The Summer We Got Saved

by Pat Cunningham Devoto

  “Are y’all really coming for the voting school, or are you just out for a night on the town?” She slid the book she had been reading under her pillow, pulled her legs off the bed, and sat up.

  “We ain’t coming for no cooking lessons,” Miss Viola said. “Course we coming for the voting school. Thursday night, ain’t it? Here we are, your first customers.”

  “You think your coming is going to shame the men into coming, is that it?”

  “Honey, you can’t shame mens into doing nothing. If they take a notion to come, they gonna come. If they don’t, well . . .” She took up a paper napkin and wiped her hands. “We coming ’cause the children need to know somebody coming.”

  Finding nothing else to say, the other women inspected the walls and floor of Maudie’s room.

  “Well . . .” Maudie cleared her throat. “I’m supposed to teach y’all how to read and write enough so you can go register to vote.” She got up and walked over to the shelf where she kept her materials.

  “I thought as much.” Miss Laura had cut four pieces of cake and laid them out on napkins. “I’m already registered to vote. Viola and Dottie here, they ain’t registered, but they already know how to read, and I told ’em if they come on out here with me, I wouldn’t make ’em go down to register ’less they wanted to.” She gave a big slice of cake to each of the ladies. “So here’s what I been thinking.” She walked over and snapped open her black cloth handbag. “While we waiting for more people to join our class, we could have us a game of cards.”

  Dottie Sue put hands to her cheeks. “Playing cards in the church?”

  “I know,” Laura said. “Ain’t this gonna be fun.” She pulled out a pack of Rook cards and the ladies began rubbing hands together and twittering about how naughty she was.

  “Well now, ladies, seeing as how they ain’t face cards, I don’t think Brother Earl would have no problem with it—and besides, he ain’t here, is he?”

  Viola and Dottie Sue were immediately reminded of other occasions when Laura had led them astray. While they walked their cake into the sanctuary, they carried on about how Laura had always been the wild one, even when they were children, leading them into all sorts of mischief, reminding each other of the times they had been punished for some of Laura’s misdoings.

  “Y’all sure you need me?” Maudie was coming along behind, her crutch in one hand, her slice of cake and some writing materials she had grabbed off the shelf in the other.

  “Sure we need you, honey,” Miss Viola said, drawing chairs up to the teaching table. “You gonna make up the fourth player.”

  “I don’t know how to play Rook. Don’t know anything about it.”

  Miss Laura sat down and began to shuffle the cards like she was born to it. “Look like we gonna have to teach the teacher.” The cards flashed out in a blur, distributing themselves into four neat piles. “Go get the rest of that cake and bring it back in here, Dottie. I’m gonna need plenty of brain food tonight.”

  They played for the rest of the evening, gathered around the table they had pulled directly under one of the lights in the sanctuary. Their shadows moved back and forth whenever a breeze took a notion to come in one of the open windows and sway the lightbulb hanging from its wire.

  There, in their little pool of light, surrounded by darkness, Miss Laura told the story of how she became a registered voter. “Tried ten times ’fore I could find the registration office open. Every time they seen me coming, they close up the place. Finally one day, I snuck in the back and come in ’fore they could see me. That day, they say the registration done been changed to another place. I say where is it at and they say it’s out Seventy-two to the Houston place. And I say, ‘What you mean in the farmhouse?’ And they smile and say no, it on the farm, but ain’t in the house, and for me to go on out there if I want to register. So I says all right, I’ll just do that. Wasn’t gonna call my bluff.” She shuffled the cards and dealt another hand. “Well, let me tell you, honey, when I got out there, sure enough a sign was pointing off in the dark woods, saying, ‘Voting This Way,’ and I says to myself, This ain’t gonna stop me. And so I walk on down this road, and it got smaller and smaller and darker and darker, and finally I end up down in the swamp, by a creek, and sure enough there was a table and some white men sitting round talking. I know everyone of ’em and they know me. They commence laughing. ‘Laura, you the only one in the county got the nerve to come all the way back here to vote, and if you got that nerve, then you gonna get to vote,’ they say like they was making a game out of it. ‘You the first colored come back here, and it would be you and not a man.’ I didn’t say nothing ’cept where was I supposed to sign, and they showed me and asked me to read some sentences, and I walked out of there my legs weak as water.”

