Danielle Steel - Full circle

“Holy shit.” Tana looked shocked, and Sharon grinned.

“That's about right.” The two girls exchanged a smile. “Dr. Clarke is going to see who he can get, and I … I don't know … maybe it's wrong, but I wanted to ask you. But if you don't want to, Tan, don't.”

“Why would they get upset if I walk into their church? I'm white.”

“Not if you walk in with us, you're not. That makes you white trash, or worse. If you walk in holding my hand, standing between me and Reverend Clarke or another black … that's different, Tan.”

“Yeah,” she felt a twinge of fear in her gut, but she also wanted to help her friend, “I guess I can see that.”

“What do you think?” Sharon looked her square in the eye and Tana did the same.

“Honestly? I'm scared.”

“So am I. I always am.” And then very gently, “So was Dick. But he went. And I'm going too. I'm going to go every time I can for the rest of my life now, until things change. But it's my fight, Tana, not yours. If you come, you come as my friend. And if you don't come, I love you anyway.”

“Thanks. Can I think about it tonight?” She knew that it could have repercussions if it got back to the school, and she didn't want to jeopardize her scholarship for the following year. She called Harry late that night, but he was out, and she woke up the next morning at dawn, thinking about going to church when she was a little girl, and things her mother had said about all people being the same in God's eyes, the rich, the poor, the white, the black, everyone, and then she thought about Sharon's brother Dick, a fifteen-year-old child, hanged until he died, and when Sharon turned over in bed as the sun came up, Tana was waiting for her.

“Sleep okay?”

“More or less.” She sat up on the edge of the bed and stretched.

“You getting up?” There was a question in Sharon's eyes, and Tana smiled.

“Yeah. We're going to church today, aren't we?” And with that Sharon grinned broadly at her friend. She hopped out of bed, and gave her a hug and a kiss and a victorious smile.

“I'm so glad, Tan.”

“I don't know if I am, but I think it's the right thing to do.”

“I know it is.” It was going to be a long, bloody fight, but Sharon would be there, and Tana, just this once. She put on a simple blue cotton shirtdress, the color of the sky, brushed her long blond hair into a sleek ponytail, put her loafers on, and they walked into town side by side.

“Going to church, girls?” the housemother had smilingly asked and both had answered yes. They both knew that she had meant different ones, but Tana went to the black church with Sharon where they met Dr. Clarke and a small crowd of ninety-five blacks and eleven whites. They were told to stay calm, to smile if it seemed appropriate, but not if it would provoke anyone, and to remain silent no matter what anyone said to them. They were to hold hands and to enter the church solemnly and respectfully, in groups of five. Sharon and Tana were to remain together. There was another white girl with them, and two black men, both burly and tall, and they told Tana on the way to the other church that they worked at the mill. They were hardly older than the girls, but both were married, one had three children, the other four, and they didn't seem to question her being there. They called her Sister, and just before they walked into the church, the five companions exchanged a nervous smile. And then quietly, they stepped inside. It was a small Presbyterian church on the residential side of town, heavily attended every Sunday, with a Sunday school that was well filled, and as the black faces began to file in, every man and woman in the church turned around. There was a look of complete shock on everyone, the organ stopped, one woman fainted, another began to scream, and within a matter of moments all hell broke loose, the minister began to shout, someone ran to call the police, and only Dr. Clarke's volunteers remained calm, standing solidly along the back wall, causing no trouble at all, as people turned and jeered, hurled insults at them, even though they were in church. Within moments the town's tiny squad of riot police had arrived. They had been recently trained for the sit-ins that had begun to occur and were mostly composed of highway patrolmen, but they began to push and shove and drag the uncooperating black bodies out, as they made themselves limp, and allowed themselves to be dragged away, and suddenly Tana realized what was happening to them. She was next, this was not happening to a remote “them,” it was happening to “us” and to her, and suddenly two enormous policemen hovered over her, and grabbed her roughly by both arms waving their sticks in her face.

“You should be ashamed of yourself … white trash!” Her eyes were huge as they dragged her off, and with every ounce of her being she wanted to hit and bite and kick, thinking of Richard Blake and how he had been killed, but she didn't dare. They threw her into the back of the truck, with much of Dr. Clarke's group, and half an hour later, she was being fingerprinted and she was in jail. She sat in a jail cell for the rest of the day, with fifteen other girls, all of them black, and she could see Sharon across the way. They had each been allowed one phone call, the whites at least, the blacks were still being “processed” according to the cops, and Sharon shouted to her to call her Mom, which Tana did. She arrived in Yolan at midnight, and released Sharon and Tana simultaneously, congratulating them both. Tana could see that she looked harder and more drawn than she had six months before, but she seemed pleased with what the girls had done. She wasn't even upset when Sharon told her the news the next day. She was being kicked out of Green Hill, effective immediately. Her things had already been packed by the housemother of Jasmine House, and she was being asked to leave the campus before noon. Tana was in shock when she heard, and she knew what she could expect for herself when she was ushered into the Dean's office. It was just as she had thought. She was being asked to leave. There would be no scholarship the following year. In fact, there would be no following year at all. Like Sharon, it was all over for her. The only difference was that if she was willing to stay on in a probationary state, she could stay on until the end of the year, which would at least mean that she could take her final exams and apply to another school. But where? She sat in her room in shock after Sharon had left. Sharon was going back to Washington with her mother, and there had already been talk of her spending a little time as a volunteer for Dr. King.

“I know Daddy'll be mad because he wants me to go to school, but you know, truthfully, Tan, I've had it up to here with school.” She looked sorrowfully at Tana then. “But what about you?” She was devastated about the price of the sit-in for her friend. She had never gotten arrested before, although they had been warned before the church sit-in that it was a real possibility, yet she really hadn't expected it.

“Maybe it's all for the best.” Tana tried to cheer her up, and she was still in shock when Sharon left, and she sat alone in her room until dark. Her probation meant that she had to eat alone at Jasmine House, keep to her room at night, and avoid all social activities including the freshman prom. She was a pariah of sorts, but she also knew that school would be over in three weeks.

The worst of it was that, as they had warned Tana they would, they informed Jean. She called, hysterical, that night, sobbing into the phone. “Why didn't you tell me that little bitch was black?”

“What difference does it make what color she is? She's my best friend.” But tears filled Tana's eyes and the emotions of the past few days overwhelmed her suddenly. Everyone at school was looking at her as though she had killed someone, and Sharon was gone. She didn't know where she would go to school next year, and her mother was screaming at her … it was like being five years old and being told you had been very, very bad, but not being sure why.