Sophia carried her bag up the formidable stone staircase, looking around to see if anyone was watching her. There was a squat Negro man trimming the hedges, but he was focused on the task at hand. She pushed the double doors open and stepped into the cool lobby, following the sign to the administrative office. Behind the desk sat a pale woman with tendrils curled around her ear.
“Can I help you?” She took in Sophia with her thin lips set.
“Yes.” Sophia’s voice squeaked. “I’m Sophia Clark. A new student here.” She held out the papers that Mrs. Brown had given her. Last night Sophia had forged Ma Deary’s signature.
The woman silently picked Sophia apart with her blue eyes before accepting the paperwork. “You from that program? The Prosser Foundation?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tenth grade. I’ve just arrived.”
“Don’t you have any parents?” the woman said, looking past Sophia.
“They work in D.C. and just dropped me off to get ahead of traffic,” she said, repeating the lie that she and Walter had concocted.
“Where’s your birth certificate?”
Sophia paused. Mrs. Brown hadn’t told her to bring it.
“You’re not supposed to start school without a birth certificate,” the woman said.
Sophia stuttered. “I… must have… left it in my mother’s car.”
The woman wheeled her chair to the file cabinet behind her. She spun around, thumbing through the second drawer. What if she told Sophia she had to go back home? She was sure Walter had left. The woman turned toward her desk with a sheet of paper that she pushed toward Sophia.
“We need that birth certificate, but I’m going to go ahead and let you get settled. Here’s your room assignment and your class schedule.”
The woman looked over at a young brunette with white ribbons in her hair, standing against the wall. “Patty, will you show Sophia to the W5 dormitory?”
Patty shook her head violently. “No, ma’am. My parents told me I cannot talk to any of the Negro students.”
The woman pursed her lips in a way that conveyed to Sophia that she was satisfied with Patty’s answer. She pointed. “Well, if you go down the steps and make a right, you’ll come to a path. Walk past the tennis courts, and on the other side of the pool, you’ll see a big bush. Then go to the left, and the dorms will be right there. Can’t miss it. Big old brick building. Room 202.” The woman said this loudly, like Sophia was hard of hearing.
“Thank you,” Sophia said. She walked back to the door, where she had strategically left her train case out of sight because it was tatteredand the handle frayed. As she moved through the double doors, she heard the woman mutter, “God help us. The founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves with all this desegregation stuff. Just doesn’t make sense.”
The directions were so awful that, by the time she finally located the dormitory, sweat had stained her only white blouse. Ma Deary’s platform Mary Janes clicked loudly against the porcelain-tiled floor. As Sophia read the numbers on the doors, she could still smell manure on her despite her water-bucket bath. She felt the grime of dirt underneath her fingernails, even though she had used a piece of cardboard to clean-pick them on the drive over. The farm was not easy to wash off. It was like a bloodstain. She could blot it, but it never quite went away.
According to the numbers, she had made it to the correct floor. Room number 202 was the last one on the right. Now that she was standing in front of the brown wooden door, she wondered what to do next. Should she knock or just open it? She decided to do both and rapped twice while turning the knob. The door scratched against the floor, and the hinges creaked. The room was sunlit, spacious, and smelled of lavender. On the left was a bed made with blankets folded and tucked neatly around the edges of the mattress.
“Hello,” Sophia called.
On the right was a shapely girl stretched out on the bed, clutching a book. Her wavy hair was neatly parted down the middle and gathered in two ponytails. When she saw Sophia, she swung her feet around and sat up.
“Hi. I think we are roommates?” Sophia made it sound like a question, but it was most definitely a statement. Her name was tacked to the door.
“It’s nice to make your acquaintance,” the girl said formally. Thenshe stood, wiped her hand on her dark gray skirt, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Wilhelmina Pride, but my friends call me Willa.”
Her palm was as soft as cotton, and Sophia was painfully aware of how callused and dry her hand must have felt in comparison. “Nice to meet you, Willa. I’m Sophia Clark.” She opened her mouth to say her friends called her Rusty. But that wasn’t true. Now, with her new black hair, at her new school, she would be known only as Sophia.
Even though Sophia stood in her best skirt and blouse, she paled next to her new roommate. Wilhelmina had startling green eyes and looked well kept. Even in the drab school uniform, she still looked like well-to-do was her everyday attire.
“Are you a freshman?” Willa asked, breaking the silence.
“No, sophomore.”
“You do realize that you’ve already missed the welcome parties and the first two days of class? Did you have a long way to travel?”
“Sort of.” Sophia couldn’t tell the truth of why she’d arrived late and was glad when Willa changed the subject.
“Well, I’ve been hiding out here during my free period because some of these white people are positively crazy. Lunch is at eleven-thirty if you are hungry. Have you received your schedule?”
