by Randi Pink
“How…,” I said before losing my words. “I mean, why did you…” Again, the sentence fell apart. “I don’t know.” I gave up.
After a final gargle, he leaned against the bathroom counter. “I believe because I believe in you,” he said with a depth and gravity I’d never heard. “That’s it. Now…” He twisted me toward the door and gave me a push. “Get out.”
* * *
“Toya!” Mom screamed. “Come on, you’re making us late up there in your precious room!”
I shuffled downstairs and sat on the bottom step.
“Hey, sweet girl, you’re ready for school early this morning,” Dad said, just coming through the front door, gas station coffee in hand.
“I’m excited about school today. Where’ve you been so early?”
“I’m glad you asked. Hampton and I went for an early walk down to the car lot, and I’ve got my eye on a sharp gray Thunderbird. The Fiat has been acting funky lately, so I’m thinking rather than get it fixed, I should just buy another one. What do you think?” His eyes were saucers. My father never met a broke-down, clankity-clank, dusty vehicle he didn’t love.
“I don’t know, Dad. You have a few cars already; maybe we should just put some money in one of those, like the Volvo?” You’d think that at sixteen I would be smart enough to realize some things just are the way they are, but I couldn’t fathom giving up on my dad. We looked strikingly similar. His eyes were my eyes. His nose was my nose. And Evilyn was right, his skin was my skin.
Well, all that was true when I was Toya.
“We’ll discuss it, doll.” He took a chockablock gulp from his coffee cup, spilled about a teaspoon’s worth on the foyer floor, and walked away.
“Dad, seriously, you spilled your coffee,” I said.
“I’ll get it up in a bit,” he replied, but I knew he wouldn’t. For years, I’d been cleaning up after my dad.
“I heard you talking about some Thunderbird,” Mom spat. “If you dare bring another half-piece of car into that driveway, I’ll stuff you in the trunk and push you clean off Colossus.”
Dad stared at Mom’s eyes, and she gave a slight smile. I looked from his face to hers. They were smiling at each other!
“Uh … What’s happening here?” I asked.
“Extraordinary things happen in Thunderbirds,” he said, and then they laughed simultaneously.
Mom held her index finger in the air. “That doesn’t mean buy it, though!”
Dad seized another mouthful from his mug.
“It’s time, everybody, come on,” she said, her dream-catcher earrings dangling from her ears. My mother looked gorgeous. She’d braided her hair into a soft crown and stuck a dollar-store flower pin in the back. No matter how little effort she’d put forth, she still managed to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Where the other mothers of Edgewood coveted a Mercedes and Louis Vuitton luggage, my mom preferred Joni Mitchell, freshly picked flowers, and long flowing things. Smooth tan skin, fluffy hair, and knocking on six foot tall, she could’ve been a model if she wasn’t born in 1969 BOMBingham, Alabama.
Her tongue, on the other hand, could be lethal. Actually, only toward my dad; she was generally nice to everyone else. “What kind of man spills coffee on his own floor? Lord, help me. Every day, I have to deal with this.”
See what I mean? I had never kissed a boy, but even I knew that the more you cut a man down, the less worthy he feels, and the more you suffer for it.
Alex strode down the stairs. “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.” He wore a brand-new pair of Levi’s we’d bartered down to seven quarters at an Edgewood yard sale. His shirt read DAUGHTERS BEWARE! in big black letters. “Like my shirt? Cool, huh?” he asked.
“Handsome, as usual,” said Mom, grinning ear to ear.
“It was in the box marked ‘free,’” Alex said. “Remember that yard sale, Toya?”
I nodded and smiled, even though he looked ridiculous. He truly was handsome, and I didn’t understand why he wore a high-school-loser belt like me. He took after Mom: His skin was as light as a tanned white person’s. His eyes were hazely and big, with long, shiny lashes. He stood six foot something, though he rarely stood up straight. Maybe it was because he wore shirts that said stupid stuff like DAUGHTERS BEWARE! on them, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him any different.
The most popular senior guy in school, Josh Anderson, wasn’t as handsome as Alex, but he had something my brother lacked: swag. It’s the only way Bobby could marry Whitney; Billy Bob and Angelina, Arthur and Marilyn, and the list goes on. Some men had it—an untouchable, unexplainable aura that drew women like rednecks to the Iron Bowl.
