Attic of Regrets
Melissa McInerney
The Galleria Mall glittered, a soaring arched atrium of glass and steel that symbolized 1975 Houston: flashy and awash with oil money. Suzie was meeting a friend, and not just any friend, but the one black guy at Humble High. She wasn’t defying her parents, exactly. They just gave her money and let her do what she liked, as long as she got good grades and stayed out of trouble. She was definitely defying the social order of old Humble. She knew nothing of how it felt to be outside the easy space of conformity, nor did she know how she’d hold up under the pressure. Suzie linked arms with her best friend Cleo and strode down the carpeted esplanade that overlooked the ice-skating rink, oblivious to the risk.
Cleo’s mom dropped them off at eleven. The plan was to call Cleo’s mom later and say they had a ride. Suzie wanted to engineer a ride home with Wesley Carter. She hoped he felt the same jittery lurch in his chest that she did when she was with him. The mall was just beginning to hum with Saturday shoppers. Suzie and Cleo wandered through the mall. Some stores, like St. John’s, were so fancy they were afraid to walk in. Others, like the Wild Pair and GAP they wandered through, trying on chunky boots and checking out the 501s.
Peter Kohler and her best friend Cleo had helped set today up. Peter was willing to do whatever Cleo needed because he wanted to be more than her tennis playing buddy. Suzie didn’t think he had a chance.
Suzie and Cleo clutched jackets with socks stuffed in the pockets for when they skated. They laughed and fidgeted one level up from the skating rink while they waited. They both wore high-waisted jeans, platform sandals and fitted t-shirts. Cleo was golden tan and filled up space like she belonged wherever she was. Suzie had inherited her mother’s Irish pink skin and reddish hair. Long and thin, she moved with the slouchy languidness of a 20s flapper.
Cleo had a carefully planned life, with parents who pushed her in school and made her do chores at home. She babysat for money and had a curfew. Not so for Suzie. Her mother had her at thirty-seven, ten years after her older sister, and their nonchalance with their younger daughter forced her to make her own decisions and take care of herself, however inexpertly.
They saw the guys walk up to the entrance of the rink. Suzie grabbed Cleo’s arm.
“He’s here,” she said.
“Who?”
“You know who!”
Everybody knew who Wesley was. Cleo told Suzie she had heard a cross had been burned in his yard when his family moved to Kingwood.
Wesley knew Cleo first, before he met Suzie. He worked at the Holiday Inn where Cleo lived from late July to mid-September while they waited for their house to be finished. He drove her around, dropping her off at the pool and taking her to school when he could. Cleo’s parents accepted this because they had to go to work. Cleo and Suzie had met at the pool the last week of July and connected immediately.
Their friendship deepened at Humble High. Half of the class were Humble natives, the other half had all moved there in the past few years. Outside the bubble of the pool things were different.
“They’re talking about you and Wesley. ”
Suzie had paid attention to the buzz at Humble High back then. It was important to her to fit in, and as a sophomore, her ability to discern between people whose opinion would matter later was absent.
Cleo had said, “We’re friends. It’s no big deal.”
The gossip stopped at some point, moving on to rumors that Junkyard Thomas had gotten the shit beat out of him by the police during the summer.
At lunch, behind the bleachers at football games and track meets, and at parties down by the lake, Suzie got to know Wesley. They both loved music like Jeff Beck and Boz Scaggs that no one else listened to. He had a sweet gentlemanliness that she liked.
Now she questioned Cleo in a different way, anxious to hear more about their relationship.
“Did you like him?”
“I liked him enough to go out a couple of times.”
“Weren’t you worried what people would say?”
Cleo had given her a look of puzzlement. “Not really. It’s not like he asked me to marry him or anything.”
Cleo’s breezy stance was something Suzie admired. She wanted to be like that, but inside, she still worried about what people thought of her. The more she realized she liked Wesley, though, the more she vowed to be like Cleo, and treat Wesley like any guy who asked her out.
They stepped onto the ice, the sudden rush of cold air a welcome jolt. Cleo zipped off like she had been born skating, Peter and Matt close behind. Suzie wobbled by the rails. Wesley skated backwards slowly, encouraging her.
“You’re getting it. Push your feet out a little. Whoa!”
He reached out a hand to steady her. She took it, her stomach doing a double swoop. She clutched his hand and concentrated on moving one foot, then the other, without falling down. She was so intent on skating, she didn’t notice the two women from her mom’s church who stopped and stared. Wesley dropped her hand and moved away from her suddenly. Puzzled, she struggled not to fall. She tried to catch up to him so she could grab his hand again.
She stayed upright, and soon she was leaning against him in the middle of the rink, laughing with Cleo. This time he didn’t move away. Suzie never saw the two church women. By the time they skated around the rink, the women were gone.
After skating, they all piled into a booth at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. Suzie made sure she was sandwiched between Cleo and Wesley. Now she wished she hadn’t, as she found herself leaning back awkwardly as Cleo and Wesley talked. Peter caught her eye and made a stupid face. She giggled and poked Cleo under the table. She bobbed her head in the direction of the bathrooms.
“Stop flirting with Wesley.”
“I’m not!”
“Fine. Stop talking to Wesley.”
Suzie knew she was being unreasonable.
“Remember you have to get Peter to drive you home.”
Cleo rolled her eyes and said, “Fine.”
If Wesley noticed Cleo’s sudden interest in Matt and Peter’s long running argument between Camaros and Chargers, he didn’t let on. Later in the car, Wesley looked over at her.
“Nice move with Cleo.”
“What, you think I had something to do with that,” Suzie said, looking at Wesley.
“I’m glad you did.”
They rode along, listening to “Purple Haze” on KLOL. The DJ was playing songs from rock stars who died at twenty-eight. When they were on the highway, Wesley settled back in his seat. Suzie looked out the window and tackled the question of what she liked about Wesley. She didn’t have much experience with dating, and couldn’t figure out if she liked the notoriety of dating the ‘black guy’, or just him, for himself. They were snarled together in an imperfect knot that she could not untangle.
“Feel like a movie this weekend?”
“Sure, as long as it’s not scary or anything.”
“You don’t like scary movies?”
They were on highway 59 heading north now. Cleo was barely aware of the endless parade of tacky strip malls, junk car lots, and just beyond the frontage roads, the wards with their rows of shotgun shacks. “Riders on the Storm” came on as she answered him.
“No! The Exorcist scared the crap out of me.”
“Me too! I didn’t crawl into bed with my mom or anything, but that devil shit was intense.”
She sang along softly, happy with the way the day went. She called Cleo the next morning.
“He asked me out!”
“Good. You owe me. Matt is boring and all Peter talked about was his stupid fucking car.”
They saw “W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings” with Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed. They went to McDonald’s and laughed at how bad it was. He kissed her after he pulled into her driveway. She hugged herself in bed that night, too keyed up to sleep. She’d had one boyfriend in the eighth grade and not once had she lain awake thinking about them.
