I was making straight A’s in high school and had successfully passed both my winter and spring exams for We Rise. I came in second behind Jonathan Draper, a know-it-all boy from South Philly who would have been cute if he got rid of his Coke bottle glasses and the pimples that dotted his forehead. A We Rise awards ceremony was scheduled in three weeks’ time, for the first Saturday in May. It was to honor the ten left from my cohort of twelve who would be moving forward in the program. Now I only had to be better than eight other students to receive the scholarship, and I was so close I could feel the weight of the letter of acceptance in my hand.
The board members of the Armstrong Association, which sponsored We Rise, along with the chancellor of Cheyney University, would attend the ceremony, and I needed to present well. I had been begging Aunt Marie for weeks for my first pair of stockings to wear to the celebration. Up until now I had only worn bobby socks, and over our dinner of liver and onions with rice, peas and piping-hot biscuits, I pleaded once again.
“You’re still too young.” Gravy dripped from the corner of her mouth.
“Please, Aunt Marie. It’s 1949 not ’39. All the upper classmen wear stockings.”
“Stockings are suggestive. Don’t want you walking around here advertising yourself, making these men think you ripe for the picking.”
I turned my fork over on my plate wondering why it was always my responsibility to worry over what grown men might be thinking. I had been hearing it all my life. Even back to when I lived with Nene, as a flat-chested eight-year-old, I was constantly reminded to be modest. Not to leave the bathroom without my robe on when an uncle or cousin or friend of the family was at the house, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. Back when Nene could still see, she’d get eye-level with me and say, If anybody ever put their hands on you in that way, tell me. I’ll always believe you.
Still, I hadn’t told Nene about Leap touching me because I was ashamed that I had allowed it to get that far. Knowing Inez, she hadn’t told either, seeing as how she took Leap’s word over mine. If my mother had only cared enough about my future to make sure I had carfare each week, none of this would have happened. But with two kids gone from the program I was still in position, and I needed to wear stockings to show the people in charge that I was professional and that I would represent them well.
Aunt Marie’s noes usually meant no. But I remained persistent, promising her everything under the moon if she would just say yes. I left pictures of nylons that I had cut out of Jet magazine on her nightstand before I went to bed.
The next day was Saturday, and Aunt Marie woke me up with a glass of tomato juice. “Go and put something nice on so I can take you downtown.”
She had finally acquiesced, and I leaped up and kissed her on the cheek.
“Doing this for you, sweetness. Lord knows I hate interacting with those siddity folks downtown.”
I dressed carefully, in my best box-pleated skirt with a seafoam-colored blouse that I tied at my waist. I wondered if Shimmy would notice when I wore my sleek new nylons. Our time together had become the highlight of my weeks, and when we weren’t sneaking around in dark parking lots listening to music and eating chocolate, I was thinking about being near him, feeling the stubble on his chin. His warm breath against my earlobe, and his slick hands exploring under my blouse.
Our conversations flowed, and I never tired of hearing stories about his family. In comparison to me, even with his father’s drinking, Shimmy was living a storybook life with both of his parents under one roof, and two younger siblings who seemed to adore him. In the front seat of their fine car, he would entertain me with tales about visiting his aunts and uncles in Brooklyn, cracking me up with his imitation of their accent by stretching his syllables with a high voice, and then dropping them down low at the end.
I marveled at his descriptions of skyscrapers, of going through the Holland Tunnel, driving through Chinatown, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge with its steel towers into Brooklyn, where the cultural patchwork of Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants lived within blocks of each other. The farthest I had ever traveled was down to Atlantic City.
“Ready?” Aunt Marie sauntered into the living room, interrupting my thoughts.
When I looked at her, I gasped. “You look…”
“Like a woman? It’s my costume among them highfalutin white people.” She struck a pose, and I couldn’t stop gawking at her flowy skirt and frilly, powder-pink blouse. She closed her tube of lipstick and dropped it into a tobacco-brown handbag.
“Don’t get used to this, it’s just an act. Let’s go before my dogs start barking.” She pointed to her heeled shoes.
I was so excited about our trip to the department store that I chattered nonstop, even though I could tell by the pinched expression on her face that Aunt Marie wasn’t listening to a word I said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her as the bus rounded city hall, giving way to the row of fancy boutiques and department stores. There was Gimbels on the left and Wanamaker’s on the right. Woolworth took up the entire corner.
“Nothing,” she said, reaching up to pull the stop cord to halt the bus. On the street, crowds of people were moving to and fro. Most of the men were dressed in dark business suits and porkpie hats. The women had shiny blonde or brown hair and were dressed in jackets stuffed high with shoulder pads in shades of green, blue, brown and red. Pleated skirts ruffled around their knees as they clutched scalloped purses that matched their colorful gloves. I followed Aunt Marie two blocks, assuming we were going into Wanamaker’s, but she kept on marching until we reached the five-and-dime.
“What happened to the department store?”
“Maybe for your birthday,” she said.
My elbows slumped against my waist.
