“DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE HURT, MISS SILVER, after these demonstrations?”
Mr. Fielding, the store owner, paused at Stella’s switchboard desk. He spoke almost accusingly, as though she and the college students had caused the disruptions.
Actually, they’d done very little, and Stella felt ashamed. Only a few people, like Marti Turnipseed, had dared to align themselves with freedom. Tom somebody, too—very quiet, inoffensive-looking young man.
Many of the students thought Marti and Tom were freaks. Stella didn’t. She made it a point to get close to them. To say hello. Pretty feeble on her part. But she was scared. She was doomed if she was kicked out of school. She had no future without school. Without a scholarship.
“Countless people beaten up.” The store owner answered his own question. “Countless separate incidents of violence.”
Stella wanted to please Mr. Fielding but she didn’t know the right answer.
“They weren’t directly in the demonstrations,” he went on, alleviating her ignorance. “Four innocent colored people nearly beaten to death. People ought to be more upset. One was just a yard boy waiting for the bus. That’s what came of demonstrations. Did you know that?”
“No, sir.”
“Are people too upset out there to study? Classes going on smoothly?”
“Yes, sir.”
They both stared down from the mezzanine at the customers on the first floor. The store wasn’t crowded, but there was a smooth stream of people coming through the front doors. The women usually stopped at the lighted accessories counter, or at least glanced at it. The men went on. Stella liked to see young couples come in together. Mr. Fielding seemed like an eagle surveying his territory.
“This could be the beginning of revolution,” Mr. Fielding went on with his musings. He needed somebody to listen. Why not the switchboard girl? “It could come to revolution,” he told Stella again.
“It seems to be over. For now.”
“People need to pray. People need to think about loving their fellow man.”
“I agree,” Stella said firmly. So that was where Mr. Fielding stood. It was hard to tell. He seemed angry. No, he was deeply worried. He cared about what was happening in his city. It wasn’t just a business matter for him.
She cared, too. But what could she do besides smiling at Marti Turnipseed?
“You’re going to graduate next year. Then what?”
Because his white hair swirled like cake frosting, Stella remembered her mother’s words from long ago:frost the sides of the cake first, then the top. That was the sequence. Not advice she needed now; Aunt Krit made and allowed only plain cake in her house. No frosting. You could have a dish of canned peaches next to the cake.
Then what? Mr. Fielding had asked her.
Stella wished the switchboard would blink, the telephone would ring, and she’d have to answer it. That was her job, first and foremost.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe go to graduate school. Get a master’s degree.” She thought, He doesn’t own me. He’s been good to me, but he doesn’t have a right to ask about my future. It’s mine.
“I see you’re engaged.”
“Yes, sir.” A wave of nervousness swept over Stella. She could not think of her engagement without thinking of danger. She your fiancée?
“When’s the wedding?”
“We don’t know. We have another year of school.”
From the balcony, she peered down through the glass top of the accessories counter on the main floor at a row of purses. Part of her job was to watch for shoplifters.
“That’s right. You’re smart to get your education. You’ve got a pretty little diamond there.”
He surveyed his store. He didn’t sell diamonds. The jewelry in accessories was set with rhinestones. He was glad not to be responsible for the quality of the diamond in Miss Silver’s engagement ring.
In the shoe department Mr. Sole, a full head of gray hair, a gray mustache, was kneeling before another customer. Mr. Sole started at age twelve in the grocery department; he would have worked for the Fieldings for fifty years, come one more. Mr. Fielding intended to present him with a check for $1,000.
A thousand dollars, the phrase was hefty, had a certain thud to it. “To show appreciation,” he would say, each word held tightly between his lips for fear that the phrase would burst at the seams. Mr. Fielding feared he might weep at the presentation banquet. How could he possibly convey the way Mr. Sole’s devotion moved him:$1,000. To show appreciation.
Mr. Sole was Chinese. How in the world had he ever come to Birmingham? Mr. Fielding looked at the young woman sitting at the switchboard. Lucky. She had her whole future ahead of her. Who knew what she might become, might do? Would certainly feel.
“Where’s it from?” he asked of her diamond. “Jobe Rose? Bromberg’s?”
“Kay’s,” she answered.
He sighed. “Bromberg’s is probably the oldest family business in Birmingham. Maybe Alabama. You get quality there.”
Mr. Fielding watched Mr. Sole laboriously rise from his kneeling before the customer. The soul of the shoe department, new employees always joked. But it was true. Someday soon he would leave Fielding’s, and all Mr. Fielding would be able to do would be to hand him the check, to say the words: “A token of our deep appreciation for fifty years of faithful service.”
And then Mr. Sole would leave them. Mr. Fielding didn’t know where Mr. Sole went to church, but he was sure he went someplace.
“Get your education,” he said again to Stella. “That’s something nobody can ever take away from you.” He turned to go back to his office behind the switchboard. “Don’t get mixed up in any demonstrations. You won’t, will you, Miss Silver? Don’t ruin your future.”
“No, sir,” she replied. But I could, she thought. I can do whatever I want to.