Even though Suzie could drive, Wesley picked her up before school all that next week. They sat next to each other at lunch. On Friday, in the hallway as she was going into homeroom, someone whispered “nigger lover” in her left ear. She spun around, but no one was looking at her. She wasn’t sure, though, so she decided maybe she heard wrong.
“Did you tell your parents when you went out with Wesley,” she asked Cleo on Saturday when they drove to this Army/Navy surplus store down in Montrose.
“Yeah,” Cleo answered.
“Did they care that he was black?”
“No. They cared that I was wasting time dating.”
Suzie loved to drive all over Houston, the intense traffic and crazy roads made her feel alive. She took Allen Parkway to Montrose Blvd, where they both stared at the hippies and black people walking around Montrose’s crumbling brick duplexes and rundown 1950s apartments. Nobody walked around Humble or Kingwood, and if they did, they were white. Both Humble and Kingwood had a milky homogenous whiteness to them, except for Wesley. There were kids who looked like hippies in Kingwood, but they were far too clean and well-fed.
Suzie had turned left on Westheimer and started looking for a parking space. She wanted to ask Cleo if she had kissed Wesley, and if so, did she like it. How had that not come up before? Suzie thought they had talked about everything. Suzie thought maybe Cleo wasn’t as blasé about dating Humble’s lone black student as she acted.
She had to parallel park, a long, arduous task that ended with Cleo standing outside the car and directing her with the help of a really friendly guy with bushy brown hair and eyes that were red slits. Her questions for Cleo were momentarily forgotten. They giggled and thanked him before heading into the big warehouse with a hand-painted wooden sign that said ‘Fatigue pants - $12 Genuine Army jackets - $22.’
Suzie knew Cleo’s brash confidence about dating Wesley wasn’t totally an act. Cleo truly was not aware of how her actions looked to others. That was even more obvious after Cleo had said she was an atheist in Coach Mayall’s class. Suzie longed for that same brazenness, at least when it counted. It was funny, because when Suzie and Cleo first met almost two years ago, Suzie had been the one who met people, especially guys. While she wrestled with how to fit in at Humble High, Cleo defied conforming, a move that paradoxically made her more confident and popular.
They roamed the store and bought matching white painter’s pants. After that, they walked four blocks down South Shepherd to eat at the Hobbit Hole. Inside, the dining room was half full. Suzie loved the unpretentious place, with plants bursting green everywhere. They stood by the front door, scanning the room for an empty table. A huge bulletin board next to the door was covered with flyers: “Guitarist wanted for blues band.” “Drummer needed for established rock band.” “Wanted: roommate for four-bedroom house. No druggies.” “Lost dog. Answers to Boner.”
“What was wrong with Wesley?”
“Nothing, I just didn’t like him that way.”
There was one black couple eating at the Hobbit Hole. Suzie had started noticing how white her world was. Wesley fit into that white world very well. She wondered whether that was one of the reasons she liked him.
Suzie’s parents didn’t ask many questions about her social life. She was able to go out with Wesley without any fuss from home, unlike Cleo. He pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door. She was always waiting right there, a bit nervous that her parents would ask to meet him, although they’d never asked to meet any of her dates. She doubted they would have known she and Cleo were friends except that they hung out at her house far more often. Cleo had Charlie the Great Pyrenees who hated everyone. He stood guard whenever anyone came over. Anyway, Cleo’s parent’s many rules made it stifling to be there.
She and Wesley went out two more times before anyone else besides Cleo knew. One of the things she liked about Wesley was his ability to have a good time while they did the stupidest things, like play putt-putt golf, or bowl.
She rehashed as much as she remembered with Cleo: what they heard on the radio, the deserted cul-de-sacs ready for new homes where they went to make out, and where they went that night.
They had been talking for over the twenty-minute limit Cleo’s mom placed on phone calls. Cleo’s mom yelled a warning. Suzie blurted out why she called.
“Are you going to the boat docks Friday?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want a ride?”
“Yeah, if I can go.”
Suzie knew Wesley wouldn’t mind picking up Cleo, which is why she wanted Cleo with them. She was a bit nervous. This would be the first time she went out with him where all their friends were. He hadn’t said anything, but she bet he was a little freaked out too.
Cleo was outside when they drove up, because Charlie barked like he was going to kill whoever dared to trespass. They could hear his chesty, deep bark in the car over the radio. Cleo ran up and thwocked the seat forward so she could squeeze into the back. Suzie secretly enjoyed having the better seat than Cleo. She liked sitting up front by Wesley and punching the buttons on his stereo like it was hers.
It wasn’t full dark yet, and the fall chill couldn’t cut through the humidity that made dusk stretch out into a deep purple-gray. The boat docks were at the end of a long, dark asphalt road flanked by muddy drainage ditches, the towering pines just beyond crowding out the sky.
Suzie bounced out of the car, excited to see who was there. A group of seniors were there: Julie McElroy and Bud Abbott, Deanna McMurray and Tommie Gibson, Junkyard and Peter Kohler. They settled themselves at one of the empty cement picnic tables next to them. Over the next hour, more cars and trucks rolled in, settling into cliques all over the park.
As the deep twilight settled into charcoal night, red solo cups appeared, along with beers, joints and cigarettes. Suzie was giddy, both from the foamy Lone Star beer (she thought it tasted like horse piss would taste, but after half a cup, she didn’t notice the bitter taste as much) and the joint she had sucked on four or five times, until she got up to go to the bathroom. When she slung her arm around Wesley and put her forehead to his to whisper her plans, he moved away, with no expression on his face.
She said nothing to Cleo as they melted into the shadows, Cleo holding on to Suzie’s coat sleeve as she looked for the right tree. Cleo spoke first.
“Do you think Julie and Bud are dating?”
Suzie shrugged, then realized Cleo couldn’t see her.
“I dunno.”
She saw zero sex appeal in Bud, a quiet, pale, skinny guy who ran cross-country or some weird sport like that. He was a brain, though, so she could see why Cleo would like him, with her taking all those honors classes her parents insisted on. She almost asked if Cleo saw that Wesley was sort of avoiding her. She found the right spot, where she could lean against the tree and no one could see them. The thick pine needles absorbed the noise from her pee. She reeled a bit wrestling her pants up.
She shivered when she sat down. Wesley jumped up and returned with a blanket. He threw it to her and she spread it over her lap and Cleo’s. A few minutes later, his hand crept under the blanket and she clasped it, suddenly happy.
The party ended the way most parties at the boat docks did, the cops showed up. Officers McQueen and Novark made a big show of carding Del Coats and two other seniors, who all must have been over eighteen. Suzie was scared. She knew about Junkyard.
