The Last House on the Street(7)

Now she looked up from stirring her tea. “Promise me we’ll stay friends,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

“Absolutely,” I promised.

“I don’t know what’ll happen to us—to you and me—when I’m married and a mother and you’re still a … a coed.”

“We’ll have to make an effort to stay connected,” I said. It wouldn’t be easy. My pharmacology program was five years, so I still had three more years to go. “And Brenda.” I put on my most serious expression. “I know you wish Reed and I were as serious as you and Garner, but we’re just not. We’ve never even talked about marriage, and honestly, until I finish school, I can’t imagine marrying anyone.”

“You always say that, but that’s going to change,” Brenda said with unnerving certainty. “You’ll see. Reed is so wonderful. He’s only twenty-two and he graduated early and already has that desk job at the bank. He’s going to be the manager someday and I just hope you wake up and realize what a catch he is before it’s too late.”

She didn’t have to convince me that Reed was a catch. He was as close to perfect as anyone I knew. Smart. Movie-star handsome. Well respected at the bank, where he seemed to get a raise every month or so. Still, the thought of marrying him—or anyone—held no appeal for me.

When we finished our sandwiches and I’d paid our bill, I looked at my watch. “You ready?” I asked.

Brenda wrinkled her nose at me. “Do we really have to do this?” she asked. “Go to Turner’s Bend?”

I nodded, getting to my feet. “Come on,” I said. “It won’t take long. Then I’ll drive you to Garner’s.”

Brenda stood up and followed me out of the restaurant, walking next to me once we reached the sidewalk. “What’s SCOPE stand for again?” she asked.

“Summer Community Organization and Political Education.”

“Sounds deadly dull.” She slipped her arm through mine. “I just don’t understand why you want to do this, honey,” she said. “The colored voting thing. I don’t get it.”

We’d reached my car and I opened the door for her. I’d gotten the red Ford when I started college so I could make that two-hour trip to Carolina on my own. The car was a junker for sure, but Buddy had fixed it up well enough that it did what I needed it to do. My brother was a mechanical genius who’d opened his own car-repair shop when he was barely nineteen years old.

I shrugged as I got in behind the steering wheel. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“I hoped you got it out of your system that time on Franklin Street. What did that get you? Holes in your stockings and a record for being arrested.”

“I was detained, not arrested. And anyhow, it wasn’t about what it got me. It made a difference. That café finally opened its doors to everybody, so it worked, right?”

“I suppose,” she admitted, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

I pulled out of the parking space. With the car closed up, I could smell the Aqua Net in Brenda’s curly hair. I’d been letting my strawberry-blond hair dry straight. It was nearly to my shoulders now and I liked how it swung around my face when I danced.

I glanced at Brenda’s beige slacks. I’d asked her to wear a skirt, since we were going into a church, but either she forgot or she hoped she could talk me out of going. I was wearing a cranberry-colored skirt, a white blouse, and my black flats. I looked like I was ready for a job interview.

I’d cut the article about the SCOPE program from the newspaper and taken it to bed with me the night after my father read it to us. I’d read it at least a dozen times since then. The students were all from the North or out west. Mama had been right. It was exactly the sort of thing Aunt Carol would have done as a student when she lived in New York. Would SCOPE take a Southerner? I couldn’t see why not, as long as I was committed to the cause. Plus, I knew Derby County better than any of those outsiders ever would.

“This is just so unlike you,” Brenda said as we drove down Main Street.

“What do you mean?”

“You … caring so much about Negroes all of a sudden.”

I shrugged. “I’ve always cared,” I said. “I just never really did anything about it until Franklin Street. Now I can see a real way to help.”

“Have you talked to Reed about it?” she asked.

I shook my head. “It doesn’t have anything to do with Reed,” I said. “And besides, I don’t even know if that minister’ll say I can do it, yet.” We drove past the Hockley Pharmacy, owned by my father and my grandfather before him. The prominent sign in the front window cried out PRESCRIPTIONS ARE OUR BUSINESS! We passed the butcher shop and the bakery and the movie theater, where Beach Blanket Bingo was showing. Then the shops gave way to the big white houses that belonged to Round Hill’s finest.

“Don’t you think everyone should have the right to vote?” I glanced at her. She’d opened the car window a few inches and her hair blew wildly around her face.

She shrugged. “They already do, really,” she said. “It’s not your fault or mine if they haven’t bothered to register.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy,” I said.