Bethie saw girls in long, loose dresses that looked like something a pioneer woman crossing the prairie in a covered wagon might wear, or loose-fitting jeans and sweatshirts, without a stitch of makeup and with unstyled hair tumbling past their shoulders. A few of the Negro students, male and female, had hair that stood out like puffy crowns around their heads, and one boy wore a pin on his jacket: U.S. OUT OF VIETNAM. Bethie felt her eyes widen as she passed a boy with straight dark hair so long that it tangled with his chest-length beard, and gave a startled smile as he nodded at her and flashed two fingers, spread in a V. She looked down, blinking, confirming that he was indeed barefoot, even though the temperature was in the fifties and the slate had to be cold underneath his feet.
She saw two white boys throwing a Frisbee. She saw, beneath one tree, a Negro boy wearing glasses with tiny round, dark lenses, strumming a guitar and singing about John Henry, and beneath another, a girl with a sketchpad, occasionally stretching out her hand and studying the bend of her wrist before returning her attention to the page. Someone handed Bethie a leaflet about a meeting of Students for a Democratic Society, and someone else handed her a flyer for a luncheon hosted by the Foreign Students Alliance, and a tall, slender woman in jeans and a University of Michigan T-shirt walked toward her. The woman’s dark hair was cut short and tucked behind her ears, her expression was alert and curious, and her tanned skin glowed. People watched the girl pass, her long legs making short work of the distance, drawing appreciative glances from some of the boys. She was almost right in front of her before Bethie realized that the stranger was her sister.
“Hey!” Jo gave her a hug, picked up her bag, and said, “How was the train?”
“It was fine,” Bethie said, feeling childish and dowdy as she hurried after Jo, taking two steps to every one of her sister’s.
“Are you hungry? I thought we’d get a bite to eat.”
Jo took her to the Union, a four-story redbrick building. In the basement cafeteria, they bought a burger for Jo, a chicken-salad sandwich for Bethie, and two cups of coffee.
“What’s on the agenda?” Bethie asked, automatically removing the top slice of bread from her sandwich.
“Want to sit in on my literature class?” Jo asked. “It’s a survey course on British poetry.” She smiled, gesturing like a game-show host. “Keats! Yeats! Byron! Auden!”
“Parties, Jo,” Bethie said. “I want to go to parties.”
Jo gave her a fond, indulgent smile. “Tomorrow’s the game, of course. We’ll want to leave early, for the tailgating.” Bethie knew that thousands of students and even more alumni descended on Ann Arbor for football game-day weekends. They’d park their cars in the lot near the stadium, they’d dress up in the team’s colors, maize and blue, and set up their grills and barbecues to cook brats and burgers, and they’d drink, and drink, and drink some more. Sometimes, Jo said, rolling her eyes, they’d even manage to put down their beer steins long enough to go into the stadium and watch the game.
“How about tomorrow night after the game?” Bethie asked.
“We can go hear some music. And on Sunday, I’m going to a demonstration with some friends.”
Bethie nibbled a lettuce leaf, wondering why, with all the things she could be doing, Jo was wasting her time walking in circles in front of a department store with a picket sign. Was that really the best thing she could think of? Or was it an excuse, so that she could go do something else, something she didn’t want Bethie to know about?
Bethie took a last bite of her sandwich and said, “I’ll skip the class. If it’s okay, I’ll just walk around for a while.” Jo gave her a hug, and a key to her dorm room, and they made plans to meet there at six o’clock that night.
* * *
After an hour’s stroll around the campus, staring at the girls with limp, lank hair in sack-like dresses, or the ones in bell-bottom jeans, Bethie found her way back to Stockwell Hall. She climbed three flights of stairs, unlocked the door, and stood in the doorway of Jo’s room, breathing in her sister’s familiar scent. After Jo moved out, Bethie had taken over the closet they’d once shared and had transformed the bedroom as best she