They had emptied their cups and shoved the crooked stack under the picnic table. The blanket was quickly stowed, along with their purses and everything else. They all tried to look calm. Suzie and Cleo leaned against one side of Wesley’s car, Suzie’s arm resting on top of the outside mirror. Wesley stood with Peter, Matt, and some other guys next to the picnic table. McQueen played his flashlight over them, stopping on Wesley for much longer than the other guys, then going back over the line and stopping again. He barked “Party’s over! Git on home now, and if I see you again tonight I’m bustin’ your asses!”
There was a flurry of motion, kids scattering off into the night. Suzie, Wesley and Cleo climbed into Wesley’s car and they joined the caravan that drove oh-so-carefully back into Kingwood. Wesley headed towards Cleo’s house. She had reminded them twice of her midnight curfew, and they made it with over an hour to spare. Wesley turned back onto Kingwood drive, towards Suzie’s house. No cars were out. The nip of cold in the air combined with McQueen’s warning must have sent everyone home. Two streets before hers, headlights appeared. Wesley looked in his mirror and said “Shit” under his breath. Suzie didn’t realize what was happening until the police lights came on.
“Wesley?”
“Just be cool.”
Suzie had never been stopped by the cops, unless you counted the time her dad got a speeding ticket when she was in the seventh grade. Her heart sped up and she felt the slow creep of sweat on her back. A car door slammed. Wesley had rolled down his window and sat motionless with his hands loose on the steering wheel.
“License and registration?”
“Yes, sir.”
He moved his hand slowly down to his wallet and opened it in the beam of the flashlight. He handed them to Officer McQueen.
“Where you headed?”
“Taking the lady home, sir.”
Suzie stared, wide-eyed. Wesley’s face had turned blank, his eyes dead-looking, but his body was so rigid she felt he could burst through the seams of his clothes at any second. McQueen took his time looking at the license and registration, the flashlight held in his right fist like a truncheon.
He slowly panned the outside of the car, the back seat, and finally, leaning over Wesley, on her. His breath rolled through the car, an onion and a dead meat smell, like he’d just had a hamburger. She saw Wesley’s mouth grimace, just a bit.
“Are you okay, Miss?”
She nodded. Inside she was quivering, both from fear and indignation. He was acting like they were criminals or something. She’d never been treated like this before, and she didn’t like it at all.
“What’s that, Miss?”
“I--I’m fine, sir.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
She saw Wesley’s left hand curl into a fist for a brief second. Having never been stopped by the cops, she wondered if that’s how they treated all the kids here.
Wesley drove her home in silence. She snuck peeks at his face, still carved in stone.
“Are we okay?”
He let out a big breath and nodded. Suzie forced herself to ask.
“Do you get stopped a lot?”
She thought he took a long time in answering her, his indecision showing in his clenched jaw.
“DWB. Driving while black. My family gets stopped all the time out here.”
Suzie didn’t know what to say. They had arrived at her house. He didn’t turn off the lights like he sometimes did, so they could talk for a while longer. She pecked him on the cheek and jumped out. She flicked off the porch light and headed straight for her bathroom. Halfway through washing her face, the adrenaline wore off. No one had ever looked at her the way Officer McQueen had, and she had seen his barely contained contempt for Wesley. She didn’t know how Wesley stood it. She barely had enough energy to brush her teeth and crawl into bed.
It was the day after the park. Cleo had walked over that morning, probably to see if she could come over tonight instead of sitting at home with her parents.
“Wesley and I got stopped by McQueen after we dropped you off.”
“What for? Did Wesley get a ticket?”
“No, because he didn’t do anything.”
They were in Suzie’s room. Suzie had grabbed half a box of doughnuts from the kitchen, the normal breakfast at her house on the weekends. Cleo waved them off. She was still full from the bacon and pancakes her mom made from scratch every Saturday morning.
“Aren’t you going to B.B. King tonight?”
“Yeah. Me and Wesley and Julie and Bud.”
Suzie saw the way Cleo’s face fell, just as she knew about Cleo’s crush on Bud Abbott. If Cleo thought spouting stuff about women’s rights and being atheist in government class would win Bud over, she hadn’t seen the way he looked at Julie. Suzie hated Coach Mayall’s class, too, but she didn’t need people like Cathy Berger offering to pray for her soul, like Cathy had offered to do for Cleo. Besides, even if her family only went to the Methodist church at Easter and Christmas, she was certain there was a God.
The booth at Denny’s was the third one down from the front door, along a long bank of big windows that faced the parking lot. Suzie and Wesley sat across from Bud and Julie, waiting for the big greasy platters of eggs and pancakes and sausages that would soak up the alcohol they drank. They chattered about the concert, arguing whether B.B. King, the opener, was better than Clapton.
A group of guys appeared outside the window. One of the guys glanced at Suzie and Wesley and stopped dead. His eyes, narrowed slits, bored into hers. Suzie told herself to breathe in and out. She knew her face had turned blotchy, her tell whenever she was upset and scared.
Cleo wouldn’t stand for this, she thought, and straightened up.
She stared back at him, a tall, skinny kid with Wranglers and a plaid shirt with pearl snaps. She scooted closer to Wesley and put her hand on his forearm. He grabbed his buddy’s arm and pointed. The whole group stopped and stared, their faces stony as they looked at them. She wanted to crawl under the table.
Suzie wanted to say something, the right thing. She tried to reassure herself by looking at Wesley. He had done what he did in the car, she saw, creating a blank canvas that no one could read, but he didn’t take his eyes off the guys outside. He didn’t shake her hand off his arm, either. They moved on.
Suzie turned from the window. Bud leaned forward and looked Suzie in the eye. “Fuck ‘em, man. They’re just a bunch of redneck assholes. Fuck ‘em.”
Suzie nodded.
She knew she’d done the right thing, standing up to the incomprehensible hatred directed at them. Inside, though, the strands of her feelings for Wesley unraveled a bit. She knew she wasn’t Cleo. The hatred mattered.
On Sunday morning Suzie had told Cleo about Denny’s. Cleo listened, occasionally interjecting “fucking assholes”, or “it figures.”
It happened again. The hallway was crowded between third period and lunch, so she couldn’t be sure who shoved themselves up against her shoulder and whispered “nigger lover,” but she was positive someone said it. She turned around, but all she saw was a sea of shirts, no one acting like they had said anything.
“Did you hear that?” she asked Cleo.
“Hear what?”
“Someone just called me a nigger lover.”
Cleo stopped dead in the hall. “Are you kidding?”
“I wish,” Suzie answered, clutching her books to her chest. She looked around nervously, trying to read the faces of the kids around her. They all looked annoyed, but maybe that was because they were blocking traffic.
“Should I tell someone?”
“To who? They wouldn’t do anything anyway.”
Cleo walked with her to the lunch room. There was something in the way her jaw clenched and in the coiled energy of her walk that told Suzie there was more to Cleo’s anger.
They sat together, Cleo trading her yogurt for Suzie’s Chips Ahoy cookies.
“You shouldn’t care what they say,” Cleo told her.
