Mr. Callahan picked at his ear. “Tell me, what do your parents do?”
“My father’s a gardener and my mother’s a housekeeper.”
He opened the top drawer of his desk to retrieve a cigarette and lit it, placing it between his thin, chapped lips and letting it dangle out of the corner of his mouth. “Chemistry is a difficult subject. Perhaps this isn’t the class for you.”
“But, sir, I need it to graduate.”
“Ahh, graduation.” He rubbed his thin lips together. “A high school diploma isn’t meant for everyone.”
Hot shame filled Louise. At that moment, the sound of throat clearing interrupted their conversation and they turned to see Norm Northam, one of her classmates, lean into the room and grin as he ran a hand along the part of his chestnut-colored hair, held perfectly in place by a shiny pomade. He entered with the easy confidence of a boy whose yearbook page listed a lengthy column of clubs, office positions, and sports teams. “Mr. Callahan, may I have a word?”
“Of course, of course, Mr. Northam. We’re just finishing up.” He beckoned Norm to come in and then reversed the motion as if nudging Louise away from him. “All right, then, Miss . . .”
But Louise didn’t answer. She bolted for the door and hurried out into the hallway. Only once she could no longer hear the teacher and Norm talking did she stop to lean against the wall of lockers and collect herself.
Directly across the hall from her were some large framed class photos. In the photos, it was clear the number of black students diminished each year that the class progressed, but in the last couple of years, fewer students, white and black, had returned to classes at Malden High. More young people were looking for work, even though jobs were harder to come by. She let out a shuddering sigh. Cutting back on expenses seemed to be the goal of every household in Malden, both among the well-off and the less so, but this last year had been exceptionally lean and the results were trickling down to the families teetering on the fine line between “scraping by” and “flat-out broke” with calamitous results.
Mama always said to keep her head down and keep focused on the end result: a high school diploma. But now Louise wasn’t so sure. What would come next? What was the point of enduring all of these daily humiliations? She dropped her chin to her chest and inspected the toes of her scuffed brown shoes. Small, careful repair seams were visible on her gray knee socks upon close inspection. Her family needed more money and if she stopped going to school, she could do something to help.
Her parents had been insistent that she stay in school, saying they didn’t want Louise to take a job away from someone who really needed it, but Louise was getting impatient. A loose sheet of paper covered in quadratic equations lay on the ground by her toe and she kicked it away.
AFTER WASHING AND drying the dinner dishes that evening, Louise and Emily settled in at the kitchen table to work on their homework. Mama sat alongside them, mending in hand. When Louise looked at the long line of computations to be calculated, she took a deep breath. “I’m not going to school anymore.”
Mama continued slipping her needle in and out of the skirt she was hemming, but Emily’s pencil stopped moving across her composition book as she stole a look at her sister. “What do you mean?” she asked.
Louise’s heart hitched in her chest as she forced herself to look at Mama. “I’m failing chemistry and possibly a couple of other classes, all because of my teachers. They don’t want me to graduate.”
Without lifting her gaze from her needle, Mama said, “Since when does what they want dictate what you want?”
“It’s just starting to feel like I’m wasting time in school. Ever since I set that new national record in the broad jump in December, Coach Quain says my Olympic prospects are looking better and better. I could end up going to Los Angeles to compete. Why do I need to know how to solve equations or analyze Shakespeare?” She spoke quickly, pointing at her battered copy of Hamlet. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
Papa had come back inside now, the sweet smell of his pipe trailing behind him. He leaned against the door, his face lost in the shadows. “You think your mama has wanted to clean other people’s houses for the last twenty years?” His voice sounded tired but firm. “You think I want to tend to other people’s lawns, weed their flowerbeds? You’ve been going to school all this time so you can do better than us.”
Louise shuddered and licked her lips, steeling herself for what she needed to say. “The best thing I can do for myself is compete in the Olympics.”
Sorrow flashed across Mama’s face and she sighed. “But what makes you so sure you’ll qualify?”
“I can do it. I know I can.”
Papa shook his head. “That’s an awful big bet. Stick with school. Get that diploma and you can go on to become a teacher, a nurse. You’re almost done. Why quit now?”
Exasperation ballooned inside Louise’s chest. There were no options for a black girl like her in nearby colleges, and she had no desire to leave her family and move away to