  Miss Viola picked up her cards. “And you think you gonna get me out to vote in amongst them crazy white folks?” She slapped a card on the table. “Laura Jean Osborn, you ain’t friends with no fool.”

  Just then, car lights flashed through the windows. Miss Laura looked down at her watch. “Jessie a little early.”

  But the lights weren’t Jessie’s. After a minute, the car backed up, pulled out of the churchyard, and was gone.

  CHAPTER 17

  Highlander

  TAB WAS SITTING ON HER BUNK, telling Tina about going to discussion group with the adults. “Well, not actually being in the group, but sitting on the windowsill and listening. They don’t mind that.” Tina, half-listening, was painting her nails.

  “You woulda thought I had given her a birthday present, the way Aunt Eugenia beamed when I ask her if I could sit in the window and listen to what was going on. Oh sure I could—‘It’ll let you see the real dynamic of the way things work up here.’ That’s what she said, ‘the real dynamic.’ Oh, and guess what else she said. She said, ‘How is your sister getting along? I haven’t seen her lately.’ And so then I said, ‘I think she has a crush on that lifeguard from Wisconsin, Jeremy what’s his name. She hangs around with him all day.’”

  “You are so pathetic.”

  “Pathetic? You sound like her. That’s what Dominique says to me all the time. Anyway, then Aunt Eugenia says, ‘Which one do you mean, the white one or the black one?’ Do you believe that? And I said, ‘Gad, Aunt Eugenia, what do you think?’”

  “And what did she say?” Tina held her brush in midstroke.

  “She didn’t say a thing. It would have been too silly to say a thing. So anyway, at first it wasn’t anything like Eloise had described—the meeting, you know. People talked, yeah—they’re planning ways to integrate their towns when they go back home—but they didn’t argue, not like Eloise said they might. I almost went to sleep. Anyway, they were going along, talking about their ideas, first one and then the other speaking up, and the leader, Mr. Horton you know, is standing over in the corner listening and saying, ‘You have the power to do whatever it is you want to do,’ when this black man—it is the new thing to say, ‘black man’ instead of ‘colored man’—he says in a very agitated way that it is the pitiful white heritage that has caused the whole thing and that the Ku Klux Klan is not worth killing. And Aunt Eugenia is violently shaking her head yes, when I say—’cause I couldn’t help it, it just came out, and this is a subject I know something about—I say that of course Cousin John Lester wasn’t like that at all. And when they ask me who is Cousin John Lester and I tell them, Aunt Eugenia is turning a very deep gray color, especially when everybody turns to stare at her.”

  “Tab, will you never learn?” Tina was shaking the bottle, readying it to polish her toes. “How could you embarrass Aunt Eugenia like that?”

  “It serves her right, disowning Cousin John Lester, and in public. I think it was the ultimate in bad manners. Grandmother would think that, too. Anyway, the leader is smiling and talking about the irony of it all—that’s what he said, ‘the irony of it all’—and Aunt Eugenia is looking sick, and the colored—the black man—he is looking mighty disgusted at Aunt
Eugenia. This, of course, takes Aunt Eugenia’s breath away, and I think she is gonna get on her knees and beg him to forget that she is kin to Cousin John Lester, which I would never do in a million years. Even the leader said Aunt Eugenia sometimes has unrealistic enthusiasm. That’s what he said, ‘unrealistic enthusiasm.’ Grandmother would agree with that, but I would never tell Dominique.”

  “Will you stop talking long enough to answer a question? Did she ask anything else about what I was doing?”

  “Nah, she wasn’t interested in anything after that.”

  Tab went over and sat down next to Tina. “But I am. And what have you been doing? I saw you walking with both the lifeguards the other day, the black one and the white one, and the white one is very handsome.” She elbowed Tina.