“It’s kinda true, anyway.”
Cleo’s laugh was a welcome sound for Suzie. They spent the rest of the period trying to guess which kids would say something like that.
She watched her classmates the next few weeks, especially when she sat with Wesley or talked to him in the halls. She was amazed at all the small things she had missed. Some people, like Bud Abbott, treated Wesley no differently than any of his friends. Others let their true feelings wash across their faces for a few seconds before rearranging them to a wary neutrality. Most people, though, looked through him as though he wasn’t there.
That’s when she saw how people looked at her, and at Cleo when they were together. Cleo’s comment in Mr. Mayall’s class had swept through the school. Atheists seemed to have the same effect on people that being black or liking someone black had. She was bumped and jostled more than once in the halls, the hated phrase hissed into her ear. There were mysterious phone calls at home, and cars that appeared to follow them when she was with Wesley.
For the next few weeks, Suzie vacillated. She balked at being intimidated, yet she knew she couldn’t endure being treated badly. She asked herself why she cared a dozen times a day, and then she’d think someone looked at her wrong.
Suzie had no limits: no curfew, few rules, and no consequences. She hadn’t needed them, most times. Now she was adrift, and she longed for someone to step in, like Cleo’s parents did for Cleo. Her feelings for Wesley were too nascent and she felt wholly unequipped to deal with the pressures of taking a stand. When he asked if she’d like to go to prom with him, she stammered that she’d have to ask her parents.
The phone rang during dinner time. For all their laxity about other things, Suzie’s parents insisted on family dinners. Her dad grumbled that it was probably a sales call (her friends never called between six and seven, they knew better), but rose to answer the phone anyway. Her mom asked her something about getting haircuts in the next week or two. They wanted to go to Menchaca’s the salon that just opened next to the Minimax grocery store.
“Who is this?”
“Hello? Hello?”
It was the tone of his voice that stopped their conversation. Suzie and her mother exchanged puzzled glances. Her dad came back in and sat down heavily, a frown on his face.
He looked at Suzie and asked, “Are you dating a black boy?”
Suzie’s eyes flitted between her mom and dad’s faces. She didn’t know how to answer---it wasn’t something that was talked about.
“Sort of,” she said.
“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
“Remember, I told you Verna and Joan saw them ice-skating,” her mom told her dad. She leaned towards him and placed a hand on his arm. “Who was that on the phone?”
Her dad pushed his plate away.
Suzie’s mind raced trying to think who would call her house.
“I don’t know. It’s what they said that makes me mad.”
He fumbled with his napkin. Suzie could not tell what her parents were thinking. All her focus was on breathing in and out, something she hadn’t had to do since throwing up in class way back in the fifth grade.
Her dad looked at her mom in a way she’d never seen before.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
She patted his arm. “Let’s sleep on it.”
Suzie felt like she wasn’t there for a moment, their focus on each other exposing a private moment. He turned to her.
“I don’t want you caught up in something you’re not ready to handle. Maybe we’ve…maybe we’ve let you have too much freedom...just know we are willing to play the bad guys here.”
She nodded, unsure she could speak without bursting into tears. She knew exactly what they said on the phone.
The looks, the phone calls, the knowledge that there were people she went to school with who hated her because she would date a black man diminished Suzie. Her wobbly confidence deformed into nervous anxiety. She didn’t think she was cut out for this.
There were two more phone calls and her dad, true to his word, invited Wesley into their living room. Suzie hadn’t known and was shocked when she heard Wesley’s voice from the kitchen, where she and her mom were deciding what to cook for dinner. She was in the doorway when her mother stopped her with a hand on her arm. She saw her father push aside the half-read Houston Chronicle and ask if Wesley would like a Coke or something to drink.
Wesley declined, perched on the edge of the sofa with his hands clasped loosely in front of him.
Suzie couldn’t stand it. She backed up and busied herself in the kitchen with her mom.
“Maybe we could do a tuna casserole. Could you check the pantry for cream of mushroom soup?”
“Why is Wesley here?”
“Your father and I think this has gone far enough.”
Suzie was glad she had her back to her mom. She was sure her mom would have seen the relief on her face and Suzie did not want this. She had wanted the courage to tell Wesley herself that it was all too much. Instead, she’d discovered that she wasn’t the person who would stand tall against the force of public pressure.
They both heard the end of the conversation, an almost jovial sound that surprised Suzie. She rushed out of the kitchen, a can of cream of mushroom soup forgotten in her hand, as soon as she heard the front door close. Her dad poured himself a drink, something he seldom did at home. He asked her mom if she wanted one. She declined, but came and sat down.
“How did it go?”
Suzie hadn’t entered the room completely. She clutched the can and waited. Her mom’s question perched in the air, awaiting the mixing and stirring and the first sip.
“It was…okay. He thanked me, can you imagine?”
“Thanked you?”
“For treating him like any other boy trying to date his daughter. He said that.”
They weren’t looking at her, she had somehow become incidental to something bigger. All she felt was a staggering gratitude to them that she wouldn’t have to tell Wesley she didn’t want to go with him.
The night of the prom, Suzie and her parents popped popcorn and watched a Don Knotts movie that made them all laugh. Suzie tried to remember the last time that had happened and realized it was five years ago, just before her older sister got married. She propped her feet on her dad’s lap and laid her head on her mom’s shoulder, just like she did when she was little.
She had told Cleo what happened at her house while they were on their way to Foley’s, where they went to find a dress.
“So Dad told him I couldn’t go.”
“That’s not like your parents at all!”
Suzie was glad she was driving. She couldn’t look at Cleo while battling the traffic.
“Well, we’d been getting phone calls.”
“What did Wesley do?”
Suzie looked out of the window before cutting over two lanes. She’d decided not to tell Cleo the details. Her own role in letting her parents do the dirty work for her was still too personal and raw.
“We haven’t talked about that.”
“It’s all so wrong.”
Wesley called that night. The movie was over and the news had come on. She left her parents and blocked herself off in the upstairs hallway.
“I thought you’d go, it’s your senior prom.”
“Hey, it’s fine. Probably not worth it anyway.”
Wesley never brought up the meeting with her dad. Being exiled from the prom had somehow diffused the unwanted attention from the kids at school and no one called Suzie names again. Humble’s smallness had won this time.
They talked for a while longer, about nothing important. She hung up and reached to dial Cleo’s number before she remembered Cleo was at the prom. With Peter, of all people. She went back to the living room to see what her parents were watching now.
She and her parents didn’t talk about that night for a long time. It was to be relegated to Suzie’s attic of regrets, a space that filled over the years, pushing this one off to the side. She brought it out occasionally, most often to show her friends that she was not, in fact, racist. No one pointed out that she could have told Wesley she didn’t want to go. So she soothed herself with the myth that she was too young to be expected to shoulder such a big thing, which left dangling the assumption that somehow, Wesley was not.
