Part 4 (1/2)

”I'm not sure I want to get your drift.”

”What do you mean you don't want to? You're here, aren't you? s.h.i.+t, put the suit on, Bezellia. Lord, it's not like you two are getting married. Although I would give anything to see the expression on Aunt Elizabeth's face if you brought Samuel home to announce your engagement. I wonder if the Register would run your picture on the society page or the front page.”

”Cornelia, just shut up!” I exclaimed, and then threw a towel over her head and walked into the bathroom. She was still laughing as I undressed and slipped into the bathing suit. I looked in the mirror and rubbed my stomach, and then turned to the side so I could admire the little white ruffles stretched across my bottom and the two full b.r.e.a.s.t.s now neatly covered in two small pieces of raspberry fabric. Mother would not like the way I looked in this suit. But the girl looking back at me in that bathroom mirror suddenly felt a little bit older and a little more certain of what she wanted.

We each wrapped a towel around our waist and grabbed some of the magazines piled on the floor beside Cornelia's bed. We raced down the stairs like we did when we were little. She pushed her body ahead of mine and took the lead. As we pa.s.sed through the kitchen, Cornelia tossed me a bottle of Coppertone and handed me a cold bottle of Tab out of the refrigerator. She practically lunged through the screen door, laughing and singing, making plenty of noise so that Samuel was sure to hear us.

And as soon as I stepped onto the patio, I saw him. He had a large roll of chicken wire resting on his right shoulder and was headed back inside the coop. He was much taller and thicker than he had been only a year ago, looking much more like a grown man than the boy I had known down by the creek. Cornelia, who was just ahead of me, poked me with her elbow and instructed me to stick my chest out a little farther.

”Hey there, Princess,” Samuel hollered from the other side of the yard. Funny, I thought, how the sound of that word felt good to me now. ”Don't let that face of yours get burned again. Sun is mighty strong today.” Then he tipped his same tattered blue ball cap, just like Nathaniel would do, and walked inside the coop, the roll of chicken wire still resting on his shoulder.

”I'll see you later,” I yelled back, but Samuel had already disappeared.

”Cool, Bee, very cool,” Cornelia chanted. ”Remember, you have to act a little disinterested. Boys always want what they can't have, especially the black ones.”

”Cornelia Grove! Where in the world are you getting this c.r.a.p?”

But my cousin just rolled her eyes, wanting me to think I was the one with no sense. I stretched out on a lounge chair and opened a magazine. And by the time the sun had made its way across the swimming pool, I felt as though I had read every copy of Seventeen Cornelia owned, some dating back to 1961. I had painted my toenails pink, drunk three bottles of Tab, and polished off almost an entire tin of Charles Chips. I was lying on my stomach and slipping into a satisfied, contented sleep when I heard a loud splash and felt cold drops of water stinging my back. I looked up and found Samuel standing in the swimming pool with his arms crossed, resting on the concrete edge.

”I told you not to stay out in the sun too long. Looks like your back has done gotten red as a ripe tomato.”

As I s.h.i.+fted my weight onto my left shoulder, I could feel my skin, hot and tender. But just like that day down by the creek, I acted as though I didn't care. ”What are you doing in the pool? I thought you were here to work.”

”Sounding a bit like your mama, Miss Bezellia. But just so you know, we're done for the day. And your uncle always lets me swim here. You know this ain't a whites-only pool,” he added, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

”Sorry. I didn't mean it to come out that way.” I slowly flipped onto my back and lifted my left leg, carefully bending it at the knee, hoping to look more like Brigitte Bardot than a self-conscious, prejudiced teenage girl.

”Why don't you get in? I bet that back of yours could use some cooling off.”

Cornelia looked up from her lounge chair, and even though there was a full bottle of Tab under her chair, she said she needed to run inside and get something cold to drink. She told Samuel she'd bring him a Coca-Cola. And then with her eyes, she told me to get up and walk toward the concrete steps at the shallow end of the swimming pool.

I dipped my toe into the cold blue water and quickly yanked my foot back onto the hot concrete. Samuel walked toward the steps and held out his hand. He wrapped his cool, wet fingers around mine, and like a preacher guiding a sinner into the waters of salvation, he led me into my cousin's swimming pool.

”That sure is a pretty bathing suit you got on there.”

”It's Cornelia's.”

”Well, it sure looks pretty on you.” But I was too cold or too nervous to respond to his compliment. I pulled myself up on my tiptoes, trying to lift my body out of the water, and stretched my arms across my bare stomach. ”Girl, you got to move around a little.” Samuel dropped my hand and started swimming, gracefully extending one arm above his head and then the other, turning to the side to take in a full breath of air.

Mother had always told me that black people couldn't swim. She said their bodies were too thick and they just sank to the bottom like a lead weight. But Samuel swam right to me, and when he put his feet on the bottom of the pool, we were standing face-to-face.

