by Ibi Zoboi
I end up watching three episodes by the time the bus pulls into Port Authority.
The number one train takes me to Columbia University. All these memories start to swim around my head as I stand on the crowded train headed uptown—the times I’d come up to Harlem with my parents to buy fabric from the Senegalese shops and Black books, incense, shea butter, and oils from the street vendors. And on a few occasions, my father would lecture at the historic National Black Theatre on Fifth Avenue and 126th Street. I’m told that he once sold out seats for a lecture at the Apollo Theater when I was a toddler. That was about fifteen years ago, when the Movement was at its height. But fifteen years have passed and nothing has changed. The people who believed in every word my father was preaching, their lives didn’t change. Philly didn’t change. This country didn’t change. But everything changed for me when Mama died, ’cause I realized that the Movement couldn’t save her. And I decided I needed to be in control of my own life.
More people squeeze into the train car at Eighty-Sixth Street, and I can’t unsee what I’ve been taught to see by my father—the differences in people, how polished or poor they are, the look on their faces, what kind of phones they have, how they speak and what they talk about. Who has more and who has less. A young Black guy, maybe a little older than me, has on giant headphones, nods his head, and shouts out the words to his rap every so often. Three white women are huddled around a pole giggling and talking. They could be Rachel, Phoebe, and Monica. An older Black woman, Latina maybe, is sleeping in her seat—head tilted back, mouth open, eyes weary even while they’re closed.
“Can you move your bag?” an Asian man says to me.
I take off my backpack, place it on the floor in front of my feet, and hold on to another pole. My phone buzzes in my bag, but it’s way too crowded to reach down and take it out. We’re all squeezed onto this train as if it’s the end of the world. I wonder how we’d act toward each other—all of us: Black, white, and everything in between—if this train stalled right in this tunnel. I wonder if we’d all help each other and love each other for just a moment, and disprove everything my father has built his life on: that white people are hell-bent on destroying the world and everyone in it. Then my own life—with all that homeschooling, vegan diet, homemade clothes, and books upon books about Black everything—would’ve been for nothing. And maybe Mama’s death could’ve been prevented. She would’ve trusted white doctors instead of trying to green-juice and kale-salad away her cancer.
The train’s doors are about to close when I notice the stop for Columbia University. I squeeze my way off just in time, and the train speeds out of the unbearably hot station. I rush up the stairs and out of the subway with all the other people headed toward Broadway—college students and professors, maybe.
The warm early-evening air wraps around me and I stand there for a moment gazing up at the architecture—the tall, wide buildings that look as if they’ve been there since the beginning of time. But not in the time of dinosaurs, of course. They didn’t kill trees to build cities. My father says that this is the white man’s idea of civilization: destroy to build, build to destroy. Still, out of the rubble of destruction—the bowels of white supremacy, he calls it—ideas are born.
I can’t get him out of my head. Two hours and a hundred miles away, Kofi Sankofa’s words bounce around my mind as I make my way to the café on Amsterdam Avenue.
There isn’t another brown face in sight as I walk down the two blocks. No one makes eye contact. No one seems to notice me. My hair brushes against my shoulders and the back of my neck the way my locs do. This wig is a layer of protection, a disguise. Even if someone looks my way, it’s not really me they’re seeing.
The café will be my spot for now. I’ve seen the pictures online, studied the menu, and read the Yelp reviews.
“Why can’t you just go sit in a café near U. Penn?” Kamau had asked. “This’ll be your one night in New York City and that’s how you want to spend it?”
He didn’t understand at first, but Kamau is the only person in my life who knew that it all started with boy bands, just like for any other nine-year-old girl, I guess. White boys were like forbidden fruit because I’d heard how my father called them the devil, the Destroyers. First it was Justin Bieber, then the boys in One Direction, every single last one of them. The Jonas Brothers, the cuties from Big Time Rush, and once I realized that I preferred them a little more mature, Shia LaBeouf. Until the day I sat with my mother while she was in bed watching a nineties TV show where white people were not sitting around plotting the annihilation of Black people—they just talked about nothing at all in their big New York City apartment.
