Message from Nam (6 page)

“I … uh …” Her mother spluttered on her own words. “… It’s alright. Maybe this will work out for you, Paxton. You can always transfer next year, if it doesn’t.” It was an enormous concession for her, and Paxton was grateful that she had given in that much. She hated to leave them on bad terms, and even George didn’t look quite as annoyed as he kissed her good-bye and warned her to behave herself in California, but he knew she would. She was a good girl basically, even if she was a little headstrong. And considering what other kids her age were up to these days, she hadn’t really caused their mother too much trouble.

They both waved to her as she boarded the plane, and she left feeling relieved and free of them. It was only Queenie she missed as the plane took off and circled slowly over Savannah. It was a town she knew she wouldn’t miss, and in any case, she knew she was coming back for Christmas. Many of her friends were going away too. They were going to universities all over the South, only two had chosen to go to college in the North, and she was the only one going to California. And she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes as the plane flew west toward California.

It was only noon in California when they arrived, with the time change, and it was a gloriously sunny day as Paxton stepped off the plane and looked around her. The airport was small and most people seemed to be dressed in T-shirts and jeans, or flowered shirts, and a lot of the women were wearing miniskirts or cool-looking tie-dyed gauzy dresses. Everyone had long hair, and she felt instantly at home as she picked up her valise at the baggage claim and walked outside to hail a cab, feeling fiercely independent.

The driver told her everything he thought she should know, about the best restaurants near school, the hangouts where all the kids went, the action on Telegraph Avenue, and he commented more than once on her accent and said he liked it. When they reached the campus, he pointed to a collection of tables at the corner of Telegraph and Bancroft, and explained that they were organized to support various causes. There were signs everywhere for SNCC, for CORE, peace symbols, and there was a huge cardboard sign propped up heralding “Campus Women for Peace.” And she was suddenly excited just being there. Just breathing the air there excited her, and reassured her that she had done the right thing in coming. She could hardly wait to get out and look around, start meeting people, and go to her classes.

She already knew the name of the hall where she would live, and the driver took her right there, and shook her hand and wished her luck before he left her. Everyone seemed to be friendly and open here. No one cared if you were black or white, rich or poor, Junior League or a bum, northern or southern, all the labels and distinctions she was so fed up with after growing up in Savannah among her mother’s friends, to whom it meant everything if your grandfather or great-grand-father had fought in the Civil War, and whether or not you had owned a plantation and slaves. It was like living plunged in the past, a past she abhorred and wanted no part of.

The room she’d been assigned was on the second floor, way at the end of a long hall. In fact, it turned out to be the very last room, and it turned out to be a “quad,” two bedrooms joined by a sitting room, with two girls assigned to each bedroom. There was a brown tweed couch in the middle of the sitting room, with multicolored patches sewn all over it to cover the abuses of earlier tenants. There were posters everywhere, a few battered pieces of furniture, and an orange rug, with an avocado-green vinyl armchair. For a moment, Paxton stopped as she surveyed the room. It was far from lovely, and a far cry from the quiet elegance of her mother’s home in Savannah. But on the other hand, this was a small price to pay for freedom.

The bedroom she had been assigned to was smaller and more austere. It was a tiny room with two single metal cots, a desk, two chests of drawers and a straight-backed chair, and a closet barely big enough to put a broom in. They would have to be good friends to live in a room like that, but she hoped that she was about to meet three new people who would rapidly become soul mates. She had quickly glimpsed three suitcases stacked up in the other room, and a moment later, when she walked back into the sitting room again, wondering what they could do to it to make it a little less brutally ugly, she saw that one of her roommates was there. She was a beautiful girl with long legs, and creamy coffee-colored skin, and she was quick to tell Paxton that she was from Alabama, and her name was Yvonne Gilbert.

“Hi.” Paxton smiled warmly at her. She was a striking looking girl, and she had bright, alert, almost jet-black eyes, and she wore her hair in an impressive Afro. “I’m Paxton Andrews.” But somehow she hesitated when it came to telling the girl where she was from. But the girl had heard it anyway.

“North Carolina?”

“Georgia. Savannah.” Paxxie smiled easily, but Yvonne looked instantly wary.

