“Yes, Missus Willson, I have. That’s why I need the job. I went to college for two years and need the money to finish. I’ll be honest and tell you I can only work for two years. Then, I think I’ll have enough to go on back to school.”

That was exactly what Mother wanted. “Well, then, I’d say you have the job.” She was very happy with her ingenuity. “We’d like to help get you through college. We pay well, and two years is a long time. By then we can find another maid, don’t you think?”

Bethrah smiled. I looked at Missus Caliban and she was really glowing and proud to see a colored girl going to college and willing to work as a maid to do it.

“You can save some money too.” Mother was really very pleased. “You can stay here with us, and still get a good salary.”

“That would be nice, thank you,” Bethrah said.

So we hired her right then. We sat around in the kitchen (I didn’t go out) and felt happy and liked each other very much.

Bethrah moved in and started to work, and I just talked to her all the time. In fact, I don’t know what I would’ve done without her, and now I’m not speaking about shoes and silly things. She really taught me a lot about life. Like the time I went to a party in New Marsails with Dewey and I met this boy there, whose name was Paul. We danced all night together, and so I told Dewey I wanted Paul to take me home.

Well, of course we parked on the Ridge, which was all right because I wanted to park with him. I was sitting there in the car looking at the stars. They looked like lightning bugs pipping around. I was blinking in a way to make them look like they were hanging on silver threads. It was very romantic.

Paul slid over and yawned and then let his arm fall around my shoulder. Boys are so funny; they always stretch or yawn to get an arm around your shoulder. I leaned against him. “Isn’t it a beautiful night though?” I said. I thought he was shy and I wanted to get him in the mood.

So he took me under the chin with his hand and turned my face up and kissed me, and I kissed him back. We did that for a little while.

Then all of a sudden I felt like I was surrounded by hands. There was a hand on my breast. That was all right, I suppose. Can’t very much happen with a hand on your breast, at least not to me—I’m not very sexy there. All it does is relax me.