  “So is the black one,” Tina said.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Well, he is. Admit it.”

  “Okay, he is, but it’s not something you say, even if he does look almost white.”

  “At least I am not going around insulting my aunt in front of every last person up here.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, Tina. If you are kin to Cousin John Lester, you are kin to Cousin John Lester and that’s that.”

  “Peachy.” She didn’t look up from doing her toes.

  “Well, I got to go. I need to go talk to Dominique. I haven’t seen her around. Maybe she’s mad at me.”

  “Probably she’s mad at you, although why you would want to hang around with that snob, I don’t know.”

  “She is not a snob. A black person cannot be a snob.”

  “Ask Eloise if she’s a snob. She says Dominique is always calling her ‘Little Eloiseee from the boonieeees.’ That’s tacky.”

  “So how about giving me that other thing of nail polish you owe me?”

  Tina finished with her toes, screwed the top on the bottle, and pitched it. Tab was down the hall before she remembered and turned back. “And guess what else? Dominique’s parents are divorced, and she gets all mad at me ’cause I don’t know anybody with divorced parents. Do you remember if that cousin from south Georgia—what’s his name? Didn’t he get a divorce before he moved to Texas?”

  Tina was blowing on her toenails but shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, can’t you think of anybody who got a divorce, so I’ll know somebody?”

  “Elizabeth Taylor, people like that. Oh, yeah, there was that one grass widow Mama used to be friends with. She had a daughter older than me, but that lady died a long time ago.”

  Tab stood in the doorway smiling. “Can you think of what might happen if they knew—I mean anybody in Bainbridge—sitting down there watching Father Knows Best every Wednesday night and we are up here with all these crazy as a betsy bug people?” She hit the wall with the palm of her hand and skipped back down the hall.

  “I used to favor Purple Passion. Now I like”—Tab looked at the label—“Coral Crush. I thought you might like it.” Dominique was sitting out by the Ping-Pong table. She had been at lunch and had chosen to sit with them rather than with her father, but she hadn’t said much, had not bored them with diatribes in French and even longer translations. She had left the table before Tab and Eloise had finished. Now Eloise was visiting with her mother.

  Tab held out the bottle of polish too long before Dominique took it. “Go ahead, try it. If you don’t like it, I got remover in our room. You could try it on your feet. It looks good on feet.”

  Dominique unbuckled her sandals and brushed dust off her toes. “I’ve worn nail polish before, of course, French colors.” She took the bottle and held it, looking down at the label before she began to unscrew the top and pull out the brush. “This is a tad garish. French colors are more subtle.” She looked up at Tab. “It’s okay, though.”

  “Now listen, Dominique, I didn’t mean anything about what I said the other day on the float, about your being, you know, unusual—in several ways.” Tab sat down beside her. “I been thinking about it, and I do remember now that I have a cousin who got divorced—least my daddy said he did and that’s why he went on off to Texas.”

  She watched Dominique finish one foot. Tab felt it was not such a good job. The polish was outside the lines in places. “So see, you’re not the only one I ever met—you know, divorced.”

  Dominique closed the bottle and shook it before she got started on the other foot.

  Tab had expected a lecture—“you people are so backward, not knowing anyone who is divorced”—but she didn’t get one. Dominique finished up her toes and closed the bottle, waiting for them to dry before starting a second coat.

  “I don’t see her much.”

  It took a second for Tab to realize what she might be talking about.

  “Not since she left and Daddy got all caught up in this stuff.” She nodded toward the meeting room. “Now this is all he thinks about.”

  She shook the bottle of nail polish harder and longer than she needed to. “And since we are talking about it, don’t you think I get tired of meeting you people all the time?” She opened the bottle and looked at Tab. “I’m popular; I have lots of friends up there where I live.” She began a second coat, brushing more evenly now. “He’s planning to go down to Mississippi after this. He can’t get enough. I would rather go on back and forget about this stuff.”

