Morning Is a Long Time Coming by Bette Greene

know,” she giggled, “it’s fun to make things pretty. Will you let me?”
    “No, last time you did my nails, you didn’t have any remover to clean up the mistakes.”
    With dazzling orange-tipped fingers, Sharon reached back into her hip pocket and brought forth a full bottle of yellow nail-polish remover.
    I looked again at the bottle of Rose Dust polish and was about to give Sharon my half-hearted permission, when I heard my mother use my name.
    “What are you saying about me?”
    “Nothing. It was nothing.”
    “What do you mean nothing? I heard you use my name.”
    My mother sighed as though I were inexcusably slowing her down. “I was telling your daddy that we oughta write the William R. Moore Company, the Memphis Wholesale Mart, and Cantor & Sons to establish a credit rating for you.”
    It sounded decidedly important and flattering too. But why would I need a credit rating? Right off, I thought of one possibility that made sense. If my parents were suddenly killed in, say, an automobile accident, then who else but I would take care of Sharon? Run the store? I felt saddenedas though their deaths were imminent and yet I also felt enormously pleased. Never would I have guessed that they’d have that kind of confidence in me. And I’m not going to let them down either. They can depend on that!
    My father was pointing an index finger at me as though directing his words to their destination in the centermost core of my brain. “If I call you up and tell you to go down to a certain jobber for a gross of men’s work socks, then I don’t want you to take it upon yourself to buy another thing. Understand?”
    “Yes, sir,” I answered, not really understanding at all. “Do you maybe sometimes want me to go into Memphis for you? Do a little buying for the store?”
    “No, not till you’re there.”
    “Sir?”
    “Not now,” he said. “Not until you’re already there in the dormitory at Teacher’s Normal.”
    My mother interjected. “They don’t call it ‘Teacher’s Normal’ anymore, Harry. They haven’t for years. It’s Memphis State College now.”
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “Wait a minute!” I felt the familiar onrush of rage for having my life controls snatched from me. “What are you all thinking? That I’m going there? To Memphis State College?”
    My father blinked and I knew that inadvertently he had given it all away. The controls of my life were back in my hands where they belonged. “Isn’t that where you want to go?” he asked. “It’s cheap and it’s near home.”
    “Oh, no, sir,” I answered. “That’s not at all where I want to go.”
    “Well, where do you want to go?”
    Without hesitation, I said the word. Heard myself say the word, “Europe,” and I was so busy congratulating myself on my freshly found courage that I wasn’t, wasn’t at this moment, frightened.
    “What!” shouted my father, and unless I’m mistaken my mother shouted it, too.
    “Well,” I said, knowing that after these next sentences left my mouth, “normal” would be a long time coming. “After much thought, I’ve decided to spend my own money—the thousand dollars that Grandmother and Grandfather gave me—going on a little tour of Europe. When I come back, you won’t have to worry. I’ll work part time and go to college part time. I won’t be a burden! I’ll pay my own way. I promise!”
    “Who ever heard of such a thing!” screamed my mother. “Who goes there? Nobody. Only soldiers to fight! Where does she get those ideas? She doesn’t get them from me. So where?”
    My father turned his attention and his comments toward her. “Calm down, Pearl! Now calm yourself down! What Patricia says she’s going to do and what she actually does is a horse of a different color. She’s going to Europe like I’m going to fly a kite.”
    “I am going,” I said flatly, and I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Sharon was sending me the message: DANGER, with only a quick