“Ma told me you all will be going to Byler High this fall,” Ruth said. “A lot of the white folks, including Daddy, are making a heck of a fuss about integration.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “What’s the big deal? There were always Mexican kids in the schools in California, and they were just like everyone else, except they had darker skin and ate spicier food.”
“It’s a little more complicated in these parts,” Aunt Al said.
“A few people in Byler are saying this integration thing could actually be good,” Ruth went on. The Byler High football team would get all those big, strong, fast black boys from Nelson, she explained, and they might take us to state. At the same time, she said, white players would have to be cut from the team to make room for the blacks. The Byler High cheerleaders, who all had boyfriends on the team, were saying that they’d quit the squad if their boyfriends were cut because they didn’t want to be cheering for a bunch of coloreds who stole their boyfriends’ positions.
The cheerleaders all came from well-to-do families, Ruth said. They were the daughters of the doctors, the lawyers, the car dealer, the man who owned the country club. Mill hill boys sometimes made it onto the football team, but no girl from the hill had ever become a cheerleader. It simply didn’t happen. A cheerleader had to be a certain type, and that type just wasn’t found on the hill. All the girls on the hill knew this, so they never even tried out.
“Until now,” Ruth said. “Because if some of the cheerleaders who are the right type quit, saying they aren’t cheering for any niggers—pardon my French, that’s the word the girls use, I know you’re not supposed to call them that—other girls will have a chance to make the squad.” She started screwing lids on the jars Aunt Al had filled. “And that there’s the silver lining in the whole integration thing. So I’m planning to try out for the cheerleading squad. I don’t have any problem cheering for the colored boys.”
A bunch of the other hill girls were going to try out as well, and they were all meeting in a little while to practice. “Why don’t you all come practice with us?” Ruth asked.
“You bet,” I said.
“Sure,” Liz said in that voice she used when her heart wasn’t really in something.
“Well, okay, then,” Ruth said. “But we’ll need to fix your hair.”
“You all go on,” Aunt Al said. “I’ll finish up here.”
Ruth led us to the back of the house, where part of the porch had been turned into a tiny bedroom with a slanted ceiling. The three of us could scarcely fit in. On her dresser was a photograph of a guy wearing black-rimmed glasses and a khaki uniform. Ruth picked it up. “This is Truman,” she said.
Liz and I studied the photograph. Truman had a serious expression, dark eyes, and wide lips.
“He’s got eyes like yours and Bean’s,” Liz said.
“Most of us Wyatts got those same dark eyes,” Ruth said. “There’s an old rumor we got some Jew blood in the family, but Mom says it’s just black Irish.”
“He looks smart,” I said. “Not like a soldier.”
“That came out wrong, in typical Bean fashion,” Liz said. “She meant it as a compliment.”
Ruth laughed. “Truman is smart. Maybe that’s also the Jew blood. The other soldiers call him Poindexter the Professor because of his glasses and the books he’s all the time reading.”
Ruth put the photograph back. She said she wanted to show us her hope chest, for when she got married. She pulled a small trunk out from under the bed and opened it. Inside were dish towels, bath towels, place mats, a blanket, and an oven mitt. She was planning for the future, she said, but she wasn’t counting entirely on marriage. She was a top student in the secretarial track at Byler High and could type ninety-five words a minute. She had no intention of working at the mill, she said, not to disparage her ma, of course. It was her ma who encouraged her to get herself a good office job.
“I’ve been doing some office work for Mr. Maddox,” Liz said.
“I heard,” Ruth said. “I worked for that family for a while. Watch yourself around him.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Just watch yourself.”
I looked at Liz to see if she was going to say anything about Mr. Maddox telling us he had to fire Ruth. Liz gave me an almost unnoticeable shake of the head, like she thought the whole subject was too awkward to bring up, and then she said, “So what is this we’re supposed to do with our hair?”
“You can’t have it flopping all over the place if you’re going to be a cheerleader,” Ruth said, and opened a jewelry box full of barrettes and ponytail holders. She carefully sorted through and found a pair of baubles and barrettes that matched the blue shirt I was wearing, then a set that matched Liz’s yellow shorts. She brushed my hair back, pulling it into a ponytail so tight that I felt like it was stretching my eyebrows back. Then she turned to Liz, whose reddish-blond hair was thick and wavy and fell halfway down her back.