IT HAPPENED a few days ago. If only we hadn’t been playing jacks on Jennifer’s porch. Weren’t we too old for jacks anyway? If only we hadn’t seen kids going down there with towels around their necks and thongs flip-flopping on their feet. If only the day hadn’t been so still and hot. Jennifer looked past me and said, “Those kids are walking down to the Bakers’ to go swimming.” I turned around and watched them saunter by.
“They have a pool,” she said. “I swam in it last summer . . .” She drifted off, probably remembering what that felt like.
I glanced over at her. She was going to want to go down there. I remembered vividly the Bakers’ brand of meanness when they wouldn’t let me jump rope.
We looked toward their house. The Baker girls—Marcy, Deidre, and Jilly—didn’t go to the school where I’d be going. They went to Saint Mary’s. The girls at Saint Mary’s wore uniforms and hiked up their pleated skirts as soon as they left school, Jennifer told me. “I heard the nuns make you kneel on the carpet and if your skirt doesn’t reach the floor, they say it’s too short and send you home.” She looked toward their house again. “Let’s go ask them if we can swim.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re not going to let me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. And I don’t want to go.”
Jennifer bounced the small rubber ball and scooped up five jacks. But it felt like she was going to sulk. I was still on threesies. She continued to sixies, sevensies, and on and on until she’d scooped up every jack. Then she put a super-bored look on her face and said unenthusiastically, “Wanna play another game?”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go with you to the Bakers’.”
I trudged home to get into my suit and grab a towel out of the linen closet. I slipped on my Bermudas and T-shirt over my suit. If I was going to be turned away, I didn’t want it to be in just my swimsuit with the ruffle at the waist. I went to find Mrs. Baylor to tell her where I was going. She was mopping the kitchen floor. She stopped and put her hand on her hip, waiting.
“I’m going swimming down at the Bakers’.”
“Where do they live?”
“Just down the street.”
She sighed. “So they invited you to go swimming down at their house, did they?”
“Jennifer wants to go. She said it’ll be okay.”
“And you believe that, do you?”
“She said it’ll be okay,” I repeated.
“Hmmph.” She shook her head and kind of chuckled to herself. “You go on, girl. And see what happen to you.” She dunked the mop in the bucket and then twisted the water out. “You not a little white girl. You going to see.”
I knew I wasn’t a little white girl. I knew what I was.
I dragged a bit as we walked down to the Bakers’, slowed by the scenarios I pictured. Deidre Baker, the oldest, chasing me out of her backyard with a broom. All the kids laughing at me and pointing.
“Come on,” Jennifer said. “Why are you going so slow?”
I picked up my pace.
We could hear the whoops and hollers and splashing as soon as we walked up the driveway to a wrought iron gate standing ajar as if it were personally saying, Come on in. Jennifer looked at me and grinned. I didn’t feel like grinning.
Jennifer forged ahead and I followed, suddenly feeling my heart in my mouth. We walked through the gate and the splashing stopped. It was as if a faucet going full blast had suddenly shut off. All went quiet and all eyes turned to me, then to Jennifer, then back to me.
“Hi, Jilly,” Jennifer said. Jilly was our age. She came over and stood in front of us. She crossed her arms.
“Can we swim?” Jennifer continued, as though she wasn’t noticing anything out of the ordinary.
Jilly looked me up and down. “You know we don’t allow colored people in our pool—or our house.” Marcy hurried over and joined her. Then Deidre. All three of them crossed their arms and stared at me.
I felt my face grow warm. I swallowed. I wanted to back out of their yard. All the kids in the pool were now treading water and watching intently.
One girl, sitting on the side with her feet in the water, stopped eating her hot dog and held it at her mouth without taking a bite.
The world stopped spinning. I almost stopped breathing. There was still the welcoming scent of chlorine and Coppertone and hot dogs and mustard. I thought I could even smell the Hawaiian Punch. All the happy smells that meant summer and fun. But they were not for me. Not for me.
We stood there with our towels around our necks trying to decide what to do next.
“You can stay, but not her.” Deidre pointed her finger at me and kind of jabbed it in my direction as if she might poke it through my chest. Jennifer looked at Deidre’s finger and then at me. I stepped back a bit.
Jennifer stared at Deidre as if not quite comprehending what she was saying. “What?” she finally said.
“You can stay. Only you.”
Jennifer glanced at me and then she slowly turned to go.
“But you can stay, I said,” Deidre repeated.
Jennifer shook her head. “I’m not staying if Sophie can’t.”
“No, Jennifer,” I said quickly (and I felt I had to do this). “Go on. It’s okay. I don’t want to swim in their pool anyway.” What I meant to say but didn’t was: You’re the only friend I have. What if you start thinking I’m getting in the way of your fun? Then you might not want to be my friend anymore.
