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Authors: James Grippando
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face staring back at her in the mirror.
8
Bright autumn colors lit up the tree-lined streets of Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Halloween morning. One good rainfall and it would all be gone, but a solid week of chilly nights and sunny days had set the leaves ablaze.
The sun was shining brightly as twelve-year-old Kristen boarded the transport van at Wharton Middle School. It was the same routine each morning, Monday through Friday. Kristen attended homeroom at Wharton until nine o’clock, then rode the van to Martin Luther King, Jr., High School, a magnet school on the other side of picturesque Fisk University. Kristen was a gifted sixth grader who studied English literature at a tenth-grade level. Schoolwork was easy; looking older was the hard part. Her heart-shaped face was just beginning to show angles of maturity, and the results were promising—too promising, as far as her protective mother was concerned. Makeup was forbidden until she turned thirteen, but Kristen still managed a little mascara to accentuate her huge dark eyes, her best feature. She knew, too, that her long legs would someday be an asset, but for now the gangly pre-teenager was happy just to get by without tripping over them.
“Hi, Reggie.” She was her usual cheery self as she bounded into the front passenger seat. Themiddle school was having a contest, so she was dressed in her Halloween costume. A red, white, and blue sweat suit with the TEAM USA logo and a big snack food insignia that marked it as the official sweat suit of the 2000 Olympics.
Sixty-year-old Reggie tipped his driving cap. “Mornin’, Miss Kristen.”
“Will you please stop calling me ‘Miss Kristen.’ It’s so aristocratic.”
His eyes widened. “Now that’s a high-falutin’ word if I ever did hear one. They teachin’ you real good over at the high school, ain’t they, Miss Kristen?”
“I guess.”
The van merged into traffic on the busy Dr. D.B. Todd Boulevard. The street bordered Fisk University, which lay roughly midway between Wharton Middle School and Martin Luther King High School. Reggie turned onto the campus at Meharry Street, then parked in front of Jubilee Hall, a six-story dormitory built in the nineteenth century in Victorian Gothic style.
The campus detour was part of their agreed-upon routine. From the very first day, Kristen had hated arriving at the high school in a van marked WHARTON MIDDLE SCHOOL . She thought she could make a much more fitting entrance if Reggie simply dropped her off at the university and let her walk the remaining three blocks to the high school. She had been forced to bat her eyes and turn on the charm, but after two weeks she’d finally sold Reggie on the arrangement. The only condition was that he be allowed to trail behind in the van, keeping an eye on her from a safe but inconspicuous distance.
“See you tomorrow, Reggie.” She eagerlyopened the passenger door, jumped down with her book bag, and started across the college campus. She passed the old library with its big broken clock, an imposing building of brick and stone that now housed administration. To her left were the towering Fisk Memorial Chapel, the quaint Harris Music Building with Italianate detail, and a modern three-story library with a long concrete colonnade. The two-block walk across campus inspired her with dreams of becoming the youngest student ever at the nation’s oldest black college.
As she exited beneath the iron campus gate, she noticed the Wharton Middle School van trailing slowly, no more than fifty feet behind her. She crossed Jackson Street and started down Seventeenth Avenue. The van was creeping along, now less than fifty feet behind her.
She stopped and grimaced. With her hands on hips she glared back at the van, as if to say, “Reggie, you’re following too close.”
She turned and headed for the high school, strolling down a cracked old sidewalk that had been rearranged by the twisted roots of hundred-year-old oaks. A
8
Bright autumn colors lit up the tree-lined streets of Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, Halloween morning. One good rainfall and it would all be gone, but a solid week of chilly nights and sunny days had set the leaves ablaze.
The sun was shining brightly as twelve-year-old Kristen boarded the transport van at Wharton Middle School. It was the same routine each morning, Monday through Friday. Kristen attended homeroom at Wharton until nine o’clock, then rode the van to Martin Luther King, Jr., High School, a magnet school on the other side of picturesque Fisk University. Kristen was a gifted sixth grader who studied English literature at a tenth-grade level. Schoolwork was easy; looking older was the hard part. Her heart-shaped face was just beginning to show angles of maturity, and the results were promising—too promising, as far as her protective mother was concerned. Makeup was forbidden until she turned thirteen, but Kristen still managed a little mascara to accentuate her huge dark eyes, her best feature. She knew, too, that her long legs would someday be an asset, but for now the gangly pre-teenager was happy just to get by without tripping over them.
“Hi, Reggie.” She was her usual cheery self as she bounded into the front passenger seat. Themiddle school was having a contest, so she was dressed in her Halloween costume. A red, white, and blue sweat suit with the TEAM USA logo and a big snack food insignia that marked it as the official sweat suit of the 2000 Olympics.
Sixty-year-old Reggie tipped his driving cap. “Mornin’, Miss Kristen.”
“Will you please stop calling me ‘Miss Kristen.’ It’s so aristocratic.”
His eyes widened. “Now that’s a high-falutin’ word if I ever did hear one. They teachin’ you real good over at the high school, ain’t they, Miss Kristen?”
“I guess.”
The van merged into traffic on the busy Dr. D.B. Todd Boulevard. The street bordered Fisk University, which lay roughly midway between Wharton Middle School and Martin Luther King High School. Reggie turned onto the campus at Meharry Street, then parked in front of Jubilee Hall, a six-story dormitory built in the nineteenth century in Victorian Gothic style.
The campus detour was part of their agreed-upon routine. From the very first day, Kristen had hated arriving at the high school in a van marked WHARTON MIDDLE SCHOOL . She thought she could make a much more fitting entrance if Reggie simply dropped her off at the university and let her walk the remaining three blocks to the high school. She had been forced to bat her eyes and turn on the charm, but after two weeks she’d finally sold Reggie on the arrangement. The only condition was that he be allowed to trail behind in the van, keeping an eye on her from a safe but inconspicuous distance.
“See you tomorrow, Reggie.” She eagerlyopened the passenger door, jumped down with her book bag, and started across the college campus. She passed the old library with its big broken clock, an imposing building of brick and stone that now housed administration. To her left were the towering Fisk Memorial Chapel, the quaint Harris Music Building with Italianate detail, and a modern three-story library with a long concrete colonnade. The two-block walk across campus inspired her with dreams of becoming the youngest student ever at the nation’s oldest black college.
As she exited beneath the iron campus gate, she noticed the Wharton Middle School van trailing slowly, no more than fifty feet behind her. She crossed Jackson Street and started down Seventeenth Avenue. The van was creeping along, now less than fifty feet behind her.
She stopped and grimaced. With her hands on hips she glared back at the van, as if to say, “Reggie, you’re following too close.”
She turned and headed for the high school, strolling down a cracked old sidewalk that had been rearranged by the twisted roots of hundred-year-old oaks. A
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