The Legs Are the Last to Go by Diahann Carroll Page A

day my grandmother let me pick cotton, and only because I asked.
    I walked out into the field with the others, who were smiling at me, the special child finally on the ground among them. “Well, look who it is,” one boy said. “Gonna make a dollar today, Miss Johnson?” I nodded. I had my burlap bag, and for once, I wasn’t in a stiff starched dress. It felt liberating in a way, but also completely alien to be in overalls. I bent down to pick my first boll. It made my fingers bleed. I knew cotton did that, but didn’t think it would happen to me. You couldn’t get blood on the cotton you put in your bag, and I didn’t know when I would stop bleeding. So I quit after picking about fifteen cents’ worth. I just wasn’t meant for the fields, not at all.
    â€œOh, it’s fun to be on the porch,” I’d say when asked how I was doing.
    Just like in Harlem, I was aware of the fact that I was separated from other children. I was Miss Rebecca’s granddaughter, privileged and special. Both she and my mother made that clear. I once rode on a bus “down South” that was full of children, and they all stopped speaking when they saw me. They stared atme because I was the dressed-up girl from New York. It made me feel awkward, but good, too. My mother and grandmother wanted me to project a “better than” quality. And I did, but with that came a feeling of “separated from” that has stayed with me my whole life.
    I always felt I was on display. At night my thick hair, after being curled, was wrapped in brown paper so I would have Shirley Temple curls in the morning. What was a black girl doing with Shirley Temple curls anyway? Well, Shirley Temple was the biggest star in the world when I was little, universally adored. So why shouldn’t I look like her? It didn’t occur to me that we were different because of race. My elementary school was integrated, with Jewish, Italian, Hispanic, and black children. It wasn’t until junior high school that the kids took offense at my formal way of dressing. To some extent, I was a snob. That’s what my parents wanted me to be. “Carol Diann,” my mother would croon as she fawned over me, “let’s try to do better than that!” Across the street from our brownstone, people spilled out of an apartment building at all hours of the night. Children hung out on the corners and played loud games of tag, which my mother forbade me from joining. “Such a waste of time,” she’d say. Homework was to be done right away, piano lessons at Mrs. Carmen Shepherd’s Music School on Convent Avenue were relentless for eight years. Learning music was valued among the strivers of our community, and even in the poorer homes, you’d find a piano among the furniture.
    Hard as we worked, my mother (who helped my father manage his rental property when he was working as a subwayconductor) found time for the kind of fun she thought would enrich me. Sometimes, on weekends, we’d take a break to see a puppet show or circus, or even take in a Broadway play from balcony seats. A high point was seeing Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun . Her voice and confidence onstage were just awe-inspiring. I reveled in the spectacle. The heavy burgundy curtains hung in an ornate and gilded theater full of well-dressed white people. The lights went down and a spotlight would hit the orchestra leader in the pit. My heart swelled with the music. And when the curtains rose on sets so elaborate they took my breath away, it was hard to believe that the performers were real. But they were. Even if they weren’t in shows with elaborate costumes, I marveled at how an actress could just take the stage, open her mouth, and, without so much as a microphone, fill a theater with a song. I was lucky that my mother liked attending the theater so much. She made me feel at home there. Maybe too much at home. One time, she