July 2, 1960

Dear Diary,

I've got a secret and I'm bustin' to tell you. This is the truth. A journal. My journal. I don't know where to begin. Begin with the worst, I guess. It hurt me bad. But I have to start there, in the beginning.

The first week of July, one year since my Grandma Eldoris and I came to California, found me in the registrar's office at the local college checking on my application for the fall semester. At first, the secretary was real nice to me, telling me how pretty I was and I shouldn't have any problem catching a husband. The only reason most girls go to college, she said, was to get a "Mrs. Degree."

A petticoat degree, I call it.

I want to be a lawyer, I told her. I believe our country is beginning a whole new era, what with the Civil Rights Act being passed a few months ago to help Negroes register to vote. I want to embrace these times and be part of them, seeing how civil rights law is on the cutting edge of change in the South. That's where I'm from, I'm proud to say, Summer Bend, Alabama.

She looked at me over her plain, plastic frame glasses like I was crazy, advising me that her college offered proper classes for young ladies like English literature and Art History, then she went to get my application.

When she came back, she was as cold as an Eskimo Pie. She said there was a problem with my application, that it was too late to process it for the fall semester because my high school transcript hadn't arrived from Jefferson High. My stomach clenched with fear. I knew she was lying because I could see the envelope from my old high school sticking out of the file, the Alabama address dark and clear against the white paper.

What was wrong with my application? I asked her, trying to keep my voice steady. Check it again, please. Louise Pardue. Good grades, Honor Roll, though I don't have any extracurricular activities listed under my name. I didn't want to explain why, that back home in Alabama I wasn't allowed to take part in school plays or be in school clubs because I'm, well, I didn't want to tell her. Instead, I told her I had to work after school to support my grandmother and didn't have time for stuff like that.

She turned her back on me, dismissing me like I was a sugar fly buzzing around her face. I know why. I checked the little box on the college application that said "Negro."

I stuffed my pride in my back pocket and held up my chin. This wasn't the first time it happened to me. I was turned down last semester, too, when I tried a different college and they also "lost" my transcript. Oh, they didn't come right out and say they don't want me because I'm colored, but I know that's the reason. What else can it be? I've got the grades to get into college and the secretary was nice to me when she didn't know I was a Negro.

I asked her again what was wrong with my application and she got uppity like white folks do when they're in charge and they've got the power, like they expect you to lick their boots. She said her college was real particular about who they admitted and I just wouldn't fit in.

I felt like crying but I kept my emotions to myself, just as I have most of my life.

"Don't show folks what you're feeling, Louise, especially white folks," my Grandma Eldoris always says, "because then they's got you, child, like a mouse caught by its tail in a trap. You're still kickin', but you ain't going nowhere."

Well, I am going somewhere. And here's where my secret comes in.

On my way out of the registrar's office I saw a notice on the bulletin board. A notice for volunteers to work as Golden Girl hostesses at the Democratic National Convention coming to Los Angeles next week. Golden. As in white, Anglo Saxon blondes. Not a light-skinned Negress from the South like me. So many times I wish I was white 'cause white girls have this invisible aura around them, a kind of permission slip that allows them to go through the front door of department stores, sit downstairs, not way up in the balcony in the movie theaters, eat lunch at restaurant counters, and use restrooms virtually unnoticed.

So I started thinking. The secretary at the registrar's office thought I was white before she looked at my application. It happens to me a lot, seeing how I'm light-skinned and my hair is long and straight. I've learned not to say anything. I give them what I call "the smile" and get on with my business, like the time I took the bus to downtown Los Angeles by myself and sat down at the lunch counter at The Pantry. No one noticed me. No one.

So--

I took the application home and checked the little box that said "Caucasian," then sent it back to convention headquarters. I requested to work for Senator Kennedy, seeing how I think he's the best man for the job. In case you didn't know, Jack Kennedy stood up to the Mississippi Republican chairman during his re-election campaign to the Senate in '57 when he challenged the Senator about his views on integration and Kennedy said that he believed in integrated schools.

'Course, not much has happened in integrating the schools where I come from. Alabama is still one of five states without mixed public school classrooms, so when Grandma Eldoris and I came to California to be with Mama, I thought I had a chance to get into college.

I'm gonna keep trying. You see, I've got a plan. I'm scared, 'cause if I fail I could get arrested like civil rights activist Rosa Parks did for not giving up her seat on the bus back when I was in junior high. I remember it so well. It was right before Christmas in '55, and this seamstress, her arms filled with holiday packages, paid for her fare at the front of the bus, then she had to go around to the back door where Negroes got on. When the bus got crowded, they told her to give up her seat to a white person. She wouldn't. Couldn't, she told them. Nobody cared that she was a hardworking woman, her eyes red and tired behind her square glasses from doing so much close work. No, they told her that she was breaking race laws because she wouldn't give up her seat on the bus. So she went to jail.

I pray I have her courage.

Nervous, I waited for the mail today, knowing I couldn't back out now. Then it happened. I received a letter with the official stamp of the Democratic National Convention Committee telling me how pleased they are to welcome me "as a Golden Girl hostess for the upcoming Democratic National Convention to be held at the Los Angeles Sports Arena." And I should report to the Biltmore Hotel for orientation on July 9th. That's the day Senator Kennedy arrives in Los Angeles. (Do I dare go to the airport, Dear Diary, and join the crowds meeting his plane?)

The letter also said if I needed a place to stay close to the convention area, I should send them back my request for accommodations. Which I just mailed, thank you.

So, Dear Diary, here is my plan: If I can pass for white at the convention next week without anybody knowing, why can't I check the little box that says "Caucasian" the next time I apply to college? 'Course, the only thing worse than being passed over for college because I'm colored is telling my grandmother that I'm passing for white. Grandma Eldoris is gonna holler like a cat skinned of every one of its nine lives when she finds out what I've done. She's always saying that she never believed little brown girls could go to college.

Well, I'm brown on the inside but I can pass for white on the outside, and going to college is the most important thing in the world to me. My mama would be so proud. She didn't have the chance to go to school, seeing how the school calendar revolves around cotton-picking time back home and most colored folk quit school as soon as they can read and write. I want to do it for my mama. She was also light-skinned like me and tried to live her life in black and white America, but she discovered that it was impossible to align those two worlds. In the end, neither one came to her aid.

I shiver. The feeling I get when I think about her, the feeling that gives me strength, is happening again. The memory or hurt or mood or whatever it is that haunts me, also drives me forward. I can handle anything, including racism, prejudice as I know it, if I stay strong and remember what Mama taught me. They can't beat you unless you give up.

I am not giving up. I turned eighteen two weeks ago. I'm a woman now and I know what I want.

I want to be a Kennedy Girl.

* * *

P.S. I'm all nervous inside right now. Very nervous,

wondering what will happen at the convention next week. For now, though, I can't help but wonder what the other Kennedy Girls are like, where they come from, what their dreams are. Are they all scared like me?

AFTON

The Fourth of July, 1960
Huntington Beach, California

Sister Mary Celestine said it was a sin to hate my father, but sometimes I can't help myself.