  Tab pulled her knees up and put her arms around them. “See, that’s the way it is with us—we’re supposed to be over in Chattanooga, but Aunt Eugenia had to come bring us up here instead. I think it’s because she can’t get enough, either.”

  “They’re going to close this place down pretty soon anyway. Did you know that? Did you see the paper today?”

  “You’re kidding. I just got here. Are you making that up, Dominique?”

  “C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas?

  “Did you say you weren’t making that up?”

  “Oui.”

  “I know that one.”

  Dominique looked skyward. “Sound the trumpets.”

  Tab didn’t hear the sarcasm, and edged closer, whispering. “Are they gonna have a sit-in in Nashville? I heard Dora at dinner the other day. She was talking to some of the other Fisk students. Somebody said they were gonna have a sit-in at Woolworth’s in Nashville, but I didn’t believe it. I never even heard of a sit-in ’til I came up here. Course I wouldn’t mind doing one, since I love their hot dogs.”

  Dominique looked up at Tab and did this little thing with her eyes, blinking them and narrowing them at the same time. She went back to her polishing, finishing one foot before she said, “You like hot dogs, do you?”

  “We people eat other things besides corn bread, you know.”

  Dominique wiped excess polish from her toes and smiled down at them. Then in a low voice, “I did hear there was a group from here going to the Nashville sit-in. You understand it’s very hush-hush, though. Not everyone should be included.”

  Tab edged closer. “I wouldn’t say anything, honest. What do they say?”

  “Well . . .” Dominique pretended to search behind bushes and trees. “They say there’s a group going out of here to the sit-in in Nashville. Of course it’s just gossip, probably not true, but if it is, would you like to go?”

  “Sure,” Tab whispered. “We won’t be gone long, will we?”

  “Oh, maybe a few hours.”

  “Aunt Eugenia would probably love me to do that.”

  “Oh, you can’t tell her. You wouldn’t even be able to tell your sister.”

  “I wouldn’t tell her even if I could. She might try to horn in. What about the police? Won’t the police come up here and close the place down if that happens, especially since this place is against the law anyway?”

  “Why is it against the law? Just tell me. Why?”

  “It’s against the law because . . . because it is. I didn’t make the laws. They were here before I was born.”

  “You people are unbelievable.” Dominique grabbed her sandals and walked away, p
itching the polish on the ground.

  “If we’re so unbelievable, you didn’t have to come down here, you know. Who asked you anyway? Go to France and stay with your mother and speak nothing but French all the time.” Tab was up off the ground, brushing the dust off her shorts. “And,” she yelled after her, “if you’re so smart, how come you’re walking in the dust with wet polish on?”

  CHAPTER 18

  Scrimmage

  LATE AFTERNOONS would find everyone gathered on the front porch and steps of the main house at Highlander, talking and relaxing before dinner—that is, those who were not assigned to help with kitchen duties. Tab had never really gotten a long look at Dominique’s father, and so she made a point of going over to sit next to him as he rocked in the sunlight that crept in under the eaves of the west-facing house.

  She had heard him in the morning meetings—by now, she had attended several, sitting outside and listening through the window, always with Dominique. Dominique would soon become bored probably, Tab thought, because she had heard it so many times. She would usually take a scrap of paper and draw up a game of battleship, out of her father’s sight. They would play that or tic-tac-toe to pass the time. Tab didn’t pay much attention to what was going on while she was trying to beat Dominique. When she did listen, Dominique’s father seemed to be the one who would always interrupt and say that compromise was not possible and that the ultimate goal should be to integrate everything, not tomorrow or in gradual steps, but today, right this very minute. When he spoke, he used big words; she could tell that the others didn’t understand them, either. There were some college students in the group, but mostly they were people off of farms, workers in the cotton mills, people from rural communities who had perhaps seen, although seldom touched, the outside world. In a meeting one morning, one of the mill workers had said that he could only get news of what was going on when he went to a neighbor’s house to listen to the radio. Dominique had touched Tab’s shoulder. “Do you believe he never even saw a television set?”