Later, I would hide in my room under the covers with a borrowed tablet or my cheap phone and laugh at all the friends’ nonsense. I liked Phoebe the most. Rachel annoyed me. And I fell in love with Ross. He was the one who got me into paleontology in the first place. He was the one who got me to dream about Columbia University and sitting in cafés reading literary classics.
The place is crowded and the ice-cold AC make goose bumps rise on my skin. Still, I play it extra cool and smile. Before I even get a chance to take in the whole scene, the white boy behind the counter asks how I’m doing.
“Iced latte with regular milk and a cupcake, please,” I immediately say. I’ve been practicing.
There are no Black people here, just like I expected. But no one is giving me looks that make me feel as if I don’t belong. My father has protected me from those looks my whole life. I’ve never been the only chocolate chip in the batch, ever.
A couple gets up from a small round table near the counter and I immediately grab the empty seat. Before I can even settle down, the white boy comes over with the latte and cupcake.
“I’ll be right here if you need anything,” he says, flashing me a bright smile.
Something warm settles in my belly and the goose bumps disappear. I keep my eyes on him, and he glances back at me, still smiling. He doesn’t smile that brightly at the other people in front of the counter. He’s no Ross, for sure. He’s taller. Wider, even, with a head full of dirty blond hair, almost like my wig. He’s wearing a plain black T-shirt with a simple illustration of a spaceship. I can talk about space, too. Dinosaurs, space. Same thing. If he’s not a paleontology student, then he’s a budding astronomer, for sure. Astrophysics, maybe. I’m cool with that.
He quickly looks my way again, and this time, I smile back and wave. I actually make the first move, just like Kamau told me to. He waves back and smiles brighter this time. I look around the place. No one notices my budding love affair with the white boy behind the counter. No one cares.
I watch him closely as he serves the customers, makes small talk, and glances at me, still smiling. The warm feeling in my belly turns hot. And if it wasn’t so cold, I’d definitely be sweating under the wig. I take a sip of the iced latte, which makes me colder, and I bite off a piece of the cupcake. I have to text Kamau that I found him—the Ross of my dreams.
I reach behind me for my backpack and grab nothing but cool air. I touch both my shoulders and my back. Nothing. That hot feeling in my belly quickly solidifies and my whole body feels like it’s collapsing under its weight. Slowly, I check my lap to see if my backpack is there. Then the floor. Then I look up toward the counter. Nothing. Everything around me—the voices, the laughter, and even that white boy’s bright smile—all come to a stop.
I left my bag and everything in it on the train.
The tall glass of iced latte is half full now, and a quarter of the cupcake is gone. I don’t have any money to pay for this.
It’s only wishful thinking that makes me check the pocket of my jeans for my phone or some cash. Still nothing.
“Shit!” I say out loud.
The white boy glances over at me. His smile has faded.
And as if someone turned up the volume really loud, I can now hear the exact words from the voices around me. The clinking of knives and forks, the swing
ing door, the grazing chairs on the wooden floor, and even the tiny seconds of silence. My breath and heartbeat are louder, too.
Harlem is not that far away. I could walk there and find someone selling my father’s books and DVDs. I’d have to tell them that I’m Nigeria Jones, daughter of the Black nationalist revolutionary freedom fighter from Philly. I need money for a bus ticket home, that’s all. I’d have to answer questions when I get back. My father would make me promise not to pull this ever again while he’s away, or else.
I don’t want to lose you like I lost your mother, he’d say.
I’d be going back to the life I didn’t ask for—the one that I didn’t choose while in the spirit world.
Kamau would get in trouble, because of course he got me to do this. And there goes his plan to live the life of his dreams. Our plan.
