AS SOON AS CHRISTINE RECOGNIZED HIM—HIS FORM reflected in the store window—Lionel Parrish saw a shy, proud smile spread over her face. But Christine looked concerned, too. Lionel loved that expression. It felt good to have a smart woman wrinkle up her face in all kinds of different ways because she cared more about you than herself. And it was all captured in the murky reflective glass—two ghosts, him moving toward her, then the way she turned toward him. The two of them almost making a wavering movie.
Pleased as punch, perhaps a little embarrassed about how she’d loved on him last night, she said, “What you doing down here?” She glanced around at the tall buildings.
“I came for the sit-in, naturally.” He could hardly suppress the little swagger that ran across his shoulders.
Her face all frowned up, she said, “You ain’t supposed to be studying no sitin. How you know about this?”
“Stella called me. At school. Cat told Stella, Stella told me.” He shrugged his shoulder. “Gloria’s going to bring Cat down here for this. Did you know that?”
“I’m gonna get that Gloria.” Did Christine disapprove or was she pleased? Lionel couldn’t tell. With his mother, too, it had been hard to tell the difference. Christine queried, “Stella coming?”
“Just Cat. Stella said she was going to work at the switchboard.”
“And what she mean calling you at school? How can she be so dumb? Agnes been saying it. That phone bugged. It bugged. Police know everything now.”
Lionel refused to give up his relaxed state. It was just too becoming. “That’s what I figured, too.”
“You know Bull know and still you come?”
Lionel could tell she was touched. She’d let go of her peeve. “My best students and teachers are here.” He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “My best woman is here.” He drew back to watch her smile. “Might as well make myself useful,” he said.
She reached out her hand for a quick squeeze. That was all right to do, Lionel thought. While the traffic moved past on Twentieth Street, they could have their little sidewalk drama. Christine had serious issues, social issues on her mind, and he respected that. Matilda just lived her own life, gloriously, happily, but Matilda wouldn’t be putting her body on the line. And Jenny was a homebody; she was made to be a housewife. But this woman, with all her angles and abruptness, she was a mover and shaker. In more ways than one. Like she was starved.
“If you’d consulted me,” Lionel said fondly, “I would have said there’s only two things that move this community to change.”
He watched Christine’s face go soft again, pleased to be talking with him, confident suddenly that they were intimates. “What’s that?” she asked.
“Prayer and money. Like May a year ago. It wasn’t the marching, it was the boycotting brought Birmingham to its knees. Over in Mississippi, folks go and pray on the white folks’ church steps Sunday mornings. We ought to do that. It shames them.”
“You may be right.” She shrugged. “But I got this going. What’d you say to Stella?”
“Oh, I tried to throw them off. I said Christine’s way too smart to sit in at the Tutwiler Hotel Drugstore. She called it all off.”
Christine looked troubled. “Agnes told me they do got dogs over at the Tutwiler.”
“Was I right?”
“ ’Bout what?”
“You way too smart to go ahead with any sit-in today.”
He saw her eyes narrow, knew that he had underestimated her.
“You don’t have to be in this,” she said. She spoke in a new key, one that was full of softness and hard as iron. “I didn’t ask you to come down here and try to tell me what to think and do. You my love now, but I thought you believed in Martin Luther King. I thought you knew what nonviolent protest was all about.” Then she licked her lips and added the barb, “Ain’t you ever heard of Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr.?”
“Oh, is that who you are?” He returned the sting. “I hadn’t noticed. You’re not Martin Luther King, you’re not him, Christine.”
“Move aside. Out of my way, Mr. H-O-P-E. These ain’t your buildings. You made me leave the classroom, and I was ashamed afterward. You stand in the White Palace door like George Wallace if you want to, but I’m walking right over you. Like we did him. I’m gonna order a big juicy hamburger.”
Suddenly Lionel laughed. It was the only thing to do; his saving grace was humor. “Well, if you not Martin Luther King, I sure ’nuff ain’t George Wallace.”