Because We Are (2 page)

Ms. Simmons continued angrily, “I can get you into the mainstream, but I can't keep you there.
You have to want to be there
. I know your parents don't approve of you isolating yourself with hall walkers … with riffraff.”

“Don't be calling my friends riffraff,” Emma exploded.

Ms. Simmons hesitated, then put her hand on Emma's shoulder. Emma shoved her hand away. “Don't touch me, white witch.”

Ms. Simmons' face was paler than ever now. “Go to the office and wait until I come.”

Emma, stunned, at first could not connect the idea of motion with her body.

“I said get out of here.” Ms. Simmons ground the words between her teeth, almost in a whisper.

Emma stumbled out into the hall, knowing she was in trouble.

Mrs. Phillips, the girls' vice-principal, was standing in the doorway of her inner office, talking to the secretary and school nurse, when Emma entered.

“Why, hello, Emma,” Mrs. Phillips said. “Congratulations. Ladies, I'll have you know you're looking at one of our National Honor students. Isn't she terrific?”

Emma smiled weakly.

“What can I do for you, Emma?” Mrs. Phillips asked.

Should she tell Mrs. Phillips what had happened now, or should she wait until Ms. Simmons could hear all that was said? She decided to say only, “Ms. Simmons asked me to wait here for her.”

“All right. Sit in my office. I was heading down the hall; I'll be right back.”

Emma waited, trying to ignore the rising fear. Suppose they expel me? They couldn't. Not for that, she told herself. She knew she was an “opportunity transfer” student, living out of Marlborough's district. For the least mistake, she could be out. The shame and humiliation, now mixed with fear, was worse than anything she had ever felt. What would her mother say?

It was not long before Mrs. Phillips returned with Ms. Simmons. “Emma, Ms. Simmons tells me something very hard for me to believe. Is it true?”

Emma sensed imminent danger and felt cold inside. “I don't know if it's true or not. What did she tell you?”

“You attacked her and cursed her in front of the class.”

“I did not!” The words rushed out.

“You most certainly did!” Ms. Simmons countered. “And not only that, she's been most hostile recently—a chip on her shoulder. She stormed out of council meeting today for no reason at all.”

“How can you say I had no reason when you agreed with Danny that I was the best resource on
welfare
?”

“I never agreed with Danny. Remember? I reminded them that we're lucky to have you. And you walked out.”

“Well … Emma, we are lucky to have you,” Mrs. Phillips said. “You're smart and attractive—”

“You see?” Ms. Simmons interrupted.

Emma's first impulse was to laugh, but she knew if she started, she'd never stop. Stay cool, she told herself. The room was silent. Finally, Emma said, “But I didn't attack you. I pushed your hand away, and I'm sorry.…” Emma stopped, trying to control the rising tears.

“Being sorry is not enough,” Ms. Simmons said angrily.

“What you've done is very serious, Emma,” Mrs. Phillips said. “You could be arrested for attacking a teacher, you know that? But I'm going to let you go home.”

“Go home?” Emma cried. “If to apologize is not enough, what
can
I do? I'll do anything, Mrs. Phillips, but I can't go home.”

“Under any circumstances, we'll have to talk to your parents before final decisions are made. Your parents are divorced, aren't they?”

Emma dropped her head.

“Your mother can come alone,” Mrs. Phillips said.

“Please, don't bring my mother into this. I have just one more semester after this one, and I'll be gone from here. Can't we settle this, Ms. Simmons?”

Ms. Simmons did not respond. Emma looked at Mrs. Phillips. “Please, can't we?”

Mrs. Phillips sighed. “I have a thousand students here to think about. Can you imagine what would happen, Emma, if they all got it into their heads to act the way you did today? I cannot bend the rules. Not for you, not for anyone. We'll see what happens after we talk to your mother.”

Emma sensed that all her dreams were dying; her world was falling apart. Marvin! She must tell Marvin. But the next moment she found herself running … running home.

