The Woman from Harvard (2)

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

I was walking on air that day. Life was a dream. I found myself enrolled at Harvard Law School. Just dream like for me. First day of law school, Fall 1983.

On April 14, 1979, I received my thin rejection letter from Harvard College. The rejection stung, although it was improbable I would reach so high and so far. The problem was I had become a chronic overachiever by senior year in high school. I set goals for myself and achieved them and now this. My Mom stood with me by the dining room table, the same table I sat at with my ailing Dad back in September. Mom took it in stride. Failure was a part of life. But not for me as a self-centered teenager hungry for more out of life than Chester, Virginia. So American my soul. It was never about blackness for me. Do you understand when I tell you my dreams came from within and a Mother’s love for me?

Anyway, I now found myself strolling through the Harvard Coop Bookstore in search of casebooks — Contracts, Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Property, Torts. I would do whatever it took to make it in this New England city where strangers did not say “Hi” to one another on the streets. Each casebook was a key to a brighter tomorrow. My mind was lost in my future.

I started to walk back towards my dorm room, 407 Story Hall. As I walked through Harvard Yard, I saw her. She saw me. It was the woman every black man fell for at Harvard. It was Carmen. She said, Hi, in a way that shook me out of my law student stupor. You’re Nelson’s friend, right? We met last spring. I stumbled for words to seem non-plussed. Ladies and gentlemen, inside my mind was racing. Carmen was twice as alluring as she had appeared back in the Spring. Of course, I remembered Carmen. But check it out — Carmen remembered me!

Sigh.

You know how you feel when you lay eyes on a young Nikki Giovanni? Carmen possessed that power over hapless black men at Harvard. And she was talking to me! Where are you headed? Oh, I’m going back to my dorm room. Was I now in another dream? We talked about school, my classes and silly hopes for a grand career in the law. We just kept talking together through the Yard, past Langdell Hall and to Story Hall. I opened up the front door and we just kept talking. I opened up my dorm room door. My room was barren, save for a bed. No pictures on the wall. No books yet on the book shelf. It was literally my first day at law school.

I sat down at my desk as the conversation was vibrant and invigorating. We talked for hours. I cannot remember the details but I recall the feel of kindred spirits trying to figure out life. Banter became conversation became understanding became soul. Time lost meaning for me and Carmen. Things were true.

Carmen flopped herself on my bed and lifted her feet up on a chair. Her white shorts were very short. I had a girlfriend back in Richmond…the Mayor’s daughter.

Carmen….