“You want anything else?” the white boy asks as he smiles down, as he wipes his hands on a white towel. His eyes are ocean blue.
Blue-eyed devil—I can hear my father’s words echo in my mind.
My throat is so tight and dry that I can’t find the words to say yes or no. So his smile is completely gone now and he walks away. He doesn’t look in my direction again.
Still, the voices get louder and louder as I think of how to leave this unpaid-for latte and cupcake behind. There are people by the door and the white boy would definitely notice me leaving without paying. And he’d call me back in. Everyone would turn to look at me, and of course the Black girl with the fake hair couldn’t pay the ten bucks. Of course she’d try to break out of here.
Your very existence is a crime, I hear my father preach.
I’ve never been in a closed space with this many white people. So I watch their faces the way I’ve watched Friends. Kamau wanted me to get into Living Single instead. They did it first, he said. But they were too familiar. So with each new episode of Friends, I felt as if I’d solved a mystery about white people. My father talked about them too much. I needed to understand them, step into their lives, and maybe get a taste of all that freedom and power. But Ross, Rachel, and the crew weren’t trying to take over the world.
I make eye contact with one of them in this café. An older man. He doesn’t turn away and neither do I. He’s not smiling and he purses his lips. And for the first time since being in here, I know what he’s thinking. So I turn away and drop my head.
They want nothing more than to see us wiped off the face of this earth, I hear my father shout.
I can say that I’ve lost my bag. I can just get up and walk away and flip my middle finger on the way out. My mind races with all these possibilities, but it’s as if my body doesn’t want to lose my seat at this table. This is where I want to be. I’ve gotten this far. This is where I belong.
So I take another bite of the cupcake, a sip of the latte, and try to remember the plot to The Great Gatsby. I read it when I was thirteen, right after my mother made me read The Bluest Eye before she died, and for the same reason I started watching Friends on my own.
You’re already ten times as good, I hear my father whisper.
I inhale and try to savor this moment.
You take all that genius, stay right here, help your people out, and build our own damn table! I hear my father say.
The white boy keeps glancing my way, but I look in every direction but his. I can’t help but feel other eyes on me, too, and the voices have quieted a little, almost whispering.
Your body is free, but your mind is still enslaved! I hear my father yell.
“Is this seat taken?” a white girl asks.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the white boy watching closely.
“Is this seat taken?” the white girl asks again, louder this time. She leans in closer to me, her hair hanging over my latte and almost grazing my cupcake.
I don’t answer. So she takes the chair anyway. I call her Rachel in my mind.
I don’t need your help and you’re gonna have to kill me first before I let you take my daughter away, I hear my father say to the people from the Department of Human Services. They’d come to take me away months after my mother died. They said my father wasn’t feeding me well and wouldn’t allow me to go school. But Mama Afua had gathered all the elder women in the Movement and they squeezed into our living room forming a protective shield around me and dared those people to come take me away.
I sip and eat slowly as I watch the white boy wipe his hands on the white towel again. He’s looking in my direction, but he’s avoiding my eyes, even as I stare at him. He comes around the counter, not smiling, and he starts to make his way toward me.
I take another sip, slurping up the last bit of ice water through the straw. I push my hair back behind my ears. My hands are shaking. I don’t know if it’s from the cold or from something else.
He’s in front of the table now and I look him dead in the face, not smiling. My body is tense, my teeth are chattering.
He leans in slowly, glancing down at my empty glass and the last piece of cupcake before I take it, put it into my mouth, and chew it slowly, savoring the sweetness while staring up at him.
“Do you need anything else?” the white boy asks.
I slide off the blond ombré wig, letting my locs drop down over my shoulders, and place it on the table next to the empty glass and small plate of cupcake crumbs. I close my eyes for a long second and exhale. I shake my head no and watch the boy walk away with the glass and plate, and leave me alone.
I sit back in my seat and let myself settle into this moment. I’m miles away from home with no money, ID, or phone. I’m the only Black person here.
