Still, I waited to call him, until an evening after dinner when everyone would be occupied. My father was at the hospital, moonlighting. My mother and my aunt were sitting in the kitchen, talking. Aunt Diane had left Veronica at home with her husband to let him know that it was a new day. Men should be responsible for childcare, too. My sister was in the office studying, and I tiptoed upstairs like a sneak thief. I dragged the hall phone by its long cord into my bedroom and shut the door. From underneath my pillow, I pulled out note cards with conversation starters, and placed them on my comforter: I enjoy listening to public radio and Zora Neale Hurston is my favorite author and Unless it’s summer, my mother doesn’t let me eat processed foods.
The lady on the other line was quiet-voiced. “Tate residence.”
“Hello, this is Miss Ailey Garfield. I’m calling for Mr. Christopher Tate. May I speak to him, please?”
“One moment.”
A series of clicks, and then another quiet-voiced lady.
“This is Camille Tate.”
“Hello, this is Miss Ailey Garfield. May I speak to Mr. Christopher Tate, please?”
“Oh, hello, Ailey! This is Mrs. Tate.”
“Um . . . hello, Mrs. Tate, ma’am. How are you?”
“I’m well, Ailey. And yourself?”
“I’m fine, ma’am. Did you have a good day?”
“I had a very good day, dear, and thank you for asking! Chris said you had impeccable manners. I see he was right, and what a lovely surprise. So many young people these days are so rude.”
I talked with Mrs. Tate, running through my polite arsenal, but it was exhausting. There were no openings to broach the starters I’d laid out on the bed. By the time Chris came to the phone, I didn’t know if I had any more to give.
“Hey, girl. Why’d you take so long to call me? Damn.”
“Well, you know.”
“Well, you know,” he repeated, in a high, girlish voice.
“You’re so crazy.”
We made plans to meet behind the lower school building—the younger kids left thirty minutes earlier—at two thirty on Tuesday, one of the days Amber left early for her three-hour-long piano lessons, Chris said.
If he wanted to make a change, he shouldn’t be talking about his current girlfriend, but I put that out of my mind. I had other problems, such as inventing a plausible lie to fool my mother.
The afternoon of our rendezvous it was chilly out. I wore two extra T-shirts under my sweater, but then I was overheated. I took off my down coat, laid it on the ground, and sat with my book bag beside me. I’d told my mother there was a study group for biology that met after classes. I felt no shame. Technically, I was telling the truth, since I’d used my half hour after school let out to study.
After a few minutes, Chris showed. “What’cha doing sitting on the ground?”
“Waiting on you. Take a load off.”
“You talk so funny, Ailey.”
His skin was smooth: so far, he’d escaped acne. His hair cut low and neatly brushed. He rested his head against the bricks of the building, regaling me with tales of that stupid cloth ball game. He’d wanted to attend a public school with a real soccer team, but his parents had vetoed that.
“But at least now I have a reason to like it here,” Chris said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You, silly.”
Walking through the halls and holding hands, so that people witnessed our love. Stopping every now and then to kiss. That’s how I pictured us.
“Girl, when I saw you in class, I was like, who is that? She’s so fine. And you don’t even care what the white kids say about you.”
I wondered what they said about me, but I wanted to keep up my cool impression.
“Not really.”
He swiveled his head, looking for eavesdroppers. “But you know, fuck these honkies, right?”
“Sure, I guess.”
He gave me a quick peck on the lips. I touched his face, but he quickly grabbed my hand. We went back to talking about that stupid cloth ball game, but I caught something about his father.
“。 . . I never see him,” Chris said. “He’s always at the hospital.”
“Is he a doctor?”
“Yeah, a surgeon.”
“My daddy’s a doctor, too. He’s in general practice, but he works emergency. I only see him at dinnertime about three times a week.”
“We don’t even see mine then.”
I gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze. He squeezed back.