That was when I heard footsteps in the kitchen and thought it was Mother and started to run up the stairs, because you know mothers don’t at all understand things like that.

I ran into my room and closed the door and stood there breathing really hard. I couldn’t stop crying or keep quiet. So I went to the bed and put my head in the pillow to muffle the noise. The door opened and closed and I turned around and started to think up a lie to tell Mother, but it was Bethrah standing there in a bathrobe. She looked at me and got really alarmed when she saw my face, and came over, sat next to me, put her arm around my shoulder, and asked me what happened.

At first I was going to lie to her. After all, you don’t like to tell anyone you got trapped in a car because everybody knows you really got there because you wanted to. But then I just couldn’t think of a good enough lie, so I told her the truth. “You don’t think that’s bad, do you, Bethrah?” It sounded really strange asking her opinion when she was colored.

“No. Why should I?” She hugged me. It was like she was my big sister and I felt a little better. “No. That’s happened to me, too.”

“Really?” I looked at her and she nodded.

“When I was a freshman, honey, I went out with this basketball player. I always had to go out with basketball players because I’m so tall.” (You see how she was, how she could talk that way about being tall. Most tall girls are ashamed of it and slouch. But Bethrah used to stand very straight. I once asked her whether she was ashamed of being tall and why she stood so straight and she said: “How else can I let a boy know I have breasts if I don’t stand up straight.”) “I went out with this basketball player and we parked in his car, and I thought he must be a magician, his hands moved so fast. You know what I did?”

“Tell me. Nothing I did worked. He just laughed at me.”

“Well, this’ll work all right! I just balled up my fist and hit him right in the—” She clicked her tongue. Then she laughed sort of embarrassed.

“You did? Really?”

“Yes, I did!” She was leaning toward me now, whispering. “And he yelled! I thought he was going to die right there, and I’d have to drive home. I couldn’t drive a car then and would’ve killed myself too.” She laughed again. And I started to laugh and felt a great deal better.

“But could I do that? I mean, suppose he told?”