“Got your homework?” asked Alex as we ducked into the backseat.
“Yep,” I lied.
Alex narrowed his eyes and handed me a typed report entitled “Hester and Pearl, by Alex Williams.” “Here you go.”
I flipped through the first few pages. “Why are you giving me this?”
“I don’t want you caught off guard when someone references Hester Prynne again.” He smiled.
“Who, besides you, would reference Hester Prynne?”
Alex groaned. “At least read the character description in the back.”
“How many times do I have to tell you to get this mirror fixed?” Mom started in on Dad. “And the pitiful air freshener…”
“Mom!” I yelled. “Stop being so mean!” Her nagging pricked me, too, not just Dad.
She didn’t utter another word.
Post-sabbatical at Aunt Evilyn’s, Mom had developed an acute case of child abandonment guilt. She knew Alex forgave her easily. He always had. But for my sake, my mother worked extra hard to get back into my good graces. Another daughter might have exploited it, but I was grateful that she cared so much what I thought of her. And I didn’t want to contribute to her leaving again. The empty castle felt even emptier without her inside.
The Fiat didn’t stall out once that morning, which was a good sign. As soon as Mom let up the seat, Alex and I jumped out, eager to start the day.
At drop-off, we stood on the curb, watching as our parents clanked off. “What’s your new name?” Alex asked.
“Oh no. I forgot to come up with one.” I almost flagged down the Fiat to take me back home.
Alex thumped my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. How about Svetlana?”
“Svetlana sounds like a stripper name,” I whispered.
“Okay, well, what about Elsa?”
“Better, but a little like an old housekeeper. Got anything, I don’t know, cute?”
“Katarina?” he said.
“Ooh, that’s it.” I hugged him reflexively. It couldn’t have lasted more than a second and a half, but by the time it was over, at least twenty sets of eyes ogled us. It must’ve been quite the sight, too—the eccentric black guy hugging the shiny new white girl. “What should we do?” I said in a hushed voice, nodding at gawking passersby.
“Play it cool. I got this,” he whispered back. Then he turned toward the crowd, held his arms open wide, and shouted, “She’s … an … exchange … student. Her … name … is … Kat-a-riiiiiina.” His voice cracked a little on the last part, so he gave up the floor. “Say … hello … Katarina!”
I gave a quick wave, hung my head, and walked into the principal’s office. Alex and I called the principal’s secretary, Ms. Wade, the Gatekeeper, since she wouldn’t allow any student to see the principal unless they were near death, and even then it was debatable. We slowly approached the counter. “What can I do you for?” She didn’t bother looking up from her JC Penney catalog.
“Uh, well, ma’am, I need to register an exchange student,” announced Alex.
“Where from?” she said, not once diverting her eyes from the damn catalog.
“Kansas City, Kansas,” I blurted, before Alex had a chance to say Sweden. I really didn’t want to fake an accent for the rest of my life.
“Form’s over there.” She flicked her head to
ward a desk covered with stacks of papers. “Pink one.”
The form was simple. Name, address, telephone number, how long you’re planning to stay (which we left blank because God only knew), what you hope to learn while you’re here, and other crap like that. We filled the lines with stuff they wanted to hear, like I hope to learn why Alabama is the greatest place on Earth, how Montgomery overcame such adversity, and the power of nationwide democracy and patriotism blah blah blah. In actuality, Montgomery had accomplished very little as far as I was concerned. Sure the buses were integrated—the Rosa Parks statue on the corner of South Jackson Street proved it—but racism was just as rampant as before; only cleverly hidden. We handed the application to the Gatekeeper.
“Grade?” she asked.
“Tenth.” Since I’d nearly failed the tenth as Toya, I decided I might as well give it another shot.
She fumbled through a few files and pulled out a sample schedule. “Here are your classes.” She picked up the JC Penney catalog and proceeded to ignore us. I liked JC Penney as much as the next red-blooded American, but come on, lady!
“All right, then, little sister,” Alex whispered. “I have to go to class. Think you can handle this?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I wouldn’t see him until three o’clock. “I’ll meet you right here after school?”
