Yankee Girl (13 page)

Recess, reading, lunch.

I didn't do anything wrong.

Social studies, spelling, English.

I should've stopped them.

The room mothers arrived with the refreshments: pink heart-shaped cookies and cans of Hawaiian Punch. Party time. I was not in a party mood.

I got the sack of cards from my cubby and stuffed them into the mailboxes. I couldn't wait for this party to be over.

Saranne winked as she passed me on my way back to my desk. I looked away.

“Class, you may get your boxes,” announced Miss Gruen.

I stared at my box, afraid to touch it. Maybe it was empty.

Serve you right. You should've tried to stop them.

I peeked under the lid. Not empty. About ten cards, including a big one.

Good old Jeb! Who else could have sent a card this big? That old faker had fibbed to me!

Andy marched down the aisle with his Kennington's bag, thrust it at Debbie, and took off back to his seat. Debbie pulled out a heart-shaped box of chocolate-covered cherries and three slightly droopy roses in green florist paper.

“My first roses,” she sighed.

“Huh,” said Saranne. “Those old roses are practically dead.”

“Are not.” Debbie made a big deal of sniffing the flowers. “They still smell.”

Valerie sat, hands folded, box unopened on her desk. I was afraid to watch her.

I turned back to my valentines. I picked up the big one, then decided to save it till last. I opened a card from Mary Martha. She'd probably sent one to everyone. I remembered that I hadn't sent
her
one.

“Valerie's opening her box,” Carrie whispered. “Pass it on.”

I didn't have to. All eyes watched Valerie.

I didn't want to look. But I had to.

Valerie picked up the first envelope. We all held our breath. She pulled out a medium-sized card, read the message, then turned it over. Valerie caught Mary Martha's eye and smiled. Mary Martha smiled back.

“Nigger lover,” muttered Debbie.

Valerie pulled out another card and…nothing happened. She didn't smile, didn't frown, didn't blink. Didn't cry. Another card. Same thing.

“What's with that girl?” said Carrie under her breath. “Why isn't she boohooing?”

Valerie opened fifteen more envelopes. Then she scooped them back into the box, closed the lid, and sipped her Hawaiian Punch.

Everyone in 6B sat stunned for a moment. Then, slowly, the room came back to life. A low buzzing of voices and sideways looks at Valerie. Kids wandered up and down the aisles, comparing cards. Saranne strolled by my desk.

“Well, that was a great big nothing,” she said, lip curled. “We'll have to think of something else.” She pointed to the big envelope. “You going to open that?”

“Later.” I made sure snoopy old Saranne was talking to Cheryl before I did. I held it in both hands, almost afraid to open it. Suddenly, I wasn't sure I wanted Jeb as a boyfriend. Could you trade stamps with a boyfriend?

I took a deep breath.

Here goes nothing.

A big gold card, decorated with fake red velvet to look like the ace of hearts. “You're Aces with me, Valentine,” in glittery script. On the back, in perfect Palmer penmanship, “Valerie”.

At least I didn't send her a mean card.

I glanced over at Valerie, to smile my thanks.

Valerie stared at her lap, biting her lower lip. And I knew. Knew it hadn't been enough to not follow the crowd. I should've done the Right Thing. I should've sent her that card.

I counted up the people I'd fooled into thinking I was a nice person. My parents, Jeb, Valerie. I fooled everyone.

Everyone but me. And right this minute, I hated me.

Valerie was absent the next Monday.

“We did it.” Saranne flashed her pointy-toothed grin. “She's gone back to wherever she came from.”

“She might just be absent,” Carrie pointed out.

“She's
never
absent,” Saranne said in her bossiest voice.

There were worse things than being Invisible Alice or Yankee Girl. Like being a fink. A no-good fink, who didn't have any guts.

After supper that night, I sat at the breakfast bar, staring at my math homework but thinking about Valerie.

The phone rang.

“It's for you.” Mama handed me the receiver and tactfully left the room.

“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.”

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!