Free Pacific Avenue by Anne L. Watson Page A

young, maybe another student. He was half-hidden
behind the stacks, but I realized he was watching us, not looking for a book. I
wondered if he thought we couldn’t see him. Then I wondered if he knew we
could. My skin tightened with a fear so primitive, it astonished me. I forced
myself to look away.
    Richard seemed down that day, so I didn’t mention what
I’d seen. When I looked up again, the guy was gone.
    The next day, Richard studied alone in the library
while I took an English exam. We met late in the afternoon, and he didn’t say
anything about a man in a green coat or anyone else. He looked tired and
discouraged.
    I didn’t keep Green Coat on my mind either. I had other
problems: Aunt Ruth had called and invited us to Christmas dinner. All except
Richard. Not, my aunt had hurried to add, because he was black. No, not at all.
It was because of his dive under the table at Thanksgiving, nothing more.
    “I’m not going if you can’t,” I told him.
    “Hang on—I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. If you
don’t, you’ll make your whole family angry.”
    “So?”
    “I don’t think it’s worth it. Do you? What if we could
work it out gradually with them? Please go, Kathy. It’s not worth getting into
a family fight over just one evening.”
    “Sharon and Sam aren’t going.”
    “That’s their choice. I appreciate it, too. But let’s
give your family a chance to accept us, okay? Maybe all they need is a little
time.” He stared off down the quadrangle.
    The scared feeling started to come back. “Do you see
someone you know?”
    “I guess not.” He looked wary. Maybe school is
getting to him. Maybe it’s my family. Or maybe he saw someone in a dark coat
that could have been green corduroy, about fifty feet away. That’s what I think
I saw, but I’m not sure.
    I reached out to hug him and then remembered the long
walk down the hill to the parking lot. I wondered if the man in the green coat
would be watching me from the shadows.
    I drove home so wrapped up in my problems, it’s a good
thing no one got in my way.
    In the kitchen, Mom looked up from pouring beef stew into
a tureen. She pointed the spoon handle at a pot on the stove. “See if the rice
is done,” she said. “It better be. I don’t want this to get cold. Sharon and
Sam are coming.”
    I bit a grain of rice to test it for doneness. It was
soft, so I fetched a bowl and ladled it in. The table was already set. As I
found a serving spoon, Sharon and Sam arrived. I called to Dad that dinner was
on the table.
    “Why aren’t you going to your aunt’s party?” asked Mom
as soon as we all sat down.
    Sharon fussed with the bread basket. “Because Richard
wasn’t invited. We didn’t think it was right.”
    “Ruth and Joseph didn’t care for him. I mean, ducking
under the table . . . .” Mom ladled stew onto Dad’s plate and
reached for Sam’s.
    “If you’d invited him half a dozen times, and he did
something weird every time, they might have a point,” Sharon said. “But isn’t
just once a bit extreme? Even in baseball, you get three strikes before you’re
out.”
    “Ruth and Joseph have a right to decide their own guest
list,” Mom said. Her tone was final and—I thought—satisfied.
    Sharon wasn’t buying it. “The guests have a right to
send regrets, too,” she said. “We don’t think they’re telling the whole story
about why he’s not invited.” Her face was red and her voice was high and angry.
    Dad glanced at Mom, Mom glared at Sharon. Sam looked
down at his plate. No one looked my way. It was probably just as well. The more
I thought about the party, the angrier I got.
    Aunt Ruth used to understand me better than Mom did.
Like the time I bought that bathing suit. The one with ruffles on the front so
I could pretend I had breasts. Mom laughed at me, but Aunt Ruth said it was
pretty.
    I used to tell her secrets, things I wouldn’t tell
Mom. Boys I liked, and how I spent most of the Junior Prom in the