June 16, 1964
Rose sat at her desk in English class, glancing at the clock every few seconds and tapping her pencil anxiously against her notebook. School was almost out—and graduation was this evening.
In spite of her trepidation over the direction her life was taking, this was a moment that she was anticipating—the end of high school and the beginning of adulthood. In a few minutes, she would be finished with her last class, and in a few hours, she would be finished with high school for good.
Rose glanced at Marla, who was chewing on her eraser and watching the clock as anxiously as her best friend, then looked up at the teacher, who was ostensibly recording grades in her grade book, but kept glancing at her watch almost as anxiously as the students. For a moment, Rose wondered who was more excited about the end of the school year—the teachers or the students.
The bell finally rang. Rose leaped from her seat, grabbing her belongings and waiting impatiently while Marla tossed the pencil in the direction of the trash can, then hurried to pick it up off the floor.
“Marla, come on! Let’s get out of here!”
Rose’s voice was louder than she intended. The teacher looked at her, trying to look stern but failing. “Go on, you two. I’ll see you at graduation.”
Rose grabbed Marla’s hand and pulled her along. “Bye, Miss Clark!”
When they reached the parking lot, Rose tossed her notebook into the space behind the driver’s seat of her car and boosted herself over the convertible’s door, showing off. Marla, who had learned that an extra hundred pounds made leaping over the door awkward, to say the least, went around to her side and climbed in sedately.
“We’re free!” Rose enthused, starting the engine. “We’re finally free!”
“Except that you’re getting married in eleven days because you’re too chicken to cancel your wedding.”
Rose’s grin abruptly turned into a scowl. “I’m not chicken. I’m—“
“Then why are you still having fittings for your wedding dress and fighting with your mother about the fact that your sisters’ bridesmaid dresses are lavender? Why are you still planning for a wedding at all?”
“Because I’m getting married.” Rose pulled into the line of cars slowly inching out of the school parking lot. “It’s what I want to do.”
“Bullshit.” Marla smirked as Rose gave her an outraged look. “If you’re so eager to get married, then why do you keep ‘forgetting’ to wear your engagement ring?”
“What? I’m not forgetting my engagement ring!”
“You kept forgetting to put it back on after gym class, and you kept taking it off during typing class.”
“We didn’t have much time to shower and change back after gym, and it kept spinning around my finger and getting in the way when I was typing.”
“You always had time to put your locket back on after gym.”
“I didn’t want to lose it—shut up!”
“So you wanted to lose your engagement ring?”
“No, I did not want to lose my engagement ring!” Rose was so vehement that Marla wisely stopped asking.
In truth, Rose would have been happy to forget about her engagement, ring and all, but she couldn’t. Not when she still hadn’t found a good time to tell Cal that she wanted to postpone the wedding. Not when her mother nagged her constantly about the family’s dwindling finances and reminded her that her sisters’ futures were at stake. Not when her sisters eagerly tried on their bridesmaid dresses and sighed over her wedding dress.
“Speaking of my wedding, why haven’t you RSVP’d for it?”
“I’m not coming.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to be in Ohio, learning to register people to vote.”
“You can’t vote.”
“Not yet, but I can still help people register. When I’m done with the training session, I’m going to Mississippi.”
“Mississippi?! Why are you going there?”
“To register people to vote, of course. It’s being called Freedom Summer, and it’s about helping black people in Mississippi gain their lawful right to vote.”
Rose glanced at her friend enviously. Marla was doing things with her life, fulfilling the dreams she had talked about. Rose wasn’t, so her response was sharper than it should have been.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’m going to be a lawyer, so I’m going to help people. That’s what lawyers do; at least, that’s what the good ones do. I might as well start now.” Rose rolled her eyes slightly at Marla’s idealism. Seeing her friend’s expression, Marla went on, “I don’t know why you’re surprised. I’ve been talking about civil rights since we were in Washington, D.C. last August. Or are you so worried about your wedding that you don’t remember?”
The previous summer, Rose had accompanied Marla and her parents to Washington, D.C. for a week at the end of August. The Brunners had had business there, but hadn’t wanted to leave their teenage daughter to her own devices. When Marla had begged for permission to invite Rose, her parents had consented, and Rose, eager to get away from her mother and fiancé for a while, had happily joined them.
