Excerpt from Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"You got that right. Well, I'll be seeing you." Alicia waved to me and I waved back.

I'll be honest and tell you there was a time I was uppity. I'm not going to lie about that. My daddy raised me with a certain kind of pride. We lived on Centennial Hill, down the road from Alabama State, and all my life I'd been surrounded by educated people. Our arrogance was a shield against the kind of disdain that did not have the capacity to even conceive of Black intellect. We discussed Fanon and Baldwin at dinner, debated Du Bois and Washington, spoke admiringly of Angela Davis. When somebody Black like Sammy Davis Jr. came on TV, it was cause for a family gathering.

But from the very first day I met Alicia, she ignored my airs and opened up to me. As I watched her walk away, I knew we would be fast friends.

I'd parked a block and a half away on Holcombe Street to hide my car. Daddy had given me a brand-new Dodge Colt as a graduation gift, and I was shy about anyone at the clinic seeing it. Most of the nurses took the bus. Mrs. Seager had assigned me two sisters way out in the sticks because she knew I had a reliable set of wheels.

"Civil?"

Oh Lord, what did she want now? I turned to face Mrs. Seager.

"Might I have a word?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She went back inside the building and let the screen door slam shut behind her. A gust of warm air swirled around me. I could swear that woman surged fire when she spoke. There had been scary professors at Tuskegee, so she wasn't the first dragon I'd met. Professor Boyd had told us if we were so much as two minutes late, he would mark down our grades. Professor McKinney divided the class between women and men and dared us to even think about glancing over to the other side. That kind of meanness I could handle. The thing that bothered me about Mrs. Seager was that I always had the sense I could mess up without knowing how.

Inside the building, the reception desk was empty. I positioned my cap and smoothed the front of my dress before knocking on her door. She had taken the trouble to not only go back into her office but to close the door behind her.

"Come in," she called.

The clinic had formerly been a three-bedroom house. She'd converted the smallest bedroom into her office. The other two were examination rooms. The old kitchen was now a break room for staff, the living and dining spaces served as a reception and waiting area. From the back of the building we could hear the roar of the new highway behind us.

Bookshelves lined one side of Mrs. Seager's office, file cabinets the other. On the wall behind her desk hung at least a dozen community awards. Rotary Club Woman of the Year. Junior League Lifetime Member. The surfaces were clutter-free. On top of the desk sat a cup of pencils, the sharpened points turned up. She cradled a file in her hands.

"Sit down."

"Yes, Mrs. Seager." I took a seat. The window was open and a sparrow was chirping insistently.

"I understand your father is a doctor in town."

I could now see that she was holding my employment file. When I tried to speak, I coughed instead.

"Are you sick?"

"No, ma'am."

"Because in our profession we have to maintain our own health in order to help other people. You must rest and eat properly at all times."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very well. So your father is a doctor." She said this as a matter of fact.

I knew what she was about to say. The same thing my professors at Tuskegee had lectured when they discovered my father and grandfather were doctors. Your marks are impressive. Of course, as a woman, you have other issues to consider. Starting a family, for instance. You have wisely chosen the nursing profession, Miss Townsend. I never knew what to say when they sounded off like that. The beginnings of a compliment always ended up stinging like an insult. Usually, I mumbled something incoherent and wondered if I was just being too sensitive.

Excerpted from Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Copyright © 2022 by Dolen Perkins-Valdez. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.