Leigh (5 page)

Frank grinned. “You are a sweet kid.”

She blushed again, blood warming her cheeks and neck in response to her own naivete. She silently scolded herself,
Stop acting like a kid.

“You are very pretty,” Lila said, returning. “But then Frank has a very good eye for that kind of thing. Just like his father.”

“Mom, we’re not a couple,” Frank said with a shake of his head.

His mother looked more amused than convinced.

Since Leigh couldn’t think of a thing to say, she decided a smile would have to be her response.

Then private conversation stopped as a contingent of grim-looking, silent policemen appeared and some of the march organizers
began speaking over megaphones to the marchers. Like a man-made forest, the placard signs held high blocked Leigh’s vision.
The press of people grew and grew until the marchers could no longer be contained. The march began of its own accord.

Frank drew her along with him, his free hand gripping her elbow as the marchers began their trek to the Lincoln Memorial earlier
than expected. As they marched forward, policemen walked along with them at the edges of the procession, which filled the
street, curb to curb.

After some time, they arrived at the Lincoln Memorial and the marchers spread out, filling the area around the Reflecting
Pool in front of the Washington Monument. That towering obelisk would begin to cast its shadow, shimmering on the pool as
the sun lowered in the sky.

“Do you think we’ll run into our grandparents?” Leigh said into Frank’s ear.

“In this crowd?” He shook his head. “We only met my mom because I told her I’d be early at the staging area. And
what if we do? They can’t make us go home, and I doubt they’d try.”

They’d lost his mother in the crowd earlier. “Should we look for your mother?”

“No, she can take care of herself. She isn’t your average mother.”

She looked into his face, trying to understand what he meant.

He grinned. “She’s not like your mother. She doesn’t worry about me, or at least she never shows that she does. She guards
her freedom and leaves me to mine.”

Again, Leigh tried to analyze his tone and his words along with his expression. He was revealing himself to her again, but
indirectly, and she felt out of her depth.

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m in a strange mood today.”

She gave him a smile, and then he helped her settle onto a small spot of well-baked concrete. The golden sun was nearly at
high noon now and the heat and humidity were suffocating within the mass of warm bodies. Her red scarf soaked up the heat
of the sun, uncomfortably, but kept it from burning her scalp. She was fortunate to be right beside the Reflecting Pool. Dipping
her fingers into the tepid water, she then sprinkled her face and Frank’s with the drops.

“Thank you.” Frank grinned.

The public address system started up with metallic squawking and screeching. They all rose when requested. And at the front,
the famous Marian Anderson stood above them with Abraham Lincoln’s somber statue behind her and began singing the national
anthem. The words, somewhat indistinct, warbled over them with sound-system distortion. However, the echo of her strong, richly
textured voice hovered above their heads and touched Leigh’s emotions. She felt
a welling up of pride that she lived in the “land of the free” and the “home of the brave.”

A Negro man stepped to the bank of microphones, the first of several who would speak before Dr. King. Leigh tried to keep
her focus on the faces above the microphones, but other marchers—both black and white—kept turning to look at her as she sat
beside Frank. It made her uncomfortable and irritated at the same time. Finally, she lifted her eyes to look over the crowd,
blocking out their curiosity and even censure. Today was history, and she wouldn’t be bothered by petty human emotions.

Speakers stepped up to the microphone one after the other. Leigh kept sprinkling Frank and herself with water as she felt
the two of them baking and melting on the concrete. She finally ripped the cardboard placard off its wooden handle, alternately
shading and fanning herself with it.

At long last, Martin Luther King Jr. took the podium. He looked down at his notes as he began his speech. Leigh felt a jolt
of electricity shiver through the mass around her and then the distinctive voice spoke and the shiver went through her, too.
She’d heard the cliche “a magnetic speaker,” and Dr. King fit this. His rich voice carried his intense passion clearly across
the huge crowd, which began to sway and react to his message. The hair on the back of Leigh’s neck prickled as the contagious
response swallowed her up in its power. She leaned forward as if that would help her catch every word, every nuance.