Like today. It's the Fourth of July and I want to go to the beach. Hang ten or twenty or whatever they call it, but no, my father says I have to come home early for a family barbecue so I can meet his new partner's son. Just what I need. Another date with a boy who cares only about hot rods and football scores.

My father digs picking out boyfriends for me, especially when it also helps his business out. He also picked out what college I'm going to in the fall (I graduated high school less than a month ago) and he tries to pick out what books I read. I've got a trick for that. I put the plastic book jacket from Bartlett's Quotations on whatever novel I'm reading (I've already read Irving Wallace's The Chapman Report three times) and he doesn't know the difference. Yeah, if my father could get into my head and tell me what to think, he'd do that, too.

Not today. The beach is, as the song goes, where the boys are and my father isn't.

I zip barefoot over the hot sand, trying my best to catch up to the boys racing ahead of me. It's not happening. They don't want me anywhere near them. They treat me like a piece of taffy sticking to their sandals when I show up. C'mon, give? I ask them, wanting to know. I find out why real fast.

They're surfers.

I'm a chick.

"Girls don't surf," they snarl at me, "they watch."

I shoulda known that's why all the girls are lying on the sand in their cute two-piece bathing suits, pretending to read their dog-eared copies of Return to Peyton Place while they drool over the guys. By the looks of their dry bathing suits, I bet the closest these girls ever get to water is their own perspiration.

Not me. I wanna surf. I wanna fly over the waves and be free like a bird. Yeah, free.

That's a dream of mine. Sometimes I don't think I'll ever be my own person, what with my father always making decisions for me and watching me all the time. He's what we call an overseer. A super strict parent. Can you believe?

Good thing I got my driver's license last year so I can get around on my own. You wouldn't believe it, but they don't even have busses out here in Orange County, though we're only forty-five miles south of Los Angeles. My mom hated leaving L.A. and we'd only been there for a few months, but my dad is a building contractor and there's so much home development going on in this area (a new three bedroom, one and three-quarter bath tract house sells for about sixteen thousand dollars), so here we are.

And here I am.

Surf's up.

I race out into the ocean and jump into the first wave I see. I shiver all over as the spray of the cool Pacific hits me in the face. My mouth is open and I can taste the salt water, but I don't care. I dig it. It's boss.

"Hey, you, watch out!" I hear a guy yelling as he whips his board around and starts heading toward me.

"My name is Afton!" I yell back, then quickly submerge my head underwater when I see this humongous surfboard with this guy standing on top of it coming straight at me.

I open my eyes underwater but I can't see a thing. It's all green, like looking through a glass Coke bottle. My ears fill up with water fast, but I'm cool. I'm a good swimmer. I've been dunked in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans by more than one gord.

When I hit the surface, I see surfers everywhere. It's like the ocean is alive with a new kind of sea creature wearing colorful swimming trunks. Five, six, maybe seven guys on surfboards are either paddling out or zipping over the waves on their longboards, their lean, bronze bodies poised like bows on a ship. Outta sight.

I start treading water, my head bobbing above the ocean surface. I feel like I'm spying on them in their private guy world--a world where girls aren't allowed.

Why not? I ask. How come there are so many rules about what guys can do and what girls can't? I figure it's like we're all assigned seats in the bus on the road to life.

My question is, why can't we change seats and see the view from the other side?

I start swimming faster, raising one arm, then the other, kicking my feet hard. No more time for second-guessing these dudes. They're right behind me. It's obvious they'll run over me if I don't stay out of their way. I turn and start swimming in another direction, letting the coolness of the ocean glide over me like a pleasant dream. Ummm, that sounds good. And that's what I do for a few minutes. Dream.

Dream that I'm one of the regular kids on the beach and they ask me to sit on the Pier with them and share what they call strips and sauce (that's fried tortilla strips covered with hot sauce). Then they ask me to go to see the fireworks at the high school later. As if.

I glide over the crest of a wave, then another and drift farther out to sea. It's not gonna happen. Nothing's changed for me. Another July 4th in another strange town. It's really hard to make friends when you're always moving because of your father's work. I went to three different high schools last year. I'm lucky I graduated with grades good enough to get into the nearby state university. Yeah, I agree. It's shink, sho, huh? That's what we used to say at the last school I went to when we were cheezed off about something.

How did I end up in this little beach town away from all the action in Los Angeles? What do people do in Orange County besides grow lima beans and oranges? What am I going to do for the rest of the summer? When we lived in the Midwest, there were always state fairs with stock car races and dances during July and August. I'm not the type to sit around and watch summer re-runs of Wagon Train, though I dig Twilight Zone. Rod Serling is my favorite writer. I like to write stories and I thought about majoring in journalism in college, but my father says writing is not a real job.

So, here I am. It's too late for me to sign up for summer school and get a leg up on college courses (not that I want to vegetate in a slave cave over the next couple of months), and I read all the books in the little library on Main Street. Guess I'm stuck in rewind until school starts.

Make that unwind. I close my eyes and let the ocean waves rock me back and forth, relaxing me. Oh, yeah, and I also filled out this form I saw posted on the community board at the library, asking for volunteers to work at the Democratic National Convention in L.A. next week. I didn't tell my dad. Are you kidding? He's a Nixon supporter and doesn't believe there's a change coming in the political arena. He about went through the roof when Congress said the public schools should be mixed, and that colored people should be able to ride at the front of the bus, not the back.

The truth is, I don't think my dad has been within ten feet of a Negro, let alone ever talked to one, except for the boy who shines his shoes at the little stand next to the barbershop. My dad moves in this world of white shirts and ball-point clip-on pens, a new Dodge in the carport every three years, and pinochle on Thursday nights.

I don't feel the same way about the races mixing. I guess it's because I know what it's like to have kids make fun of you because you talk or dress differently than they do. I can't imagine what it must be like to have people not like you because of the color of your skin.

That's why I want to work at the convention. Everybody says (everybody being Sister Mary Celestine at my last school before this one) that Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts has a good chance of being nominated for President at the Democratic National Convention. He's a fighter for civil rights, the Sister said. I like that, seeing how I'd like to get some civil rights for myself.

It's not easy living in my house.

My mom and dad go at it all the time, what with my Mom always wanting to buy something for the house and my dad yelling we can't afford it. Just yesterday my mom was bugging my dad to get her an automatic dishwasher, seeing that he's in the building business, and he kept saying we just got an electric clothes dryer and that should be enough for her. Next, he says, she'll be wanting two TVs.

My dad doesn't think much of gadgets for the house, though he did get himself a fancy, new electric barbecue. That's what we're doing for the Fourth. Barbecuing. My parents are having my dad's new business partner over for grilled burgers and my mom's creamy potato salad.

We have it lucky, my father says, with all this new fancy stuff. It's not like the old days. He tells the same story every summer, about how when he was a kid his father would heat up a pit in the ground for ten, twelve hours, then let the meat

with onions rolled in old sheets (left over from Halloween, I bet) cook overnight.

One thing never changes. It takes him forever to get the coals just right. Anyway, I'm not in any hurry to get home. Have you ever sat around and listened to a bunch of adults giggling over Mai Tais and listening to Martin Denny tropical paradise albums in stereophonic sound? You know, that bongo drum, jungle-style music? Well, I have. And trust me, it isn't pretty. Just loud. Anyway, I keep thinking about that volunteer job at the convention, though I know my father wouldn't let me go. He wouldn't even hear about me going to college in L.A. But I can dream, can't I?

