“Oh, come on, Roxanne! You and I can’t even have a sandwich together without the locals looking for a rope. California ain’t Mississippi, but it ain’t heaven either, and it ain’t like the old hymn where all God’s children got wings.” He finished his drink, stood up, and paced. “It’s like there’s a deep channel, a well of unrest and hate and ugliness that runs under this whole country. It’s there. It’s never gone away. Not just the violence visited on a boy like Emmett Till, but the daily violence, indignities that everyone expects, shit that no one can shake free of. Admit it, when you first met me, you thought I was Reg’s help. You thought I should stand up and hotfoot it out there to tell Reg you arrived! People like me existed to park your car or pump your gas.”

“I don’t think that anymore, Terrence. Give me some credit for growing up.”

“I do, baby! But it’s like I’ve been saying to you all along! America has to grow up. We got one person, Mrs. Parks, saying, ‘Enough!’ Mrs. Parks knew exactly what she was doing. Exactly. She told Reverend Cooke she was thinking of Emmett Till when she refused to stand up so that white man could sit down. The Montgomery Improvement Association knows what they’re doing. And so does Mr. Branch. And so do I.” He took a deep breath. “This is my moment, baby. I gotta grab it.”

The stories rolled round in my head, awful stories of terrible things done to black men in places like Mississippi and Alabama. I’d seen it myself, here in California in the raid on the Comet Club, how much worse Negroes were treated. My heart constricted to think of the danger he would be in. There flashed in my mind a glimmer of why Coralee and Ruby and Clarence were so hostile to me. If I loved Terrence, and I did, if I was going to be with him, and I was, then I had to accept what being with him meant. “I hope you’re not driving the Porsche.”

“If those crackers see me in a Porsche, they’re like to string me up before I hit the city limits. No, I’ll ride the train.”

“Where will you stay?”

“I got my trusty Green Book to tell me all the places that will feed and shelter Negroes in the Cradle of the Confederacy, Miss Scarlett.”

“Please don’t call me that. Not even as a joke.”

“Sorry, baby.” He reached out and ran his hands over my hair.

“You’ll be in danger.”

“I’m in danger here. Right now. With you. What we’re doing is dangerous.”

“Not the same kind of danger.”

“Oh yes, the same kind of danger. Why else would we have to keep ourselves a secret?”

“How long will you be gone?”