Melissa McInerney
The Galleria Mall glittered, a soaring arched atrium of glass and steel that symbolized 1975 Houston: flashy and awash with oil money. Suzie was meeting a friend, and not just any friend, but the one black guy at Humble High. She wasn’t defying her parents, exactly. They just gave her money and let her do what she liked, as long as she got good grades and stayed out of trouble. She was definitely defying the social order of old Humble. She knew nothing of how it felt to be outside the easy space of conformity, nor did she know how she’d hold up under the pressure. Suzie linked arms with her best friend Cleo and strode down the carpeted esplanade that overlooked the ice-skating rink, oblivious to the risk.
Cleo’s mom dropped them off at eleven. The plan was to call Cleo’s mom later and say they had a ride. Suzie wanted to engineer a ride home with Wesley Carter. She hoped he felt the same jittery lurch in his chest that she did when she was with him. The mall was just beginning to hum with Saturday shoppers. Suzie and Cleo wandered through the mall. Some stores, like St. John’s, were so fancy they were afraid to walk in. Others, like the Wild Pair and GAP they wandered through, trying on chunky boots and checking out the 501s.
Peter Kohler and her best friend Cleo had helped set today up. Peter was willing to do whatever Cleo needed because he wanted to be more than her tennis playing buddy. Suzie didn’t think he had a chance.
Suzie and Cleo clutched jackets with socks stuffed in the pockets for when they skated. They laughed and fidgeted one level up from the skating rink while they waited. They both wore high-waisted jeans, platform sandals and fitted t-shirts. Cleo was golden tan and filled up space like she belonged wherever she was. Suzie had inherited her mother’s Irish pink skin and reddish hair. Long and thin, she moved with the slouchy languidness of a 20s flapper.
Cleo had a carefully planned life, with parents who pushed her in school and made her do chores at home. She babysat for money and had a curfew. Not so for Suzie. Her mother had her at thirty-seven, ten years after her older sister, and their nonchalance with their younger daughter forced her to make her own decisions and take care of herself, however inexpertly.
They saw the guys walk up to the entrance of the rink. Suzie grabbed Cleo’s arm.
“He’s here,” she said.
“Who?”
“You know who!”
Everybody knew who Wesley was. Cleo told Suzie she had heard a cross had been burned in his yard when his family moved to Kingwood.
Wesley knew Cleo first, before he met Suzie. He worked at the Holiday Inn where Cleo lived from late July to mid-September while they waited for their house to be finished. He drove her around, dropping her off at the pool and taking her to school when he could. Cleo’s parents accepted this because they had to go to work. Cleo and Suzie had met at the pool the last week of July and connected immediately.
Their friendship deepened at Humble High. Half of the class were Humble natives, the other half had all moved there in the past few years. Outside the bubble of the pool things were different.
“They’re talking about you and Wesley. ”
Suzie had paid attention to the buzz at Humble High back then. It was important to her to fit in, and as a sophomore, her ability to discern between people whose opinion would matter later was absent.
Cleo had said, “We’re friends. It’s no big deal.”
The gossip stopped at some point, moving on to rumors that Junkyard Thomas had gotten the shit beat out of him by the police during the summer.
At lunch, behind the bleachers at football games and track meets, and at parties down by the lake, Suzie got to know Wesley. They both loved music like Jeff Beck and Boz Scaggs that no one else listened to. He had a sweet gentlemanliness that she liked.
Now she questioned Cleo in a different way, anxious to hear more about their relationship.
“Did you like him?”
“I liked him enough to go out a couple of times.”
“Weren’t you worried what people would say?”
Cleo had given her a look of puzzlement. “Not really. It’s not like he asked me to marry him or anything.”
Cleo’s breezy stance was something Suzie admired. She wanted to be like that, but inside, she still worried about what people thought of her. The more she realized she liked Wesley, though, the more she vowed to be like Cleo, and treat Wesley like any guy who asked her out.
They stepped onto the ice, the sudden rush of cold air a welcome jolt. Cleo zipped off like she had been born skating, Peter and Matt close behind. Suzie wobbled by the rails. Wesley skated backwards slowly, encouraging her.
“You’re getting it. Push your feet out a little. Whoa!”
He reached out a hand to steady her. She took it, her stomach doing a double swoop. She clutched his hand and concentrated on moving one foot, then the other, without falling down. She was so intent on skating, she didn’t notice the two women from her mom’s church who stopped and stared. Wesley dropped her hand and moved away from her suddenly. Puzzled, she struggled not to fall. She tried to catch up to him so she could grab his hand again.
She stayed upright, and soon she was leaning against him in the middle of the rink, laughing with Cleo. This time he didn’t move away. Suzie never saw the two church women. By the time they skated around the rink, the women were gone.
After skating, they all piled into a booth at Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. Suzie made sure she was sandwiched between Cleo and Wesley. Now she wished she hadn’t, as she found herself leaning back awkwardly as Cleo and Wesley talked. Peter caught her eye and made a stupid face. She giggled and poked Cleo under the table. She bobbed her head in the direction of the bathrooms.
“Stop flirting with Wesley.”
“I’m not!”
“Fine. Stop talking to Wesley.”
Suzie knew she was being unreasonable.
“Remember you have to get Peter to drive you home.”
Cleo rolled her eyes and said, “Fine.”
If Wesley noticed Cleo’s sudden interest in Matt and Peter’s long running argument between Camaros and Chargers, he didn’t let on. Later in the car, Wesley looked over at her.
“Nice move with Cleo.”
“What, you think I had something to do with that,” Suzie said, looking at Wesley.
“I’m glad you did.”
They rode along, listening to “Purple Haze” on KLOL. The DJ was playing songs from rock stars who died at twenty-eight. When they were on the highway, Wesley settled back in his seat. Suzie looked out the window and tackled the question of what she liked about Wesley. She didn’t have much experience with dating, and couldn’t figure out if she liked the notoriety of dating the ‘black guy’, or just him, for himself. They were snarled together in an imperfect knot that she could not untangle.
“Feel like a movie this weekend?”
“Sure, as long as it’s not scary or anything.”
“You don’t like scary movies?”
They were on highway 59 heading north now. Cleo was barely aware of the endless parade of tacky strip malls, junk car lots, and just beyond the frontage roads, the wards with their rows of shotgun shacks. “Riders on the Storm” came on as she answered him.
“No! The Exorcist scared the crap out of me.”
“Me too! I didn’t crawl into bed with my mom or anything, but that devil shit was intense.”
She sang along softly, happy with the way the day went. She called Cleo the next morning.
“He asked me out!”
“Good. You owe me. Matt is boring and all Peter talked about was his stupid fucking car.”
They saw “W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings” with Burt Reynolds and Jerry Reed. They went to McDonald’s and laughed at how bad it was. He kissed her after he pulled into her driveway. She hugged herself in bed that night, too keyed up to sleep. She’d had one boyfriend in the eighth grade and not once had she lain awake thinking about them.
