“Welcome to Jasmine House, my dear.” There were eleven other houses on campus much like this, “but we like to think that Jasmine is the very best.” She beamed at Tana, and offered her a cup of tea as Sam took her bags upstairs. Tana accepted the flowered cup with the silver spoon, declined a plate of bland looking little cakes, and sat looking at the view of the lake, thinking of how strange life was. She felt as though she had landed in a different universe. Things were so different from New York … suddenly here she was, far from everyone she knew, drinking tea and talking to this woman with blue eyes and pearls … when only three months before she had been lying on Arthur Durning's bedroom floor being raped and beaten by his son.”…, don't you think, dear?” Tana stared blankly at the housemother, not sure of what she had just said, and demurely nodded her head, feeling suddenly tired. It was so much to take in all at once.

“Yes … yes … I do.…” She wasn't even sure what she was agreeing with, and suddenly all she wanted to do was escape to her room. At last, they finished their tea, set down their cups, and Tana had a sudden urge to laugh, wondering just how much tea the poor woman had had to drink that day, and then as though sensing Tana's impatience to settle in, she led the way to her room. It was up two handsomely curved flights of stairs, on a long hall, with flower prints and photographs of alumnae interspersed. Her room was at the very end of the hall. The walls were a pale pink, the curtains and bedspreads chintz. There were two narrow beds, two very old chests, two chairs, and a tiny corner sink. It was a funny old-fashioned room and the ceiling sloped directly over their beds. The housemother was watching her and seemed satisfied as Tana turned to her with a smile.

“This is very nice.”

“Every room in Jasmine House is.” She left the room shortly after that, and Tana sat staring at her trunks, not quite sure what to do, and then she lay down on her bed, looking out at the trees. She wondered if she should wait for her roommate to arrive before simply taking over one of the chests or half of the hanging space, and she didn't feel like unpacking anyway. She was thinking of taking a walk around the lake when she heard a knock on the door and suddenly Old Sam appeared. She sat up quickly on the edge of the bed, and he walked into the room carrying two bags with a strange look on his face. He glanced over at where Tana sat, seemed to shrug, and just looked at her.

“I guess this is a first for us.” What is? Tana looked confused as he shrugged again and disappeared, and Tana glanced over at the bags. But there seemed nothing remarkable there, two large navy blue and green plaid bags with railroad tags, a makeup case, and a round hatbox, just like the ones filled with Tana's junk. She wandered slowly around the room, wondering when their owner would appear. She expected an endless wait as she imagined the tea ritual, but in the end she was surprised at how quickly the girl appeared. The housemother knocked first, stared into Tana's eyes portentously as she opened the door, and then stood aside, as Sharon Blake seemed to float into the room. She was one of the most striking girls Tana thought she had ever seen, with jet black hair pulled tightly back, brilliant onyx eyes, teeth whiter than ivory in a pale cocoa face that was so finely etched it barely seemed real. Her beauty was so marked, her movements so graceful, her style so definite that she literally took Tana's breath away. She was wearing a bright red coat, and a small hat, and she tossed both swiftly into one of the room's two chairs, to reveal a narrow tube of gray wool dress, the exact same color as her well-made gray shoes. She looked more like a fashion plate than a college girl, and Tana inwardly groaned at the things she had brought. They were all kilts and slacks, old wool skirts that she didn't really care about, a lot of plain shirts, V neck sweaters, and two dresses her mother had bought her at Saks just before she left.

“Tana,” the housemother's voice said that she took the introduction very seriously, “this is Sharon Blake. She's from the North too. Although not as far North as you. She's from Washington, D.C.”

“Hello.” Tana glanced shyly at her, as Sharon shot her a dazzling smile and extended a hand.

“How do you do.”

“I'll leave you two girls alone.” She seemed to look at Sharon almost with a look of pain, and Tana with immeasurable sympathy. It cut her to the core to do this to her, but someone had to sleep with the girl, and Tana was a scholarship student after all. It was only fair. She had to be grateful for whatever she got. And the others wouldn't have put up with it. She softly closed the door, and walked downstairs with a determined step. It was the first time this had ever happened at Jasmine House, at Green Hill for that matter, and Julia Jones was wishing that she could have had something a little stronger than tea that afternoon. She needed it. It was a terrible strain, after all.

