Because We Are Read Free

learn. Then you go there and segregate yourself. Why do you feel that you have to segregate yourself?”
    â€œI don’t. Mama, you don’t understand that teacher.”
    â€œThat teacher only wants what’s best for you.”
    How can that teacher know what’s best for me? exploded in Emma’s head, but she said nothing.
    The doorbell rang. “That’s probably your father. Let him in.”
    Oh, no , Emma thought. Oh, God, please don’t let Jody be with him. A flash of Jody’s light-brown hair and big gray eyes reminded Emma that Jody was friendly, but a stranger, nevertheless. And what with being white, she was likely to remain a stranger. But her father had every right to bring Jody if he liked. After all, she was his wife and had been for the last three years, ever since Emma was fourteen years old.
    â€œGirl, let your father in,” her mother said.
    Her father strode in alone, his tall frame slightly stooped, looking more uncomfortable than usual. He hated discussing things with her mother.
    â€œSit down, Larry,” said her mother. “Would you like some coffee?”
    Emma had come to know that tense tenderness in her mother’s voice.
    Had her mother never really stopped loving her father? Had she still not forgiven him for leaving them right when he had begun to achieve some success as a doctor?
    â€œNo, thanks. I just had breakfast. What was decided about Emma?”
    â€œThey’re transferring her,” her mother said. “Sending her to Manning. It’s just our luck that we live on the very edge of Manning’s district. Unfortunately, Manning is her home school.”
    Emma felt the shock of both relief and pain. She was not expelled, but her chance of becoming a debutante was narrowing. What would she do without her friends? She would surely lose Marvin, being that far away. She shivered.
    â€œManning?” her father asked. “Surely there are other schools. What about Fairmount?”
    â€œI’ve pulled all the strings we know to get them to let her return to Marlborough, or send her to another integrated school. But Emma has not been the most cooperative recently. We’re lucky. They could have expelled her. She’s going to Manning unless she can finish this year in a private school.”
    â€œYou have the money for that?” her father asked.
    â€œWhere you think I get the money?” her mother demanded. “We’re hardly making it on my salary. You know how much social workers make. And that chintzy three hundred a month you give—only fifty more than the courts mandate—doesn’t go very far.”
    â€œI just can’t afford the extra expense of private school.”
    Her mother jumped up and stood in front of Emma’s father. Even though he was sitting, she looked small and terribly helpless, but she lashed out, “You can afford a nonworking wife, a Mercedes for yourself and your wife; and marina fees for that boat— Jody’s Joy . But your daughter? Don’t you care anything about Emma?”
    â€œOf course I care! But private schooling is out of the question.”
    Emma wanted to scream, Stop it! She didn’t want them fighting. Why couldn’t they think of her and how she felt? Just this once.
    Her father went on, “It might do her good to go to Manning. Maybe she’ll learn there what we’ve been trying to teach her: All this Black togetherness is no solution.”
    They’re miles apart on everything, she thought, but they’re in agreement against me. How could she explain to them the shame and humiliation Ms. Simmons made her feel? Me and my friends don’t segregate ourselves; we’re segregated . How could she make them see what was happening to her? She didn’t know herself why she felt so much better when she sat at the tables with other Blacks. She just knew she needed the warmth that being with them gave