Even though Suzie could drive, Wesley picked her up before school all that next week. They sat next to each other at lunch. On Friday, in the hallway as she was going into homeroom, someone whispered “nigger lover” in her left ear. She spun around, but no one was looking at her. She wasn’t sure, though, so she decided maybe she heard wrong.
“Did you tell your parents when you went out with Wesley,” she asked Cleo on Saturday when they drove to this Army/Navy surplus store down in Montrose.
“Yeah,” Cleo answered.
“Did they care that he was black?”
“No. They cared that I was wasting time dating.”
Suzie loved to drive all over Houston, the intense traffic and crazy roads made her feel alive. She took Allen Parkway to Montrose Blvd, where they both stared at the hippies and black people walking around Montrose’s crumbling brick duplexes and rundown 1950s apartments. Nobody walked around Humble or Kingwood, and if they did, they were white. Both Humble and Kingwood had a milky homogenous whiteness to them, except for Wesley. There were kids who looked like hippies in Kingwood, but they were far too clean and well-fed.
Suzie had turned left on Westheimer and started looking for a parking space. She wanted to ask Cleo if she had kissed Wesley, and if so, did she like it. How had that not come up before? Suzie thought they had talked about everything. Suzie thought maybe Cleo wasn’t as blasé about dating Humble’s lone black student as she acted.
She had to parallel park, a long, arduous task that ended with Cleo standing outside the car and directing her with the help of a really friendly guy with bushy brown hair and eyes that were red slits. Her questions for Cleo were momentarily forgotten. They giggled and thanked him before heading into the big warehouse with a hand-painted wooden sign that said ‘Fatigue pants - $12 Genuine Army jackets - $22.’
Suzie knew Cleo’s brash confidence about dating Wesley wasn’t totally an act. Cleo truly was not aware of how her actions looked to others. That was even more obvious after Cleo had said she was an atheist in Coach Mayall’s class. Suzie longed for that same brazenness, at least when it counted. It was funny, because when Suzie and Cleo first met almost two years ago, Suzie had been the one who met people, especially guys. While she wrestled with how to fit in at Humble High, Cleo defied conforming, a move that paradoxically made her more confident and popular.
They roamed the store and bought matching white painter’s pants. After that, they walked four blocks down South Shepherd to eat at the Hobbit Hole. Inside, the dining room was half full. Suzie loved the unpretentious place, with plants bursting green everywhere. They stood by the front door, scanning the room for an empty table. A huge bulletin board next to the door was covered with flyers: “Guitarist wanted for blues band.” “Drummer needed for established rock band.” “Wanted: roommate for four-bedroom house. No druggies.” “Lost dog. Answers to Boner.”
“What was wrong with Wesley?”
“Nothing, I just didn’t like him that way.”
There was one black couple eating at the Hobbit Hole. Suzie had started noticing how white her world was. Wesley fit into that white world very well. She wondered whether that was one of the reasons she liked him.
Suzie’s parents didn’t ask many questions about her social life. She was able to go out with Wesley without any fuss from home, unlike Cleo. He pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door. She was always waiting right there, a bit nervous that her parents would ask to meet him, although they’d never asked to meet any of her dates. She doubted they would have known she and Cleo were friends except that they hung out at her house far more often. Cleo had Charlie the Great Pyrenees who hated everyone. He stood guard whenever anyone came over. Anyway, Cleo’s parent’s many rules made it stifling to be there.
She and Wesley went out two more times before anyone else besides Cleo knew. One of the things she liked about Wesley was his ability to have a good time while they did the stupidest things, like play putt-putt golf, or bowl.
She rehashed as much as she remembered with Cleo: what they heard on the radio, the deserted cul-de-sacs ready for new homes where they went to make out, and where they went that night.
They had been talking for over the twenty-minute limit Cleo’s mom placed on phone calls. Cleo’s mom yelled a warning. Suzie blurted out why she called.
“Are you going to the boat docks Friday?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want a ride?”
“Yeah, if I can go.”
Suzie knew Wesley wouldn’t mind picking up Cleo, which is why she wanted Cleo with them. She was a bit nervous. This would be the first time she went out with him where all their friends were. He hadn’t said anything, but she bet he was a little freaked out too.
Cleo was outside when they drove up, because Charlie barked like he was going to kill whoever dared to trespass. They could hear his chesty, deep bark in the car over the radio. Cleo ran up and thwocked the seat forward so she could squeeze into the back. Suzie secretly enjoyed having the better seat than Cleo. She liked sitting up front by Wesley and punching the buttons on his stereo like it was hers.
It wasn’t full dark yet, and the fall chill couldn’t cut through the humidity that made dusk stretch out into a deep purple-gray. The boat docks were at the end of a long, dark asphalt road flanked by muddy drainage ditches, the towering pines just beyond crowding out the sky.
Suzie bounced out of the car, excited to see who was there. A group of seniors were there: Julie McElroy and Bud Abbott, Deanna McMurray and Tommie Gibson, Junkyard and Peter Kohler. They settled themselves at one of the empty cement picnic tables next to them. Over the next hour, more cars and trucks rolled in, settling into cliques all over the park.
As the deep twilight settled into charcoal night, red solo cups appeared, along with beers, joints and cigarettes. Suzie was giddy, both from the foamy Lone Star beer (she thought it tasted like horse piss would taste, but after half a cup, she didn’t notice the bitter taste as much) and the joint she had sucked on four or five times, until she got up to go to the bathroom. When she slung her arm around Wesley and put her forehead to his to whisper her plans, he moved away, with no expression on his face.
She said nothing to Cleo as they melted into the shadows, Cleo holding on to Suzie’s coat sleeve as she looked for the right tree. Cleo spoke first.
“Do you think Julie and Bud are dating?”
Suzie shrugged, then realized Cleo couldn’t see her.
“I dunno.”
She saw zero sex appeal in Bud, a quiet, pale, skinny guy who ran cross-country or some weird sport like that. He was a brain, though, so she could see why Cleo would like him, with her taking all those honors classes her parents insisted on. She almost asked if Cleo saw that Wesley was sort of avoiding her. She found the right spot, where she could lean against the tree and no one could see them. The thick pine needles absorbed the noise from her pee. She reeled a bit wrestling her pants up.
She shivered when she sat down. Wesley jumped up and returned with a blanket. He threw it to her and she spread it over her lap and Cleo’s. A few minutes later, his hand crept under the blanket and she clasped it, suddenly happy.
The party ended the way most parties at the boat docks did, the cops showed up. Officers McQueen and Novark made a big show of carding Del Coats and two other seniors, who all must have been over eighteen. Suzie was scared. She knew about Junkyard.
