She paid her fare and followed the rest of the maids toward the rear of the bus, nodding at a few people she knew. She wasn’t much in the mood to talk so she found an empty seat next to a window and gazed out. Every couple of blocks, the bus stopped to pick up a few more colored women in uniforms who shuffled wearily down the aisle and slumped into a seat near Doll with exhausted expressions on their faces, all of them wishing they were somewhere else, doing something different. Just as she did.
About thirty blocks later, the bus line ended at Canal Street near the Mississippi River. Doll started toward the five-and-dime where she was supposed to meet her friends. She passed an empty storefront with a “For Lease” sign, in a small redbrick building with plate-glass windows that used to be a shoe repair. Doll thought it would be the perfect spot to open a dress shop.
She cupped her hands over her eyes and looked in. She pictured herself with a sewing room in the back, designing gowns for all the Negro balls, displaying one or two of her favorites in the front window. She reached into her pocketbook to jot down the information when she noticed some writing beneath the phone number on the sign.
“No Negroes Need Apply.”
Doll stood there blinking hard, the “For Lease” sign reflecting back against her chest, leaving a dark rectangular shadow. She felt her blood boiling up inside her, and at that moment, all she wanted to do was punch the window until it shattered into small pieces. Instead, she walked away, her head hung low with disappointment.
It wasn’t until a few blocks down, when she spotted her friends near the corner of St. Charles Avenue, that she brightened up, remembering why she’d come in the first place.
“Where you been, Dollbaby?” a young man in a cloth hat rimmed with blue ribbon called out as she approached. “We thought you might be bagging us.”
“Sorry, Slim,” she said. “Got caught up. Where’s Lola Mae?”
“I’m right here,” a young woman in a checkered shift said as she walked up behind Doll.
“Where’s everybody else at?” Doll asked.
Slim nodded toward the other side of the street, where a few of their friends were milling around, trying hard not to look as if they were up to anything.
“Don’t want too many of us hanging together,” he said. “Might draw attention.”
Doll stole a glance across the street, trying to figure out how many of them had shown up for the sit-in. “Doretha here?”
“Yeah. She standing behind Jerome on the other side of Canal Street,” Slim said. “Now that you showed up, we all here. Follow me, and remember what I told you.”
When Slim tipped his hat to Jerome, Jerome did the same. It was the signal for them to begin their approach to the store. They followed one another, keeping a good distance, going into the Woolworth in five-minute intervals. Doll stood on the corner, pretending to wait for a bus. One came and left. Then another. She was beginning to get a little uneasy as the third bus approached, but then Jerome gave her the signal. She opened the door to Woolworth and looked around the store with the pretense of searching for hairspray. After a few minutes, she made it up to the lunch counter, where five other colored folks, including Jerome, Doretha, and Lola Mae, were already seated.
The soda jerk behind the lunch counter came up to Jerome and pointed to a sign on the wall. “Jerome, what in the hell do you think y’all are doing? Can’t you read? This counter is for white folks. No coloreds. You know the rules. How many times I got to tell you?”
The soda jerk knew him because this was about the fourth time he’d staged such an event.
Jerome ignored him and said in his most sophisticated voice, “I’d like a nectar soda, if you please.”
The young man behind the counter crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. Then he walked away, untying his apron. Doll knew he was probably on his way to get the manager. By the time he returned, the lunch counter was filled with colored folks. The store had become unusually quiet as all the white folks, seeing what was happening, slipped out of the store. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall in front of them. Twelve-fifteen. Had they been there only fifteen minutes? It seemed like an eternity.
“What do we do now?” Doll whispered to Doretha, who was seated next to her, wearing a nervous face.
“Remember what Jerome told us. We need to wait for the reporters to show up so they can get our picture,” she said. “Hope the reporters get here first, before the cops, otherwise we gone get beat up for nothing.”
A short man in a starched white coat with “Mr. Balducci, Manager” stitched in red on the front pocket came up behind them. “I’m going to have to ask you folks to leave.”
No one at the counter moved.
“All right then. You leave me no choice but to call the police,” Mr. Balducci said.
Still no one moved, but Doll could hear Lola Mae breathing heavily at her side. Where are the damn reporters? Doll wondered.
The front door burst open, and a man with a camera raced in and began taking pictures.
Mr. Balducci rushed up to him and put his hand up. “No pictures. Not in my store.”