On August twenty-eighth, the third day of their trip, the Brunners had allowed Marla and Rose to go exploring on their own, so the girls had gone to the Washington Monument, having heard that a march for freedom was taking place there and wanting to see what was going on. They had walked with the crowd to the Lincoln Memorial, carrying signs that a group of activists had given them. Both had been excited at all the activity around them—and at the prospect of being part of something great.
They had listened to the songs and the speeches, but the speech that had inspired the girls—especially Marla—the most was one given by a black minister named Martin Luther King. They had talked about it for days afterward, though Marla had refrained from telling her parents that they had actually been at the march. They didn’t object to their daughter’s interest in the civil rights movement, but they would have been upset at knowing that the girls had gone to a potentially unruly demonstration by themselves. That nothing dangerous had happened would have been secondary to the fact that they had gone at all.
Rose hadn’t said a word to her mother or Cal, but she had told Jack, who, to her delight, had made a drawing of the crowd based on a newspaper photo and added Rose and Marla. The photo hadn’t included them—they had been in another part of the crowd, near the Reflecting Pool—but she liked the drawing and had gotten him to copy it so Marla could have one, too.
Marla had been talking about civil rights ever since, and her decision to study law at Columbia University had been partly influenced by her experience that day in 1963. Rose, too, had been inspired, creating several paintings of the event, but she had been too concerned with the troubles in her own life to pay close attention to the troubles of strangers.
In February, Marla had told her about the plans for Freedom Summer that she had read about, but Rose, distressed over her mother’s and Cal’s reaction to her acceptance at UC Berkeley and trying to avoid mentioning anything related to her suicide attempt, had ignored her. Her thoughts had been turned inward, trying to find a way out of her impending marriage so that she could follow her own dreams.
As such, Rose was taken by surprise by Marla’s announcement that she was going to participate in Freedom Summer. As she pulled up in front of the gate of Marla’s home, she looked at her best friend resentfully, more angry that Marla was following her dreams and trying to accomplish something than that she wasn’t coming to the wedding.
“It’s a pipe dream,” she told Marla.
Since they hadn’t spoken in several minutes, Marla was taken aback. “What is?”
“All this stuff about registering people to vote and becoming a lawyer to right the world’s wrongs—it’s a pipe dream. Nothing is ever going to change, and you won’t get anywhere as a lawyer.”
“It’s not a pipe dream, Rose. Some things have already changed—and what do you mean I won’t get anywhere as a lawyer?”
“You’re a girl. You can’t be a lawyer.”
“Oh, really?” Marla turned to Rose, her eyes narrowed. “Would you like to tell my mother that? She’s a lawyer.”
“She wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without your dad.”
Marla took a deep breath, trying to control her temper. “She’s good at what she does, and she could make it without him just fine. She’s married to him because she wants to be—which is more than I can say for what you’ll be soon. In fact, you’re a fine one to talk about dreams, Rose DeWitt-Bukater. You talk plenty about what you’d like to do, what you’d like the world to be like—but when you have the chance to actually do something, you turn into a candyass and take the easy way out.”
“Candyass? Is that a legal term?” Rose’s voice grew louder with each word. “You’re just jealous because I’m getting married and you don’t even have a boyfriend!”
“Jealous!? Jealous! I’ve dated half the guys in our school!”
“Because you have a reputation for putting out!”
Marla stared at her shock, her mouth hanging open. “At least I know how to have a good time!” she snapped. “Unlike you!”
“I know what goes on between a man and a woman!”
Marla’s eyes widened. “Is that why you decided to go ahead with the wedding? Is there going to be an ‘early’ baby a few months from now?”
“No!” Rose clenched her teeth angrily. “I am getting married for my own reasons, reasons which you could never hope to understand! Unlike you, I know something about how the world really works!”
Marla opened the door and slid out of the car. “Maybe you do, Rose. Maybe you have the wisdom of the ages at your fingertips. But I can tell you right now that I’m a hell of lot happier than you could ever hope to be—no matter what your reasons for getting married are! I’m going to be changing the world, while you’re going to be nothing but a little housewife! And this summer, I’m going to help people gain their freedom—not watch you throw yours away!”
With that, she slammed the door and headed for her gate, yanking it open and going inside.
“Marla!” Rose shouted after her. “Marla!”
Marla ignored her, walking up to her front door and disappearing inside. Rose stared after her for a moment before putting her foot on the gas. The tires screeched on the pavement as she headed for home.