“I do want to do it,” I said, leaning over to take the form from her. “Thank you.” I bristled as I walked away. It was none of her business.
Reed was alone at his desk and I stopped to say an awkward hello. I didn’t sit down, just stood across the desk from him, clutching the form in my hand.
“When do you leave?” he asked.
“Saturday.” I wanted to add that I felt a little nervous, but it would hardly be fair to ask for comfort from Reed when he didn’t want me to go.
He simply nodded, his face serious. “Be safe, Ellie,” he said. “I hope it turns out to be exactly what you’re looking for.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised by his kindness. That’s who Reed was. But I found he’d stolen my voice, so I just nodded with a tight smile, and by the time I reached my car, my eyes burned with tears.
* * *
It never seemed to occur to my parents that they should have to give their official okay for me to be able to participate in SCOPE. They knew I planned to go and they’d stopped arguing with me about it. I thought my mother must have talked my father into letting me do it. I could imagine the conversation. If we put up a fuss, my mother would say, she’ll be even more determined to stick it out. If we willingly let her go, she’ll be home in less than a week. You’ll see.
Three days before those New York students were to pick me up for the long drive to the Atlanta orientation, Sheriff Parks showed up at our front door to talk to me. Byron Parks was a childhood friend of my father’s, and he was no stranger in our house. He was also my godfather, and Buddy and I had called him “Uncle Byron” from the time we were small. He and his family came to our barbecues and we’d go to his house for their annual New Year’s Eve party. In spite of the fact that I’d known him all my life and in spite of the fact that he was soft-spoken, kind, handsome, and rather charismatic, I was never really comfortable around him. He’d been the one to pull Mattie Jenkins out of the lake, his pale hair covered in stringy green muck. He’d been the one to tell the newspaper I was a hero. I always, to this day, felt embarrassed around him.
“Let’s sit on the porch,” he said to me now, with his straight-toothed smile. He could sound so gentle, but I knew he could be tough when he needed to be. Everyone knew he beat the hell out of a guy who’d robbed the jewelry store downtown, for example. Sitting with him in our white rockers, my bare feet on the warm gray wood of the porch, it was hard to picture him beating up anyone. Across the dirt road from our house, the emerald-green kudzu looked like a pack of wild animals against a pale blue sky.
“Your daddy asked me to have a chat with you.” He sounded almost apologetic.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure he did,” I said.
“Just because he loves you,” Uncle Byron said. “He’s worried about you. Beside himself with worry, actually, and it’s not unreasonable.”
“I know,” I said.
“Sweetheart, do you have any real idea what you’re getting into?” he asked. “You’re used to living in this pretty house with pretty things.” He swept an arm through the air to take in our house. “Your daddy works hard to provide all this for you.”
“I know,” I said, feeling ever so slightly guilty at that. Daddy provided “all this” for me, and I was choosing to spend my summer living in poverty.
“It can be dangerous,” Uncle Byron said. “You know about those three civil rights workers who were killed last year? Not pretty deaths, either.”
“In Mississippi. Not North Carolina.” I was tired of that particular argument. “I know there might be some slight danger, Uncle Byron. I know all that. I still want to do this.”
“It’ll just make it worse for those folks if y’all shake things up,” he said. “You might do more harm than good.”
I turned my head so he wouldn’t see me roll my eyes again. Then I looked at him once more. “How are Ruthie and Jimmy doing?” I asked abruptly, hoping we could change the subject to his children.
He stared at me for a moment as if trying to decide if he should let me get away with it. “They’re fine,” he said finally. “You were always their favorite babysitter.”
“They’re wonderful kids,” I said.
“They are,” he agreed. With a sigh, he pulled his card from his pocket, leaning over to hand it to me. “Any time,” he said. “Doesn’t matter where you are, even if you’re not in my jurisdiction. You find yourself in trouble, you get to a phone and call me, hear?”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said, palming the card. “That makes me feel safer,” I added, and I meant it.
* * *
The night before I was to leave, my mother received a phone call as we were cleaning the kitchen. She said nothing after “hello,” and I watched her face go pale. She hung up without another word, then turned to look at me where I was drying the dishes.
“It was a man,” she said. “He said, ‘Tell your commie bleeding-heart daughter she’d better watch her step this summer. You never know what might happen in those darkie neighborhoods.’”
I shivered. Who would make a call like that? Who even knew what I was up to? Aside from telling Uncle Byron, my parents had kept my plans to themselves, and I doubted Buddy or Reed or Garner or Brenda would have told anyone. I thought of Lucy Baker at the bank. Would she have spread the word? I felt a stab of guilt that, because of me, my mother’d had to receive such a phone call.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said. “I wish I could control the outside world, but I can’t.”
“You can still back out,” she said.
I set the dish towel on the counter and walked across the room to wrap her in my arms. “I hope that’s the only call like that you have to get,” I said. I doubted it would be, though. Lucy Baker had a very big mouth, and Round Hill was a very small town.
Chapter 12
Buddy stood in the doorway of my bedroom as I finished packing my suitcase. I was aware of him there in his blue coveralls, BUDDY HOCKLEY stitched above his pocket. I felt disapproval running like a thread from him to me.
I snapped my suitcase closed and looked across the room at him. His expression was sad but resigned.
“I’ll miss you,” I said. It would be my first summer without my brother. Without my parents. Without Reed and Brenda and Garner.
“You can still change your mind,” he said. “Even once you’re … wherever they stick you, you can change your mind. I’ll come get you. You need me, call me here or at the car shop. Day or night. All right?”
He was such a sweetheart. “You’re the best big brother.” I crossed the room to where he leaned against my doorjamb and wrapped my arms around him. “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “And don’t let Mama and Daddy worry, either, okay? It’s not like I’m going a million miles away. Hopefully they’ll assign me right back here in Derby County after the orientation in Atlanta.”
“It’s a big county,” he said dryly, not returning my embrace.