“Great. Just what I needed. A cracker. What do they want us to do, re-fight the Civil War? Someone in central casting has a hell of a sense of humor.” She looked deeply annoyed and Paxton continued to treat it lightly.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m on your side.”

“Yeah. I bet. I can hardly wait to see where the others are from. How about Mississippi and Tennessee? Maybe you can start up a chapter of the Daughters of the Civil War, this oughtta be real fun, honey. I’m just gonna love roomin’ with y’all.” She exaggerated her own drawl with a vicious glance at Paxxie, and then strode into her own room and slammed the door, as Paxton sat down on the couch with a look of dismay. It was going to be interesting anyway. And certainly different.

The next to arrive was a pale, ethereal-looking girl with a milk-white face, jet-black hair to her waist, china-blue eyes, and she appeared to be wearing an almost transparent white nightgown. “Hi,” she whispered, “I’m Dawn.” And she was from Des Moines. And her given name had actually been Gertrude. Dawn had come upon her more recently, with a little touch of LSD, during her senior year, and she had decided to continue to use it. Dawn Steinberg. She was also an honor student, and had played viola with the local orchestra, and she’d been offered a scholarship at Berkeley. She had been assigned to the other room, and she opened the door Yvonne had slammed only moments before, and closed it gently again, and no one emerged. There were no screams. There were no sounds at all, and Paxton could only gather that Ms. Gilbert was satisfied with her new roommate. Des Moines did not have to live down the racist reputation Yvonne had accused Savannah of having.

And as Paxton pondered the two young women she had just met, she decided to unpack her bags. The two duffels and the trunk had been left in her room the day before, and she decided to make both beds. It would make the room look friendlier when her roommate arrived, and she found herself suddenly praying that she wouldn’t be black, angry, and hate women from Georgia … please, God … she whispered to herself.… I know I may not deserve this, and you have better things to do today … but could you please make her like me?

Her roommate still hadn’t arrived at four o’clock, and Paxton decided to stock their small fridge. Before she left for the nearest market, she stopped and knocked at the other girls’ door, and it seemed to take a long time but finally Dawn came to the door and answered.

“Yes?” she whispered at Paxton, as though afraid someone would hear her. Although her hearing was good, Paxxie found it almost impossible to understand what Dawn was saying. And the temptation when talking to her was to whisper back. Even a normal tone of voice sounded too loud when trying to converse with this ethereal vision.

“Do you want something from the store?” Paxton whispered back to her. “I wanted to go out and get some food. I’m starving.” Suddenly, she was missing Queenie’s well-stocked kitchen. And for her, it was seven o’clock at night and she was ready for dinner.

“I’d love some herb tea and honey, and some lemons … and maybe some brown bread.” None of it sounded appealing to Paxton, but she was willing to bring anything back in order to make friends, and she quickly jotted down Dawn’s order.

“What about Yvonne?” she said carefully. “Would she like anything?” Paxton glanced into the room and saw that they’d been unpacking. Dawn had put up some posters, and Yvonne had clothes everywhere, and there were colorful blankets and a pair of pink satin bedspreads that looked more like Alabama than Des Moines, but it was a little hard to tell in the confusion. “Do you want anything from the store?” Paxton spoke directly to Yvonne as she approached the door with a hostile look at Paxton.

“Yeah. Martin Luther King. Think you can find him, sugar?”

“Don’t give me that.” Paxton looked annoyed. “You’re making some pretty crummy assumptions, considering the fact that we only met two hours ago, and you don’t know me.” Paxton wasn’t afraid of her, and the girl’s prejudice made her angry.

“What assumptions should I make?” Yvonne stood almost nose to nose with her, but Paxton didn’t back down. She knew she had to establish herself with the girl now, or forget it. And she didn’t hesitate to stand her ground. Paxton was passionate and strong, and she had a quiet kind of courage. Living with her mother’s constant chill had taught her to be strong a long time before, and she wasn’t afraid of the angry black girl from Alabama. “You’re from Georgia, aren’t you?” Yvonne went on. “What am I supposed to think?”

