The Education of a WASP

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven In late spring of 1962, as I dismantled, discarded, and packed up five years of accumulation in a house we never expected to leave, the newspaper headlines were not of crimein -the-streets, but of crime-in-the-executive-suites_ Billy Sol Estes and J ames Hoffa made the news. Noone speculated on the long hot summer ahead; riots were unthinkable then. I used my excitement about our new house in Philadelphia to dull any other feelings about leaving Omaha. It worked until the night before I left. Paul and Joan came to say goodbye . We'd see each other again; Joan promised to come to all the Eastern medical conventions. But in our driveway, while Paul, muttering imprecations, carried the enormous rubber plant I was leaving for Joan, I suddenly clung to Joan and sobbed. It was not my good-bye to her or to our house or to our neighborhood that hurt; it was some much more final and forlorn ending. I remembered Joan, walking up this same driveway the day we met. My optimism and my belief that Americans-all of them-did care about others was so unshakeable . Joan had gradually and reluctantly let me see the real - 127 - world. Now I was sobbing on Joan's shoulder because I had wished so hard that my world had turned out to be real; Joan was crying, too. Maybe for the same reason. In Philadelphia, Ben carried me across the threshold of our new house to the amazement and hilarity of the children. Together , we explored each room. Few things live up to our memory or expectations, but this house, empty now and all ours, was even lovelier than I remembered. In this home only good things could happen. As soon as we had finished exploring the house I telephoned Barbara Hamilton, Joan Benson's friend who had become mine. Barbara's frequent letters were strewn with enthusiasm and exclamation points. Her voice on the telephone had been rich with friendliness and full of plans for the things we could do together with the children once we were in Philadelphia. I hadn't written to tell Barbara that we had bought a house three blocks from hers; I wanted to save it for a surprise when we moved in. Now I dialed her number to tell her the good news. Barbara's voice raised in excitement that we were so near. Our children would go to Henry School together! Then, "But I didn't think you could buy west of \'\layne Avenue." At first I thought she believed the park began there. No, I explained, we were a block away from the park. Yes, she knew that, but she thought you couldn't buy the houses there. Our conversation was getting more and more confusing. I said \Vell, we had and there were two other houses for sale here. Barbara must have put my denseness down to my having come from a place like Omaha. Finally, she said, patiently, slowly, "Yes, but I thought we couldn't buy them." An unbelievable thought came into my mind and I hesitated helplessly before I asked, as I had to: "Barbara, do you know I'm white?" There was a soft gasp and a silence at the other end of the - 128 - line. During Barbara's silence that seemed so long I struggled with feelings WASPs seldom need to cope with. I was saying, in my mind, "Barbara, please see me. Don't just see my color and close up." For the first time in my life I was being judged on something I couldn't help. But there was no mistaking the difference in Barbara's voice when she spoke again. Her voice was formal now. No, she hadn't known I was white. I plunged ahead asking when she could come to see our new house. Stiffly, she said, "Well, when would it be convenient for you?" (This was, I learned later, her first "test" of me; most white people, she believed, "tell us to come at a specific time so we won't run into the wrong people.") I said come anytime, but come soon. Now? Barbara did agree to come that day. My first view of her was from an upstairs window. A woman, her dark skin emphasized by a yellow dress, got out of a Volkswagen in front of our house...