When Dr. King looked up from his notes, Leigh felt as if he were looking right at her—though she knew that was ridiculous.
The sea of faces before him must be impersonal and indistinct. But she couldn’t shake the impression that all of this was
meant just for her, that he would have said the same words if she were the only one who’d arrived to hear
him. “I have a dream,” he repeated and embellished, gesturing with his hands. Each phrase built on the last until she rose
with the rest of the crowd to echo, “Free at last! Thank God Almighty! Free at last!”

Leigh felt tears streaming down her cheeks. Frank pulled her under his arm and hugged her close. Her ear pressed against his
chest, and she felt his heart beating against her cheek. She turned into him and hugged him back, too moved to speak. Her
scarf slipped back and she felt him kiss her hair. Then the crowd was applauding, shouting, screaming with fervent joy, giving
voice to Leigh’s wildly cascading, ricocheting emotions.

Driving home was anticlimactic. Night had fallen by the time they edged their way out of the march area, onto the crowded
subway, and finally to their car. As Frank drove, they remained silent, listening to Motown over the radio and news reports
about the march. Leigh couldn’t have explained in words what she was feeling for a million dollars or a Pulitzer Prize in
journalism. Frank’s silence didn’t make her feel rejected. She felt he must be struggling with the same intense reaction to
a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Finally, as they drove down the darkened roads near Ivy Manor, Frank turned to her. “Which grandmother’s house do you want
to go to?”

“I wish,” she said, her voice feeling rusty in her throat, “that I didn’t have to go to any place where I have to talk to
anyone.”

Frank drove off the road and shifted into park. He stared straight ahead for several long moments. “I know what you mean.
I feel like I’ve been on a trek to some faraway place and I don’t feel like sharing my photographs back at home.”

She appreciated his attempt at humor. He understood. He did share the same emotions she did. It was a heady feeling.
Until now, only Grandma Chloe had ever appeared to understand how Leigh felt about anything. “Thank you for taking me. You
gave me a gift today. You took me a long way from home.”

He rested his slender, dark hand over hers on the seat between them. “As odd as this might sound—since we only met a few days
ago—I’m glad you went with me. I saw it all for myself and also I saw the reflection of everything, all of today, in your
eyes. It made the experience richer, deeper…” He fell silent.

Words failed her. Tears clogged her throat. She squeezed his hand.

And then he drove her to Grandma Sinclair’s and walked her to the door. He apologized to her grandmother for stealing her
for the day. Then he drove away, leaving her half listening to Grandmother Sinclair scolding her as she dialed Leigh’s parents
to report her safe return. Leigh felt as if she’d left her old, her former, self here this morning and a new Leigh had walked
back inside this familiar place tonight. She felt the pull of Dr. King’s stirring words again and then Frank’s tender lips
kissing her hair.

The next morning, Leigh sat at the small desk in the room she always used when visiting Grandmother Sinclair. Leigh had been
grounded for a month, and her mother was livid at her disobedience. But Leigh and Dory would spend the remainder of the week
with Grandma Sinclair. This was a relief to Leigh because her mother’s anger and disapproval were easier to bear at a distance.
And she wasn’t forced to explain anything.

Leigh stared down at the open spiral notebook where she intended to write her account of the march. She couldn’t even
pick up her special just-for-writing cartridge pen with the turquoise ink she preferred. She closed her eyes, trying to come
up with an opening sentence. “My life will never be the same.” Too trite even to jot on paper. “I met a boy… a man I’ll never
forget.” Too true, too dangerous to reveal. If she wrote that, people would misunderstand it. Frank was the first person who’d
taken her seriously, made her feel grown up. And she didn’t want people twisting their friendship into something it wasn’t.
I can’t write about it. I can’t.

She pushed herself up. Maybe she could settle down tomorrow and write something, but not today. She wanted to go to Grandma
Chloe and talk about what she was feeling. But the Dawsons were still staying at Ivy Manor, and Leigh didn’t want to see Frank
again. Somehow that would spoil the way Frank had left her. And to see him again would dilute what they’d shared. Did that
make sense?
It doesn’t matter. It’s how I feel.