"Hey, stupid, watch out!" I hear someone yell.

He couldn't mean me, I'm thinkin', not reacting to his put-down. I may be a girl, the new kid, and not the coolest chick on the beach, but I am not stupid. I read.

I'll show them.

I paddle off in another direction, though my arms are aching and aching, like they're gonna fall off. I ignore it. I'm feeling really cool, alive with a new sense of myself, especially when I see one surfer bail off his board and the long yellow surfboard comes floating my way. A lightbulb goes off in my Little Orphan Annie head. Yeah, I'll show them what I can do. Don't get your hopes up. This isn't going to be a Cinemascope production like Spartacus. I'm not gonna all of a sudden stand up and surf like a cool wahine, showing everybody how to do it. What I am gonna do is bring this board in under my own power.

Girl power.

Something nobody wants to talk about, but I know someday girls will get the chance to be more than just dancing legs in an Old Gold cigarette commercial. That's what my Aunt Jeanette says. She's my father's sister, though you'd never guess they were related.

He voted for Eisenhower.

She volunteered for Stevenson.

He thought women working in defense plants during the war was stupid.

She drove an ambulance for the Red Cross in England and shook hands with Eleanor Roosevelt.

See what I mean?

Zippity do da. I swim over to the wandering surfboard, reach out, and try grabbing onto the smooth wood. Can't do it. I keep at it until I pull myself onto the board like I've seen the guys do it and sit astride the surfboard while I get my bearings. Geez, where is everybody? I didn't realize how far I swam out. I rev up my mental engine, you know, putting my brain mettle to the pedal like a compact taking a corner on two wheels, and get up on my knees. I feel the solidness of the surfboard underneath me, then I begin paddling overtime, lurching backward then forward as the board hits the crest of the wave, then another, and another until I swear my arms are gonna fall off. I'm going to show these schmoors what I'm made of.

I look back at them, as if they care.

When I reach the shore and slide off the surfboard, I stand up and watch the long, yellow submarine of a board float to a landing pad on the wet shore by itself. Within seconds I see the board surrounded by a bunch of wet, hairy-legged surfers checking it over for damage.

I know when to exit. Head held high, I pick my towel up off the sand and start walking home.

"Hey, you!" I hear someone yelling. "Wait up!"

Could the hey, you be me? I wonder, turning around and looking back at the guys grumbling and groaning about something. They're all looking my way. I feel cool. Yeah, it is me he's yelling at.

I shade my eyes from the hot sun with my hand. "You wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah, uh..." one of the surfers says, stumbling around for what I think is my name.

"Afton," I say. "Afton Leigh."

"Yeah, Afton, well, me and the guys want to say we're sorry about what we said earlier. I mean, the girls around here never go in the water, never even try to surf."

Another surfer comes up to me, shakes the water from his shaggy hair. "What Corky is trying to say is that you were bitchin' out there."

"Thanks loads," I say, smiling at them, forgetting I'm the new kid. I'm feelin' fab.

Bitchin', he said. Need I say more?

* * *

I can never figure out how my mom gets through doorways in those big, full skirts she always wears when we have company. Especially when she keeps going in and out of the house to the patio in the backyard. Doin' her Loretta Young Twirl I call it, after that television star she loves to watch. My mom's really into fashion and used to be a model, but when she married my father, well, we move around so much, she had to give it up. I often wonder how she feels about that.

Anyway, you'd think she was entertaining movie stars by the shindig she puts on. Background music, including tropical birdcalls, is blasting from the stereo set and everybody is in their assigned place as per barbecue etiquette. The adults are sitting in the patio on those awful green tufted, canvas outdoor cushions everybody has, sipping their exotic drinks with the little plastic animals hanging on the side, while my little brother and a coupla kids I don't know are in the television room watching Rawhide. I cruise in for a second to get a quick glimpse of the guy who plays Rowdy Yates. Clint Eastwood. My dad says he'll never make it as an actor. I don't agree with him. I think he's cute.

Speaking of cuteness, I see a tall guy about my age sitting with my dad and another man. Got to be his partner's son. He's chowing down a double burger and my mom's gooey potato salad and not paying attention to the two older men engaged in a heated conversation.

Curious, I listen in.

"...believe me, Frank, every house should have a bomb shelter," my dad is saying, sipping his drink through one of those dumb, transparent red straws. I smile. He looks so funny doing that. "You can't trust these pinko commies."

"Speaking of that, Harry, I heard some Democratic committee is backing a move to build movie theaters underground to provide ready-made bomb shelters."

"Only the Democrats could think of a stupid idea like that to cut costs and put us out of business."

"Maybe, but if Senator Kennedy gets the Democratic nomination for President, Harry, this country will be bigger in the space program than the Soviets and nobody'll give a damn about bomb shelters."

I grab a pickle off the relish dish of my mom's Lazy Susan and sit down near them. My father doesn't look too pleased at his partner's comment, but he doesn't say anything. I bet this guy is in tight with the bank and my dad doesn't want to jeopardize his next building loan application. Instead he says to the kid eating the burger, "What are your feelings about Kennedy, Pete?"

Pete mumbles something with his mouth full, then his dad says, "Aw, these kids today don't care about anything but hot rods and Elvis getting out of the Army."

I put down my pickle and stand up. Hey, I dig El, but I also dig being part of what's happening in this country even if I can't vote yet, so I blurt out, "I think Senator Kennedy could do a lot for our country. Have you read his views on civil rights--"

"Did I hear your mother calling you, Afton?" my father butts in, putting his drink down on my mom's brand new TV trays and making a wet ring. She's gonna flip.

"No. Mom is loosening her Jell-O mold before she serves it," I say casually.

"Is this your daughter, Harry?" his partner asks, smirking.

"Don't listen to her, Frank," my dad says quickly, flicking his cigarette ashes on the TV tray. Yuk. "She's just repeating what those liberal nuns taught her. What does she know about politics? She's a girl."

I put the sour pickle in my mouth and suck on it. It can't be any more sour than how I'm feeling right now. My stomach turns over a few times, reminding me how I felt earlier out in the ocean, paddling around, surrounded by all that male testosterone. It's one thing to fight for equal turf with a bunch of guys my own age, but this is my dad talking. I love my father, but I want to think for myself.

I got interested in the upcoming Presidential election in Sister Mary Celestine's social studies class. Once you get past wondering if nuns have hair underneath their wimples (you know, their headpieces), you find out they do have brains. The Sister talked in class everyday about how our country is changing, how people should have the right to be who they are, no matter what their race, color or creed.

I can identify with that, seeing how in my own house my dad tells us what we can think, what we can eat, even what we can watch on TV. He believes he's helping my brother and me. He's not. If we don't question things, I tell him, how can we learn? He won't listen to me.

"You ready for a game of pinochle, Harry?" my dad's partner asks him.

My father is all too happy to change the subject. He pulls out a deck of cards, then calls out to my mom in the kitchen for another round of Mai Tais.

"Can't we talk more about the election, Dad?" I ask, not wanting to let the politics discussion drop like a bowling ball.

