has a girl?” I’d heard that—Gary started going out with that freshman Carolyn, because everyone says she’ll go all the way with anyone who gives her his football pin—but I pretend I haven’t. “That’s really nice, Gary. Maybe we can double-date sometime.”
“Well, sure, Linda,” Gary says, smiling as if it’s a sunny Sunday afternoon, and there isn’t a scared little colored girl hiding behind me in the hallway. All the boys on the team want to go on double dates with Jack and me. “That’d be swell.”
Bo isn’t smiling.
“I’m not joking around, Linda,” he says. “You got to get out of our way. I don’t like to push a girl, but—”
Unless she’s a colored girl, apparently. I lower my voice so only Bo can hear. “I’m sure you didn’t just threaten me, Bo. Because if you did, you know Coach Pollard will hear all about it.”
Bo cocks his head to the side. His face slackens. I’ve won.
I raise my voice again.
“I thought you all might like to know Principal Cole is right around the corner,” I lie. “I saw him on my way from English. Maybe you don’t care, but I just figured I’d mention it...”
The boys back away. Everyone knows the new rule about fighting. No one’s talked about anything else all day.
My father thinks the rule is absurd. He told Mom and me all about it last night. He’ll have an editorial out tomorrow about how we need to teach our children personal responsibility, instead of harshly disciplining boys for being boys. Once the people of Davisburg have read what he has to say, he told us, he expects the policy to be reversed promptly.
“Don’t you do that again, Linda,” Bo says under his breath before he fades away with the rest of his group.
“Aw, Bo, I’m just teasing,” I reply, just as low.
I hope he believes me. I don’t have a bit of respect for Bo Nash, but he’s not someone you want mad at you, either.
When I turn around, the little colored girl is gone. I guess she went to her class. We only have two minutes left before French, but Judy still needs to do up her makeup, so we go into the bathroom.
Judy scrubs her face clean, grabs her compact and gets to work, moving so fast she’s going to leave streaks. I’m about to tell her to fix it when the door bursts open and a girl rushes past us and crouches on the floor. It’s another colored girl.
Judy drops her compact she’s so shocked. I’m surprised, too. We used to come in this bathroom between classes every day last year, and not once did anyone else come in.
“What are you—” Judy says, but I hold up my hand for her to let me handle this.
“You’re not welcome here,” I tell the girl, who’s not looking at us. I’m not sure she even noticed we were in here. It’s not the same colored girl Bo was after, so I don’t know why she’s making such a fuss. “We were here first.”
The girl doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s fallen down on her knees on the tiles, her head bent.
Oh, no. She’s praying.
I can’t interrupt a girl who’s praying. Even a colored girl.
Why does she have to pray in the bathroom? They have colored churches, don’t they?
Why does she have to come where I am in the first place? And why did that other girl have to go where Bo and his friends were waiting? It’s utter foolishness. If the school had to let them in, they should’ve picked some other section of the building where the colored people could go so the rest of us wouldn’t have to see them, the way they did at the bus station.
Or smell them. I sniff the air to see if the girl has made the bathroom stink yet. So far it’s just the usual smell of disinfectant and old paint, but she hasn’t been here long.
Judy looks at me, waiting for me to tell her what to do, but I don’t know what to say. When someone’s praying, you’re supposed to be quiet and respectful. But those are the rules for white people. Are they the same for Negroes? It’s so hard to keep track.
There’s still another minute until French, and Judy isn’t done with her makeup yet. I gesture for her to keep working on her cheek. She turns back to the mirror.
There’s something wrong with the colored girl. Her lips are moving quickly but silently, and she’s rocking up and down. She’s crying. I wonder what’s upset her so much.
If Daddy ever finds out I was in a bathroom with one of them, by choice, he’ll let his hand fly after all.
The girl goes on praying for a long time. She looks familiar. I must’ve seen her before, but it’s hard to tell them all apart.
Then I remember. This girl is the one from French. The one who called me “awful.”
She’s the worst of the whole lot.
Why did she have to run in here, out of all of them? Why do these colored people have to keep making my life harder?
Finally the girl stops rocking. She keeps her head bowed and her eyes shut, but her lips aren’t moving anymore.
It’s strange seeing a colored person so close up. Her hair is straight, but it looks rough and coarse. Not like my hair or Judy’s at all. And her skin is so dark. Much darker than mine gets even after I’ve been out in the sun for months. Touching her probably feels like touching sandpaper. Not that I’d ever touch colored skin.
It would be all right for us to leave now. God would understand. The truth is, though, I want to know what’s wrong with this girl.
I’m just curious. Who wouldn’t be?
And it doesn’t matter if I’m a tiny bit late to French. None of the teachers ever give me detentions, not if they want to get invited to the Christmas parties. My mother has been president of the Jefferson PTA since my oldest brother was a freshman.
“Are you all right?” Judy asks the girl when she finally opens her eyes.
I glare at Judy. She whispers an “Oh” and looks apologetic.
Judy never remembers you’re supposed to act differently around different people. If it weren’t for me, she’d talk to this colored girl the same way she talks to Reverend Pierce.
The colored girl doesn’t show any sign of having heard Judy. She’s looking down at her clothes. I wonder if she’s checking for stains. This morning I saw one of the other colored girls get sprayed with ink outside the library. Everyone was laughing. It made me think of the time Eddie Lowe pushed me into a puddle in second grade when I was wearing my new Easter dress. I got so upset Daddy wrote an angry letter and Eddie’s father sent us a check for five dollars to buy me a new one.
The girl this morning didn’t look upset, though. She just kept walking with her head held up so high I wanted to look around for her puppet strings.
“I’m leaving,” this colored girl says, standing up.
“You
