom. Leigh fought a blush, but it took over her face anyway.

  “Are you dating?” Mary Beth asked, sounding dumbfounded. “Who?”

  “I’m not dating anyone.” Leigh primed her lips. I should never have asked them.

  “You mean you’re just asking in general?” Cherise probed.

  Leigh looked straight into Cherise’s dark, very pretty eyes and nodded. She’d begun to like Mary Beth and Cherise. When she’d transferred to St. Agnes two years ago, she hadn’t really tried to make any close friends. After going to public school for elementary and junior high, she’d felt odd at an all-girl’s Catholic school where everyone had known each other since kindergarten. She’d been unhappy that her mother had insisted she go there, and resentment had tied her tongue.

  Also, the atmosphere had been so competitive and so repressive—the strict nuns in their white wimples and black habits—that Leigh had not made any overtures of friendship and few had come her way. Now, as her public-school friends drifted away, she realized she’d become very lonely.

  But in the past weeks, Mary Beth had done a turnaround from treating Leigh as a hostile rival to treating her as a friend. Evidently beating Leigh out of the editorship had satisfied Mary Beth in some way. And Cherise often sought her out, to walk
to classes together and eat lunch together. But no confidences had been shared—yet.

  “Yes, just in general,” Leigh replied, unwilling to expose herself to either girl. But then why did I ask them?

  Mary Beth twisted a short lock of her brown hair around her forefinger and stared at the gray carpet. Cherise studied Leigh. “I don’t think I would ever date any white boys.”

  Leigh tried not to look away from the girl’s scrutiny, so she would seem to be just asking this in general.

  “Why?” Mary Beth asked, saving Leigh breath.

  Avoiding eye contact, Cherise smoothed her dark skirt again. “I think it would upset my family.”

  “Really?” Mary Beth considered this with an intent expression. Finally, she contributed, “My mom and dad are NAACP members, so I don’t think my family would be too upset. But I don’t think any guy will ever ask me out anyway. I’m not pretty like you two.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” Leigh asked.

  “Guys don’t date plain girls who read all the time. ‘Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,’ “ Mary Beth recited.

  Leigh found this hilarious. “Then how come so many married women wear glasses?” She burst out in laughter.

  “And anyway,” Mary Beth continued grumbling, “when do we ever get to meet any guys at St. Agnes? Whenever we have those dances with the guys from St. Ignatius, I always end up serving punch.” Mary Beth glared at Leigh. “You always get asked to dance.”

  “‘Gentlemen prefer blondes,’ “ Leigh couldn’t resist saying. She flipped her ponytail at Mary Beth. “One cliche deserves another,” she added, teasing a smile from Mary Beth.

  “If the only time you see guys is at a school dance,” Cherise said with a grin, “then, girlfriend, you need to get out more.”

  Leigh felt her spirits lift. Teasing with friends or girls who might become her friends lightened her mood. But she still couldn’t bring herself to share Frank with them. He was too personal, too special a friend.

  And then she had her answer. Frank had become an unexpected friend, just like the two girls across from her. Just because she and Frank had spent such an emotion-packed day didn’t mean they were more than friends. Writing to Frank wasn’t dating him. He would never date her anyway. Why was she making such a big deal about his letter? She was six years younger than him, and he wasn’t interested in her like that. The kiss on her hair had just been because of the special moment they’d shared. Maybe that was why he’d written her. They had shared an experience like no other.

  But she couldn’t forget his kiss or his covering her hand with his in the car that evening. No man had ever touched her like that. Like she was a woman.

  “Are you girls studying French or discussing boys?” Cherise’s mother’s voice floated up the stairs.

  All three of them smothered giggles. And then Leigh opened her French conversation textbook. “ Bonjour, Made-moiselle “she began, lifting her voice so Mrs. Langford would hear her. I’ll write Frank tonight.

  Then another thought stopped her in her tracks. What if her mother found out? And wasn’t that what had really been stopping her from replying? The truth wound itself around her lungs, tightening like a boa constrictor.

  Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d disobeyed her mother. But something told Leigh that this might elicit more than the usual scolding. However, her mother was wrong. Leigh shouldn’t have to be afraid of having Frank as a friend. Right was right.

  That evening, Leigh sat at the desk in her pale blue room and began to write.

  September 15, 1963

  Dear Frank,

  I’m so sorry it has taken me a few weeks to reply. Starting a new school year has kept me busy, and Mom’s been piling on the chores.

  How are you? How’s Officer’s Candidate School?

  I’m sure you’ve heard about the four little girls and the explosion at the church in Alabama. I felt awful for their families. How sick can you get—blowing up a church with children in it?

  I didn’t write the article about the march in Washington after all. Is that crazy or what? I just couldn’t get it down on paper. However, I’m still writing for the school paper. I do love to write.

  Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print!

  Yours,

  Leigh

  She folded the sheet of lavender stationery and put it into the matching envelope. She’d mail it on the way to school tomorrow—after Bette had gone to work.