"Go help your mother, Afton," he says in that I'm-the-parent-you're-the-kid voice I know so well. I swear if I walk by him he'll pat me on the head. I let out a deep sigh. Won't he ever see me as a person and not his little girl? I'm grown-up. I'm eighteen.

Something simmering in the back of my brain makes me ask him, "Why don't you like Senator Kennedy, Dad?"

"Because he's too damned liberal, going to Mississippi like he did and speaking on civil rights," my father says quickly, shuffling the cards.

"That's because Kennedy is going after the blue collar and liberal vote, Harry," his partner says.

"That's true, Dad. Sister Mary Celestine says he's concentrating on getting new voters," I say, eager to stay in the conversation. I cringe as my father shoots me the look he used to give me when I was little before he sent me to my room.

"It's a good thing you're too young to vote, Afton," he says with relief. " 'Cause no kid of mine is ever gonna vote for a Democrat while they're living under my roof."

I take a sip of pink lemonade and make a face. It's sour, too. Or is it because the sour taste from my dad's comments lingers in my mouth?

I let it go. I can't let his dumb comment bother me, not when I'm feeling pepped up and proud of what I accomplished today by bringing in that surfboard under my own power. I'm not going to let him ruin it for me.

A new kind of courage overtakes me.

"Dad, I...I've been thinking about getting a job for the rest of the summer before college starts."

He smiles at me, then winks at his pinochle buddy. "She's a good girl, my Afton." He looks at me and asks, "You got a job at that new food place, whatchamacallit, McDougal's?"

"McDonald's," his partner's son answers. I shoot him a look. Who knew he could talk?

"No, Dad. I...I signed up for a volunteer job."

"The ole community spirit. Yes, sir, that's my girl."

I blurt out, "I volunteered to be a Golden Girl hostess at the Democratic National Convention."

"The Democratic what?" my father sputters, dropping his cards on the floor. You'd think he just threw up on the linoleum by the shocked look on his face.

"The Democratic National Convention comes to town next week, Dad. It's a cool job," I answer, "you get to be a guide for out of town conventioneers--"

"So that's what the letter was all about," my father says, smirking, satisfied with himself. Something in his voice hits a nerve in me. A kind of electric spark tingles down my spine. Something's up.

Calmly, I turn down the stereo then face my dad. I perceive something unpleasant in the air and I want to hear it without birdcalls in my ears. "What letter, Dad?"

"The one from the Democratic National Convention Committee," I hear my mother say. I spin around and see her standing there in her pouffy skirt, holding a tray of tropical drinks and Jell-O. She's frowning. "The letter was addressed to you, Afton, dear, but your father saw it first and opened it."

I confront my father.

"Where's my letter, Dad?" I ask, stuttering. I'm afraid my voice is gonna crack, but I don't back down. "Where is it?"

My father picks up the playing cards off the floor and shuffles them without even looking at me as he says, "Where the Democratic Party belongs, Afton."

"Oh? And where is that?"

"In the trashcan."

AFTON

The Fourth of July, 1960
The Patio Party

Half the new tract houses in the beach town where I live are a one-story stucco design with boring colors like gray or light blue or eggshell white. Ours is one of the few houses in this seaside suburbia with any color at all. Yellow. Pale, lemony yellow. It makes me think my father likes to be different, raise the ante in everything he does. I'm certain that can be a good quality in someone, but he's messing with my life now and I'm not going to play the cards he's dealing me.

Although I realize he thinks he's looking out for my interest, I've never been able to embrace his way of thinking. My father is a racist, pure and simple. He regards all people of another color as something lower than spiders and bugs, and the scary part is he thinks he's right. He's very opinionated, but he'll tell anybody who asks him what he thinks. He's always quoting President Eisenhower about school segregation, that white Southerners are not bad people but all they're concerned about is "that their sweet little girls are not required to sit in school alongside some big, overgrown Negroes."

And this from the Republican in the White House? No wonder we need a new President.

I am confident that my mother understands my feelings, my attitude toward people of other races, and is not offended if I don't think like my parents' generation. 'Course, I haveta admit I don't know any colored people. Even when we lived in Kentucky, I never met any Negroes, never saw anybody of color at school, downtown at the movies or the library, shopping at Lyle's Market, or eating soft ice cream at the Foster's Freeze. I don't know what I'd say if I did meet a Negro kid, afraid I might say something that would offend them.

I do remember watching television when I was a freshman in high school when they desegregated the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. I saw the colored girls going to class wearing cute little sweaters, full skirts, and saddle shoes. Ribbons in their hair. And I thought, hey, they're dressed like me. Like my friends. They were laughing and smiling until they saw the shadow of a soldier in his uniform with his helmet, his gun in that perpetual position poised between the earth and the sky, like he's ready for trouble, almost begging for it.

The colored girls didn't smile much for the cameras with him following them around. I wouldn't smile either. I realized then these girls by virtue of their race alone were automatically judged to be less talented, less capable, and less deserving of anything that a white girl was entitled to have.

That was when I decided I should overlook what my father says and listen to what other people were saying about segregation and make up my own mind. Going to the Democratic National Convention is one step in that direction.

Although I feel wrapped up in the silky yellow sunshine of late afternoon, I can't let the stuffy heat stop me from doing what I have to do. Even if it smells worse than my father's political thinking.

A stray, tawny cat makes a quick dash across the front lawn, nearly knocking over the two ugly steel-gray trashcans sitting outside on the curb. I can see him licking his whiskers, but I'm not going to let him make a meal out of my mail. I make a beeline to the bent-up old cans and start rummaging through the trash, praying to find my letter from the Democratic National Convention Committee.

I try to hold my breath. Even when well maintained, these steel-barrel cans can't contain the putrid smell that comes from decaying food that should have gone to feed the poor in India, as Sister Mary Celestine reminded us everyday so we'd eat the awful cafeteria food. What I'm smelling is not your ordinary, day-to-day trash, like Swanson TV dinner trays with those cruddy green peas nobody likes, or percolated coffee grinds, or cereal boxes with the boxtops missing. That's gross enough.

This is barbecue trash.

Blackened hot dogs, half-eaten corn on the cob smeared with red lipstick, smelly mayonnaise jars, and worst of all, bones. Rib-bones, steak bones, pork chop bones. You'd think a bunch of cannibals got loose from my dad's Martin Denny albums and had a feast at my house.

I feel like puking, but I don't. I know the rumblings in my stomach are coming from how I'm feelin' inside rather than the smell of trash. It makes me sick to think about what my father did. I feel like my life is a plastic pop-it necklace. They come in all colors and you can shorten them from waist-length to a small choker by snapping off the beads.

I feel like my father is snapping off bits of my life every time I try to do something and show him I can think on my own. That's why I had to stand up to him like I did. I'm not sorry about it, either.

"You had no right to open my letter, Dad," I said to him, trying to keep my voice down, knowing we have guests.

"I'm your father, Afton, and that gives me the right."

"That was personal mail, Dad, addressed to me."

"As long as you live under my roof, Afton Leigh, you'll do as I say. No daughter of mine is getting involved in politics. It's a dirty business, and besides that, it's a man's business. If they let women get involved in politics, we'll end up with a bigger recession than the one we've got," he said, then added, "Anyway, your mother needs you to help around the house this summer."

