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She said, smiling. “And what do you want now?”
    He grinned. “All right, hello. But I don’t need to ask how you are. You look great. And, yeah, you know me too well. I do want something.”
    â€œAt your service, sir.”
    â€œI read in the paper that at the AMA meeting here last week, there was an interesting seminar on hypertension, and I wondered if you could get hold of a copy of the transcript.”
    â€œI’ll try,” she said. If possible, she was always glad to do things like that for black doctors, who weren’t allowed to attend AMA meetings or special seminars at the hospital. Some doctors, black and white, were content to peddle pills, relying on what they’d learned to pass the Medical Board exams. But dedicated ones like Dan and Ann Elizabeth’s father were eager to learn new techniques. Dr. Carter had once waited tables at a seminar on innovative diabetes treatments and said he was quite pleased with what he’d learned.
    â€œDr. Basil attended that session on hypertension,” she now said to Dan. “I’ll see if he’s willing to share his notes.”
    â€œOh! Isn’t he the head of your department?”
    â€œYeah. And he’s not nearly as racist as some of them.”
    â€œThanks. I’d sure appreciate it. How did you like the play? Wasn’t Ann Elizabeth great?”
    â€œShe was, indeed,” Sadie replied, wondering if Ann Elizabeth knew how much this man loved her. Or if she really appreciated what a prize he was. She doubted it. If you never had anything
but the best all your life, you tended to think that was all you’d ever get.
    And Ann Elizabeth was so protected . Her mama never let her visit me in Beaver Slide—might get her pretty little pumps dirty. And, my God, if she had to deal with a bunch of bigots like those crackers at Grady... It’ll be tough going if she ever moves out of that seditty circle. Those high-society muckety-mucks who thought they were so much. Probably won’t though. Not if old lady Carter has her way. She’ll push Dan down Ann Elizabeth’s throat and clamp her mouth shut. She’s not likely to let a rich nigger white-looking doctor get away.
    Not that any of that would weigh with Ann Elizabeth. She may be dumb about real life, but she’s all heart. That’s why I like here and why I’m standing here about to make myself late for my shift, just waiting to tell her she was good in that dumb play.
    Â 
    It wasn’t Dan who stood at the foot of the steps leading from the stage to the auditorium. This man was short, stocky, red-haired and freckled. He looked strangely familiar, but Ann Elizabeth was almost sure she didn’t know him. Was he one of the students from Clark College? She knew most of the Morehouse boys. His smile was shy and rather hesitant.
    â€œI just wanted to tell you I thought you did a spectacular job.” It came out in a slow cracker drawl. Oh, he was white! Not one of those very fair-skinned Negroes.
    â€œWhy, thank you. That’s very kind of you.”
    â€œYou folks do a much more professional job than we do at Emory.”
    Emory. Atlanta’s premier white university. Ann Elizabeth had once gone there with some of the other drama students when, surprisingly, they’d been invited to view a performance.
    â€œI wouldn’t say that,” she objected. “I very much enjoyed your Cyrano production.” A downright lie. It had been lousy. But she’d only seen the dress rehearsal. Heaven forbid that a group
of Negro students should be allowed to sit among white spectators at a regular performance! Professor Rose had said, “Don’t knock it. At least it’s a beginning of getting together.”
    It hadn’t felt like getting together. Segregated, in the balcony, at a dress rehearsal. Here in Rockefeller Hall at Spelman, white spectators were allowed to attend any show and sit anywhere