Summary

A young black girl cuts her long hair short in preparation for a French summer school program, to her father’s disgust. At first she is embarrassed by her haircut and how “colored” it makes her look (22). Despite her self-consciousness, she becomes attracted to one of her professors, with his thick eyebrows. They begin to have conversations in French in passing, and develop a ritual where he arrives in his car just as she walks across the lawn each morning so that they will cross paths. They run into each other at a bar one night and she is so nervous she has difficulty summoning the French to reply. They go for a drive and she realizes that he is at least 65, but his age does not bother her. In an attempt to explain to him how attractive she finds...