Full Circle (16 page)

“Still … I don't think you should.” She watched Tana's eyes, as the pretty blonde's face began to tense.

“He's my friend, Mom.”

“He's still a young man, and you never know what could happen in a situation like that.”

“Yes, I do.” Her eyes were instantly hard. She knew only too well. Only it had happened at precious Billy Durning's house, in his own father's bedroom, with a hundred kids right downstairs. “I know who I can trust.”

“You're too young to be able to judge things like that, Tan.”

“No, I'm not.” Tan's face was like a rock. Billy Durning's raping her had changed her whole life. She knew everything about things like that, and if she sensed any threat from Harry at all, she would never have gone to his hotel, or stayed. But she knew instinctively that he was her friend and she would come to no harm at his hands, unlike her mother's lover's son. “Harry and I are just friends.”

“You're being naive. There's no such thing between boys and girls, Tan. Men and women can't be friends.”

Tana's eyes opened wide. She couldn't believe her mother was saying those words. “How can you say a thing like that, Mom?”

“Because it's true. And if he's inviting you to his hotel, he has something else in mind, whether you recognize it or not. Maybe he's just biding his time.” And then she smiled. “Do you think he could be serious about you, Tan?”

“Serious?” Tana looked as though she were about to explode.
“Serious?
I just told you, all we are is friends.”

“And I told you I didn't believe that.” There was something almost insinuating about her smile. “You know, Tan, he would be quite a catch.”

But it was too much for Tana to stand. She jumped to her feet, and looked down at her mother with scorn. “You make him sound like a fish, for chrissake. I don't want a ‘catch.’ I don't want to get married. I don't want to get laid. All I want is to have some friends and go to school. Can you understand that?” There were tears in her eyes, mirrored by those in Jean's.

“Why do you have to get so violent about everything? You never used to be like that, Tan.” Jean's voice sounded so sad that it tore at Tana's heart, but she couldn't help how she felt or what she said anymore.

“You never used to push me all the time.”

“When do I push?” She looked shocked. “I don't even see you anymore. I've seen you twice in six months. That's pushing?”

“That coming out party was pushing, and what you just said about Harry is pushing, and talking about catches, and settling down, and getting married is pushing. For chrissake, Mom, I'm eighteen years old!”

“And you're almost nineteen. And then what? When
are
you going to think about it, Tan?”

“I don't know, Mom. Maybe never, how's that? Maybe I'll never get married. So what? If I'm happy, who cares?”

“I care. I want to see you married to a nice man with nice children in a nice house.…” Jean was crying openly now, it was what she had always wanted for herself … yet, she was alone … with a couple of nights a week with a man she loved, and a daughter who was almost gone … She bent her head and sobbed, as Tana came to her and hugged her close.

“Come on, Mom, stop … I know you want the best for me … but just let me work things out for myself.”

Her mother looked at her with big, sad, dark eyes. “Do you realize who Harry Winslow is?”

Tana's voice was soft. “Yes. He's my friend.”

“His father is one of the richest men in the United States. He even makes Arthur Durning look poor.” Arthur Durning. The measuring stick for everything in Jean's life.

“So what?”

“Do you realize what kind of life you could have with him?”

Tana looked sad for her, and she suddenly felt sad for herself. Her mother was missing the point, and probably had all her life. But by the same token, Jean had given her so much. And Tana felt as though she owed her a lot now. But in spite of that, she hardly saw Jean during the entire two weeks she was in New York. She ran around with Harry almost every day, although she didn't admit it to Jean. She was still furious at what her mother had said.
Do you realize who he is?
As though that made a difference to her. She wondered how many people felt that way about him. It seemed a hideous thought, to be evaluated because of his last name.

Cautiously, she even asked Harry about it one day, when they were having a picnic in Central Park. “Doesn't that bug you, Harry? I mean people wanting to get to know you because of who you are?” The thought still horrified her, but he only shrugged and munched his apple as he lay on the grass.

“That's just the way people are, I guess. It gives them some kind of a thrill. I used to see people do that to my father all the time.”

“Doesn't it get to him?”