He nodded and walked away.
I watched him disappear, unable to move until he was completely out of sight. Looking over the schedule, I realized my first period was Alabama History with Mrs. Roseland, a sweet old Jewish woman who wore more red lipstick on her teeth and coffee cup than she did on her lips. I walked to her closed door and held my fist in the air for a good half a minute before working up the nerve to knock.
You are a strong girl. A strong, capable white girl.
“Coming, coming, coming,” said Mrs. Roseland.
Last year, she offered Alex and me a ride home. It was raining, pouring, actually, and we’d barely made it off school grounds before the tornado sirens began howling. She pulled over to the side of the road, flung her passenger-side door open, and yelled for us to get in. She blasted Christmas tunes the majority of the ride home. I appreciated that she didn’t show outward pity for the poor Williams siblings nearly sucked up by a tornado.
“Why are you listening to Christmas music?” Alex asked before I poked him in his side. “Ow! I’m just saying. Aren’t you Jewish? Ow!”
“Sorry, Mrs. Roseland,” I said, eyeballing him. “Sometimes his curiosity gets the better of him.”
“No, no, no need to apologize,” she’d replied, yelling over the squeaking windshield wipers. She flipped her Coexist key chain and went into full history-teacher mode, explaining that most wars were initiated by minor religious differences. Then she transitioned with, “But to tell you the truth, I just love Christmas—the music, the ticker tapes, The Santa Clause, and back-to-back Will Ferrell dressed as an elf. It’s just plain fun.”
She chattered until we pulled into the empty castle’s driveway. She’d simply given us the ride, bid us farewell, and never brought it up again. Mrs. Roseland was one of only a few teachers at Edgewood High that I genuinely liked.
The classroom door creaked open. “What can I do for you this morning, young lady?” she asked. She wore a frilly, knee-length red skirt paired with a crisp pink collared shirt and kitten heels. I’d never seen her wear the same outfit twice, but her look never veered too far from home base—splashy, vibrant color, and heels so low they may as well have been flats.
“I am an exchange student, Katarina from Kansas City.” I used my own voice with an extra dash of exuberance.
“Kansas City, Missouri, or Kansas City, Kansas?” she asked, laughing at herself.
“Uhhh…”
“Oh. Oh. Oh. Class. Class. Class.” Mrs. Roseland had a habit of saying certain words in threes. “Do we know where Kansas City is on the map?” She unrolled the giant map hanging from the ceiling.
Uh-oh.
“Katarina. Katarina. Katarina. Would you point out your lovely city for the class?”
Why the freaking hell did I choose Kansas? There were at least twenty-five middle states that I knew absolutely nothing about, and Kansas was one of them. Dwarfed by the map, those states were jumbled up in the Midwest or Mideast, above California, near Seattle, and the Grand Canyon, and/or Arizona, by the desert plains of Middle-earth. I focused until I finally saw rectangular Kansas located in the literal middle of the country. But no cities were labeled. I had no clue where to point.
My eyes closed automatically. “Jesus.” I’d said it before I’d realized.
“Excuse me?” Mrs. Roseland replied. My eyes opened to Jesus standing behind Mrs. Roseland, pointing at tiny Kansas City on the giant wall-sized map. Everyone gawked at me, and no one paid any attention to the magical man standing at the head of the class. Clearly, no one else saw him. I went with it.
“Oh, no worries, I would be happy to.” I curtsied. It just seemed appropriate to curtsy. Jesus’s finger vanished milliseconds before my finger touched the map. “Oh, I see! Missouri and Kansas share Kansas City.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Mrs. Roseland gave me a round of applause like I had invented the Pythagorean theorem or something. “Most people don’t realize this fact. They automatically think Kansas City must be in Kansas. People are so ill informed about the middle states.”
“Ah, yes,” I chuckled with her. “Oh, so very ill informed.”
A handful of boys joined in her ovation. Their eyes stripped every inch of clothing right off my body. I’d waited for this moment since I was a little girl, to be desired, to be wanted, to be the center of attention for being anything other than a stumblebum.