Two

Emma heard her bedroom door open slowly. She pretended she was asleep. She could not face her mother and go over all that again. Soon the front door closed; the car started, and she knew her mother was off to see about getting her back into school.

What a stupid thing to have done. The election to the National Honor Society and the possibility of becoming a debutante were now dimmed by her foolish action. Why did I let her upset me, make me lose my cool, when so much was at stake? Why had Ms. Simmons lied? And pretending all this time I was one of her favorite people. In desolation and fear, Emma knew she was in this all alone.

The little clock near her bed said ten o'clock. She kicked off the light-green blanket and got up. In her closet she found a pink cotton robe, worn and soft. Now it was too long for short and too short for long, but she put it on.

With the drapes and curtains drawn to keep out the heat that the persistent Santa Ana winds brought, the house was dark.

In the kitchen she turned on the fire under the kettle and went on to the bathroom. Bright tile and sparkling bowl reminded her of her mother's need to have things just so. She felt a pang of guilt: a senior getting into that kind of trouble.

As she showered, she found herself trying to push away the thought that she might be expelled. But it didn't work. The worry was only followed by the fear that the Golden Slippers Social Club might reject her as a debutante. What if she had to leave Marlborough and her friends there? The thought of trying to make new ones overwhelmed her. It had taken two years and a lot of effort to win those few friends at Marlborough. And not seeing Marvin everyday would be unbearable, too. She saw him now as she always saw him in her mind's eye: tall, lean, bronze, up and down the basketball court, smooth as silk, making baskets effortlessly. What would happen to their relationship if she were not there? They'll let me come back, she told herself. Ma'll convince them.

Making toast and hot chocolate occupied her for a while, but then she was not hungry; the fullness was all the way into her throat. She felt she was alone against a wall of darkness. The kitchen, her favorite room, with plants crowding in from the ceiling did not cheer her. At times she had laughed when her mother talked to those plants as if they were children. Now she wished she were on speaking terms with them. Why didn't her mother come?

Finally she heard the key in the lock.

“Well, you've blown it this time,” her mother said angrily. “Emma, how could you, after all I've been through for you? Hitting and cursing a teacher!”

“I didn't curse her.”

“Whether you called her a bitch or not is of little importance. The fact that you put yourself in a position to be accused
is
.”

“Ma—”

“No!” her mother interrupted. “You listen to me. They told me how, here lately, you have been isolating yourself with the Black kids; and how you don't participate in school activities the way you once did.”

Emma looked at her mother. She felt as though the dark wall was closing in.

“Why do you Black kids feel that you have to bunch up together?” She waited.

Emma said nothing.

“Emma, I send you to a mixed school to learn all you can learn. Then you go there and segregate yourself. Why do you feel that you have to segregate yourself?”

“I don't. Mama, you don't understand that teacher.”

“That teacher only wants what's best for you.”

How can that teacher know what's best for me? exploded in Emma's head, but she said nothing.

The doorbell rang. “That's probably your father. Let him in.”

Oh,
no
, Emma thought. Oh, God, please don't let Jody be with him. A flash of Jody's light-brown hair and big gray eyes reminded Emma that Jody was friendly, but a stranger, nevertheless. And what with being white, she was likely to remain a stranger. But her father had every right to bring Jody if he liked. After all, she was his wife and had been for the last three years, ever since Emma was fourteen years old.

“Girl, let your father in,” her mother said.

Her father strode in alone, his tall frame slightly stooped, looking more uncomfortable than usual. He hated discussing things with her mother.

“Sit down, Larry,” said her mother. “Would you like some coffee?”

Emma had come to know that tense tenderness in her mother's voice.

Had her mother never really stopped loving her father? Had she still not forgiven him for leaving them right when he had begun to achieve some success as a doctor?

“No, thanks. I just had breakfast. What was decided about Emma?”

“They're transferring her,” her mother said. “Sending her to Manning. It's just our luck that we live on the very edge of Manning's district. Unfortunately, Manning is her home school.”