“I don't really think he cares.” Harry smiled at her. “He's so insensitive, I don't think he actually feels anything at all.” Tana watched Harry's eyes.

“Is he really that bad?”

“Worse.”

“Then how come you're so nice?”

He laughed. “Just lucky, I guess. Or maybe it's my mother's genes.”

“Do you still remember her?” It was the first time she had asked him that, and he looked away from her.

“Sometimes … a little bit … I don't know, Tan.” He looked back at her again. “Sometimes, when I was a kid, I'd pretend to my friends that she was alive, that she was out shopping or whatever when they came over to play. I didn't want to be different from the rest of them. But they always found out. Their mothers would tell them or something when they went home, and then they'd think I was weird, but I didn't give a damn. It felt nice to be normal just for a few hours. I'd just talk about her like she was out … or upstairs…” Tan saw tears stand out in his eyes, and then he looked at her almost viciously. “Pretty dumb, huh, to be hung up on a mother you never even knew?”

Tana reached out to him with her heart and her words, and the gentleness of her voice. “I'd have done the same thing in your shoes.”

He shrugged and looked away, and a while later they went for a walk and talked about other things, Freeman Blake, Sharon, Tana's classes at Green Hill, and then suddenly out of the blue, Harry took her hand. “Thanks for what you said before.” She knew instantly what he meant. They had that kind of rapport, had from the moment they first met.

“It's okay.” She squeezed his hand, and they walked on, and she was amazed at how comfortable she was with him. He didn't push her at all, didn't ask her anymore why she didn't go out with anyone. He seemed to accept her as she was, and she was grateful to him for that. She was grateful to him for a lot of things, for the way he saw life, for the fun they had, the sense of humor that always made her laugh. It felt wonderful to have someone to share her thoughts with.

He was almost like a sounding board for everything she had in her head, and she was particularly grateful for that when she went back to Green Hill. When she saw Sharon again, it was as though her family had sent someone else instead, and all of her moderate political ideas had disappeared. She had attended a series of rallies and sit-ins with her mother and her friends, and suddenly she was as rabid as Miriam Blake was. Tana couldn't believe the change that had taken place, and finally, after listening to her for two days, Tana turned to her and screamed.

“For chrissake, Shar, what's happened to you? This room has been like a political rally ever since we got back. Get off your soapbox, girl. What the hell has happened to you?” Sharon just sat there and stared and suddenly the tears flooded her eyes and she bowed her head, the sobs choked her and her shoulders shook and it was almost half an hour before she could speak, as Tana watched her in astonishment. Something terrible had happened to the girl, but it was impossible to say what it was. She held her and rocked her, and at last Sharon spoke, as Tana's heart went out to her.

“They killed Dick on Easter Eve, Tan … they killed him … he was fifteen years old … and he was hanged.…” Tana felt instantly sick. That couldn't be. That didn't happen to people one knew … to blacks … to anyone … but she could see on Sharon's face that it was true, and when she called Harry that night, she cried when she told him the news.

“Oh my God … I heard something about it in school, that the son of an important black had been killed, but it didn't click … shit.…” He had been Sharon's brother, and barely more than a child.

“Yeah.” Tana's heart felt like lead. And when her mother called her later that week, she still sounded depressed.

“What's the matter, sweetheart? Did you and Harry have a fight?” She was trying a new tack, she was going to pretend to herself and Tana that it was a romance and maybe the idea would take, but Tana didn't have any patience with her and she was instantly blunt.

“My roommate's brother died.”

“Oh, how terrible…” Jean sounded horrified. “In an accident?”

There was a long pause as Tana weighed her words …
No, Mom, he was hanged, you see he's black.…
“Sort of.” Wasn't death always an accident? Who expected it?

“Tell her how sorry I am. Those are the people you spent Thanksgiving with, aren't they?”

“Yes.” Tana's voice sounded flat and dead.

“That's just terrible.”

Tana couldn't stand talking to her anymore. “I've got to go, Mom.”