“Cheaper for the same thing. ’Sides those uppity salesladies don’t know how to treat us. Ain’t got time to be arrested for sucker punching a white woman today.”
At that moment, I realized she was doing more for me than my own mother. This whole trip downtown took Aunt Marie out of her safe space. The costume she wore was just that, and she had done it all for me on a Saturday morning when she could have been resting up for her long night at Kiki’s. As the light changed and we stepped down off the curb, I laced my arm through hers and squeezed.
“Five-and-dime is perfect,” I said, putting on a smile. “Thank you.”
She patted my hand. “After we get you those stockings, we can walk through Gimbels, so you can see all those pretty displays.”
That perked me up. I would at least get to witness what the fuss was about. The five-and-dime was on the corner of the next block, and we went in and rode the escalator upstairs to the second floor. The women’s brassieres, step-ins, girdles and all-in-one corselettes were tucked away in the back corner along with the nylon display case. A toffee-colored woman stood behind the counter and pointed out all my choices. My head spun. It was a much more confusing process than I had imagined. To fit into the right pair, I needed to figure my proportion and the denier, decide on the color and if I wanted seam or no seam, reinforced heel and toe or sandal foot, knit or mesh. Aunt Marie had wandered off, leaving me alone with my choices.
“What would you suggest, ma’am?”
She looked me up and down, then slipped a pair of gloves over her hands and opened the case containing the stockings. Each pair was separated by a thin piece of tissue paper. In the end, we decided on a crispy nylon taffeta garter belt and a pair of reinforced heel and toe knit stockings. Aunt Marie returned as the saleswoman placed them in a crisp white paper bag with gold lettering.
“Give her a second pair in case she gets a run in one of them.”
Outside, I threw my arms around Aunt Marie in gratitude.
Not one for a lot of affection, especially not in public, Aunt Marie tapped my arm and then nudged me away. “You can pay me back by helping me clean Kiki’s on a few Monday mornings while you out for the summer. Way for me to make a little extra money to help make ends meet.”
“Anything,” I said, grinning, gripping my bag. I could not contain my excitement. I didn’t need Gimbels—this was like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. I was chatting on about which of my skirts would look good with my new stockings when I stepped off the curb and bumped into someone’s shoulder. I looked up and saw a thin white woman grimacing at me, a young girl in a gray wool coat by her side.
“Watch where you’re going, nigger,” she hissed as she grabbed her daughter tightly by the wrist.
I stumbled backwards, feeling as if she had punched me in the gut. No one had ever hurled that word directly at me in my life, and for a split second I felt completely dumbstruck.
“It was… an accident,” I murmured finally.
The woman straightened her pillbox hat. “Now I must shower!”
“Not a bad idea. I can smell you from way over here,” Aunt Marie said matter-of-factly. The woman looked at both of us and shouted, “Stay in your own neighborhood.”
“I pay taxes just like you. Next time watch where you’re going,” Aunt Marie called back before grabbing me by the hand and marching me off in the opposite direction. I followed her farther down the street toward city hall and into Gimbels, but my head had filled with lead.
The inside of the store smelled of sweet perfumes and creamy cosmetics. Everywhere I looked my eyes were met with sparkling hanging displays. The beautiful glass escalator that wound across three stories was like an invitation to heaven. But there was no magic in the moment for me. Instead of moving through the room wide-eyed, I felt the stares of every white person we passed. It was suffocating. The double-door exit was up ahead on the right, and I pushed out and onto the sidewalk.
An angry horn blasted at a passerby crossing the street, the traffic light turned from red to green, as the woman’s voice echoed in my ears. Nigger.
Mr. Greenwald’s mean face bore down on me. You can’t be friends with the likes of her.
Mrs. Thomas’s clenched teeth. There are plenty of Negro kids who would kill for your place in this program.
And then I was reminded all over again. What I’d known to be true from the moment Shimmy knocked on Aunt Marie’s door. This thing between us would never survive. The world wouldn’t permit us the light to grow. Shimmy and I would forever be sneaking around in dark parking lots, lurking in piss-infected alleys, with me always crouched down in the back seat. Our relationship was doomed from the start. Before I got hurt, I had to let him and the fantasy world we had created go.
The white bag with my coveted stockings slipped from my hand and onto a patch of dirt in the street. Aunt Marie stooped down and retrieved it, dusting away the grime. But I didn’t reach for the bag.
“Can’t let nobody steal your joy, sweetness, or you gon’ live a miserable life. I done seen it. You show that ignorant woman by getting your education. Keep your eye on the prize. Forget about her.”
I nodded like I understood, but the hurt had shattered into sharp pieces that scraped and bruised the inside of my throat. Knowing about racism and being abused by its wrath were two different things. Mechanically, I followed my aunt to the bus stop that would take us back to our cage in North Philadelphia. Where it had been decided for us that it was where we belonged. Crammed together like pigs in a stall so tight, it was impossible to dream or breathe. Every single day we had to fight for food, for carfare. And this trip downtown had shown me that we even had to fight for what should have been free: our dignity.