Emma felt the shock of both relief and pain. She was not expelled, but her chance of becoming a debutante was narrowing. What would she do without her friends? She would surely lose Marvin, being that far away. She shivered.

“Manning?” her father asked. “Surely there are other schools. What about Fairmount?”

“I've pulled all the strings we know to get them to let her return to Marlborough, or send her to another integrated school. But Emma has not been the most cooperative recently. We're lucky. They could have expelled her. She's going to Manning unless she can finish this year in a private school.”

“You have the money for that?” her father asked.

“Where you think
I
get the money?” her mother demanded. “We're hardly making it on my salary. You know how much social workers make. And that chintzy three hundred a month you give—only fifty more than the courts mandate—doesn't go very far.”

“I just can't afford the extra expense of private school.”

Her mother jumped up and stood in front of Emma's father. Even though he was sitting, she looked small and terribly helpless, but she lashed out, “You can afford a nonworking wife, a Mercedes for yourself
and
your wife; and marina fees for that boat—
Jody's Joy
. But your daughter? Don't you care anything about Emma?”

“Of course I care! But private schooling is out of the question.”

Emma wanted to scream, Stop it! She didn't want them fighting. Why couldn't they think of her and how she felt? Just this once.

Her father went on, “It might do her good to go to Manning. Maybe she'll learn there what we've been trying to teach her: All this Black togetherness is no solution.”

They're miles apart on everything, she thought, but they're in agreement against me. How could she explain to them the shame and humiliation Ms. Simmons made her feel?
Me and my friends don't segregate ourselves; we're segregated
. How could she make them see what was happening to her? She didn't know herself why she felt so much better when she sat at the tables with other Blacks. She just knew she needed the warmth that being with them gave her.

“Furthermore,” her father said, “even if money were available, it would be foolish to start her in private school in her senior year. I'll take care of her debut, and if she graduates, then I'll see to it that she goes to college.”

If she graduates
. Emma heard little more. She knew she had to face the consequences of being transferred and make the most of it.

Three

The car horn sounded again. Mama's patience was already thin this early in the morning. If only there was another way to get to Manning, Emma thought. With no direct public transportation from Brandon Heights to school, Emma's mother delivered her every morning before work and picked her up after school on the way home.

The horn blasted. Emma grabbed her books, dashed out, and climbed into the backseat.

“Get up front,” her mother said.

“Mama, its too uncomfortable up there. You have the seat right up to the dash. I can't help it if I have Daddy's long legs.”

“And his bad disposition? I see why you're making me late. All that makeup. Wipe it off.”

“Aw, Mama, you should see what the other girls wear!”

“You don't need all that stuff on you.”

“If I take off any of it, I'll feel naked.”

“Look at your eyes. Girl, you'll blind yourself.”

Emma let out a deep sigh, trying to control the rising anger. What was wrong with her mother? Lately she's treating me like a ten-year-old, Emma thought, and here I am going to be eighteen soon.

“Come on, wipe it off!”

“Thought you were in such a hurry.” Emma squeezed in up front and flipped down the visor to look into the mirror. “Go on! Start the car. I'll do it.”

She removed some of the makeup, and tried to tuck her long legs more comfortably into the small space. She looked out at the fast-receding palm trees and wished she was heading for Marlborough. There she had friends to share all her moods, especially Marvin. But she didn't want to think about Marvin. She thought of Allan Page Davis, the one steady friend she had gained at Manning. For two weeks now she and Allan together had waited each morning for the crowd to arrive.

Her mother looked at her and smiled. “You look much better, fresh and pretty. Too bad soft lovely skin is wasted on silly girls who don't know how to appreciate it.”

Are all mamas like her? Emma wondered. She never finds anything pleasant to say any more. Can't she see how cramped up I am? No, she has to check me out. She sighed and looked at her mother. The round face with smooth dark skin, resigned in a kind of sadness, was beautiful. But she's so tense, Emma thought. “Ma,” Emma asked, “why you worry so much?”