We Are Not Like Them

by Christine Pride

  There’s a split-second pause where Jen looks at me to see if she’s allowed to laugh, and then she does. “Well, the ones with chocolate crème always were my favorite.” We crack up again. And we might as well be tucked into sleeping bags in my parents’ wood-paneled basement for how much it feels—blissfully—like old times.

  “What’s that?” I nod at the paper in her hand, distracting us before we can get too deep into Corey, and the future. As excited as I am, it’s all still too fragile to bear the weight of too much scrutiny of what the future will bring. Baby steps.

  Jenny unfolds the rectangle of paper. It’s a check, with my name on it in Jenny’s neat block letters.

  “Jenny, you don’t have to…” I stop her hand as it slides along the table. I never expected that she would repay me. I don’t need the money, and she needs it now so much more than I do. I’d rather we just forget about it altogether.

  “Riley, let me do this. I owe you—this and so much more.”

  “Where did you get—” There’s no way Jenny had five grand lying around. Especially with Kevin’s legal bills, and the lawsuits that may be coming, and now the move.

  “Don’t ask. Just take the money, Rye. Please. If you love me, you’ll take it. I don’t want to owe you anything. I want a clean slate.”

  And I do too, so I take the check and tuck it into the back pocket of my jeans. I told her I would take it, but I don’t promise to cash it.

  And now it’s my turn. I didn’t know if it would feel like the right time to do this, but it is. It has to be. Especially now that Jenny is leaving. It sinks in now. She’ll be gone in a couple of weeks. It’s a punch in the gut, but also maybe a relief. I love her. I’ll always love her, but maybe distance is what we both need. It’s what we’re used to. Maybe the miles between us haven’t been a barrier but a way to maintain our connection despite how different our lives have become. I can picture us sitting on a beach in Florida, side by side, a giant pitcher of frozen margaritas on a rickety table between our beach chairs—the mandatory best-friend getaway. How had we gone our whole lives without a real beach trip? The time Lou took us to Atlantic City and then left us on a dirty strip of sand while she gambled at Harrah’s and made me swear I wouldn’t tell my mother doesn’t count. This trip will count. I’m determined to carve out three days for this. Soon.

  “Well, I have something else for you too, actually. Hang on, it’s in my bag.”

  “You already got me the Lexus of strollers. You have to stop!” Jenny calls out as I run into the foyer, return with the dark vinyl jewelry box.

  “Are you proposing? If so, the answer is yes. I’ll be your sister wife. Can I get on your health insurance?”

  But Jenny’s laughter catches in her throat as she opens the box. Inside is the delicate bracelet of pearls and the note from Gigi.

  Jenny’s lips move as she reads Gigi’s last words to her, words I have already read dozens of times. She slides the string of iridescent beads over her still-swollen fingers and onto her wrist.

  “I never want to take it off.”

  “I have a necklace too. It’s a set.” My hand floats to the milky strand peeking from beneath my purple cowl-neck sweater.

  “Now we don’t have to get those half-heart friendship necklaces. This is much classier.” Tears are streaming down Jen’s cheeks. We stare at each other, appreciating this moment, the fragile peace. It makes me think of the little bean seeds we planted in Dixie cups in fourth grade—when the minuscule bright green sprout peeked out from the dark soil, fragile but promising, striving for the light.

  “Can I show you something?” Jen asks me.

  “Of course.”

  Jen goes over to a box and pulls out another piece of paper and hands it to me. It’s not Jenny’s block letters, but a crisp perfect cursive.

  I read silently, lips moving, and when I finish I start at the top and read it again. Then I look out the window to the backyard. I can see, just barely, the shadows on the fence, three letters hidden behind white paint—M-U-R. I can fill in the rest. Jen is staring at me, waiting, biting her lip.

  “It’s… nice.” Kevin clearly spent time with this letter; it’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him. But it’s also completely inadequate and maybe even a little selfish. He wants to unload his burden, but that’s impossible. When I imagine Tamara reading this letter—But who am I to judge? How do I know what she needs or doesn’t need?

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Well, nothing will make it better, but sometimes you want to know that the other person sees you and your pain.” This is all I can offer.

  “Can you…” Jen starts, but I know what she’s going to ask before she even finishes.

  “Yes, I can get it to her.” I tuck the letter carefully into my bag. I check on Tamara once a week. Sometimes she’s up for talking, sometimes it’s just a text back. I will keep checking on her. In time, maybe she’ll be up for lunch or coffee. In time, maybe we can be friends. I think of all the stories I’ve covered and the people I never hear from or speak to again—the man who single-handedly brought his daughter’s rapist to justice, the woman who lost all three of her kids in an apartment fire, the couple who adopted triplets with severe special needs. They touched my lives and vice versa, and then, after a few weeks of interviews and minutes of airtime, they were gone. It’s the nature of the beast. But Tamara is different; this story was different. This story changed everything, including me—especially me.

  We sit quietly again, the only sounds Chase’s soft little snuffles.

  “Puff?” Jenny whispers so softly I almost don’t hear her.

  “Yeah?”