“No, I’m not staying,” she said firmly.
“I want you to stay. You have to.”
“No, I don’t either. They’re prejudiced.” She pointed her finger at Deidre, then waved it at the three of them. “You’re all prejudiced.”
In response, Deidre put her hands on her hips. Marcy stepped forward. “So what if we are? We don’t care if we’re prejudiced. We like being prejudiced.”
“How would you like it if people were prejudiced against you, and for no reason?”
“I wouldn’t care,” Marcy said.
“You would, too.”
“No—because I have plenty of other friends.”
“You’re stupid,” Jennifer said. She grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
I shrugged as if I didn’t care, not even a little bit. We left through the gate, our towels still around our necks.
“I don’t want to go home yet,” I said to Jennifer. I didn’t want to have to explain the situation to Mrs. Baylor. It felt like a kind of shame that I’d brought on myself. And she might be ready with a Ha! And you thought you were so special.
We walked back up the street, past my house, and continued to the end, around the corner, and then down Escalon until we came to the pass-through that ran between the driveways of two houses in the middle of the block. It bordered the Bakers’ backyard, with a wall of hedges separating it.
Quietly we crept up the narrow walkway to their hedge. Through an opening in the branches we could see much of the Bakers’ yard. Kids were back to splashing and diving for the pennies someone had thrown into the pool, and Deidre—who everyone called Dee Dee—was there with her feet dangling in the water. Then someone splashed her and she jumped up, bursting into laughter.
“I wish I had me a peashooter,” Jennifer said.
We both laughed and then clapped our hands over our mouths before someone could hear us.
Deidre jumped into the pool, climbed out, and ran across the cement to a bag of chips on the patio table.
“Oh, too bad she didn’t slip and fall,” I said.
We almost bent in half with a laughing fit. Jennifer regained her control and shushed me.
We watched as Deidre flopped down on the bench across from Jilly, a leg on either side, and they began to share the bag of chips. Jilly looked pleased with herself. Then Marcy climbed out of the pool and made Deidre scoot over so they could all share the bench and the chips. Everything had returned to normal. It was as if nothing had happened. Jennifer and I showing up was barely a hiccup in their afternoon activities, and they were back to their usual summer fun.
Suddenly, Jilly was up and jumping into the pool, diving down and then resurfacing, her dark-blond hair floating on the water behind her. She rubbed the droplets out of her eyes while laughing and calling to one of the other kids
We grew tired of the spectacle and turned to go. I had expected to feel much worse than I did. It was just the way it was. Anyway, I could imagine beating up each and every one of those kids. I could imagine beating them and beating them and beating them. Even the boys.
We walked back up the street. Jennifer went into her house and I just hung out in the backyard until I heard the garage door go up and my mother’s car pull in. She was probably coming from her gallery. Mrs. Baylor was running the vacuum in the living room and singing “Amazing Grace.” As I hurried past, she shut it off and said, “I thought you were going swimming down to your little friend’s house. What happened?” She seemed to regard me suspiciously. Could she know? Why was she looking at me like that?
“I did go down there,” I said, not really lying.
“Why your hair not wet?”
“I wore a cap.”
She cocked her head. “They don’t ever keep your hair dry.”
“Mine does,” I said.
“Only if you wear a shammy around your hairline. Did you wear a shammy?”
The lies were piling up and making me feel funny. I didn’t think of myself as a liar. “No,” I said, and hurried past. She seemed to think about this for a second. Then she turned the vacuum cleaner back on and returned to her song. Which made me feel extra guilty, since I was reminded that God was watching me and I really didn’t want to be a wretch, like the lyrics said.
Lily sat there for a moment. She put the radio down and swiveled on her bench to look at me with her head cocked and her eyes narrowed. I felt a storm brewing. “You didn’t say anything to those little girls?”
“No.”
“Then what did you do?”
“Came home,” I said.
“Did you tell Mom?”
“No.”
“Don’t tell her.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to take care of those little bitches.”
I looked over at her and waited, but she’d already gone back to rolling her hair on the big plastic rollers. She had something in mind. I felt a flutter in my stomach. Then I heard our front door open and close. I made it to the den window just in time to see my father leave. Just in time to see him skip down the front steps, pluck the morning paper off the hibiscus bush, look at it for a moment, and then toss it back toward the front porch. He headed for his car.
The way he eased his Chrysler 300 out of the driveway and turned its nose toward Olympiad reminded me of a long, sleek, twin-finned creature slipping away. Where was he going on a Saturday? Earlier, I’d heard my mother grabbing her datebook and briefcase and heading out that same door, her heels clicking on the entry-hall tiles. Everyone was always going.