Free Shadows of St. Louis by Leslie Dubois

excuse for a man. Oh wait, she did remember. It was all her mother's doing in her never-ending attempt to move up their family's station in life. But at least Frank helped her conceal her true love, the love she had with Clarence.
    She had met him two years earlier when his sister, Cecilia, agreed to take care of Jesse. Everything about him intrigued her, his dark skin, his gleaming smile, the way his eyes danced whenever he thought of something funny. And he always found the humor in any situation. He was without a doubt the most jovial person she had ever met. At first she couldn't understand why. He was Negro, poor and lived in the slums of St. Louis. But she rarely saw him without a laugh in his eye. Being around him made her realize how ridiculous and confining her supposed life of privilege was.
    On top of that, Clarence had opened up a new world of music for her. He played piano for a popular St. Louis band. A band that played music unlike anything else Rebecca Jane had heard before. Music that breathed air into her soul and made her feel alive. One night when she and Charles were visiting Jessie, she heard Clarence playing. They spent three hours straight just singing together. That's when she knew he was the one.
    "Jane," he whispered into her ear. That was another thing she loved about him. The way he called her 'Jane' when they were alone. No one else called her that. It made her feel so grown up, like a woman loved. Just the way he said that simple name told her that he knew her and loved her for what she was instead of what she pretended to be.
    "Okay. Five more minutes," she said, letting the robe slip from her shoulders.
    "You better make it ten," he said with a smile.
     
     

John Miller
     
    John Miller's job at the St. Louis Republic newspaper was a hodgepodge of running errands and making coffee. Basically, anything someone else didn't want to do fell on his shoulders. It was a common theme in his life. He didn't complain though. The newspaper provided a steady income. And he hoped that one day his loyalty to the St. Louis Republic would result in a more permanent and important position.
    Like his brother Henry, John wanted to one day help people. While Henry wanted to do that through medicine, John wanted to do so by spreading the truth. He felt that the strength of a society could be measured by how informed its citizens were. So while his father and brothers all pressured him to join them at the local steel company, he had refused in order to take a position with the newspaper. Given the strike and the current financial position of his family, he was happy he'd made that choice. He and Henry were the only ones working. If it weren't for them, their family would be starving right now.
    John finished sharpening pencils for everyone in the entire building then plopped into a chair. He sighed as he thought of his brother and the danger he was putting the family in. It was safer just to stay away from Negros completely. Where there was a Negro there was always trouble. He knew this first hand. Just a month ago, John was assigned the task of taking pictures at an incident downtown that involved Negros. After a Negro tried to rob a white man, a mob of white men formed and rampaged the downtown area seeking revenge. The National Guard actually had to be brought in to quell the violence. He still couldn't get the images of bloodied and beaten black men out of his mind.
    His brothers Walter and Willie had been a part of that mob. He shuddered to think at what would happen if something like that occurred again. What if Walter and Willie tried to hurt this Negro girl Henry was infatuated with? Would Henry try to stop them? Would Walter and Willie hurt Henry? And more importantly, whose side would John be on? Henry had always been the sensible one in the family. How could he now go and do something as insensible as believe he was in love with a Negro? It was just beyond all reason. This girl had done something to