"That's what it's all about, isn't it, Dad?" I said hotly. "You don't want me out of your sight, just in case I might do something on my own. That's why you talked me into going to the state university in Long Beach. It's close to home, you said, a good school. You'll make lots of friends. It's close to the nest, you mean. Well, this bird's gonna fly."

"You're out of line, young lady," my father said, trying to light his already-lit cigarette. His hand was shaking and his face was turning red. I knew then I had overstepped my place. I can't lay out the situation in plain words, because of the fact I had never challenged my father before. In our house, we practically live in a police state so seamlessly imposed on us that it's invisible to anyone on the outside.

But tonight I had busted that seam wide open, exposed my father's archaic ideas to everyone in the room and I was glad I did. What he did to me was more than unfair. Opening up somebody else's mail is against the law and I had to say something. Sister Mary Celestine says we have to stand up for our rights like that Alabama minister, Dr. Martin Luther King, who led the boycott of the transportation facilities of Montgomery, Alabama to further the cause of civil rights (I memorized that bit of information for our final exam).

From what I remember, Dr. King went to school up North in Pennsylvania not only so he could be free and sit where he wanted in a restaurant or in a movie theater, but most important of all, so he could get an education, something he saw as a way up out of poverty.

I shake my head. The good Sister only has to answer to God for her sins. Our Fathers and Hail Marys and Saturday catechism classes are nothing to fret over. I have my father to contend with. Believe me, dealing with the Almighty is a whole lot easier than dealing with a racist like my father. I remember when he took a construction job in South Carolina for a short time and he said white folks down there wanted to fly the Confederate flag over the state capital and he was all for it.

Call him Mr. Bigot.

"Watch it wiggle, see it jiggle, anyone for J-e-l-l-O?" my mom said brightly, singing the popular commercial as she brought in her famous vanilla ice cream and strawberry Jell-O dessert. A smile started to turn up the edges of my mouth but I caught myself in time. Even though the situation was now bordering on a bad Milton Berle skit, I didn't want to laugh. My mom is a Jell-O nut and serves some form of gelatin concoction at every party.

I remember when she tried that awful Concord grape flavor. I had purple lips for two days. And the fourth Thursday in November wouldn't be a holiday without her cranberry-and-nuts Thanksgiving Jell-O salad. She digs the stuff and pooh-poohs the old rumor that gelatin is nothing more than processed collagen found in the connective parts of animal tissue. When I was in second grade she laughed when I told her the kids at school said Jell-O was made from, in their words, horses' feet.

At that moment, I wasn't thinking about horses' hooves; I was thinking about saving my butt. I didn't dare say a word to my mother about what I had said to my father, not even in a nice way. My voice might crack, revealing the intensity of how deeply I was hurt by what he had done to me.

"C'mon, everybody, this is a red Jell-O event, dig in!" My mother sounded so cheery I couldn't say anything. Neither could my father. He just grunted, eager to close the discussion.

"I'll have a little Jell-O, Mom," I said.

"I'll pass, Irene," my father said.

"You never turn down my Jell-O mold, Harry. Here, have some."

My mother shoved a big helping at him along with a spoon, then she proceeded to serve her other guests.

I ate my dessert quickly and was about to go up to my room and hang out with my new Teen magazine featuring Justine Corelli and Kenny Rossi (the cool dancers from Bandstand), when my mom leaned over and whispered to me, "Since today is a holiday, Afton, they didn't pick up the trash. Your letter from the Democratic National Convention Committee is in the trashcan outside."

"Are you sure?" I whispered back to her.

She nodded.

Recently, I have learned a great deal about my mother, not only that she's cool with things I never thought any mom would be cool with, but she knows how to handle my father.

In spite of this new image I had of my mother, which is more perplexing for me to understand why they're together, I had difficulty taking action. My father was finished with his dessert and he was staring straight at me. I'd have to wait until the right moment to go on my trashcan hunt.

"Afton, I want to talk to you--" he began.

"Harry," my mother sang so sweetly she sounded like one of those mechanical birds in the Tiki Room at Disneyland. "I was telling Ethel about the new dishwasher you're going to buy for the house."

"I never said anything about a dishwasher, Irene."

"Yes, you did, darling. For our anniversary."

"Our anniversary was six months ago."

"Oh? Well, that means we only have six months until our next anniversary."

My father didn't want to be cornered, so he said, "When Frank and Ethel get a dishwasher, so will we."

My mother and Ethel winked at each other. Something was up.

"They ordered a new dishwasher last week, Harry."

My father shook his head. "Too bad you didn't go to college, Irene. You would have made a brilliant politician."

My mother smiled. My father smiled back. I couldn't figure out what they were doing, possibly because I'm not a parent.

I put down my Jell-O dish when my father started talking numbers with Frank, knowing this was my moment, and excused myself, leaving the two of them discussing how much electricity a dishwasher would use compared to how much time it would save my mother. Then I was off to the trashcan.

Thank you, Sister Mary Celestine, for teaching me patience.

I don't know how many steak bones later, I'm still looking through the debris in the trashcan for a letter addressed to me from the Democratic National Convention Committee. Now, I know that in the scheme of things it really isn't going to matter whether or not, I, Afton Leigh, go to the Democratic National Convention, seeing how the United States has been gripped in the hold of the U-2 incident since May when spy Gary Powers was shot down over Russia. Or that some Cuban guy named Fidel Castro is getting into bed (my father's words, not mine) with that fat, bald-headed Russian dude, Khrushchev. And Eisenhower had to cancel his goodwill mission to Japan because of rioting in Tokyo against the U.S.-Japanese security policy.

What I do know is the Democrats need seven hundred sixty-one votes to make a majority of the delegates to choose a candidate. It's a magic number, they say, and maybe, just maybe, one of those delegates attending the convention that I serve coffee and give a Kennedy button, might be that one magic vote.

My enthusiasm won't save me, however, if I don't keep looking through the steel-drum trashcan, declare my outrage at the arrogance of my father's wrongdoing, and toss garbage over my shoulder until I find that letter.

And this is what really irks me: My father wouldn't tell me if they accepted me as a Golden Girl hostess. Yeah, he's inside the house, sulking like a little kid, which doesn't surprise me. Have you ever noticed that's what parents do when they don't get their way?

Then I get a fluttery feeling in my chest as another thought hits me. If the Democratic National Committee had turned me down, then my father wouldn't have gotten so mad and blown his cork, right?

A sudden squealing causes me to jump at least a foot before I realize it's the same stray cat come back to check out the leftovers. I must have stepped on its tail, but its stomach must be in worse shape because it doesn't run away. It keeps sniffing the garbage on the grass, poking its nose and whiskers into an empty hot dog plastic wrapper.

"If you find the letter before I do, kitty, I'll trade you for it," I mumble stupidly. I'm past being reasonable. I'm determined to find that letter. Peering into the bottom of the trashcan, I'm unable to spot anything more than a bunch of gritty, empty Jell-O packages, crumpled-up potato chip bags, and smelly, sweet pickle jars. Then I see it. An envelope with an official seal and a potato peeling hanging onto it. I let out a squeal rivaling any cat and before you can say Mr. Potatohead, I reach into the bottom of the trashcan and pull out the envelope.

