No Crystal Stair by Eva Rutland Read Free Book Online

I’ve been waiting to tell you that you were stupendous!”
    â€œThank you. Oh, Sadie, I’m so glad you came.”
    â€œWouldn’t have missed it.”
    Wouldn’t have missed a possible chance to see Randy, Ann Elizabeth thought, and was sorry her brother hadn’t made it.
    â€œWell, don’t miss the debut, either. Everybody will be there,” she called as Sadie hurried off.
    She smiled at Dan, who’d been patiently waiting. “Thank you for the roses,” she said. “They’re lovely.”
    â€œAlmost as lovely as you.”
    â€œFlattery will get you everywhere!” she said, laughing.
    They walked out and sat on a bench under an oak tree near Rockefeller Hall. There were other couples standing around, privileged to spend a few moments together because the boys had been at the play. Spelman was a women’s college and Morehouse a men’s, and never the twain should meet... at night. Daytime was a different matter. Classes and professors were exchanged. Half of Ann Elizabeth’s classes were on the Morehouse campus across the street, on the other side of the library. The library was shared by both colleges and was said to have spawned more romances that master’s theses.
    â€œI’m going to miss all this,” she told Dan. “Even Mr. Willshoot.”
    â€œWillshoot?”
    Ann Elizabeth laughed. She sometimes forgot that Dan was relatively new to Atlanta. He was from Washington, D.C., and had attended Howard University before setting up his practice
in Atlanta. “That’s not his real name. The Morehouse boys just named him that because he’s always insisting that he ‘will shoot’ He’s Spelman’s security guard and it’s his job to see that the boys say goodbye at the gate and don’t accompany the girls to their dormitories.”
    She watched the lights going on one by one in the dorms, casting a faint glow through the trees. She listened to the laughter and chatter of the girls and the muted whispers of the couples around them. She became suddenly aware that this part of her life was almost over.
    â€œI feel a little sad,” she said. “Something is ending. And nothing’s beginning.”
    â€œSomething could begin. And I suggest it be with me.”
    â€œDan... I’m not sure.”
    â€œWe belong together, Ann Elizabeth.”
    â€œI know. But I’m just not sure I’m ready to begin a marriage.”
    â€œOkay, okay.” He took a pack from his pocket and drew out a cigarette. “Tell me. What would you like to begin?”
    â€œThat’s just it. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”
    â€œWell it’s not over yet. There’s graduation. And your debut.”
    â€œThat’s just part of the launching.” But launching into what?
    I majored in drama, she thought, just because I like it. Nothing I can do but teach it, maybe. She recalled her conversation with the redheaded boy. No yearning to be an actress, a movie star? Or was it simply that she knew she could never be one? The only thing she was suited for was marriage, she concluded. To someone like Dan.
    Dan, his face illuminated by the flame from his lighter, stared down at her. “Well, Mrs. Moonlight, do you want time to stop? Do you want things to stay as they are forever?”
    â€œNo, no. Of course not. Guess I’ve got graduation blues.”
    The chapel bell tolled the curfew hour, and they walked slowly toward Morgan, her dormitory. At the foot of the steps he kissed her and she thought of her father. That same clean
antiseptic smell, mingled with a slight odor of cigarette smoke.
    Ann Elizabeth’s room was on the third floor, and she made her way up the stairs, passing girls in various modes of attire. She borrowed a vase from the matron and stopped to arrange the roses, then continued to her room. She heard the giggling before she opened the