Come a Stranger (10 page)

“What do you want me to do?” Mina asked, almost pleading
with Miss Maddinton, just to say something, make some decision and then make Mina obey, just to have this finished with.

“Mr. Tattodine notwithstanding, you're going to have to go home.”

“Go home? Why do I have to do that?”

Miss Maddinton sighed and shook her head at Mina's stupidity.

“I could drop the ballet class. I don't have to take that if you think I'm so bad. But I could still take theory and do the evening things. I don't want to go home.”

“Pull yourself together, Mina.
Faites attention.
Oh, you get along well with the girls, I'll admit that; I've been surprised at how successful that's been. You handle yourself with real maturity. But it won't do to have a girl here who isn't taking dance. You know that as well as I. We have neither staff nor courses to take that responsibility. It's always hard to admit that you've failed—”

At that, Mina was so angry that she did burst into tears. She was so angry she just wept. She was weeping so hard she couldn't speak. Just growing wasn't failure, you couldn't say someone had failed just because her body grew bosoms and hips and the muscles worked differently.

“But, Mina, what do you want me to say? What can I do? What do you want to do?”

“I want to go home,” Mina wailed, miserable, angry, and ashamed.

“Good,” Miss Maddinton said, ushering Mina out of the room now that Mina had said what she wanted to hear.

It was all settled by the next day. Most of the girls avoided Mina, as if she had some horrible contagious disease. “That's tough,” Isadora said. “I'm glad I've still got a dancer's body. I'll keep it, my parents are both slight.”

Tansy had been kinder. “I'll miss you, you make things more
fun,” Tansy said, her big brown mouse eyes showing that she meant it. For all the difference that made.

Mina didn't know what to say to anybody, so she didn't say anything. When Mr. Tattodine put her on the morning train to go south, he told her to keep on studying music. “You've got real ability,” he said, his face looking worried.

Mina just nodded. She shook the hand he held out for her to shake.

She sat by herself on the train, with her suitcase on the rack above her. There were several other people on the train and Mina just kept looking out the window so that she wouldn't see them looking at her. Everything was quiet except for the train noises. The train went on south, stopping at places, New Haven and Bridgeport, Stamford, and then it went underground to get into New York. Mina sat still and waited. They'd given her some money for lunch, but she wasn't hungry. They'd told her that her family knew when she was getting into Wilmington and would meet her, but she didn't wonder about that, even though she remembered that her father had the car.

At New York, there were a lot more people who got on the train, and the car started to fill up with music from radios, and with voices talking, and with little children. Mina stared out the window, seeing no difference between the dark tunnel of New York and the industrial towns of New Jersey and the rolling countryside past Philadelphia.

She didn't know what she was going to do, she couldn't think of anything she wanted to do. She knew the camp hadn't turned her out, not exactly, but she felt like they had. She knew that they had turned her out because of the dancing, but she felt like they had done it because she was black. She was afraid they'd only let her come in the first place just because she was black.

A
lot of people were getting off in Wilmington. Mina stepped off the air-conditioned train and into what felt like a solid wall of heat. She hesitated briefly, then moved away from the throngs, moving along the platform, looking up and down the platform.

It was hot on the asphalt and the air shimmered with heat and moisture. Her blouse stuck to her skin, but the air felt good as it wrapped around her body. She didn't mind nobody being right there, mostly because she didn't know what she'd say to Zandor or her mother. She guessed she might never say anything again because when she looked down her throat to find words, there weren't any there. She felt locked away into the silence she had been moving around in for the last twenty-four hours.

They sure got her out of there fast enough, once they got moving. As if they couldn't wait to get rid of her.

People moved away and the platform got empty. The sun poured down through the thick air. There was a city smell to the air, metal and engine fumes. City noises were moving, off in some distance. Mina stood. She wasn't waiting, because she didn't much look forward to being picked up. She didn't know what she was going to say to anybody, especially when she knew perfectly well that what she'd been thinking—for the last year and more—had been getting-away-from-them thoughts.

But she wanted to see her mother, she wanted Momma's arms
and love wrapped around her. Her momma would be angry at the camp, she'd be all on Mina's side no matter what. Mina wanted some of the kind of love Momma gave to her children, where love was the first and deepest thing, and the questions came later and the answers wouldn't matter much measured up against the love.

But she didn't want to see her momma, because she didn't know what to say.

When a big man, dressed up fine in a dark suit and tie, his shoes polished to high gloss, came walking up toward her, Mina got ready to run if she had to. She'd leave her suitcase. It had only dance things in it anyway, and she wouldn't need those. She didn't know if she'd have to run, but she thought if he looked like he might grab for her she'd take off, go inside to the waiting room where there were people around. Just because someone was black didn't mean you could trust them.

“Wilhemina Smiths? I'm sorry to be late, I had trouble parking. I'm supposed to escort you home,” his voice went on talking. Mina stared at him, not hearing what he was saying.

He looked vaguely familiar, with heavy straight eyebrows and round, sympathetic eyes, as he introduced himself and reached out to take her suitcase for her. Then she could identify him, although she'd missed his name. He was Alice's husband, the summer minister. She wondered if she was about to meet Alice, and she hoped so at the same time as she didn't want to. Not now, not like this.

She walked along beside the man. He tried asking her a couple of questions, how her trip was, whether she minded traveling alone. Mina just nodded or shook her head. She wondered why her mother hadn't come. She hoped her mother wasn't angry with her.

The summer minister had a big, dusty station wagon. He put
Mina's suitcase in the back. The rear seat had two child car seats strapped on it. He asked her if she wanted to sit in front or in back. Mina sat in the front seat. He told her to strap in, and Mina pulled the seat belt down and latched it. He asked her to be sure she knew how to unlatch it, so she did. She wished she could get some words out, to thank him for meeting her, or ask where her mother was, but she couldn't. He was going to think she was pretty weird.