“You’re supposed to give me a chance. Just like I’m supposed to do for you. Isn’t that what civil rights is all about? We judge each other on who we are, what we think, what we believe, what we stand for, what we
do
, not the color of each other’s skin … or just because your skin is black and my license plate says Georgia. Maybe it’s not even my car. Maybe you’re dead wrong about me. Maybe there’s a reason why I’m not sitting around smelling magnolia blossoms and drinking mint juleps in the Deep South. Did you ever think of that? I’ll bet that never even occurred to you. Not everyone white in the South is related to George Wallace. Give me a chance, for chrissake. It might pay off.” That was the whole point wasn’t it? What Martin Luther King marched for.

“Yeah. Great. Bring me back a six-pack of Coke and a pack of Kools.” No thank-you, no please. She just turned around and strutted back into her bedroom. And Paxton added her requests to the list without saying a word, and walked out of their quad to find the nearest food store off campus. It was going to be interesting dealing with Yvonne, she thought to herself. She was angry, and filled with hate, and Paxton wondered if they would ever make it. She had tried to make friends with the few black girls she met, at volunteer projects, and on a church camping trip, much to her mother
and
Queenie’s dismay. Their generation was not ready for that, and it had upset Queenie even more than her mother. But it was something she felt differently about. Once, when she’d gone to lunch with a black girl she knew slightly, they hadn’t been served and Paxton was livid. They’d gone to three restaurants, and finally given up, and shared a bag of potato chips on a bench in Forsyth Park. But the black girl understood. She was used to it, and she’d been touched by Paxton’s caring and compassion.

And for a long time, Paxton had wanted to go on a march, but so far she hadn’t dared, because she knew that if she got arrested, her mother would lock her in the house for a year. And more than that, it would have mortified Paxton’s mother among her friends, and Paxton hadn’t had the heart to put her through it. But one day, she knew she would. One day, she knew she would have to. And here she was, suddenly living with a black girl who hated her just because she was from Georgia. And suddenly she laughed as she crossed Telegraph. She laughed so hard that a couple of people turned around, because she suddenly realized what her mother would have said if she knew one of her roommates was black. And Queenie! Paxton was glad. And she was going to make friends with Yvonne, no matter what it took to do it.

She bought everything on their list, and then candy bars for all of them, a couple of Cokes for herself, and a few things to make sandwiches with, and a box of doughnuts. She carried the bag back to their room, and as she walked up the stairs, she saw a slightly overweight but attractive short redheaded girl trying to drag three suitcases up the stairs at once, while a very good-looking, tall young blond man wrestled with an enormous trunk that seemed to weigh a lot more than he did.

“What the hell did you put in this thing, Gab? Rocks? Or barbells?”

“Just a few books … there’s nothing in it, really … I swear.…”

“Bullshit. You carry this thing. I’ll be damned if I’ll get a hernia hauling your goddamn luggage all over school.” He looked wildly exasperated as Paxton attempted discreetly to get by them, and then decided to offer a hand, although the trunk didn’t look too appealing.

“Maybe if the three of us carry it?” she said hesitantly, looking from one to the other as they stood on the stairs, and she juggled her groceries on one hip, and prayed she wouldn’t blush while she could feel the good-looking boy look her over.

“Don’t do her any favors,” he growled, “she doesn’t deserve it.” And he looked so annoyed that for a moment Paxton wondered if they were married. But something about the similarity of their profiles suggested that they were either very narcissistic or related.

“I’ll give you a hand with it, if you like,” Paxton offered again, tossing her long blond hair away from her face, and looking at the smiling redhead.

“That’s nice of you. My brother’s being a big pain in the ass over carrying one small bag.”

“One
small
bag!” he shrieked, as his words echoed down the stairs. “Do you have any idea what this thing weighs? It must weigh four hundred pounds if it weighs an ounce. And I’m not even sure the three of us could carry it.”

“We could try,” Paxton reassured him, and he looked her over again with warm appraisal.

“Why don’t we just leave her with this mess of her own making, and you and I go have a beer at Kips? That sounds a lot better.”

Paxton laughed, as his sister threatened him with a look that didn’t begin to suggest amusement. “Peter Wilson, you go anywhere and I’ll strangle you. Don’t forget that
your
sheets are in my other bag, and if you don’t carry this stuff for me, you can sleep on your mattress for the rest of the year for all I care.”