  In his crowded barracks, Frank sat hunched on his bunk, writing on a book on his knee. Fluorescent tubes glared down on the blank white page. The guys nearest him were arguing about this year’s World Series.

  September 20, 1963

  Dear Leigh,

  Thanks for writing. I know what you mean about keeping busy. I barely have time to think. Officer’s Candidate School is a combination of college and a little like boot camp. Discipline is the main goal, of course. Intellectually, I can understand that, but it’s hard to be on the receiving end. It’s just like what I described to you about how I felt when I took part in sit-ins. Again, I feel stripped of all my family’s protection, my identity as part of that family. In the army, it’s just me and what I am. The challenge is learning enough to be able to lead a fighting group of men and at the same time submitting to the authority of others here and now. Very intense at times, and at times… irritating.

  Some of the other candidates are good ole boys from the South. They don’t like it that I’m “edjicated. “ But I ignore them for the most part. And I make sure that they know I can take care of myself so they don’t try anything.

  I try not to take satisfaction that in the future, Imay command some “good ole boys. “ But I’m human enough to look forward to the experience.

  I think I understand why you couldn’t write about the march. I have trouble talking about it myself. Some experiences are too deep to share with strangers.

  Yours,

  Frank

  “Lights out!” the loud voice announced, and darkness filled the room. Frank folded and then tucked the letter under his pillow. He’d mail it tomorrow after evening chow. He wished he had a picture of Leigh.

  Leigh sat at the back of her journalism class. Mr. Pitney was lecturing them on journalistic sources and court cases upholding the free press’s rights to keep sources confidential. She began writing as if she were taking notes.

  October 2, 1963

  Dear Frank,

  I’m so glad I wrote you. Or, should I say, that you wrote me? (Sorry for the delay in replying but too much homework.) Anyway, you understand what I mean. Sometimes I feel like I must be very strange or something because until I met you, only Grandma Chloe ever understood me. I wonder why that is. Do you feel like your parents don’t understand you, or is this something I’ll outgrow? I get so sick of hearing that, or words to that effect, from my mother. Will I outgrow being me? Did you?

  Leigh

  The bell rang, ending class. Closing her notebook, Leigh rose and in the crowded and noisy hallway caught up with Cherise on their way to their next class. She wished she had a photo of Frank. She still kept Frank’s letters hidden in her room. And since she always brought in the mail, Bette was no wiser about the secret correspondence.

  It was Sunday afternoon, and Frank was enjoying a few hours relaxing outside in the autumn sunshine and rereading Leigh’s letters. He settled himself on a bench in a small grassy area on base and began writing.

  October 20, 1963

  Dear Leigh,

  I’m getting near the end of OCS. I’ll have no regrets when graduation comes! Can’t wait to be done with this grind.

  Now to address your question—no, I don’t think you’ll outgrow being yourself. And I know what you mean. I never seem to live up to my father’s expectations. My mother is a different story. She accepts everything I do with the same bland approval. Now that I look at those words, I see that they leave a lot to be desired. But one demanding pare
nt and one who is completely laissez-faire is hard to take sometimes. Of all my family, I think my grandfather and I are the closest.

  But still, I feel a distance from him. Our times are so different. I mean, they didn’t have the atomic bomb when he was growing up. Sometimes, I wonder if the president will ever press that button and launch a nuclear strike. And what would our worldbe like? Would it, would we survive? Would we want to?

  Frank

  He pictured her fresh young face, long golden hair. He wished she could always stay as idealistic and honest as she was. Not for the first time, an inner voice chided him, “Stop writing her. You’re liable to mislead her. Negro men and white girls can’t be friends.”

  In the hushed, busy silence, Leigh sat in the library at school and started to write.

  November 15, 1963

  Dear Frank,

  What you said about nuclear war—I’ve thought that so many times myself. Nuclear war seems to hang over us—unseen and not to be spoken of-—but there. Always there. Sometimes I almost feel stupid planning for my future. I don’t have any control over what is going to happen on the world stage. Who does? One man in Washington, D.C. and one in Moscow. I was so scared during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I don’t understand how anyone could even think of using nuclear weapons. Where would it all stop? Who would win in such a war?

  Did you see the movie On the Beach? Very scary at the end, just newspapers blowing around empty streets in Australia. Chilling.

  What do they teach you about this in the military?

  Leigh

  She’d never expressed this before to anyone, but she had felt it so many times. Once she’d tried to discuss it with her mother, but her fears had been dismissed as unimportant. Just because Bette was a secretary at the CIA, she evidently thought she was an expert on foreign affairs and especially the Cold War. But what human being knew the future? There were nuclear weapons—and they’d been made to be used, hadn’t they?

  November 21, 1963

  Leigh stuck her key into the backdoor keyhole, and then the door swung open on its own. Her mother stood in the doorway, glowering at Leigh.