“Hey, I was just at the conservatory yesterday!” Melody exclaimed. “Well, outside it. For the Fair Housing Committee spring picnic with Tish and Val.”
“Yes, how was the picnic?” Mommy asked, refilling Daddy’s coffee. “Did you learn something?”
“Well, I met some people from the synagogues there.” Melody looked around the table.
“What, you mean Jewish people?” Lila asked. “On the Fair Housing Committee?”
Mommy nodded. “Jewish people and black people have worked together on issues like this for a long time,” she said, sounding like the teacher she was.
“Did you know that one of the founders of the NAACP was Jewish?” Daddy asked. He sipped his coffee.
“That’s the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,” Lila told Melody.
“I know that,” Melody told Lila. But she hadn’t known that one of the founders was white, or Jewish.
“From the start, Jewish people have worked on civil rights. Rabbis marched arm in arm with Dr. King in Selma, Alabama, during the freedom marches this spring,” Mommy added.
“I also met a new girl at the picnic. Her name’s Leah. She’s white—she’s from one of the synagogues, and I really like her,” Melody told the family. “Can she come over sometime, Mommy?”
“Of course she can, honey,” Mommy said. “Any of your friends are welcome at our house.”
“Well, don’t get too busy,” Poppa said, holding up his hand. “I’m going to need some help next weekend.”
“I’ll help you, Poppa!” Melody exclaimed. She loved helping Poppa in his shop. “What do you need me to do?”
“What I need is an assistant at the flower show,” Poppa said. “I need someone with experience, someone I can rely on, someone…” He pretended to look around the table as if considering his options. “Ah! Like you!” Poppa pointed at Melody, and she giggled at his joke. “I can’t think of a better assistant. Come out to Belle Isle in the truck with me on Friday, and we’ll set up the booth together. And—” Poppa smiled at Melody with his eyes crinkling. “I hear there’s going to be a fancy party on Saturday at the conservatory for the flower club members—and their dates. It’s called the Saturday Night Soiree.”
“Oh!” Melody dropped her roll on her plate. “Poppa, Mommy, do you think I can go?” She looked hopefully from grandparent to parent.
Poppa smiled mischievously. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if you get an invitation to the Soiree, now, won’t we?”
chapter 3
Friends and Fliers
TUESDAY AFTER SCHOOL, Melody trotted down her porch steps as Val hopped out of her family’s Ford Fairlane and slammed the heavy door with a clunk.
“Bye, Daddy!” Val called.
Charles leaned across the seat and spoke through his open window. “Now, you girls be careful. The neighborhood you’re going to is mostly friendly to black people, but not every person is. I’ll pick you up back here in an hour or so, baby.”
Val waved at her father, and the station wagon pulled away from the curb.
“Hey, cousin,” Val said. “Have some fliers!” She pulled a stack of fair housing fliers from the bag slung over her shoulder, and the girls headed down the sidewalk.
The day was crystal blue with puffy white clouds sailing overhead. On the tidy lawns, tulips nodded their red and yellow heads, while the last of the crabapple petals sprinkled the sidewalk at their feet. They passed the chain-link fence of the park they’d fixed up last summer with their friends. Melody got a little burst of pride every time she saw the bright metal jungle gym and new swings. The morning glories she’d planted around the base of the swings were starting to twine up the metal poles, getting ready for summer, when their blue horn-shaped flowers would burst forth.
About half a dozen blocks away, the girls turned right. They were out of Melody’s neighborhood now. The houses were larger here, big wooden and brick homes that had once been fancy, with large porches and bay windows. Some had been converted to apartments and had two or three mailboxes on the front porch. At one house, a white woman was collecting her mail. She glanced over her shoulder at the girls and frowned, then disappeared through her front door.
“Is this where we’re stuffing the mailboxes?” Melody asked, suddenly feeling a bit nervous.
“Yep,” said Val confidently. “This is the neighborhood.”
“Hey, did you say Leah lives here? Maybe we’ll see her.” The thought of a familiar face was comforting.
Val shrugged and didn’t say anything else.
Melody looked at her cousin for a long moment. She could tell that something about Leah was bothering Val. But whatever it was, Val wasn’t saying—not yet, anyway. Melody examined the fliers Val had handed her.
“Fair Housing for All!” the headline at the top trumpeted. “Help Integrate Our Neighborhoods.” Then, in smaller type, “The Greater Detroit Committee for Fair Housing Practices works to help families of all races become homeowners. Would you be willing to sell your home to a Negro family? If so, look for a Covenant Card in your mailbox soon! Sign the card and become part of our movement!”
“This is it.” Val counted the fliers rapidly. “Fifty. Let’s see if we can deliver them all before Daddy picks me up.” Her face was lit with an intensity Melody couldn’t remember seeing before.
“This is really important to you, isn’t it?” Melody said to her cousin as they climbed the first set of steps and poked a flier through a mail slot. “You were so sad last year, when you all couldn’t find a house to buy.”
Val nodded. “I wanted to us to have a place of our own, like your family does.”
Melody squeezed her cousin’s arm as they walked. “Well, now you’re in your very own house.”
“That’s right—so now it’s my turn to help some other people who’re having the same problems.” Val smiled and lifted her chin.
“Well, I’m glad I’m helping, too.” Melody looped her arm through Val’s and pulled her cousin close against her side as they crossed a lawn to a house with peeling lavender paint and sagging lace curtains at the windows. Inside, a dog barked repetitively, as if he’d been wound up.
“Oh hey, speaking of mail…” Melody pulled a small cream-colored card from her pocket. “Mommy said Poppa sent you one of these, too!”
Val read the card aloud. “‘Join Us for Our Saturday Night Soiree! 15th of May, 1965. 7:00 p.m., Belle Isle Conservatory. Sponsored by the Detroit Metro Flower Fanciers. Semiformal Attire.’ Yes! I got one, too, this morning. We’re going to be Poppa’s dates!”
“I think I’m going to wear my pink dress, the one with flowers on it. You remember that one?” Melody slipped a flier into the crack of a storm door.
A white woman opened the door suddenly, startling Melody so that she jumped. The woman was older, with a doughy face and cat-eye glasses. “What’s this?” she snapped suspiciously, unfolding the flier with a shake. Melody’s stomach sank. Val’s father had warned them that not everyone would be friendly.
The woman scanned the flier. “And where are these cards?” she demanded, tapping the paper as if it had done her some injustice.
“Uh, we don’t have them right now, ma’am,” Val stammered.