“I don’t let people stand me up. My mother was the most popular girl in the Mississippi Delta. My aunt was Maid of Cotton. I don’t get stood up, even by Yankee lawyers who went to Harvard.” I was half serious, half joking, completely scared to death. I was pulling away from him, away from his strange gentle power, but he wouldn’t let me go. He kept on holding on to me.

“I need you, Rhoda. Stay with me tonight. Talk to me. Stand by me.”

“I’m married to someone, Jim. I have a husband and two children.” I pulled away from him then and went back into the house and told everyone goodnight. Then I went into Derry’s bedroom and tried to call Malcolm, but his line didn’t answer. It was Saturday night. He’s out with someone, I decided. He’s screwing someone somewhere. This goddamn Yankee lawyer stands me up and Malcolm’s got another girlfriend, or two or three or four. He’s representing a black man who raped a white girl. My daddy will kill me if he finds out I’m with these people. They’ll put me in a jail. I went into my bedroom and put on my nightgown and took a sleeping pill. Doctor Freer had given me a bottle of tranquilizers and a bottle of sleeping pills to counteract the sleeplessness caused by the diet pills he was again supplying me with. I climbed into the bed and waited for the drug to reach my brain.

Irise and Charles William came to the door of the bedroom twice to try to talk to me but I wouldn’t talk to them. I was tired of this adventure now. I wanted to go home.