A
t the start of the first day of classes, Leigh sat at a table in the St. Agnes lunchroom where study halls were held. She
stared at the first issue of this year’s
Scribe.
Voices and shrill laughter bounced off the walls, but faded into the background as she looked for the byline of the lead story.
She had not written an account of the march. And she’d prepared herself to see the byline read: “Mary Beth Hunninger.” But
that wasn’t the name she read on page one.
Who is Cherise Langford?

“Why did you do it?” Mary Beth demanded, appearing suddenly. She stood over Leigh, looking ready to spit.

Both of them were dressed in the St. Agnes uniform—a white blouse with red kerchief and navy-blue pleated skirt. Leigh studied
the other girl’s reddened face. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s right. You didn’t. I could stand it if I’d lost out to you. At least
you’d
have done a good job with the article on the march.”

“Who’s Cherise Langford?” Leigh read the byline name out loud.

Mary Beth plumped down beside Leigh with a huff. “You didn’t even come to the meeting last Friday.”

“I was staying with my grandmother in Maryland.” Leigh didn’t go into any further detail.

“Oh, so you didn’t get to the march?” Mary Beth’s voice was a curious combination of sympathetic smugness.

Leigh felt no inclination to agree or deny this question. “What did I miss at the meeting?”

Mary Beth looked as if Leigh’s nonchalance had taken her by surprise. Her words confirmed this, “I thought you
wanted
to be the
Scribe
editor this year.”

Leigh shrugged.
So did I. But that changed and I don’t know why really. “
Who’s Langford?” she repeated.

“Haven’t you seen her?” Mary Beth asked. “She’s our new Negro student.” Mary Beth tried to sound matter of fact, but ended
up sounding disgruntled. “St. Agnes is now integrated—with her.”

Leigh took this in.
Ah. “
I see.” And she thought she did.

“Have you read her article yet?”

“No, I just started—”

“Well, go ahead. I’ll wait,” Mary Beth said, looking like a teacher about to write out a detention slip.

Leigh thought this was a strange request, but didn’t see why she should argue since reading the article had been her in
tent anyway. She read the brief article and frowned.
Lackluster
was the word that suggested itself to her. How had Cherise missed all the emotion, the eloquence, the impact? But Leigh merely
shrugged again. “You think your article was better?”

“I know it was better,” Mary Beth barked. “I was trying to top
you.
I worked on it practically nonstop from the moment I got home. My dad and mom both proofread it, and they were impressed.”

Mary Beth’s father was an archeology professor and his wife an English professor, so they should know, Leigh thought. “I’m
sorry,” was all she said.

“It’s not fair. My article was better, but Lance chose hers because she’s Negro. And now she’s the editor,” Mary Beth ended
up with a whine.

“I’m sorry,” Leigh repeated and she realized that she was sorry for Mary Beth. Leigh realized she didn’t feel the same rivalry
toward Mary Beth as before.
How could I change this much in just one week?
She had no answer.

“I wouldn’t mind just having Lance choose her article, but to have her as editor…” Mary Beth shook her head.

“Hi.” A Negro girl, also in school uniform, walked up behind Mary Beth. “Someone pointed the two of you out to me. You both
wanted to be editor of the
Scribe,
right?”

“You must be Cherise. I’m Leigh Sinclair.” Leigh held out her hand, grinning secretly over Mary Beth’s rigid expression. “Welcome
to St. Agnes.”

Not looking Cherise in the eye, Mary Beth muttered, “Hi.”

“Thanks.” Cherise studied both Leigh and Mary Beth in turn. “I wanted to speak to you two before we got off on the wrong foot.
Someone told me that both of you wanted to head up the school paper this year. And I want to make it clear—I do not want to
be the editor of the
Scribe.”

Mary Beth’s mouth dropped open.

“You don’t?” Leigh asked, somehow amused.

“Yes, I’m going to tell Mr. Pitney today. I dropped in on the Friday
Scribe
meeting because I was finalizing my registration that day and the principal suggested I stop by and meet Mr. Pitney.”

Leigh couldn’t help herself. She chuckled.

Cherise smiled. “I mean, I’m just a sophomore and I haven’t worked on a school paper before. Why would I make a good editor?”