Sophia pulled it from her bag and offered it over.
Willa scrunched her nose. “We don’t have any classes together, but let’s meet at the foot of the girls’ building and walk to dinner together, and I’ll introduce you to the others.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other Negro students. There are five of us in total.”
“On this whole gigantic campus?”
Willa nodded. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“We are the first Negro girls to ever attend Forest. The boys started last year.” Willa slipped into her leather saddle shoes. “Since Ihave arrived, I’ve been feeling like Rosa Parks.” She smirked. “But as my mother says, the first must open the doors for the next.”
“Do you know where I can find my uniform?”
“It’s in the top of your closet. If it doesn’t fit, you’ll have to go back to the administrative office for an exchange.”
“Thank you.” Sophia stood.
“I need to stop by the library before my next class. I’ll see you at dinner.” The door closed with a click.
Sophia sat down on her bed gingerly, afraid of messing it up. Her brain was on overload, trying to understand all that she had done in just a few hours. She had moved from one end of the state to the other without parental consent. Forged her way into Forest. Had Willa said they were the first Negro girls to attend the school?
Sophia and her brothers had sat around their black-and-white television about five years before, watching a little girl named Ruby Bridges being escorted to elementary school by federal marshals. Watching this take place on television was one thing, but Sophia didn’t consider herself a front-liner. She had come here to get away from the farm, not to break barriers. To receive an education so that she could grow up and work in an office. She was barely strong enough to keep the twins from ripping each other’s hair out. And what was she going to do about getting her birth certificate?
As she rose to unpack her suitcase, she tried not to worry about any of it. Though there was one nagging thought that wouldn’t leave her mind: Ma Deary would be waking up soon. Once she found out that Sophia had escaped, would she drive to the campus and demand that she return home?
CHAPTER 6Philadelphia, PA, May 1948
OZZIE
Ozzie could still smell Rita’s honeysuckle scent on his fingers from the night before, and the knowledge that she no longer belonged to him hurt like an open wound. When he’d told her that he didn’t want to picture her with anyone else, she’d replied, “Then don’t think about it,” as she had nestled her head in the crook of his arm and their warm bodies lay tangled. “Whatever happens in Germany, just leave it there. If we find our way back to each other, it’ll be with a fresh start.”
Ozzie chewed his lip at the memory as he let the music on the car radio wash over him. Uncle Millard was driving his Vagabond-blue Oldsmobile down Dickenson Street. As he turned left onto South Broad Street, Count Basie’s “One O’Clock Jump” came over the AM station WHAT. His radio system was so sophisticated that when he hit a small pothole, the station stayed put. Uncle Millard reached for the knob and turned the radio down low.
“I was listening to that,” Ozzie said.
“I ever tell you how I came up to Philly?” Uncle Millard spoke at the same volume whether he was indoors or out: loud.
Ozzie stayed quiet. He knew Uncle Millard didn’t expect an answer, because whether he’d told him before or not was irrelevant.
“You know that redneck down in the country who took advantage of your mama, putting Sissy in her belly?”
Ozzie ground his teeth. Mama didn’t talk about that. What they also didn’t talk about was how his older sister, Sissy, left the house most mornings before dawn to travel by foot, bus, and trolley two hours from the belly of South Philly to her job at Strawbridge, a department store on Old York Road nearly to Jenkintown. Sissy with her milky skin worked in the ladies’ hat department, which, despite grumbling from the NAACP and other civil rights organizations, had a strict policy for their workers: white women only. If her manager only knew the rest of their family.
“Well, I stabbed him.”
Ozzie turned to look at his uncle. Uncle Millard was one of the coolest men in the family. Smooth toasted-brown skin, pearly white teeth, and hair conked like Nat King Cole’s. He drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other dangling a Pall Mall.
“Went into a blind rage the moment I found your mama crying, lip busted, with her dress torn. Killed the bastard on his own front porch. Before his body stopped shaking, I had cut through the woods and hopped the train to Philly.” Uncle Millard tapped the ashes of his cigarette in the ashtray.
“You jiving.”
“Serious as a heart attack.” He rocked his head. “Shit. I was so scared that I left my damn knife in him.”
“Evidence?” Ozzie said, wide-eyed.