And she felt pretty weird. She felt as if she hadn't done anything wrong, except be black and grow up, which there wasn't much she could do anything about; but she still felt ashamed, as if she'd done something wrong and was being punished.

The car pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic. The summer minister stopped talking and concentrated on driving through the city streets.

Mina looked straight ahead. “Your people mature earlier,” that was what Miss Maddinton had said, but she didn't know what she was talking about. After Mina, the most physically mature girl in her class was white. Almost all the girls wore bras by the end of sixth grade, not just black girls. Besides, Kat didn't yet and she was black. Mina wished she'd said those things to Miss Maddinton. She wished she'd pushed Miss Maddinton out of the window, or something—done or said something to someone to let them know they couldn't just push her around like this. Even though they could, because they did.

The car left the city on an elevated highway, moving along over the tops of row houses and stores. The highway merged with several other highways to form a new road, jammed with trucks and cars and heavy white heat. Stoplights came up, one after the other, quickly. At every one, brakes groaned and people honked their horns. All along the side of the road there were fast-food restaurants and motels and stores.

The summer minister, Alice's husband, drove on south. The signs overhead said Annapolis and Baltimore and Dover. He picked Dover, sticking to the main road. All the car windows were open, so it was cool enough when they were moving, although it was noisy from the motors working all around them.

Mina looked out her window, to catch the breeze and keep her face private. All of the feelings churning around inside her were looking for words so that she could understand them. But she couldn't find any words, and she didn't know why her mother hadn't come to meet her, because Momma could guess how she'd be feeling. She was heading home, but Mina didn't know what she'd be able to say when she got there.

She was so sorry for all the things she'd thought. She was sorry for herself too, because they'd taken dance camp away from her. Because she wasn't good enough. Because she was black. She'd worked hard to be good enough, as hard as she could. But she couldn't work hard enough. She was disappointed in the people at camp and angry at them for not wanting her anymore. The same ideas ticked over and over inside her head, as the minutes ticked by and the car moved on south.

It was still a highway, but it had farms beside it now, except for crossroads where there would be a gas station, or a little restaurant. Mina wondered how far they'd gone, and how much time had passed. She felt the summer minister studying the back of her head. She felt him trying to start a conversation. But she didn't want to talk to him. If she didn't have any words for her own family, she couldn't have anything at all to say to a perfect stranger. Mina concentrated on the fields they were passing, and the occasional house.

“So,” she heard his voice begin. He had a quiet voice, deep. “How does it feel to be an ex-token black?”

Mina turned her head slowly to look at him. He had spoken
words that connected so directly to her that she didn't know what to think. His eyes were on the road.

“A former token black? Or retired. Token black, retired,” he said.

What a thing to say, Mina thought, as she burst out laughing and burst out crying, all at once together. Whenever the laughter was about to take over, Mina would remember how bad things were and the tears would continue. Whenever the tears started to dominate, she would hear his voice asking her those questions and she would keep up laughing.

“My wife usually has tissues in the glove compartment,” he said after a while.

Mina needed several tissues before she finished with her nose and her eyes. She crumpled them up into her pocket when she was through.

“Thank you,” she said. “I don't know what I'm going to do now,” she told him.

He thought about that. “Do you mean now, here and now, or now, ever in your life?” He didn't wait for her to answer, which was just as well because Mina didn't know which she meant. She only knew it was true. “Your mother didn't come because she's sitting with Miz Hunter, who's had a bad summer virus. She's on the mend but when you're that old you've got to be careful with yourself.”

Of course Momma would be there, helping out. Mina wondered why Alice didn't do it, to free Momma. But she couldn't ask him that, and she remembered that Alice had those three children, two of them pretty young.

“She's pretty. Your wife, I mean. I saw some pictures from last summer, and she's really pretty.”

“Isn't she?” the man said, as if just thinking about Alice made him glad. “We've been married over nine years now, and
every time I see her—I think, what fine work God did when He made Alice.”

Mina liked the picture he made, of God up there like a sculptor, shaping the bodies and the faces.

“You know, you never answered me. Have you had lunch?”

“No,” Mina said. “They gave me money for it, but I didn't.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I think I am,” Mina realized. It was midafternoon.

“If we pool our resources—I was up in Wilmington interviewing for a position and they gave me some travel expenses—I've got twenty dollars. How much do you have?”

“Five.”

“How about it then, will you have lunch with me, Miss Wilhemina Smiths, whatever else you figure out you're going to do now?”

He really did understand, Mina thought. She thought she'd like to have lunch, and she liked this summer minister. He was funny.

“We can afford a respectable meal. They're not expecting us back until after supper anyway. There are some good restaurants around Easton. Can you wait another forty-five minutes?”

“Sure. But I don't know your name. I wasn't listening when you said it. What
is
your name?” Mina asked. She was studying his profile now, as they drove along westward across Delaware. His hair was short, curling close to his head, and his eyes were set deep in their sockets. He had a broad mouth and good teeth, well-kept hands and long legs. He was a handsome man. His suit didn't look rumpled at all, even though the day was so hot and sticky.

“My name's Shipp. Tamer Shipp.”

“Reverend Shipp,” Mina repeated, trying the name on.

“I'd be more comfortable if you'd call me Tamer,” he said.

“I didn't mean—” Mina started to say.

“It's that name, ‘reverend.' Because I have trouble feeling like—I should be revered. You know?”

“It's not a name, it's a title,” Mina pointed out, amused because he was taking words so exactly.