One afternoon — autumn came late to Edna Belle's town that year, the leaves were just beginning to fall, they trickled past the long high school windows in the waning afternoon light — Edna Belle stayed behind to work with Miss Benson on the layout for the school magazine which was called Whispers, and which Edna Belle hoped to serve as art editor next term. The art editor this term was a senior named Phillip Armstrong Tillis, who was very talented and who had drawn both the cover of the magazine as well as the end papers, and who Edna Belle had dated once or twice and who, frankly, she was really crazy about. He was not a very good-looking boy, his nose was too large for his face, and he wore eyeglasses, but he had a wonderful sense of humor and a crazy way of looking at things, very offbeat and cool ("I used to have this little turned-up button nose," he once said, "but I had an operation done to make it long and ugly") and she loved being with him because he was always thinking up nutty things to do, like pulling into Mr. Overmeyer's driveway to neck one night, instead of going over to the hill near the old burned Baptist church that had been struck by lightning. When Mr. Overmeyer came out to see what was going on, Phillip Armstrong got out of the car and bowed from the waist and said, "Good evening, sir, we were wondering if we might park here for a few moments to discuss a matter that's of great importance."
"With me, do you mean?" Mr. Overmeyer asked.
"No, sir, the young lady and I wished to discuss it privately."
Mr. Overmeyer looked so relieved that (A) it wasn't some hoods from Connors who were looking for trouble, that (B) it wasn't some crippled war veterans selling magazine subscriptions, and that (C) he personally would not have to get involved in this discussion, whatever it was, that he mumbled, "Sure, certainly, go right ahead," and then went back into the house and drew the blinds to assure Phillip Armstrong of the privacy he wanted. They had necked up a storm that night, and she had let Phillip Armstrong touch her breast right there in the driveway, but only twice.
The reason Phillip Armstrong wasn't there that November afternoon to help with the layout was that he had come down with the mumps, of all things ("You know what that does to a grown boy, I suppose," Cissie said) and was home in bed. It was just as well because if Phillip Armstrong had've been there, then Edna Belle and Miss Benson wouldn't have talked, and Edna Belle's whole life wouldn't have changed. In looking back on the conversation, Edna Belle couldn't remember exactly what they'd said that was so terribly important, what they had discussed in such personal terms, this woman and her sixteen-year-old student there in the gathering gloom of a high school classroom, the light fading against the long windows, the empty desks stretching behind them, and the smell of paste on their fingers, and snippets of shining proofs clinging to their hands, the drawn pencil lines on the blank pulp pages, the long galleys from the editorial staff, and the careful selection of a rooster drawn by Annabelle Currier Farr and something called Monsoon by a freshman named Hiram Horn, the proofs spread out on Miss Benson's desk top, "There, Edna Belle," and "There," and "How's that?" completely absorbed in the work they were doing, Miss Benson finally snapping on the desk lamp, and the warm circle of light flooding the dummy as the magazine began to take shape and form, the colored pencils sticking out of Miss Benson's hair and reflecting light. Whispers, they whispered now, the school was empty, but what did they say, after all, that had not been said a thousand times before? What was there in Miss Benson's impromptu and heartfelt talk that was not cliched and hackneyed and shopworn and, yes, even trivial? It had all been said before, there was the tinny ring of half-truth to it, and whatever importance it seemed to possess at the time surely came only from the dramatic setting, the classroom succumbing to dusk, the desk lamp being turned on, the young girl listening while the older woman earnestly and sympathetically talked to her about life and living, about pity and understanding, about art, and about love. All of it said before. And better, surely, so very much better than old Miss Benson could ever have said it even if she were skilled with words, which she was not, even if she were half the gifted artist Edna Belle supposed she was, which she was not. All of it said before.
But never before to Edna Belle.
And so she listened, nodding her head as they worked at the desk, fingers thick with paste, and she smiled, and once she giggled and covered her mouth, and tilted her head again in fascination, and brushed a golden spray of hair from her cheek and said, "Yes, oh yes, I know, I know."
They walked as far as the monument together, Edna Belle watched Miss Benson as she turned left at the corner near the courthouse, walking with the peculiar waddle that made the other kids laugh, but walking with her head very high, and she suddenly knew it had been true about the nigger.
She sat at the base of the monument.
She could remember only snatches of what Miss Benson had said, something about honesty, about always being true to whatever it was she believed, and of not being afraid, something about talent and its use, and something about a larger talent which she called, Edna Belle was not sure, a capacity for giving, yes, for loving, "Yes, oh yes," Edna Belle had said, thinking of Phillip Armstrong. And then Miss Benson said how it was important to get out of this town, go to New York or Chicago, study there, or Rhode Island, there was a fine art school in Rhode Island, but get out of this town, Edna Belle, get out of the South before they cut a piece out of your life and leave you to shrivel and die. It is not shameful to love, she said earnestly, it is never shameful to love, almost on the verge of tears.