Respect
"Because we're respectable people and respectable women and girls wear dresses to church," Grandma explained.
"But Ms. Ida's respectable, and she's wearing a jean skirt today." I couldn't understand why I had to wear a long heavy dress
while other girls got to wear lightweight skirts.
"Ms. Ida's poor, and anyway, that denim skirt's new. Her daughter gave it to her for her birthday."
"Mom's wearing a skirt, too," I protested.
"That's 'cause dresses don't fit me real well," said Mama. "My hips are for a larger size than my bust."
"Your waist, too," mumbled Grandma.
Mama turned around and glared at her.
I was raised by Mama and Grandma. My dad was off working somewhere, and Grandpa was dead. Had a heart attack at 45. He'd
smoked for a few years when he was younger. Grandma made him quit after they got married, but before Mama was born. But she
still believed that his habit had done him in.
My dress ended halfway between my knees and ankles, like Grandma's. Mama's skirt barely grazed her knees, and Grandma said
(never when Mama could hear, though) that that skirt made her look like a hussy.
It was a warm Sunday August afternoon. School would be starting in a couple of weeks. We were walking home from church, since
we lived only about three blocks away. Being black folks, we attended the twelve o'clock service, which meant we were hungry
by the time it was over. Once a month, we would have a potluck lunch after church in the fellowship hall, when the
Presbyterians (who normally used the hall because their own church had burned down the summer before) went to the next town
to worship with another church.
At home, we would have sandwiches while Mama and Grandma and Ms. Ida and a couple of other ladies prepared a Sunday dinner,
which we would eat at about four o'clock. I had to put on an apron and be careful of my dress, since I wasn't allowed to
change clothes. You had to be respectable, even at home, on a Sunday—or so Grandma said. Mama always changed into an old skirt that you couldn't get the dirt out of, no matter how many times you washed and bleached it, however.
"You should get rid of that old rag," Grandma said to Mama.
"It's comfortable, and I don't have to worry about it getting dirty," Mama said.
"Well, your slip's hanging out today," Grandma said.
"It's coming apart on that side," said Mama. "I'll sew it when I get some time."
I poured a glass of milk and had some cookies with it and my sandwich. Afterward, even though I couldn't take off my dress, I
did go to my room and change out of my shoes and stockings. I would have taken off my slip, too, since my dress was modest
enough, but it was a full slip and I didn't have time to take off my dress and put it back on.
For the Sunday dinner, I got to toss the salad and clean up after the ham was in the oven. Then I had to set the table. Ms.Ida and her daughter joined us, along with the pastor's wife and their niece, Kimberly Ann. Kimberly Ann had been sent to stay with the pastor as a consequence of having one too many boyfriends—which is to say, one. They had been caught kissing
in his brother's car in the big city where they lived.
I was surprised to see that Kimberly Ann was half white. Her skin was a lot lighter than ours, though not as light as the
white folks.' In our town, mixing of the races simply didn't happen. There were laws against marrying out of the race, and
nobody challenged them. But I guess where Kimberly Ann lived, that wasn't the case.
"My boyfriend was a white boy, and a great kisser," Kimberly Ann said to me when we went to our room after dinner. Rachel,
Ms. Ida's daughter, was there, too, but she didn't talk very much. She was older than us--had gone to college for a year, in
fact--but she didn't get along real well with the adult folk.
"What's his name?" I asked her.
"David Henry Johnson," she said.
"That don't sound like a white boy's name," I said. All the Johnsons I knew were black folks.
"There was a professor where I went to college named Mrs. Johnson," said Rachel.
"They let married women teach?" Where I lived, all the teachers were Miss Something-or-Other. Miss Cornthwaite (or something
like that) was our music teacher. Miss Walker was my homeroom teacher.
"Well," said Kimberly Ann, "there were men teachers where I went to school. Mr. Robson was my second-grade teacher."
"Here," I said, "you don't see no men teachers till you get in high school." Not too many of us would go to high school,
since an eighth-grade education was sufficient for most people.
"Mr. Harper taught boys' gym class," said Rachel. She, of course, had been to high school. "Miss Perkins taught girls' gym."
"What did you do in girls' gym class?" Kimberly Ann asked. The thought of girls' gym seemed to interest her.
"Dancing, mainly. It was the only thing we could do in our dresses. We couldn't change our clothes like the boys did."
"At our school," said Kimberly Ann, "we had to wear shorts under our dresses for gym class. If we forgot them, we had to be
careful not to show our panties. If we got careless, our grade dropped one letter. I got a 'C' last year in gym." I thought
she'd be embarrassed by the admission, but she appeared to be beaming with pride instead.