They had emptied their cups and shoved the crooked stack under the picnic table. The blanket was quickly stowed, along with their purses and everything else. They all tried to look calm. Suzie and Cleo leaned against one side of Wesley’s car, Suzie’s arm resting on top of the outside mirror. Wesley stood with Peter, Matt, and some other guys next to the picnic table. McQueen played his flashlight over them, stopping on Wesley for much longer than the other guys, then going back over the line and stopping again. He barked “Party’s over! Git on home now, and if I see you again tonight I’m bustin’ your asses!”
There was a flurry of motion, kids scattering off into the night. Suzie, Wesley and Cleo climbed into Wesley’s car and they joined the caravan that drove oh-so-carefully back into Kingwood. Wesley headed towards Cleo’s house. She had reminded them twice of her midnight curfew, and they made it with over an hour to spare. Wesley turned back onto Kingwood drive, towards Suzie’s house. No cars were out. The nip of cold in the air combined with McQueen’s warning must have sent everyone home. Two streets before hers, headlights appeared. Wesley looked in his mirror and said “Shit” under his breath. Suzie didn’t realize what was happening until the police lights came on.
“Wesley?”
“Just be cool.”
Suzie had never been stopped by the cops, unless you counted the time her dad got a speeding ticket when she was in the seventh grade. Her heart sped up and she felt the slow creep of sweat on her back. A car door slammed. Wesley had rolled down his window and sat motionless with his hands loose on the steering wheel.
“License and registration?”
“Yes, sir.”
He moved his hand slowly down to his wallet and opened it in the beam of the flashlight. He handed them to Officer McQueen.
“Where you headed?”
“Taking the lady home, sir.”
Suzie stared, wide-eyed. Wesley’s face had turned blank, his eyes dead-looking, but his body was so rigid she felt he could burst through the seams of his clothes at any second. McQueen took his time looking at the license and registration, the flashlight held in his right fist like a truncheon.
He slowly panned the outside of the car, the back seat, and finally, leaning over Wesley, on her. His breath rolled through the car, an onion and a dead meat smell, like he’d just had a hamburger. She saw Wesley’s mouth grimace, just a bit.
“Are you okay, Miss?”
She nodded. Inside she was quivering, both from fear and indignation. He was acting like they were criminals or something. She’d never been treated like this before, and she didn’t like it at all.
“What’s that, Miss?”
“I--I’m fine, sir.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
She saw Wesley’s left hand curl into a fist for a brief second. Having never been stopped by the cops, she wondered if that’s how they treated all the kids here.
Wesley drove her home in silence. She snuck peeks at his face, still carved in stone.
“Are we okay?”
He let out a big breath and nodded. Suzie forced herself to ask.
“Do you get stopped a lot?”
She thought he took a long time in answering her, his indecision showing in his clenched jaw.
“DWB. Driving while black. My family gets stopped all the time out here.”
Suzie didn’t know what to say. They had arrived at her house. He didn’t turn off the lights like he sometimes did, so they could talk for a while longer. She pecked him on the cheek and jumped out. She flicked off the porch light and headed straight for her bathroom. Halfway through washing her face, the adrenaline wore off. No one had ever looked at her the way Officer McQueen had, and she had seen his barely contained contempt for Wesley. She didn’t know how Wesley stood it. She barely had enough energy to brush her teeth and crawl into bed.
It was the day after the park. Cleo had walked over that morning, probably to see if she could come over tonight instead of sitting at home with her parents.
“Wesley and I got stopped by McQueen after we dropped you off.”
“What for? Did Wesley get a ticket?”
“No, because he didn’t do anything.”
They were in Suzie’s room. Suzie had grabbed half a box of doughnuts from the kitchen, the normal breakfast at her house on the weekends. Cleo waved them off. She was still full from the bacon and pancakes her mom made from scratch every Saturday morning.
“Aren’t you going to B.B. King tonight?”
“Yeah. Me and Wesley and Julie and Bud.”
Suzie saw the way Cleo’s face fell, just as she knew about Cleo’s crush on Bud Abbott. If Cleo thought spouting stuff about women’s rights and being atheist in government class would win Bud over, she hadn’t seen the way he looked at Julie. Suzie hated Coach Mayall’s class, too, but she didn’t need people like Cathy Berger offering to pray for her soul, like Cathy had offered to do for Cleo. Besides, even if her family only went to the Methodist church at Easter and Christmas, she was certain there was a God.
The booth at Denny’s was the third one down from the front door, along a long bank of big windows that faced the parking lot. Suzie and Wesley sat across from Bud and Julie, waiting for the big greasy platters of eggs and pancakes and sausages that would soak up the alcohol they drank. They chattered about the concert, arguing whether B.B. King, the opener, was better than Clapton.
A group of guys appeared outside the window. One of the guys glanced at Suzie and Wesley and stopped dead. His eyes, narrowed slits, bored into hers. Suzie told herself to breathe in and out. She knew her face had turned blotchy, her tell whenever she was upset and scared.
Cleo wouldn’t stand for this, she thought, and straightened up.
She stared back at him, a tall, skinny kid with Wranglers and a plaid shirt with pearl snaps. She scooted closer to Wesley and put her hand on his forearm. He grabbed his buddy’s arm and pointed. The whole group stopped and stared, their faces stony as they looked at them. She wanted to crawl under the table.
Suzie wanted to say something, the right thing. She tried to reassure herself by looking at Wesley. He had done what he did in the car, she saw, creating a blank canvas that no one could read, but he didn’t take his eyes off the guys outside. He didn’t shake her hand off his arm, either. They moved on.
Suzie turned from the window. Bud leaned forward and looked Suzie in the eye. “Fuck ‘em, man. They’re just a bunch of redneck assholes. Fuck ‘em.”
Suzie nodded.
She knew she’d done the right thing, standing up to the incomprehensible hatred directed at them. Inside, though, the strands of her feelings for Wesley unraveled a bit. She knew she wasn’t Cleo. The hatred mattered.
On Sunday morning Suzie had told Cleo about Denny’s. Cleo listened, occasionally interjecting “fucking assholes”, or “it figures.”
It happened again. The hallway was crowded between third period and lunch, so she couldn’t be sure who shoved themselves up against her shoulder and whispered “nigger lover,” but she was positive someone said it. She turned around, but all she saw was a sea of shirts, no one acting like they had said anything.
“Did you hear that?” she asked Cleo.
“Hear what?”
“Someone just called me a nigger lover.”
Cleo stopped dead in the hall. “Are you kidding?”
“I wish,” Suzie answered, clutching her books to her chest. She looked around nervously, trying to read the faces of the kids around her. They all looked annoyed, but maybe that was because they were blocking traffic.
“Should I tell someone?”
“To who? They wouldn’t do anything anyway.”
Cleo walked with her to the lunch room. There was something in the way her jaw clenched and in the coiled energy of her walk that told Suzie there was more to Cleo’s anger.
They sat together, Cleo trading her yogurt for Suzie’s Chips Ahoy cookies.
“You shouldn’t care what they say,” Cleo told her.