"Democratic National Convention Committee Headquarters," I read out loud, the words bouncing off my tongue like a Slinky toy, then I eagerly look inside the envelope. It's empty.

I shake my head, disappointed.

I fold the envelope in two and continue looking in the trashcan, when I hear movement behind me. This time it isn't merely the antics of a hungry cat.

It's a hip cat.

"Are you busy, Afton?"

I turn around. It's Pete, the son of my father's partner. He's nice-looking, I guess. Not dreamy. His hair is too short and those black stovepipe pants he wears make him look skinnier than a flagpole. He looks embarrassed.

"You offering to help me?" I answer, trying to be nice, but I can't keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I'm not giving up my trash quest for him or anybody.

"Not exactly," he stammers. "I was wondering if you want to go to the fireworks show at Huntington Beach High with me tonight?" he asks in a shaky voice.

I don't blame this guy for hating having to do this. If I were in his position, I'd hate having to ask me out, too. However, I'm not digging going to the high school and sitting in the hard bleachers and watching fireworks after what happened at my house tonight. I want to stay home and write in my journal.

And while pitying him, I can turn him down without hesitation because I know my dad made him ask me. You develop a radar for this kind of thing when your father entertains business associates all the time who have kids your age. I don't know why parents always think their kids have to be friends if they're friends.

"I don't dig fireworks," I answer casually, bending over the trashcan, determined to get out of this arranged date. "They're too noisy."

Abandoning caution, trying to shake my disappointment at finding the empty envelope, I fish out a bunch of paper plates swimming in barbecue sauce. Sick.

What's this? I ponder, when I see a folded-up piece of paper sticking to the bottom of the plate. In spite of the smelliness of the situation, my heart is beating wildly as I pull the folded-up white paper off the paper plate and open it carefully.

It's my letter from the Democratic National Convention Committee.

"If you change your mind about going tonight, Afton, let me know," Pete says, relieved I don't want to go with him. He continues to stand there, waiting for I don't know what.

"You want something?" I ask him, smoothing out the wrinkled up piece of paper.

"I was wondering if I could have some more of your mom's Jell-O dessert," he says. I don't answer him. How can I? My hands are shaking as I open up the letter. It's stained with grease and bits of lettuce but I can read it.

" 'Dear Miss Leigh, We received your request to be a Golden Girl hostess and we have carefully reviewed your application...'" I read, then skim through the letter quickly. It's filled with the usual stuff, advising me that the Democratic Party is excited about holding their 1960 convention in Los Angeles at the Memorial Sports Arena during the week of July 11-15, and that it's important to "the ramparts of freedom that we guard" that the convention is a big success because the eyes of the world and our own country, the "people who look to us for leadership," are going to be watching every move through the media and the young ladies chosen to be Golden Girl hostesses are held to the highest standard. It seems forever until I get to the part that says, " '...and we are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as a Golden Girl hostess.' "

I close my eyes. And dream. I'm in. I'm going to be a Golden Girl--

"You're not going, Afton."

I spin around fast, so fast I knock over the trashcan. I can't move. My mouth is too dry, my eyes too filled with tears, and my body too rigid to allow me to move. I stand there as garbage spills onto the grass, making an awful mess. I'm stunned. My father is standing behind me with a lit cigarette in one hand and a green plastic tumbler in the other, looking like your worst nightmare of a middle class suburban businessman, telling me I can't follow my dream.

I fortify myself with the argument that I've gone this far with this Golden Girl hostess thing and to give it up now would be like sacrificing my integrity once and for all.

Can't do, won't do.

"I'm not a kid anymore, Dad," I begin, my voice shaky. "I'm eighteen and I'm going to start college this fall. I don't understand why I can't go to the convention and serve my country. It's not like I'm going overseas to war. It's only for a week," I plead, knowing that arguing with him is going to make me lose the keys to the car for the rest of the summer but I've gotta try, seeing how being stuck in Orange County with or without the keys to the car is like being without wheels anyway.

"I said no, Afton, and I mean no. You're not volunteering for any Democratic Party free-for-all. You're a girl. You don't know what kind of shenanigans go on at these things," my father answers firmly, figuring he doesn't owe me any further explanation.

"You're wrong, Dad, the convention is not some frat party. It's an important historical event, like the signing of the Declaration of Independence," I say, figuring since this is the Fourth, maybe he'll listen to me. "You're always telling me how lucky I am to be young, to be part of these good times. They're also important times, Dad, and I don't want to have to only read about that in a history book someday. I want to live them."

I know my historical rhetoric had no effect on him as he starts going back to his backyard patio party, then he changes his mind and turns toward me. "It won't work, baby. It's almost fifty miles to L.A. and there's no direct freeway. How are you going to get to Los Angeles? We only have one car. Your mother can't drive you up there everyday."

Still holding the letter in my hand, I feel my body stiffen. If he was ever going to change his mind, he would have done it then. He doesn't say anything more and I'm tempted to blurt out it's his fault we moved to these out-of-the-way suburbs. Somehow I can't say it. I might hate my father at times, like now, but he is my father and I respect him.

"Afton could stay with the other Golden Girl hostesses at an apartment house on North Rossmore," I hear my mother say softly. I didn't hear her coming down the walkway, didn't hear her high heels clicking on the new cement, didn't smell her perfume mixing with the garbage. I was too busy in my own world, never taking the time to realize that my mother is caught in the middle of all this. I feel like a jerk.

"What apartment, Irene?" my father bellows, upset there's a solution to all this.

"If I remember correctly, Harry, the letter says the out-of-town girls can be accommodated at the North Rossmore apartments in Hancock Park near Hollywood owned by that famous actor in the Wizard of Oz," my mother says. Then she adds wistfully, "I think he played the Tin Man, or was it the Straw Man?"

"I don't care if he played the Wicked Witch," my father shoots back. "Afton is not going to that convention and shacking up with a bunch of munchkins."

Ignoring my father's comment, I glance down at the letter from the Democratic National Convention Committee. I see what my mother is talking about at the bottom of the page. It's true. One of the biggest contributors to the Democratic Party is footing the housing bill for out-of-town hostesses during the convention. I'm supposed to report to a Mrs. Greenfield at Kennedy Headquarters at the Biltmore Hotel. I can't believe it. This is so boss. I get to stay in a fancy apartment with the other girls and my father's telling me I can't go?

"This solves everything, Dad. Now Mom won't have to drive me to Los Angeles every day."

"Imagine all the people Afton will meet, Harry," my mom says, trying to help me. "Delegates from every state in the union will be there."

"That's right, Dad. Sister Mary Celestine says the problem with this country is that we all live racially isolated lives, that we don't really get to know other people, and our most meaningful personal relationships are with people who look like we do--"

The world stops at that moment, just like in a Twilight Zone episode. I can almost hear the eerie music. I shouldn't have quoted the good Sister, shouldn't have opened my big mouth. This was a strange conversation even before the catastrophe of me running off like that. It gets worse.