  “What about us?”

  “Us?”

  “Are we going to be okay?”

  Instead of answering, I reach for her hand across the table—the pearl bracelet glistens in the sunlight through the window—and when my hand is in hers, I squeeze hard. Twice for yes.

  Epilogue

  Tamara digs in the drawer, patting around among all the extra batteries and rubber bands and a faded pack of fossilized Trident, until she finds it—the battered envelope with the letter inside.

  She hadn’t even wanted to touch it when the journalist Riley Wilson had pushed the paper across the table slowly at the little café, like she wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing. It was exactly four months and three days after her son died (she was and is still counting the days), and Riley reached out to see if she could take her for coffee, to see if she was okay, which was sweet. Since then, through the summer, they still meet up sometimes, for coffees, once for a drink, a fledging but distant friendship, like people who sing in the same choir or have kids on the same football team, even though their connection is much stranger. She has nothing in common really with the reporter, but she appreciates that Riley checks on her and asks her questions about Justin when everyone else is too scared to talk about him. It was Riley she ended up telling things to—like how Justin’s toothbrush is still in a cup on the sink. Its bristles are frayed and worn, and every morning she thinks about how it’s time to throw this one out and buy him a new one. Or how she lives in fear that Justin’s fish will die and she won’t know what to do with herself when that happens.

  When she talks about Justin it’s like he’s still alive, like she can imagine he’s just sleeping over at his grandma’s for a couple of nights. Which is still, even after all this time, a common phenomenon. The forgetting. Like she’ll wonder what Justin was doing right now, studying for a chem test or playing Madden at Ty’s house. One time, she even drove all the way to school to pick him up before she remembered: Justin wasn’t at school, or at a friend’s. Justin was nowhere. But he was still everywhere too—his gap-toothed smile on that mural on Diamond Street. Just last week, she saw someone wearing a T-shirt at Kroger with her son’s face on it, a vivid photograph on black cotton, and she reached out and touched this stranger’s chest before he violently batted her hand away. “What the hell, b
ack off, lady!” The man didn’t know this was her son—she was only reaching for her son.

  She pulls the letter from the drawer now with shaking hands. When Riley had given it to her she couldn’t read it right away. Part of her didn’t care what this man had to say to her. It wouldn’t change anything. The only thing that gave her even an ounce of satisfaction at all was thinking of Travis Cameron sitting in a jail cell for ten years, Cameron, who wasn’t sorry at all—who didn’t even look at her when she bawled through her victim impact statement, who claimed over and over that he was just “doing his job.” Sometimes she indulges in long daydreams about what his life is like in prison and they give her a rush of pleasure, and then she feels a little guilty for that. But not too much.

  It was Wes who read the letter first and then told her, “It’s worth reading, Sis.” And she did and she felt nothing. Just like she’d told Kevin Murphy’s wife, who had the nerve to look so broken when she saw her in the courtroom bathroom that time: she didn’t want apologies. But she kept the letter, tucked away in this drawer, and she rereads it now because today another boy was murdered—a nineteen-year-old, with a head full of twists and knobby arms that reminded her of Justin’s. This teen was shot in the back twelve times in West Baltimore for allegedly breaking into a car. The fervor and outrage is familiar, a well-oiled machine by now. She’s part of the inner circle, a club no one wants to be a member of, the moms bonded by grief. Her phone blew up this morning with dozens of texts and calls, she’ll get out her Mothers of the Movement hat, drive to Baltimore, go to the marches. All of the steps of this heartbreaking and seemingly endless ritual. In a few minutes, she’ll call the boy’s mom and they will just sit on the phone, not having to say a word. Their silence will form a communion stronger than words. After all, what can words do?

  She drops the letter, grips the kitchen counter, grits her teeth and waits for the despair to pass. It comes in waves, moments like these, a sense of hopelessness so strong it steals her breath. The sense that no one will understand and nothing will ever change. That white folks will just go about their lives and pity Black folks, and wonder why they can’t get ahead, get a break, just behave already, listen to the police. Those white folks will send their children off to school and know they’re safe. They’ll do all the things white folks have done for years and somehow be able to tune out the cries: Good Lord, please, is it so hard to stop killing our children? Can you stop justifying their murders?

  It’s the one thing she appreciates about this letter. He doesn’t try to justify himself. Some things can’t be justified. Still, the letter won’t bring peace or closure. Nothing will. But on a good day, when the sun is shining and when her memories of her son are the strongest, when she feels him in the room with her, on those days, she lets herself believe that maybe, just maybe, there’s a world in which another mother won’t have to go through this pain. She lets herself believe that people will do the right thing, that things will change. She lets herself believe that Justin didn’t die for nothing. And then she’ll grab his still-unwashed pillow and hold it to her face and feel as close to hopeful as possible.

  Today, though, as another mother grieves, is not one of those days.