“It’s kinda true, anyway.”
Cleo’s laugh was a welcome sound for Suzie. They spent the rest of the period trying to guess which kids would say something like that.
She watched her classmates the next few weeks, especially when she sat with Wesley or talked to him in the halls. She was amazed at all the small things she had missed. Some people, like Bud Abbott, treated Wesley no differently than any of his friends. Others let their true feelings wash across their faces for a few seconds before rearranging them to a wary neutrality. Most people, though, looked through him as though he wasn’t there.
That’s when she saw how people looked at her, and at Cleo when they were together. Cleo’s comment in Mr. Mayall’s class had swept through the school. Atheists seemed to have the same effect on people that being black or liking someone black had. She was bumped and jostled more than once in the halls, the hated phrase hissed into her ear. There were mysterious phone calls at home, and cars that appeared to follow them when she was with Wesley.
For the next few weeks, Suzie vacillated. She balked at being intimidated, yet she knew she couldn’t endure being treated badly. She asked herself why she cared a dozen times a day, and then she’d think someone looked at her wrong.
Suzie had no limits: no curfew, few rules, and no consequences. She hadn’t needed them, most times. Now she was adrift, and she longed for someone to step in, like Cleo’s parents did for Cleo. Her feelings for Wesley were too nascent and she felt wholly unequipped to deal with the pressures of taking a stand. When he asked if she’d like to go to prom with him, she stammered that she’d have to ask her parents.
The phone rang during dinner time. For all their laxity about other things, Suzie’s parents insisted on family dinners. Her dad grumbled that it was probably a sales call (her friends never called between six and seven, they knew better), but rose to answer the phone anyway. Her mom asked her something about getting haircuts in the next week or two. They wanted to go to Menchaca’s the salon that just opened next to the Minimax grocery store.
“Who is this?”
“Hello? Hello?”
It was the tone of his voice that stopped their conversation. Suzie and her mother exchanged puzzled glances. Her dad came back in and sat down heavily, a frown on his face.
He looked at Suzie and asked, “Are you dating a black boy?”
Suzie’s eyes flitted between her mom and dad’s faces. She didn’t know how to answer---it wasn’t something that was talked about.
“Sort of,” she said.
“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
“Remember, I told you Verna and Joan saw them ice-skating,” her mom told her dad. She leaned towards him and placed a hand on his arm. “Who was that on the phone?”
Her dad pushed his plate away.
Suzie’s mind raced trying to think who would call her house.
“I don’t know. It’s what they said that makes me mad.”
He fumbled with his napkin. Suzie could not tell what her parents were thinking. All her focus was on breathing in and out, something she hadn’t had to do since throwing up in class way back in the fifth grade.
Her dad looked at her mom in a way she’d never seen before.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
She patted his arm. “Let’s sleep on it.”
Suzie felt like she wasn’t there for a moment, their focus on each other exposing a private moment. He turned to her.
“I don’t want you caught up in something you’re not ready to handle. Maybe we’ve…maybe we’ve let you have too much freedom...just know we are willing to play the bad guys here.”
She nodded, unsure she could speak without bursting into tears. She knew exactly what they said on the phone.
The looks, the phone calls, the knowledge that there were people she went to school with who hated her because she would date a black man diminished Suzie. Her wobbly confidence deformed into nervous anxiety. She didn’t think she was cut out for this.
There were two more phone calls and her dad, true to his word, invited Wesley into their living room. Suzie hadn’t known and was shocked when she heard Wesley’s voice from the kitchen, where she and her mom were deciding what to cook for dinner. She was in the doorway when her mother stopped her with a hand on her arm. She saw her father push aside the half-read Houston Chronicle and ask if Wesley would like a Coke or something to drink.
Wesley declined, perched on the edge of the sofa with his hands clasped loosely in front of him.
Suzie couldn’t stand it. She backed up and busied herself in the kitchen with her mom.
“Maybe we could do a tuna casserole. Could you check the pantry for cream of mushroom soup?”
“Why is Wesley here?”
“Your father and I think this has gone far enough.”
Suzie was glad she had her back to her mom. She was sure her mom would have seen the relief on her face and Suzie did not want this. She had wanted the courage to tell Wesley herself that it was all too much. Instead, she’d discovered that she wasn’t the person who would stand tall against the force of public pressure.
They both heard the end of the conversation, an almost jovial sound that surprised Suzie. She rushed out of the kitchen, a can of cream of mushroom soup forgotten in her hand, as soon as she heard the front door close. Her dad poured himself a drink, something he seldom did at home. He asked her mom if she wanted one. She declined, but came and sat down.
“How did it go?”
Suzie hadn’t entered the room completely. She clutched the can and waited. Her mom’s question perched in the air, awaiting the mixing and stirring and the first sip.
“It was…okay. He thanked me, can you imagine?”
“Thanked you?”
“For treating him like any other boy trying to date his daughter. He said that.”
They weren’t looking at her, she had somehow become incidental to something bigger. All she felt was a staggering gratitude to them that she wouldn’t have to tell Wesley she didn’t want to go with him.
The night of the prom, Suzie and her parents popped popcorn and watched a Don Knotts movie that made them all laugh. Suzie tried to remember the last time that had happened and realized it was five years ago, just before her older sister got married. She propped her feet on her dad’s lap and laid her head on her mom’s shoulder, just like she did when she was little.
She had told Cleo what happened at her house while they were on their way to Foley’s, where they went to find a dress.
“So Dad told him I couldn’t go.”
“That’s not like your parents at all!”
Suzie was glad she was driving. She couldn’t look at Cleo while battling the traffic.
“Well, we’d been getting phone calls.”
“What did Wesley do?”
Suzie looked out of the window before cutting over two lanes. She’d decided not to tell Cleo the details. Her own role in letting her parents do the dirty work for her was still too personal and raw.
“We haven’t talked about that.”
“It’s all so wrong.”
Wesley called that night. The movie was over and the news had come on. She left her parents and blocked herself off in the upstairs hallway.
“I thought you’d go, it’s your senior prom.”
“Hey, it’s fine. Probably not worth it anyway.”
Wesley never brought up the meeting with her dad. Being exiled from the prom had somehow diffused the unwanted attention from the kids at school and no one called Suzie names again. Humble’s smallness had won this time.
They talked for a while longer, about nothing important. She hung up and reached to dial Cleo’s number before she remembered Cleo was at the prom. With Peter, of all people. She went back to the living room to see what her parents were watching now.
She and her parents didn’t talk about that night for a long time. It was to be relegated to Suzie’s attic of regrets, a space that filled over the years, pushing this one off to the side. She brought it out occasionally, most often to show her friends that she was not, in fact, racist. No one pointed out that she could have told Wesley she didn’t want to go. So she soothed herself with the myth that she was too young to be expected to shoulder such a big thing, which left dangling the assumption that somehow, Wesley was not.