You Made Me Love You
By the fall of Belle’s sophomore year, Stanley Culpepper had transferred to Albany State and Belle kept to herself. No other young men approached her for a date, and that was fine by her. She wasn’t like her roommate; Marie Giles and her boyfriend, Walter Lipscomb, already had planned their wedding for after graduation.
Belle didn’t have time for men. She’d decided that she didn’t want to be a schoolteacher in the public schools; now she wanted to be a college professor. The work required to reach this apex, a master’s degree and possibly a doctorate, didn’t scare Belle. Whenever Belle walked across campus, there was a strut to her step. She might be too dark for her color-struck classmates to think she was pretty, but she had a perfect grade point average and was in the running for valedictorian of her class.
The first semester of her senior year, she took Medieval to Renaissance Literature. She was an English major, and it was a requirement for graduation, but the third week of classes, she tried to check out the translation of The Canterbury Tales. She wanted to get the jump on the final paper, but the librarian told her someone else had it, Geoffrey Garfield. Belle had spotted him in class. He was a senior, too. He’d given her appreciative looks, but he was much too fair-skinned for her tastes.
The day she walked over to the men’s dorm, she dressed carefully as usual, in an orange cashmere sweater, matching skirt, and black shoes with a heel. Her hair was freshly pressed and curled, and she’d dusted cocoa powder on her nose to kill the shine.
She sent the dorm proctor to retrieve Geoffrey, and in the lobby, he told her he needed the translation for his paper.
“But we could share it, couldn’t we, Belle?”
“I don’t want to share. I want to read it all by myself.”
She sighed, but he smiled and asked permission to walk her to the library. He’d bring the book along, and maybe they could negotiate. She told him, all right, but she really needed the book, and she didn’t have time for all this back and forth. When they squeezed into a carrel in the stacks, Geoffrey whispered an invitation.
“What?”
“I said, may I escort you to the fall formal?”
“Why?” Belle didn’t whisper. She wanted to make sure he heard her, but Geoffrey didn’t miss a beat when he told Belle that she was beautiful and smart, and he’d be proud to have her on his arm.
“You think I’m beautiful?”
“Of course, Belle. Don’t you have a mirror in your dormitory?”
She searched for excuses to be rude, but this boy had thrown her. “All right, Geoffrey—”
“—call me Geoff—”
“Fine, Geoff, let’s say I agree to go to the dance with you—”
“—great!—”
“Hold on a minute. I didn’t say I’d go. I said, let’s say. Let me ask you something: Do you know my uncle, Dr. Jason Freeman Hargrace?”
“Sure. Everybody knows him.”
“Well, he gave me a switchblade, and I know how to use it, just in case you try to get fresh.”
The reference to possible violence didn’t seem to put Geoff off. He laughed and let her know he’d like to take her and the switchblade to the fall formal.
Her ivory gown and cape for the formal were duplicates of Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy’s inaugural ball ensemble. Geoff wore a tuxedo with a white jacket and bought her a pink rose corsage. When the disc jockey put on “Reet Petite,” he stood. This white-looking boy had nerve, but on the floor, he twirled Belle around with rhythm. After the dance, he wanted to drive to Paschal’s in Atlanta, but she put him off.
“Some other time. Could you walk me back to my dorm, please?”
“As long as there’s another chance, I’m fine. And so are you, Belle Driskell.”
After the formal, Geoff began showing at her dormitory to walk her to breakfast, to sit with her at lunch and dinner, and to accompany her to the library. He insisted on carrying her books, too. There were stares and whispers, and Belle made sure to dress in her best everyday attire. She wanted those high-yellow girls who thought Geoff should be with them to get a look. He brought her the candy that his mother sent him in gift packages and copied out excerpts of his favorite poems for Belle in his neat cursive handwriting.
She already had received Marie’s gossip, that he wasn’t like others, those who only dated darker young women for sex. For some reason, Geoff preferred chocolate-toned ladies. He was a gentleman, too. Other young women had reported that when you said no, he was real sweet about things. As weeks passed, Geoff offered his own biography: he was from the north, from the City. His father was a doctor, and he expected Geoff to become a doctor, too. Geoff had wanted to be a schoolteacher, but his parents had vetoed that decision, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it on his own. But Geoff had refused to pledge his father’s fraternity, the same one W. E. B. Du Bois belonged to—the only defiance Geoff felt he could get away with.