Tiny Dancer
Page 28
In August, Claudia drove us away in her new convertible, out of town, aimed toward campus. Much to Dwight Johnson’s dismay, though, not to Yale. Nor was it off to Chapel Hill. Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach had become embedded in our sophomore souls. Neither Claudia nor I had ever been able to shake its spell from our memories of that one summer spent along its shores.
“Have you realized, Claudia, after class each day, we put down the top on your car and it’s off to the beach?”
“And boys,” said Claudia, “Lots of boys with tans.”
“Oh, I nearly forgot! Let’s drop by the Dollar Warehouse,” I said.
“For school supplies?” asked Claudia.
“I promised to say good-bye,” I said.
“Oh, yes, that’s right,” said Claudia.
We drove past classmates parked at the Twistee Treat. I thought about a day coming when Theo’s children would buy ice cream at the take-out window, no questions asked. Of course, The Friendship Nine had changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement. That’s what they came to be called, those young men who dared to order a burger at the lunch counter in Rockingham. Of course, much was still left to be done. Lost City would still be denied civil rights well into the next century. First hamburgers and then the vote, I guess.
Claudia pulled into the parking lot of the little chain discount store, the trunk and back seat packed to capacity.
“I’ll pick us up extra pencils and notebook paper,” I promised, making short work of our stop. “Much cheaper here, family discount.”
Claudia followed me inside and then gasped. “Look!”
I had not visited the store since Vesta was promoted to store manager, moving quickly from check-out clerk to manager in only a year. But then Vesta was always organized and ambitious.
Decorating each wall, and prominently displayed, hung large store posters of privileged employees selected to model for the company publicity advertisements. Hung above a display of sunflower seeds was an enormous poster of Vesta. She was wearing the company’s dollar-green smock, her name embroidered permanently on the pocket, Vesta, Store Manager. Vesta Curry was voted “Manager Most Likely to Succeed.” If that were true, then it was right to assume her face smiled down from Dollar Warehouse posters all across the country. Funny, she had not mentioned it.
“She’s famous,” said Claudia.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said. “I guess we all got what we wanted.” Vesta finally got. her wish for fame.
Claudia went off down the aisle with a shopping basket on her arm. I stood for a while looking up at Vesta’s poster. I could not stop smiling.
ABOUT PATRICIA HICKMAN
PATRICIA HICKMAN is an award‐winning novelist whose works receive consistently good reviews from national reviewers like Publishers’ Weekly. She has written seventeen published books including fifteen works of fiction, one collaborative non-fiction book, and two chapter books for children. TINY DANCER is her eighteenth book. She first studied creative writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and then went on to receive her MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. PATRICIA writes for major publishers and two of her novels, The Pirate Queen and Painted Dresses, were on a SIBA bestseller list. She enjoys hiking, fishing, and traveling.
http://www.patriciahickman.com
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