My father takes his cigarette and dumps it into the plastic tumbler, then he throws them both into the trashcan to purge himself of what I said. He takes advantage of the moment to spew forth a hatred so deep, a hatred I never knew was there.

"You are not going to that convention and hobnob with a bunch of nigger lovers, Afton, and that's final," he says, then without another word, he walks back to his friends and his stupid patio party.

I suck in a breath deep enough to blow up my lungs like party balloons, and blow it out. Imaginary bugs crawl up and down my skin as I hear his words over and over again in my head and I feel sick to my stomach. I had no idea how to answer him, so I didn't respond to his words.

"Your father is a hard-working man, Afton," I hear my mother say. I turn to face her. Her face crinkles as if she can still feel the pain of his horrible words coming at me. "Too hard-working sometimes. He loses his temper and says things that he doesn't mean."

I nod. I don't want to contradict my mother, see her hurting anymore than she already is, but I know my father meant every word he said, though I don't understand why he feels the way he does. What has the world done to him to make him feel like that?

I glance around at our front lawn, the trashcans, the mess on the grass. I get the feeling that every window in the neighborhood is open, every neighbor is listening, some of them agreeing with my father, others shocked at what he said.

Ashamed, I bend down and start loading the trash strewn about on our neatly clipped, green suburban lawn back into the trash cans. As my eyes sweep over the dirty plates and empty bags, the first twinkle of twilight casts shadows on everything and they form weird-looking shapes, changing an empty pickle jar into an ominous-looking creature. Is that what prejudice is? I ask myself. Seeing something that isn't there?

"I think it might be a good idea if you go to the fireworks show with Peter," my mom says, bending down, her pouffy skirt flaring up around her as she helps me pick up the mess.

"Geez, Mom, I don't want to go. We've already had enough fireworks around here for one night."

"Please, Afton, do as I ask you."

I look into her eyes and I'm surprised to see a light mistiness wetting her cheeks and wiggling down to her red lipstick. My mom is really upset. Why doesn't she stand up to my father?

Certain that my mom can't be persuaded to change her mind about me going to the fireworks with Peter, I nod. I'll go, I tell her, but I'm only doing it for her. Then I dump the rest of the mess into the trashcan.

"You must try to understand your father," my mom says finally.

"He never tries to understand me, Mom."

"He's a proud man who was raised by a proud father."

"What does that have to do with me working at the Democratic National Convention?" I want to know.

"Your father's people were Southerners, honey. From Virginia."

"Did they own slaves?"

"Yes. And when the Civil War was over, they had lost everything."

"That was almost a hundred years ago, Mom. This is 1960. Why does Dad dislike colored people so much? Sister Mary Celestine says the Negroes didn't start the war. How could they? Runaway slaves weren't even classified as people. They called them contraband."

"Some things die slowly, Afton. Prejudice is one of them. Your father has not yet realized a new day is coming."

As I walk with my mom back into the house, I hear my father putting on another Martin Denny album. The sound of birdcalls and xylophones fill the air, along with the clanking of plastic tumblers and the smell of cigarette smoke.

The decision was made.

What I'd felt in bones all along was confirmed. There was no way I was going to be a Golden Girl hostess.

AFTON

The Fourth of July, 1960
Night

Three hours later finds me sitting in the back of a '57 Chevy Bel-Air yellow and white convertible at the Warner Drive-In, grappling with the overly eager hands of a varsity football player I met at the concession stand over hot french fries and a Coke.

He thinks I'm a biology experiment but I'm not about to roll over like a frog and play dead. I'm alive and kicking. And pushing. His hands off my breasts. His lips off the back of my neck. His knee squeezing my legs apart. Hey, I like making out as much as any girl, but I am not a Susie Knickerbocker. That's what we called girls at my old school who let boys go all the way on their first date.

I've got a hunch there are going to be a lot more Susie Knickerbockers in the world with this new birth control pill everybody's talking about. They say it's ninety-nine percent effective for the Miss Perfects of the world who never miss a day. It's a round, pink plastic pill box with twenty-eight pills tucked inside. The box is shaped like a roulette wheel, except you can't lose. You take one little pill everyday and you can't get pregnant. Sounds cool, but I haven't been able to convince my mother I want to spin the wheel. Not yet.

In any event, this football player has tackling on his mind. Putting on my sweetest smile, I say, "C'mon, stay cool. Let's watch the movie."

He gives out a low whistle. "Are you kidding? This is finger-poppin' time."

I shake my head, roll my eyes. He's referring to the hot new 45 by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters.

I say, "I'm not popping anything tonight."

"Then what are you here for, baby?"

I shrug. "I don't know. Honestly."

He smiles at me. "I get it. You're playing hard to get. Okay, I can dig it."

He lunges at me, all two hundred pounds of him, calling out a bunch of numbers. Football plays. I know now what a pigskin must feel like as I duck, wishing I were home, curled up in bed with my journal so I could write down everything that happened today. Record for posterity how my father is destroying my life by not letting me become a Golden Girl hostess at the Democratic National Convention. I always thought my father and I were close when I was growing up, fixing my dolls' heads when they came off and riding bikes together. I'll never forget the time he entertained my friends at my tenth birthday party with his new reel-to-reel tape recorder. He was a scream.

Now I feel so distant from him. He doesn't care about anything in my life. My friends, my teachers, the music I like, what I want to major in at college. The only time he's in my life now is when he's interfering with my life.

A heavy breathing, like a panting dog, seems to rise from the corner of the convertible, then escalate into a roar that frightens me. This guy is turned on. Big-time. I'm not attracted to him, though most girls would be. Tall with broad, muscular shoulders, he's everything you'd expect in a varsity lineman but with the instinct of a shark grabbing at bait on a hook.

Me.

I sink down into the seat. What a night this is turning out to be. I shoulda known the evening was going the way of a Dobie Gillis rerun when Pete cruised by the high school without stopping. Seems that fireworks of another kind were on his mind. A five-foot-four blonde firecracker with dimples.

It didn't take a high SAT score on my part to figure out that Pete lied to his parents about where he was going so he could get the keys to his dad's Lincoln Continental and stretch out in the back seat with Miss Firecracker.

That didn't leave much room for me, so I headed over to the concession stand with Pete's friend, who just happened to be parked next to us at the drive-in. He introduced me to this football player who has more of a line than any lineman I've met.

I keep pushing him away, not wanting to go there with a guy I don't know except that he's a friend of a friend of my father's partner's son Pete. That's not much of an introduction in my book.

"Hey, what gives?" His brown eyes flare. It finally registered in his brain that I'm not an easy mark.

"I don't give. That's what."

"Listen, Afton," he mumbles, trying to get under my sweater with his greasy french fry fingers and into my psyche by calling me by my name instead of baby. "You're hot. I mean, you're the best-looking chick I've been out with all summer."

I smile, scooting to the other side of the convertible, thinking about reminding him the summer's barely started. I look up at the drive-in screen where Betty Hutton is making goo goo eyes at Charlton Heston. I remember seeing this circus movie when I was a little kid. This is a bummer. Not only am I stuck with a date that isn't a date, but an old movie as well. I guess the people who run the drive-in figure the kids who come to the purple passion pit never look at the screen or turn on the speakers, which I discover don't work when I try to turn up the volume to tune this guy out.