  Acknowledgments

  It truly takes a village to make a book. We’re so thankful for ours. It might be a little unorthodox for us to start off by thanking each other, but we’re just going to do it. Writing this book together has deepened our friendship and our professional relationship in so many ways. It wasn’t always easy—nothing worthwhile ever is—but our goal was always to create something that neither of us could have done alone, and it’s gratifying to believe we achieved that. Having a partner makes the process of writing, usually such a solitary endeavor, so much less lonely. Thanks for teaching me how to make an em-dash, Jo, and being patient when I forgot over and over… thankfully you made me a mug to remind me. And, Christine, thank you for getting so dressed up for all of our Google Hangouts. I’ll never forget your bathrobe.

  We’re indebted to the early readers of this book, and those people who were generous enough to let us interview them—every one of whom offered invaluable feedback and information. So thank you to: Kelly Robbins, Darrell Jordan, Shauna Robinson, Kate Kennedy, Brenda Copeland, Melissa Danaczko, Kara Logan Berlin, Chelley Talbert, Matthew Horace, Julie Kauffunger, Karyn Marcus, Laura Lewis, Molly Goodson, Glynnis MacNicol, Amy Benzinger, Dave Williams, Cyndi Doyle, Dawn Turner, Lashanda Anakwah, and Jo’s Lit Club—Emily Foote, Leslie Mariotti, Alison Goldblum, Sarah Pierce, Dana Duffy, Gabrielle Canno, Johanna Dunleavy, and Nydia Han. Massive thanks to Dan Wakeford for being such a wonderful (and handsome) cheerleader.

  Bringing this book into the world was quite a journey. It’s hard to even find words to describe how blessed we feel that this book landed with Atria and HQ and two incredible editors.

  Thank you to Lindsay Sagnette and Manpreet Grewal for your care with and passion for this story and for treating Riley and Jen like close friends. And to the entire teams at Atria and HQ: we see you, we appreciate you, we couldn’t have done any of this without you. Also a special shout-out to Laywan Kwan for designing a jacket that was love at first sight.

  Our agents, Pilar Queen and Byrd Leavell, believed in this book from the first day they read it. In the midst of the unpredictable twists and turns in the journey of this book, not to mention one of the craziest years of modern human history, they were ports in the storm and gave us the confidence to keep pushing forward. We will forever be grateful for your kindness, enthusiasm, and tenacity and for their generally being two of the best people in publishing.

  That’s tough competition, because as two people who have been involved in this industry in various capacities for almost two decades, it’s our great fortune that we’ve gotten to count some of the sharpest, most curious, generous, and supportive people as colleagues, creative guides, mentors, and friends. The list is too numerous to name, but you know who you are, and we appreciate you.

  And now for some individual thank-yous…

  Jo:

  I always worried that being a mom would put an end to my writing career. How could I possibly find the time to do something as self-indulgent as disappearing into fictional worlds while trying to keep small humans alive? I’m happy to report that my kids, Charlie and Bea, have made me a better, happier, and more prolific writer in so many ways, but mostly by cracking my heart wide open to new parts of the human experience. Thank you to my mom, Tracey Piazza, for taking the two little monsters away on plenty of overnights so I could have time to write and sleep and breathe. Thank you also for being my biggest fan. And to Tshiamo Monnakgotla for loving my kids like your own family and letting me be a working mom. My long-suffering husband, Nick Aster, is the only person on the planet besides my mother who has read everything I’ve ever written, and he read and critiqued this book over and over again, even after I promised him it was finished. Of course, it was never truly finished. Thank you, my dear. Ten thousand years of love.

  Christine:

  In the immortal words of the very wise Mindy Kaling, a best friend isn’t a person, it’s a tier, and I’m so fortunate to have so many people in that tier it threatens to topple. It’s a good problem to have that I can’t name everyone here without taking up too much space, but you know who you are and you know I would be lost without you. What you can’t know is how grateful I am for you, and how much I love you, because it’s nearly beyond comprehension. But it is the most important truth of my life. Another truth: this book wouldn’t exist without you.

  Not only do I have the best friends, I lucked out in the family department too. Sitting at the poker table with the Prides, or around a dinner table piled high with John Pride’s famous ribs, or in the back of the family van heading toward Alabama with Sam Cooke on the 8-track are but a few of a zillion experiences and memories that, stitched together, constituted the happiest childhood a good girl could ask for. That’s largely thanks to my parents, the two best people
I know. They taught me by word and example that it doesn’t matter how smart or successful or popular you are, the one thing you should work really hard at above all else is being a good person. I’ve tried to live by that philosophy and it’s served me well. I’m happy to have written a book if only to have a public forum to memorialize these words in print: Thank you to John and Sallie for being you and helping me to become me. I can never repay you for all the unwavering support, wise advice, grounding calm, cheerful optimism, and endless generosity (and, of course, the jokes. So many jokes.). But know this: To make you proud is the point of everything.

  We Are Not Like Them

  CHRISTINE PRIDE AND JO PIAZZA

  This reading group guide for We Are Not Like Them includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  Jen and Riley have been best friends since childhood. But one event severly tests the deep bond they share: Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in free fall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend. Told from alternating perspectives, this novel is a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  What emotions did you experience while reading the prologue? Why do you think the authors chose to open with this scene?