But upstairs Sharon only laughed as she threw herself into one of the room's uncomfortable chairs and looked at Tana's shining blond hair. They were an interestingly contrasted pair. The one so fair, the other dark. They eyed each other curiously as Tana smiled, wondering what she was doing there. It would have been easier for her to go to a college in the North, than to come here. But she didn't know Sharon Blake yet. The girl was beautiful, there was no doubt about that, and she was expensively dressed. Tana noticed that again, too, as Sharon kicked off her shoes.

“Well,” the delicate, dark face broke into a smile again, “what do you think of Jasmine House?”

“It's pretty, don't you think?” Tana still felt shy with her, but there was something appealing about the lovely girl. There was something raw and courageous and bold that stood out on the exquisite face.

“They gave us the worst room, you know.” Tana was shocked at that. “How do you know?” “I looked as we walked down the hall.” She sighed then and carefully took off her hat. “I expected that.”

And then she looked Tana over appraisingly. “And what sin did you commit to wind up rooming with me?” She smiled gently at Tana. She knew why she was there, she was the only token Negro to be accepted at Green Hill, and she was unusual, of course. Her father was an author of distinguished prose, winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, her mother was an attorney, currently in government, she would be different from most Negro girls. At least they expected her to be … although one could never be sure, of course … and Miriam Blake had given her oldest child a choice before sending her to Green Hill. She could have gone somewhere in the North, to Columbia in New York, her grades were good enough, or Georgetown closer to home, there was UCLA if she was serious about an acting career … or there was something important she could do, her mother said … “something that will mean something to other girls one day, Sharon.” Sharon had stared at her, not sure what she meant. “You could go to Green Hill.”

“In the South?” Sharon had been shocked. “They wouldn't even let me in.”

Miriam had glared at her. “You don't understand yet, do you, babe? Your father is Freeman Blake. He's written books that people have read all around the world. Do you really think they'd dare to keep you out today?”

Sharon had grinned nervously. “Hell, yes. Mama, they'd tar and feather me before I ever unpacked.” The thought terrified her. She knew what had happened in Little Rock three years before. She read the news. It had taken tanks and the National Guard to keep black children in a white school. And this wasn't just any little old school they were talking about. This was Green Hill. The most exclusive woman's junior college in the South, where daughters of Congressmen and Senators, and the governors of Texas and South Carolina and Georgia sent their little girls, to get two years of smarts before settling down with boys of their own kind. “Mama, that's nuts!”

“If every black girl in this country thinks like that, Sharon Blake, then a hundred years from now we'll still be sleeping in black hotels, sitting at the back of the bus, and drinking out of water fountains that reek of white boys' piss.” Her mother's eyes had blazed at her as Sharon winced. Miriam Blake thought that way, she always had. She had gone to RadcJiffe on a scholarship, Boalt Law School at UC, and ever since, she had fought hard for what she believed, for the underdog, the common man, and she was fighting for her people now. Even her husband admired her. She had more guts than anyone he'd ever known and she wasn't going to stop now. But it frightened Sharon sometimes. It frightened her a lot. As it had when she applied to Green Hill.

“What if I get in?” That scared her most of all and she told her father that. “I'm not like her, Daddy … I don't want to prove a point … to just get in … I want to have friends, to have a good time … what she wants me to do is too hard.…” Tears had filled her eyes and he understood. But he couldn't change either of them, Miriam and what she expected of them all, or the happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, beautiful girl, who was less like Miriam, and much more like him. She wanted to be an actress on the Broadway stage one day. And she wanted to go to UCLA.

“You can go there for your last two years, Shar,” her mother said, “after you pay your dues.”

“Why do I have to pay any dues at all?” she screamed. “Why do I owe anyone two years of my life?”

“Because you live here in your father's house, in a comfortable suburb of Washington, and you sleep in your nice, warm bed, thanks to us, and you've never known a life of pain.”

“So beat me, then. Treat me like a slave, but let me do what I want to do!”