Mom made most of my clothes right up until I started my sophomore year of high school. Everything she made was right in style and, of course, one of a kind. The dress I wore for my ninth grade photo, for instance, was a seersucker fabric with a tiny purple flower print. It was the first dress I ever had that required darts to accommodate what I at last had for breasts. I loved that dress because I felt really pretty in it with its cap sleeves and purple rick-rack along the hemline. It was also very short. I wore purple tights with it and had to take care when leaning forward—stooping down to pick something up less I show off more than intended. The morning I wore that dress while my grandparents were visiting, I gave Grandpa a peck on the cheek before leaving for school. In between his bites of Wheaties and without missing a beat he muttered, “Ain’t much material in that dress.” And he was right.
But it is one outfit in particular—a brown skirt with
matching vest made out of a snuggly soft faux suede—that I was wearing the day
I found I had a real live angel watching over me.
As I exited the biology classroom one afternoon, Jeannie, a
girl who I actually resembled in a small way, blocked me from entering the
hallway. Jeannie pushed my right shoulder and accusingly asked, “That the only
dress you got girl?”
I noticed that Jeannie was flanked by two other girls—her
posse I assumed—whose names I didn’t know. Confused, I meekly asked as if I
hadn’t heard her properly, “What?”
I knew I was in some sort of trouble with these tough girls
I normally had no association with, but I was really in the dark as to what I’d
done. Jeannie pushed my left shoulder next nearly toppling the stack of books I
held onto the floor. She leaned over onto one hip and tilted her head in a
cocky fashion as she sized me up. “You seem to think our friend Pam only owns
one dress, so I just wanna know . . .,” she looked to her cohorts for added
intimidation, “That the only dress you got?”
The posse smiled at their leader's catty cleverness with the cornered mouse.
Jeannie disdainfully gave me the once-over with her eyes indicating a reference
to my brown skirt and vest. The number of smart-ass comments darting around in
my head were plentiful: “You think this is a dress huh?” “Who taught you how to
speak English?” “That the only pair of ripped up jeans you got girl?” “Someone
sure needs to get you out of here, ’cause you’re making some sort of a big
stink.” But not one would issue forth from my mouth. I stood caught in the eyes
of a viper. If I’d been a cartoon, my own eyes would be whirling around like
pinwheels. “Uh, no,” I stuttered in response, “I have several dresses.” Oh god.
That was probably the wrong response.
“You givin’ me smart mouth, girl?” Jeannie questioned
leaning closer into my body space.
“Uh no,” I shrunk away wishing I could put my hands on an Alice in Wonderland “Drink Me” vial.
The reason Jeannie was picking on me was because several
days earlier, I had been sitting next to her friend Pam in chorus. Pam, like
Jeannie, always wore jeans to school. Back in the fall, Pam had worn a cute red
dress for picture day. Then, on the day in question, she had worn an equally
appealing green dress. Having failed to compliment her on her red dress back in
the fall, I took the opportunity when the second dress appeared to sincerely
say, “I like your dress. And I liked the red one you wore on picture day.” I’d
been rather pleased with myself but apparently Pam had taken offense. Upon
reporting that her nose was out of joint to her friends, Jeannie had taken the
matter in hand and I was now practically nose-to-nose with a bully and way out
of my league in the bad-ass department.
“You’ve got just one hour,” she threatened with her right
index finger held up in front of my face. She commanded me to meet her out back
after school where she was going to “beat my ass.”
My only thought was, “But, I’ll miss my bus.”
Luckily there was no need to try to explain to Jeannie why
this was impossible because just then Paula Adams, a six-foot-tall (to our five
foot-fives) girl walked up to our intimate group. Paula and I were not friends.
She sat next to me in homeroom. I don’t recall ever uttering more than a polite
“hello” to her and here she was casually draping her long dark brown arm around my
shoulders as if we were life-long buddies—blood sisters even. “Something the
matter here?” she asked in her quiet effective way, her dark eyes lasered on
Jeannie.
“Well, uh no,” stuttered Jeannie.
“That’s good,” Paula nodded, “cause I’d sure as hell hate to
think that there was a problem concerning my good friend Deb here.” Paula
flashed her beautiful smile and looked tenderly down on me like an angel of
mercy. I looked at Paula in awe and wonderment. Rendered quite speechless, I
stood silently by watching the scene transpire with amazement. “C’mon, Deb,”
Paula coaxed, “Let’s get to class.” Moses himself couldn’t have done a better
job of parting the way between Jeannie and her goons as Paula finished up her
rescue mission. Paula kept her arm around me until we got around the next
corner and then as mysteriously as she’d appeared, she disappeared into the
crowded hallway.
In those days, kids of different races hardly associated
with one another. Except for a short-lived experiment in bussing during the
second grade, I had gone to school with white kids only until going to junior
high. I don’t remember if I ever thanked Paula for what she did for me that
day. I did thank her for telling me to stay out of the girls’ bathroom the day
of the trouble in 1972. It was a couple days after Governor George Wallace of
Alabama had been shot and protests were erupting all over the country trickling
down even to the junior high level. That day even our African American science
teacher Mr. White got egged. It was a confusing time in so many ways. Watergate
was about to bust open, the Israeli students would soon be shot and killed at
the Munich Olympics, and the Christmas bombing in Hanoi was just six short
months away.
I think about Paula a lot. I think about her integrity and
wonder what it was that motivated her to look after me. I was just a stupid
naive white girl with blue eyes and long straight blond hair in home made
clothes. Paula lived in the projects, and other than that I knew nothing about
her, except that she was my hero, and my angel.
I wish I could look up at her right now and say, “I love
you, Paula.”
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2008
Artwork image available at https://www.etsy.com/listing/276093594/african-american-angel-shotgun-angels
