Leigh (7 page)

And what would Cherise and Mary Beth say about her?

A commercial for Pepsodent came on. Cherise got up and switched off the TV. “It’s depressing, and we’ve got homework to do.
I need help with my French. I thought it would be good to practice the conversation we’re supposed to memorize and recite.”

Leigh decided suddenly to take a chance, to upset the apple cart and see what popped out. “What do you two think about interracial
dating?”

B
oth Mary Beth and Cherise stared at her, wide-eyed. Through the open window, sounds from outside—someone raking grass clippings,
rasping the ground and then sidewalk with a rake, little children giggling and calling to each other in a game of tag, cars
passing—filled the silence in Cherise’s bedroom. Leigh fought a blush, but it took over her face anyway.

“Are you dating?” Mary Beth asked, sounding dumbfounded. “Who?”

“I’m not dating anyone.” Leigh primed her lips.
I should never have asked them.

“You mean you’re just asking in general?” Cherise probed.

Leigh looked straight into Cherise’s dark, very pretty eyes and nodded. She’d begun to like Mary Beth and Cherise. When she’d
transferred to St. Agnes two years ago, she hadn’t really tried to make any close friends. After going to public school for
elementary and junior high, she’d felt odd at an all-girl’s Catholic school where everyone had known each other since kindergarten.
She’d been unhappy that her mother had insisted she go there, and resentment had tied her tongue.

Also, the atmosphere had been so competitive and so repressive—the strict nuns in their white wimples and black habits—that
Leigh had not made any overtures of friendship and few had come her way. Now, as her public-school friends drifted away, she
realized she’d become very lonely.

But in the past weeks, Mary Beth had done a turnaround from treating Leigh as a hostile rival to treating her as a friend.
Evidently beating Leigh out of the editorship had satisfied Mary Beth in some way. And Cherise often sought her out, to walk
to classes together and eat lunch together. But no confidences had been shared—yet.

“Yes, just in general,” Leigh replied, unwilling to expose herself to either girl.
But then why did I ask them
?

Mary Beth twisted a short lock of her brown hair around her forefinger and stared at the gray carpet. Cherise studied Leigh.
“I don’t think I would ever date any white boys.”

Leigh tried not to look away from the girl’s scrutiny, so she would seem to be just asking this in general.

“Why?” Mary Beth asked, saving Leigh breath.

Avoiding eye contact, Cherise smoothed her dark skirt again. “I think it would upset my family.”

“Really?” Mary Beth considered this with an intent expression. Finally, she contributed, “My mom and dad are NAACP members,
so I don’t think my family would be too upset. But I don’t think any guy will ever ask me out anyway. I’m not pretty like
you two.”

“What does that have to do with it?” Leigh asked.

“Guys don’t date plain girls who read all the time. ‘Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses,’ “ Mary Beth recited.

Leigh found this hilarious. “Then how come so many married women wear glasses?” She burst out in laughter.

“And anyway,” Mary Beth continued grumbling, “when
do we ever get to meet any guys at St. Agnes? Whenever we have those dances with the guys from St. Ignatius, I always end
up serving punch.” Mary Beth glared at Leigh. “You always get asked to dance.”

“‘Gentlemen prefer blondes,’ “ Leigh couldn’t resist saying. She flipped her ponytail at Mary Beth. “One cliche deserves another,”
she added, teasing a smile from Mary Beth.

“If the only time you see guys is at a school dance,” Cherise said with a grin, “then, girlfriend,
you
need to get out more.”

Leigh felt her spirits lift. Teasing with friends or girls who might become her friends lightened her mood. But she still
couldn’t bring herself to share Frank with them. He was too personal, too special a friend.

And then she had her answer. Frank had become an unexpected friend, just like the two girls across from her. Just because
she and Frank had spent such an emotion-packed day didn’t mean they were more than friends. Writing to Frank wasn’t
dating
him. He would never date her anyway. Why was she making such a big deal about his letter? She was six years younger than
him, and he wasn’t interested in her like that. The kiss on her hair had just been because of the special moment they’d shared.
Maybe that was why he’d written her. They had shared an experience like no other.

But she couldn’t forget his kiss or his covering her hand with his in the car that evening. No man had ever touched her like
that. Like she was a woman.

“Are you girls studying French or discussing boys?” Cherise’s mother’s voice floated up the stairs.

All three of them smothered giggles. And then Leigh opened her French conversation textbook. “
Bonjour, Made-moiselle “
she began, lifting her voice so Mrs. Langford would hear her.
I’ll write Frank tonight.

Then another thought stopped her in her tracks. What if her mother found out? And wasn’t that what had really been stopping
her from replying? The truth wound itself around her lungs, tightening like a boa constrictor.

Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d disobeyed her mother. But something told Leigh that this might elicit more than
the usual scolding. However, her mother was wrong. Leigh shouldn’t have to be afraid of having Frank as a friend. Right was
right.

That evening, Leigh sat at the desk in her pale blue room and began to write.

September 15, 1963

Dear Frank,

I’m so sorry it has taken me a few weeks to reply. Starting a new school year has kept me busy, and Mom’s been piling on the
chores.

How are you? How’s Officer’s Candidate School?

I’m sure you’ve heard about the four little girls and the explosion at the church in Alabama. I felt awful for their families.
How sick can you get
—
blowing up a church with children in it?

I didn’t write the article about the march in Washington after all. Is that crazy or what? I just couldn’t get it down on
paper. However, I’m still writing for the school paper. I do love to write.