"Well, I don't think they grade you for gym class here," I said. I had never seen anything for gym or "physical education" on
my report card. Maybe they just wrote a note or something on the "comments" page if you had problems in gym.
We talked about boys and school and other stuff for a while. "Rachel!" shouted Ms. Ida. "It's time to go!"
"Do you need a ride, Ms. Ida?" asked the pastor. He was the only one in the church with a car, mainly because he sometimes
had to preach fire and brimstone to the Pentecostals in the next county. Even though he wasn't a Pentecostal, they liked his
preaching, so they bought him an old car, and a couple of them who were mechanics kept it running.
"No, thank you," said Ms. Ida. She didn't believe in riding in a car on Sunday, even if the pastor was driving. In any event,
she and Rachel didn't have far to walk, as they lived around the corner from the church.
"I need to go see Rev. Leary, then," said our pastor. Rev. Leary was the pastor of the white folks' church, and he and our
pastor were always talking about fixing things that were broken at the church. I didn't like Rev. Leary. He seemed to always
be trying to blame the black folks for things that were wrong in the church.
The pastor's wife continued visiting with Mama and Grandma while he went to see Rev. Leary. Kimberly Ann and I talked in our
room. I was surprised when she asked me if I wanted to see something. I just hoped it wasn't something I wasn't supposed to
see.
Kimberly Ann pulled up her dress and showed that she had on a much shorter skirt underneath. "Is that your slip?" I asked,
wondering why she was showing it to me.
"This is a short skirt. Girls in the cities are wearing them now."
"Why?" I asked. Respectable folk didn't wear such clothing.
"Because it's fun, Silly," she laughed. "Would you like to wear one?"
"Uh, no," I said. "If Grandma ever caught me in something like that, I'd get a whuppin'."
"So? Just wear it under your regular dress like I do. Whenever you get a chance, like when you're alone in your room, you can
take off your other clothes and just wear the skirt."
"Well," I said, "it will have to be some other day of the week, since I have to wear a dress and a full slip all day on
Sunday."
"What about Wednesday? Doesn't your Grandma have a Bible study with my uncle on Wednesday night?"
"Yeah," I hesitated. "But not every Wednesday."
"Does she make you wear a dress?"
"I don't go to the Bible study, at least not yet. Sometimes I go to a youth meeting with the pastor's wife at their house."
"Good, that's even better. Next time you come over to 'youth group' at our house, wear a skirt. After the meeting, you can
try on some of my short skirts."
Kimberly Ann was persuasive, but it was a couple of weeks, almost the start of school, before I saw her again. However, I was
wearing a skirt, though I had to wear a full slip with it. I felt that Grandma and Mama knew what Kimberly Ann was up to,
even though we hadn't talked about her at all since her visit. They had chosen my clothes for the evening, which was a youth-group meeting at the pastor's house.
The meeting lasted almost an hour, meaning we had only half an hour before I had to be home. The pastor would drive me,
however, as he didn't want us walking along the road late at night. So I wouldn't have to leave until just before it was time
to be home, as the trip would be short in the pastor's car.
"You're supposed to wear that over your slip," laughed Kimberly Ann as I put on a short skirt underneath the full slip.
"It's way too short," I giggled, looking at myself in the mirror as I held up a full slip to get a better view of what I had
on underneath. The short skirt ended about halfway down to my knees.
"It would be even shorter if you were wearing it alone," Kimberly Ann said. "Here, look at mine." She took off her skirt and
half slip to reveal a skirt that apparently barely covered her underwear. "Girls are starting to wear this in the cities.
You'll be wearing something like this by the time you get out of school."
"Not if Grandma's still alive," I said. I wasn't sure Mama wouldn't let me wear something like it, however.
"Here, try this one on," she said. She handed me a garment that looked like a short skirt but, as I pulled it on, I realized
it had shorts attached inside.
"Ooh, these are pants," I said. I had never worn pants. Neither had Mama or Grandma.
"Yeah, but they look like a skirt from the outside. Some look like skirts only from the front, though," said Kimberly Ann.
"Like this one." She put on the skirt that was really pants and turned around. It had pant legs that you could see from the rear.
"Grandma would kill me if I ever wore one of those. She'd think I was a prostitute or something." I wasn't so sure about
Mama, though.
The pastor's wife called for me and told me it was time to go home. Kimberly Ann and I didn't say anything about what we'd
done on the ride home. I knew I couldn't tell anyone what I had seen or done, but I did know that I would be spending a lot
more time with Kimberly Ann. Perhaps I would not have to wear a slip the next time I visited. I didn't care too much about
the short skirts, but the short pants that looked like a skirt, even if I had to wear them under a dress, promised to be a
lot of fun.
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