But then it dawns on me that except for a minor setback, I pulled this off. I actually pulled this off.
I look around and catch his eye. Then I raise my hand to call the white boy back over to my table.
“I’ll get another one of those cupcakes, please,” I say with a smile.
Author Biographies
TRACEY BAPTISTE is a New York Times bestselling author best known for Minecraft: The Crash and the Jumbies series. She has written several other fiction and nonfiction books for kids and the adult short story “Ma Laja,” which was included in Sycorax’s Daughters, a Bram Stoker Award finalist for excellence in horror writing. Her works for children have received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly and have been named Junior Library Guild selections. Find her online @traceybaptiste on Twitter, or at www.traceybaptiste.com.
COE BOOTH earned an MFA in creative writing from the New School. Her first novel, Tyrell, was published in 2006, and it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature. Her novels Kendra and Bronxwood followed, and both were selected by the American Library Association as Best Books for Young Adults. Her first novel for middle school readers, Kinda Like Brothers, was published in 2014. You can find Coe online at www.coebooth.com.
DHONIELLE CLAYTON is the New York Times bestselling author of The Belles and the coauthor of the Tiny Pretty Things series. She earned an MA in children’s literature from Hollins University and an MFA in writing for children at the New School. She taught secondary school for several years. Clayton is a former librarian and cofounder of Cake Literary, a creative kitchen whipping up decadent—and decidedly diverse—literary confections for middle grade, young adult, and women’s fiction readers. She can be found online at www.dhonielleclayton.com.
BRANDY COLBERT is the Stonewall Award–winning author of Little & Lion, Finding Yvonne, Pointe, and the forthcoming The Revolution of Birdie Randolph. Her work has been named a Junior Library Guild selection and a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and included on ALA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list, as well as best-of lists from Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly, Vulture, and more. Brandy lives and writes in Los Angeles. She can be found online at www.brandycolbert.com.
JAY COLES is a young adult and middle grade writer, a composer with ASCAP, and a professional musician residing in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a graduate of Vincennes U
niversity and Ball State University and holds degrees in English and liberal arts. When he’s not writing diverse books, he’s advocating for them, teaching middle school students, and composing music for various music publishers. Coles’s debut young adult novel, Tyler Johnson Was Here, about a boy whose life is torn apart by police brutality when his twin brother goes missing, was inspired by events from the author’s life and the Black Lives Matter movement. You can find him online at www.jaycoleswriter.com.
LAMAR GILES is an author, speaker, teacher, and founding member of We Need Diverse Books. His novels Fake ID and Endangered were Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award finalists, and his novel Overturned was named a Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book of 2017. He resides in Virginia with his wife. Check him out at www.lamargiles.com or follow @lrgiles on Twitter.
LEAH HENDERSON is the author of One Shadow on the Wall, an Africana Children’s Book Award notable and a Bank Street Best Book of 2017, and starred for outstanding merit. Mamie on the Mound, A Day for Rememberin’, and Together We March are her forthcoming picture books. She mentors at-risk teens and has an insatiable travel bug, and her volunteer work has roots in Mali, West Africa. Leah graduated from Phillips Andover Academy and received her MFA from Spalding University. You can find her at www.leahhendersonbooks.com.
JUSTINA IRELAND enjoys dark chocolate and dark humor, and she is not too proud to admit that she’s still afraid of the dark. She lives with her husband, kid, cat, and dog in Pennsylvania. She is the author of teen novels Vengeance Bound, Promise of Shadows, and Dread Nation, a New York Times bestseller. You can visit her at www.justinaireland.com.
VARIAN JOHNSON is the author of nine novels, including The Great Greene Heist, which has been named to over twenty-five state reading and best-of lists. His books for older readers include My Life as a Rhombus and Saving Maddie. Varian’s newest novel, The Parker Inheritance, was released in spring 2018. You can visit him online at www.varianjohnson.com.