"Yeah, I'm hot," I answer him, rolling down the window.

"C'mon, Allison," he says, smooching my face and blowing in my ear. "Gimme a kiss."

"My name is Afton. You had it right the first time."

"Yeah, sure, baby. C'mon, let's make out."

"You make out," I answer, crossing my arms over my chest. "I want to watch the movie."

"Why do you want to do that?" he says, grabbing me and slobbering all over my face. "Nobody'll bother us."

"Wait a minute, whatever-your-name-is, you're rushing things too fast," I say, pushing him away with more force this time. "I don't even know you."

"What's to know? You're a chick and you're at a drive-in," he says, smirking, "You hang with me, baby, and we'll have a blast and a half."

I open my mouth to answer him. I can't. I doubt if he would listen to me anyway. That's not what's bothering me. In the deep, dark night air, I put my head in my hands. The football player is counting out loud again, wiping his sweaty face on his Pendleton shirt. Is that what it's all about? I ask. That because I let myself be talked into coming to a drive-in, it automatically gives him the right to assume I'm easy and he can do what he wants with me?

I keep staring at him as the creepy red and green lights from the nearby concession stand flicker over his face, making him look like a swamp creature. Who does he think I am? A female prize to be carried off to his lair?

No way, JosÈ. I'm splitting.

"Excuse me, but I just remembered I left the water running in the girls' bathroom," I say with a twinkle in my eye and a grin on my lips.

"Yeah, sure," he says, giving me a pat on the leg. "Don't be too long, okay?"

I nod, wondering where this guy gets his brains from. Then I open the door. He casts a sexy look my way and I get out of the car without another word.

I'm going home.

* * *

Less than an hour later, I'm home, my feet hurting and I'm nursing a slightly sprained ankle from cutting across the vacant lot behind the drive-in.

I shuffle toward the kitchen back door, where, late as it is, I hear my parents talking loudly. Arguing.

"For the last time, Irene, no daughter of mine is going to work for a bunch of nigger-loving liberals," I hear my father say when I stop at the back door. I cringe when I hear that word. A heated flush creeps all over me, but I feel the cool draft coming at me through the open door. I don't close it.

"I wish you wouldn't push your biased views on the children, Harry. They live in a different world than the one you and I grew up in."

"What are you jabbering about, Irene?"

"Negroes only want their civil rights, to do what other people do without being pushed to the back of the bus every time. You have to admit, they're going about it the right way with their peaceful protests."

"It's not going to be a different world, if people like me have anything to do with it. It's these damned liberals and their civil rights nonsense that's bringing this country down. If they get what they want now, who knows, someday we'll have a nigger President. Then what will you say?"

I could hear my mother breathe out deeply, followed by a deep sigh. I know what she's feeling.

"The children and I have put up with a lot from you these past few years, Harry. Especially me," my mother says as I carefully close the backdoor so they don't hear me. I see them in the kitchen, my mom in her quilted robe and slippers and my father smoking a cigarette and wearing striped pajamas. I hang there a few seconds, knowing kids aren't supposed to sneak around and listen to what their parents are saying when they're not around. You know, like parents may actually have a sexual moment or two and if you catch them doing something weird, well, they won't look at you for a long time after that.

Sex isn't on my parents' agenda tonight. It's my future they're discussing and I have a right to know what's going on.

I position myself in the dark hallway, glad that my dad didn't fix the hall light, and listen to what they're saying.

"What are you trying to say, Irene?" my dad asks, putting out his half-smoked cigarette. This is serious. He never does that.

"I am not going to stand by anymore and let you talk about colored people in those awful racist terms. The world is changing, Harry, and if you don't change with it, you're going to be left behind."

My father's eyes narrowed. "I don't believe I'm hearing this from my wife. Where did you these ideas, Irene?"

"I read the newspapers, Harry, and I watch television. Whoever wins this next election will lead the country into the last part of the twentieth century. He's got to have the backing of everyone, not just the white vote, but the Negro vote as well."

"Niggers don't deserve the right to vote."

Again, my mother sighs. Again, the deep breaths.

"I wish I didn't have to say this to you, Harry," my mother says, "but I was ashamed of you tonight."

"Ashamed? Why?"

"Not only because you embarrassed Afton in front of your guests, that was bad enough, but because you made a fool out of yourself and me."

"Because I have the guts to say what most people won't?"

"No."

"What then?"

"Because you have the brains to know better and you don't use them."

I can see my father twitching with fury, breathing shallow breaths. He's struggling with some inner emotions I don't understand.

It is at this moment I realize my father may not be the monster I believe him to be, but a by-product of the Eisenhower administration, and only God knows what other things in his life, that are completely foreign to me. Glancing at him, I feel sorry for him. His hair is tangled, his glasses sitting lopsided on his nose. He looks lost.

"What do you want from me, Irene?"

"I want you to start acting like a father and do what's best for our daughter."

"What do you mean?"

"Teach her not to be afraid of the world. Don't make her hate, Harry. Trust her to make her own wise decisions."

"What are you asking me to do, Irene?"

"Let her work as a Golden Girl hostess at the Democratic National Convention."

"Have you totally lost your mind? I meant what I said--"

"Do you remember when you left home for the first time?"

"Of course I do. I was nineteen when I went overseas to fight the damned Nazis."

"Well, we're at peace now, Harry, but you're at war with your daughter." My mom serves my dad a cup of coffee. Then she puts her arms around his shoulders and hugs him. I feel weird watching them doing stuff like that, but I feel warm inside, too. "Why can't you give in, for your daughter's sake?"

"Give in? I can't change who I am, Irene, the way I was raised, what my family fought and died for and lost. You might be right about a change coming in this country, but people like me will never change."

"Change a little, Harry, for Afton. Please."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you're going to lose her. For good."

My father shakes his head. "But letting her work for the Democrats, it's--it's--"

"It's a chance for her to be a part of our country's history, something she'll never forget. Besides, I talked to Jeanette today and she's flying in for the convention. She can check on Afton."

I raise my eyebrows. So my Aunt Jeanette's gonna be there. Cool. She's different from other adults. She thinks Senator Kennedy is cute and she likes rock'n roll.

My dad is quiet for a long time as he stirs his coffee, thinking. I don't dare breathe, but I have the feeling my mom knows I'm standing here because she looks over at me in the dark and smiles as if to say, Don't say anything.

Finally, my dad turns to my mom, smiles at her and says, "You got any cream, Irene? I don't like my coffee black."

"Then she can go?"

"It's only for a few days. I only pray those liberals and my sister don't mess up her head too much," my dad says, pouring a lot of cream into his coffee. I can barely keep from yelling out loud. Then I hear my dad say in a confident voice, "For the record, I don't think Kennedy has a chance in hell of getting the Democratic Presidential nomination."

I smile big when I hear my mom say, "Don't be too sure, Harry. I think both Senator Kennedy and Afton will surprise you."

I must be dreaming, hearing my mom saying that, but I don't want to wake up. I feel like I'm making a perilous climb and I can't look down: I'm going to the Democratic National Convention and that's all that counts. I refuse to dwell on the fact that eventually I will have to come to grips with my father, that the riff between us isn't healed yet.