”Come on, Bezellia.”

”I'll swim when I'm good and ready, thank you very much.”

”We'll see about that,” Samuel taunted, and then he dove under the water. He swam directly beneath me and put his head between my legs, lifting me out of the pool.

”d.a.m.n it, Samuel!” I screamed.

”Yeah,” he answered, ignoring my protests. ”Now stand up on my shoulders and dive into the water.”

”No!”

”Go on, Bezellia, you can do it. I've got you. Besides, there's no other way down from here.” He started hopping from one foot to the other, jostling my body from left to right. ”Come on. Like I said, there's only one way down from here.”

”Okay, okay.” I took a deep breath and carefully lifted my right foot onto his right shoulder, pausing for a moment to regain my balance. ”I hate you right now, Samuel Stephenson,” I snapped and held his hands tightly in mine. I slowly lifted my left leg up and onto his left shoulder, crouching on top of his back, again trying to balance myself before pulling my entire body up and out of the water.

”Good going, Princess, I knew you could do it.”

I stood up straight and tall just long enough to yell at Cornelia, begging her to stick her head out the back door and take a good look at her cousin. And then I dove, arms straight above my head, into the water. When I came up, Samuel was cheering for me, and I swam right back to him like a piece of iron drawn to a magnet. He grabbed my hands and pulled me into the shallow end, dragging me across some line that we both knew had been drawn deep in the dirt beneath that swimming pool long before the two of us were ever born.

I started spending as much time as I could at Cornelia's house. And with Mother gone and Father preoccupied with Mrs. Hunt, it wasn't hard to find my way there. Samuel worked on the chicken coop until late in the afternoon. But before he went home, we met by the edge of the swimming pool. Cornelia and Uncle Thad were always nearby, but somehow neither one of us ever seemed to notice them being there. And with our feet dangling in the water, we talked about school and family and movies and growing up. I had always figured our dreams would be as different as the color of our skin, but they weren't really.

Samuel dreamed of marching with Dr. King, although he wasn't convinced that sitting at a lunch counter was going to get his people where they needed to be. He dreamed of getting married and raising a family. But he said, more than anything else, he dreamed of having children who could do and be what they wanted without people spitting on them or calling them names.

I simply dreamed of living in a house where it didn't matter whether your linens and towels were monogrammed and your friends were members of the Junior League. I dreamed of living in a house where your mother called you by your name, saying it with genuine love and affection. I dreamed of being a woman who didn't need a husband who owned cashmere and convertibles. So I guess, in the end, Samuel and I wanted pretty much the same thing, just to be ourselves.

He asked me one afternoon, as the sun fell behind the house, if I remembered that day down by the creek when he first called me a princess. I told him I did. He asked if I remembered the promise he made to buy some land of his own and a big house just like mine. He wondered if I believed him now-believed that he was going to be more than the son of a house servant. I told him I did.

”Good,” he said, and then he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a thin gold bracelet. He clasped it around my wrist and made me promise not to take it off until that land and that house was his.

Cornelia cooed when she saw it. She said our love was Shakespearean, a love to last for all time, a love greater than Samuel and I could ever comprehend. I reminded her that she had told me the very same thing about Tommy Blanton. Cornelia ignored me and rolled her eyes again and continued with her talk of Romeo and Juliet. But when Nathaniel came to get me at the end of the day and saw a tiny flash of light bouncing off my wrist, I understood that my cousin was right-just like the love between a Montague and a Capulet, ours was dangerous and forbidden.

Nathaniel asked me to collect my things and meet him at the car. Even though his voice was calm and steady, his eyes were suddenly dark and fearless. And for once, I felt nervous standing next to him. He left me by the pool and marched toward the chicken coop. I wanted to warn Samuel, but I just stood there, not knowing what to do. Cornelia rushed to my side and tried to convince me that Nathaniel knew nothing about us. Something else must be bothering him, she said. ”You know how emotional they can be.”

”Cornelia! I cannot believe you said that-you of all people.”

”I didn't mean anything by it. Come on. Don't get mad at me. I'm not the enemy here.”

”I'm not so sure about that, Cornelia. d.a.m.n it, if you hadn't called me in the first place, none of this would be happening right now. Some things are just better left alone.” I grabbed my towel and swimsuit, nudging my cousin out of the way, and headed out the back gate. I was almost to the car when the sound of my uncle's voice, urgent and plaintive, drew my attention back to the side of the house.

”Nathaniel, I promise you, nothing inappropriate has gone on here. I've been here every minute of every day.”

”I'm not calling you a liar, Mr. Grove. You're a very good man. Samuel's just got other obligations to tend to. If you need help with that coop, I'll come by after leaving your brother's and finish what my son started.”

”Nathaniel, please hear me out.”