“Call me in a few days—”

“I'll try.” She cut her off and hung up. She didn't want to talk to anyone, but she and Sharon were talking again late into the night. Suddenly everything in Sharon's life had changed. She had even contacted the local black church, and she was helping to organize sit-ins on weekends for the remainder of the spring. “Do you think you should, Shar?”

Sharon looked angrily at her. “Is there a choice anymore? I don't think there is.” There was anger in her soul now, an anger that nothing would help, a fire that no love could quench. They had killed the little boy she had grown up with. “… and he was always such a pain in the ass.…” She laughed through her tears one night as they talked in the dark. “… He was so much like Mom, and now … and now…” She gulped her sobs down, and Tana went to sit on her bed. It went on like that every night, either talking about marches elsewhere in the South, or sit-ins in town, or Dr. Martin Luther King, it was as though she wasn't really there anymore, and by midterms she was panicking. She hadn't done any studying at all. She was a bright girl, but she was desperately afraid now that she was going to flunk. Tana helped her as much as she could, sharing notes, underlining her books for her, but she didn't have much hope, and Sharon's mind was on the sit-in she had organized in Yolan for the following week. The townspeople had already complained about her twice to the Dean of Green Hill, but because of who her father was, they had only called her in and talked to her. They understood what a strain she was under, after her brother's, er … unfortunate “accident,” but she had to behave herself nonetheless, and they didn't want her causing trouble in town anymore.

“You better lay off, Shar. They're going to kick you out of school if you don't stop.” Tana had warned her more than once, but it was something she couldn't change now. She had no choice. It was something she had to do, and the night before the big sit-in in Yolan she turned to Tana just before they turned off the lights and there was something so intense in her eyes that it almost frightened Tana as she looked at her. “Is something wrong?”

“I want to ask you a favor, and I won't be mad if you say no. I promise, so do whatever you want. Is that a deal?”

“Okay. What's up?” Tana just prayed that she didn't want her to cheat on a test.

“Reverend Clarke and I were talking today, at the church, and I think it would make a big difference if there were whites involved in the sit-in tomorrow in town. We're going to walk into the white church.”

“Holy shit.” Tana looked shocked, and Sharon grinned.

“That's about right.” The two girls exchanged a smile. “Dr. Clarke is going to see who he can get, and I … I don't know … maybe it's wrong, but I wanted to ask you. But if you don't want to, Tan, don't.”

“Why would they get upset if I walk into their church? I'm white.”

“Not if you walk in with us, you're not. That makes you white trash, or worse. If you walk in holding my hand, standing between me and Reverend Clarke or another black … that's different, Tan.”

“Yeah,” she felt a twinge of fear in her gut, but she also wanted to help her friend, “I guess I can see that.”

“What do you think?” Sharon looked her square in the eye and Tana did the same.

“Honestly? I'm scared.”

“So am I. I always am.” And then very gently, “So was Dick. But he went. And I'm going too. I'm going to go every time I can for the rest of my life now, until things change. But it's my fight, Tana, not yours. If you come, you come as my friend. And if you don't come, I love you anyway.”

“Thanks. Can I think about it tonight?” She knew that it could have repercussions if it got back to the school, and she didn't want to jeopardize her scholarship for the following year. She called Harry late that night, but he was out, and she woke up the next morning at dawn, thinking about going to church when she was a little girl, and things her mother had said about all people being the same in God's eyes, the rich, the poor, the white, the black, everyone, and then she thought about Sharon's brother Dick, a fifteen-year-old child, hanged until he died, and when Sharon turned over in bed as the sun came up, Tana was waiting for her.

“Sleep okay?”

“More or less.” She sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched.

“You getting up?” There was a question in Sharon's eyes, and Tana smiled.

“Yeah. We're going to church today, aren't we?” And with that Sharon grinned broadly at her friend. She hopped out of bed, and gave her a hug and a kiss and a victorious smile.

“I'm so glad, Tan.”

“I don't know if I am, but I think it's the right thing to do.”

“I know it is.” It was going to be a long, bloody fight, but Sharon would be there, and Tana, just this once. She put on a simple blue cotton shirtdress, the color of the sky, brushed her long blond hair into a sleek ponytail, put her loafers on, and they walked into town side by side.