Instead of enjoying it, I hurried to the first empty seat to make sure my headlights weren’t penetrating my lace shirt. Of course, that would be impossible, since I’d pulled out the heavy-duty, big-titty bra. I’d bought it as a Halloween costume while thrifting with Mom a few years back. Titty-Head, a female superhero who soared through the air with the help of her trusty pink cape and big-titty bra. That Halloween, I locked myself in my room and jogged figure eights around my bed, never revealing Titty-Head to anyone, not even Alex. I think I was going through some type of rebellion that year. Edgewood could do that to a girl, especially a black one.
I’d never felt so many eyes focused on me. Even when I closed my eyes for long blinks, I felt them. So many eyes. Eyes studying my eyes. Eyes sizing up my clothes. Eyes checking out my shoes. Eyeballing my big-titty bra. Eyes every freaking where. Even Mrs. Roseland’s smiling eyes scrutinized me. I liked Mrs. Roseland, but damn. I chalked it up to some sort of new-girl disease and told myself it would subside after a few days. Plus, Jesus would surely be disappointed if I complained on the second day. Really, though, it wasn’t Jesus who scared me. It was his dad. In the Sunday school picture Bible, he looked like Zeus on the mountaintop, searching for some ungrateful maggot to strike down. I didn’t want to be that maggot, so I kept my trap shut.
Mrs. Roseland went on for an hour about the fighting tarpon, Alabama’s state saltwater fish. Every few sentences she paused and said, “Anybody want to add anything? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody?” Crickets chirped in return. After the fourth effort, I felt sorry for her, but I couldn’t afford to raise my hand, seeing that I was technically visiting from Kansas/Missouri, and I shouldn’t know diddly about the state fish.
When Mrs. Roseland turned her back, a crooked paper airplane sailed across the room, poked me in the shoulder blade, and landed nose-first in the cleavage of my big-titty bra. When Raymond Neily smirked and avoided eye contact, I knew who had thrown it. Dumbass. And I don’t use the word dumbass lightly; he really was, truly, in every sense of the word, a dumbass. Halfway through seventh grade, he taped a KICK MY BROTHER sign on my backpack, and vice versa on Alex’s. I saw Alex’s first and then he saw mine. That was the singular event that turned the tides for us. We went from regular kids
to school jesters and never quite lived it down. Still, I couldn’t resist. I unfolded the airplane.
Nice tits
See what I mean? The worst part was he probably thought it was a compliment.
Should I ball it up and throw it back? Or would a white chick dig that type of stuff?
Jesus?
No, I needed to handle this on my own. I refolded the airplane and shot it in his direction. Unfortunately for me, it hit an innocent redhead in the eyelid. “Hey!”
But the class was over and I was saved by the bell. Well, not a bell exactly: After an extensive case study in human behavior, the Montgomery County Board of Education installed ocean sounds in the place of bells. They were supposed to be calming but didn’t change the frenzy in the hallways as far as I could tell. Just another inessential ornament to spend their money on.
I quickly gathered my things to scuttle out the door.
“’Ey!” Deanté yelled after me. “’Ey! ’Ey!”
I hurried along, pretending not to hear him.
The halls filled quickly. Waves of teenagers crisscrossed one another to get to their classes, a synchronized dance. The only thing out of place was me. The seas parted on my approach. Girlfriends elbowed boyfriends, cheerleaders looked at their feet. Football players, dance girls, flag girls, even mathletes hushed in my presence. It was like the first scene of The Lion King, when the entire forest of African animals travel to catch a glimpse of Simba’s birth.
From the day she arrived at our high school,
Her big-titty bra stepped into the sun,
There’s more to see than could ever be seen,
More to do than could ever be done.
But it wasn’t Simba or Toya, it was Katarina who was parting the Edgewood seas, reshuffling the circle of life, finally ruling the school. No, not Katarina. Me.
And for the first time in my life, I felt powerful.
KATARINA ASCENDING
That was it: The door slammed on Toya, and Katarina emerged the victorious one. The hallway was a pressure cooker of emotion. Enthusiasm and horniness from the boys, fear and anger from the girls. I straightened my spine until it hurt; America’s Next Top Model judges said that the less comfortable you felt, the better you looked. So be it. Familiar eyes pored over me, but instead of avoiding the stares, I now bathed in them.