Well, that’s all the news that’s fit to print!

Yours,

Leigh

She folded the sheet of lavender stationery and put it into the matching envelope. She’d mail it on the way to school tomorrow—after
Bette had gone to work.

In his crowded barracks, Frank sat hunched on his bunk, writing on a book on his knee. Fluorescent tubes glared down on the
blank white page. The guys nearest him were arguing about this year’s World Series.

September 20, 1963

Dear Leigh,

Thanks for writing. I know what you mean about keeping busy. I barely have time to think. Officer’s Candidate School is a
combination of college and a little like boot camp. Discipline is the main goal, of course. Intellectually, I can understand
that, but it’s hard to be on the receiving end. It’s just like what I described to you about how I felt when I took part in
sit-ins. Again, I feel stripped of all my family’s protection, my identity as part of that family. In the army, it’s just
me and what I am. The challenge is learning enough to be able to lead a fighting group of men and at the same time submitting
to the authority of others here and now. Very intense at times, and at times… irritating.

Some of the other candidates are good ole boys from the South. They don’t like it that I’m “edjicated. “ But I ignore them
for the most part. And I make sure that they know I can take care of myself so they don’t try anything.

I try not to take satisfaction that in the future, I
may command some “good ole boys. “ But I’m human enough to look forward to the experience.

I think I understand why you couldn’t write about the march. I have trouble talking about it myself. Some experiences are
too deep to share with strangers.

Yours,

Frank

“Lights out!” the loud voice announced, and darkness filled the room. Frank folded and then tucked the letter under his pillow.
He’d mail it tomorrow after evening chow. He wished he had a picture of Leigh.

Leigh sat at the back of her journalism class. Mr. Pitney was lecturing them on journalistic sources and court cases upholding
the free press’s rights to keep sources confidential. She began writing as if she were taking notes.

October 2, 1963

Dear Frank,

I’m so glad I wrote you. Or, should I say, that you wrote me? (Sorry for the delay in replying but too much homework.) Anyway,
you understand what I mean. Sometimes I feel like I must be very strange or something because until I met you, only Grandma
Chloe ever understood me. I wonder why that is. Do you feel like your parents don’t understand you, or is this something I’ll
outgrow? I get so sick of hearing that, or words to that effect, from my mother. Will I outgrow being me? Did you?

Leigh

The bell rang, ending class. Closing her notebook, Leigh rose and in the crowded and noisy hallway caught up with Cherise
on their way to their next class. She wished she had a photo of Frank. She still kept Frank’s letters hidden in her room.
And since she always brought in the mail, Bette was no wiser about the secret correspondence.

It was Sunday afternoon, and Frank was enjoying a few hours relaxing outside in the autumn sunshine and rereading Leigh’s
letters. He settled himself on a bench in a small grassy area on base and began writing.

October 20, 1963

Dear Leigh,

I’m getting near the end of OCS. I’ll have no regrets when graduation comes! Can’t wait to be done with this grind.

Now to address your question
—
no, I don’t think you’ll outgrow being yourself. And I know what you mean. I never seem to live up to my father’s expectations.
My mother is a different story. She accepts everything I do with the same bland approval. Now that I look at those words,
I see that they leave a lot to be desired. But one demanding parent and one who is completely
laissez-faire
is hard to take sometimes. Of all my family, I think my grandfather and I are the closest.

But still, I feel a distance from him. Our times are so different. I mean, they didn’t have the atomic bomb when he was growing
up. Sometimes, I wonder if the president will ever press that button and launch a nuclear strike. And what would our world
be like? Would it, would we survive? Would we want to?

Frank

He pictured her fresh young face, long golden hair. He wished she could always stay as idealistic and honest as she was. Not
for the first time, an inner voice chided him, “Stop writing her. You’re liable to mislead her. Negro men and white girls
can’t be friends.”

In the hushed, busy silence, Leigh sat in the library at school and started to write.

November 15, 1963

Dear Frank,

What you said about nuclear war
—
I’ve thought that so many times myself. Nuclear war seems to hang over us
—
unseen and not to be spoken of-
—
but there. Always there. Sometimes I almost feel stupid planning for my future. I don’t have any control over what is going
to happen on the world stage. Who does? One man in Washington, D.C. and one in Moscow. I was so scared during the Cuban Missile
Crisis. I don’t understand how anyone could even think of using nuclear weapons. Where would it all stop? Who would win in
such a war?

Did you see the movie
On the Beach?
Very scary at the end, just newspapers blowing around empty streets in Australia. Chilling.

What do they teach you about this in the military?

Leigh

She’d never expressed this before to anyone, but she had felt it so many times. Once she’d tried to discuss it with her mother,
but her fears had been dismissed as unimportant. Just because Bette was a secretary at the CIA, she evidently thought she
was an expert on foreign affairs and especially the Cold War. But what human being knew the future? There were nuclear weapons—and
they’d been made to be used, hadn’t they?

L
eigh stuck her key into the backdoor keyhole, and then the door swung open on its own. Her mother stood in the doorway, glowering
at Leigh.

“Oh, oh,” Dory said. Her little sister, whom she’d walked home from her school as usual, stood just beside Leigh.

Bette looked at Dory and gave her a tight, tiny smile. “Your after-school snack is on the coffee table.”

Obviously recognizing another storm about to hit, Dory gave Leigh a questioning, worried look and then hurried away, vanishing
into the living room.