Free The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe

more highly of their dogs. Anita had overheard two sophomores dismiss the Negro as mentally, physically, and spiritually inferior and had stayed silent, she had repeatedly read the word nigger in the school newspaper and ignored it, but she had never felt shame the way she did when she crossed the street to avoid Alberta Scott. She wanted to be the person who did not cross the street, the person who instead went right up to her. She wanted to say, “You, AlbertaScott, are a Negro at Radcliffe College, and I, Anita Hemmings, am the only Negro at Vassar College.”
    But Vassar was not Radcliffe.
    “Anita. Anita?” said Lilly, looking back at her. Anita realized that she had stopped walking and that her eyes were still fixed on Alberta’s slowly disappearing form.
    “I’m sorry,” she said to Lilly. “I was lost in thought.”
    “It’s jarring, I know,” said Lilly. “Did Lottie not tell you about her and Gertrude? Negroes at Radcliffe. It’s disgusting. I can’t imagine their grades are up to snuff. They don’t have the same capacity for learning as we do. I’ve read studies on their minds. They are built for labor and breeding. Though I wish they would stop the latter. Many of the girls here think differently, but then again, it’s Massachusetts, isn’t it? Easier to brainwash the women of New England.”
    “Lottie did not tell me,” Anita said. “But please don’t worry, Lilly—”
    “No wonder you’re in shock. Come, we’ll linger a bit here, and she’ll most likely be off campus by the time we arrive at Fay House. She doesn’t spend much time inside with us, especially during the weekend. She just comes for classes and then heads back to that Negro family she lives with on Parker Street.”
    “She lives with a family?” Anita asked.
    “Of course,” said Lilly. “We may have made the mistake of letting her in, but the school knows well enough that no girl, even the most northern, would want to reside on the same block as her. Girls would drop out of school by the dozen if that were the case. The other one, Gertrude, still lives with her family on Museum Street in a Negro neighborhood, I’m told. But you might know better, Anita, about which streets to avoid in Cambridge and Boston?”
    Anita shook her head no.
    “All this bores me,”said Lottie, letting out a yawn and stretching uncouthly. “Black, white, green, why bother about all that? Let’s have an ice cream before Anita and I head off to Soldiers Field. And we must have time to fix ourselves. I am not setting a foot on Harvard campus with my hair out of sorts. And Anita can’t, either. She has a reputation to uphold since she waves the flag of beauty for all the Vassar students. Is there a maid here who can help us?”
    “Of course,” said Lilly, determined to show them that Radcliffe was everything Vassar was, despite having Alberta Scott and Gertrude Baker in its classrooms.
    When they reached Fay House, all three of them stopped midstep when they saw Alberta standing outside the building next to the front entrance.
    “How presumptuous!” exclaimed Lilly. “She is perfectly aware that if she lingers there, we have no choice but to walk right past her. It’s too hot to make our way around to another door.”
    “Lilly, I don’t see the need to find another entrance. Let’s just go indoors. If I don’t have something cool to drink, I’ll throw a fit,” said Lottie.
    “Lottie is an expert at fits,” said Lilly, before they all marched single-file through the door, Lottie in the lead.
    When Anita passed Alberta, she tried to catch her eye, to show compassion in her face, as she didn’t dare utter a word. She wanted Alberta to see in her something different than the Taylors, but Alberta did not look in her direction.
    Inside the entrance hall, Lottie leaned against the carved wooden wall and turned to Lilly, all thought of Alberta forgotten. “Lilly, are you sure we cannot change your mind?” she said. “Won’t you