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speaks.
    â€œWhat do you think about what Miz Esther said this morning?”
    Although Ansel and Willie are the same age, Willie is as old as a cotton field. He knows his survival depends on how well he is able to perceive what a white person wants to hear and then says it before the white person knows that is what he or she wants to hear.
    Until Ansel had almost called him that word this morning, he had just about forgotten that Ansel was white.
    That could be dangerous. If he forgot that Ansel was, Ansel might remember that he was. And then what?
    But his parents had assured him that Ansel and Mister Bert were not like a lot of other white people. They were more like Miz Davis than Cap’n Zeph. ButWillie isn’t sure anymore.
    â€œI didn’t think nothing about what she said,” Willie answers.
    â€œYou figure on staying in Davis the rest of your life?” Ansel wants to know.
    â€œWhere else I’m gon’ go? And what would I do when I got there, if there was a there to get to.”
    Ansel ponders this for a minute. “I don’t think I knew there was a there until Miz Esther said I didn’t have to take over the store.” He stops and gazes into the distance as if he is seeing something for the first time.
    â€œI don’t have to do what my papa does if I don’t want to. I had never thought about that before this morning. I don’t even have to stay here in Davis.”
    â€œGood for you,” Willie says. There is resentment in his voice.
    â€œGood for me what?”
    â€œGood for you that you don’t have to do what anybody says. Good for you that you can go somewhere else.” Willie does not disguise the contempt he now feels for Ansel.
    Ansel opens his mouth to say something, then closes it slowly. He looks at Willie, and he is ashamed.He had forgotten what Willie cannot forget.
    It is only at this moment that he understands the difference in their lives, the difference between one who could imagine that his life could be different, and one who knew that his life would not be, regardless of how much he dreamed.
    Ansel wants to apologize, wants to say something that will take away the look of resentment on Willie’s face, wants to say something that will take back what he almost called him that morning. But when he speaks, he is surprised at the words that come out, surprised at how fervently they come out.
    â€œWe’ve got to start dreaming, Willie. We’ve just got to!”
    This is the last thing Willie expected Ansel to say. His use of “we” startles Willie. He resents Ansel for thinking that he is in the same position as Willie, but when he looks at Ansel, when he sees the look of anguish on his face, he remembers something his father told him, something that didn’t make sense until now.
    â€œDon’t never let yourself be angry with white folks. Us niggers, we know things are in a bad way. But the white folks? They don’t know that by keepingus down in a ditch, they got to be right here in the ditch with us. And because they don’t know that, they worse off than we are.”
    Willie’s face relaxes. He wants to dream; he wants to believe there is a there for him.
    â€œHow do we dream?” he wants to know.
    He doesn’t know that by asking the question, he has already begun.

Thursday Afternoon
    Ansel likes to sit on a stool in the kitchen when his mother is cooking.
    The worried, distracted look she wears like an old sweater that should have been thrown away a long time ago vanishes, and she becomes like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold morning.
    He and his mother seldom talk when they are in the kitchen together. At such times it is as if all the questions have been asked and answered, so there is no need for either of them to speak.
    But on this afternoon, the day after Esther Davis talked to him and Willie, a day when he went to work but early in the afternoon told his father he wasn’t