by Randi Pink
I deliberately dropped my mechanical pencil. “Oh!” I said. Everyone stopped. Everyone! I bent down slowly, tooting my butt into the air to retrieve it. Mid-bend, the ocean waves stopped swooshing over the intercom, yet no one scrambled for class. Only silence. Stillness. Control.
I picked up the pencil and went on to my next class, and so did everyone else.
* * *
My remaining classes brought more of the same. That day produced two more folded notes from guys, more eye rolls from girls than I could count, and an invitation to join the show choir without even trying out. The frilly note had been slipped through the slits of my locker, and it was marked Confidential in big red letters. The eye rolls made me feel triumphant. The fact that I could evoke visceral expressions of angst from rich white girls put a little extra pep in my step. The show choir invite, on the other hand, pissed me off. Toya had tried out for show choir three times and never made it. How was that fair?
“Hey, Katarina! Wait up!” I stopped at the sound of Alex’s voice.
“Alex, hey,” I whispered. “Let’s go over here by the lockers.” I led him from the hallway to a more secluded alcove.
“Why are we whispering?”
“No reason,” I said. “Just don’t want too many people asking questions. That’s all.”
“Makes sense,” he said, matching my whisper. “You holding up okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great, actually.”
“Okay, just checking in. I want the play-by-play. See you at three.”
Swim was my next and final class. As Toya, I’d never once dressed out for swim class. You’d think white people would see that black people dominate every sport with one glaring exception—swimming. Why? Aunt Evilyn would say, Cuckabugs and chlorine should never live in the same place. She was absolutely right about that one. Also, ethnic butts burst out of swimsuit bottoms. Ask any black female over the age of twelve what’s on her mind when she’s wearing a swimsuit; if she answers honestly, she’ll say her rear end. Some smart entrepreneur should invent ethnic bathing suits and chlorine substitute so blacks can finally take the sport of swimming from white people.
But I didn’t have to worry about such nonsense any longer. Our swim teacher, Miss Baker, offered me a loaner suit. After stepping out of the stall, I could hear a pin drop in the locker room. The high-cut bright red one-piece made me look like a younger Baywatch babe. Usually that locker room was every boy’s fantasy, nakedness all over the place. But that day, even the cutest girls with the tightest butts kept their towels firmly shut until they reached the pool. I, on the other hand, deserted my towel and switched my skinny hips to the edge of the water. I danced a big toe on the surface, teasing my crowd. Finally, I sat on the rim, arched my back, and slid in slowly. I reveled in the floating sensation. I’d never actually allowed my hair into any body of water other than the bathtub.
I took a deep breath and lowered myself underwater. Black skin was filled with so many barriers, so many restrictions, so many. Don’t walk too deep into that neighborhood. Stop and turn around if you see too many Confederate flags catching wind on front porches. Don’t you get in that chlorine water, or you’ll mess up your perm. Don’t talk too proper or you’ll be accused of talking white. Don’t talk too Ebonic or you’ll be accused of talking ghetto. I started to run out of air, but I held it long enough to see feet dangling, bodies flipping, hands flapping upward and downward. Such freedom. Such fun. I would’ve cried if I weren’t underwater. I surfaced to smooth my hair back, and rose out slow like a mermaid.
“Hi there.” I knew who that voice belonged to. I had mini-stalked him a few years back. Eighteen-year-old Josh Anderson.
I smiled mysteriously, or tried to anyway. “Hello.”
“You’re new here?” He was close enough to inhale. He smelled like chlorine and Acqua Di Gio cologne. What did I smell like? Damn it, I hoped not diesel fuel.
“I’m an exchange student.” I pointed to myself with both thumbs. “Katarina.” Stupid!
“Nice to meet you, Katarina. I’m Josh.” He held his hand out to shake. So sexy and mature. I shook, careful not to grab too firmly. Delicate as a flower was the impression I wanted to leave him with. “Where are you from?”
“Kansas City, right on the line of Kansas and Missouri. Most people don’t know that.” I giggled. Double stupid!
“I knew that.” He flicked his neck to force the hair from his face. “Kansas City Chiefs did okay last year. You been to any games?”
I cleared my throat and stood a little straighter. “Of course, who hasn’t?” I slapped him hard on the shoulder, too hard. “Sorry.” Triple stupid!
“No worries.” He stepped back, peeled his T-shirt off, and dove splash-free into the pool, like the water was his home. He swam a full two lengths before I had the power to look away. When I did, I sashayed to the bleachers.
“Do you know who just talked to you?” asked Amera Bailey, the second most popular girl in the tenth grade only after her best friend and twin, Amelia.
Yes, of course I knew. “No, who?”
“That”—she placed her skinny arm around my waist—“was the Josh Anderson.”
Amelia appeared out of nowhere. “The oldest son of the Andersons; owners of Anderson Toyota, Jeep, Dodge. He drives, like, a different new car every day.”
“He gave his last girlfriend a Prius for Christmas, and he is so nice that when he dumped her, he never even asked for it back,” said Amera.
“Why did they break up?” I asked, but I already knew. His last girlfriend was named Ashley Hemphill. Rumor had it that she had a little sex problem: She liked doing it—a lot. And, apparently, one guy wasn’t enough.
“I’m not one to gossip, but…,” said Amera.
I hated when people set up their sentences with “I’m not one to gossip, but.” You may as well announce to the world that you’re a low-down dirty big mouth who likes talking crap about everyone, including whoever you’re talking crap to right now. “Her name is Ashley Hemphill, but her nickname is Humphill, if you know what I mean.” They laughed in tandem.
Amelia picked up where the other one left off. “Nobody likes her, really. Like, everyone just put up with her when she was dating Josh. I heard she has the gonorrhea.” The gonorrhea. She said it like Ashley was possessed by a demon named Gonorrhea.
“We like you,” they said at exactly the same time.
“I’m Amera.”
“And I’m Amelia.”
I pointed to myself. “Katarina.” I had two friends on my first day, more than I’d made in two full years at Edgewood High as a black girl, and they were popular ones to boot.
The ocean waves whooshed, announcing the end of school. Amera and Amelia grabbed their identical pink-and-green Vera Bradley backpacks. “Hey, what family are you staying with?”
Crap. “The Williams family.” My eyes dropped to my knees.
“That black family with the fitted sheets hanging in the place of curtains?” Amera uncrossed her legs at the knee and recrossed them at the ankle.
Amelia said, “OMG, you have to live with that loser Toya and her spazz of a brother?”
“What agency would place a girl like you with niggers?” Their eyes widened in shock, and then flickered with anger.
They’d said it together.
I don’t know why I was shocked.
I knew for sure that Montgomery white people used that word in the comfort of their own homes and country clubs.
Just.
Hearing it.
Out loud.
Was.
Quite.
Hurtful.
I’d only heard the word spoken once before. When I was in kindergarten, a pigtailed little girl called me by that name. I didn’t know what it meant, I just knew that it stung worse than a yellow jacket. When I told Aunt Evilyn, she said, Get used to it, little girl. I was called a nigger so much as a child, I thought it was my name.
“What’s wrong, Kat?” one of them asked. I d
on’t even know which. “You never heard ‘nigger’ before?”
“Of course she hasn’t. She’s from … Where are you from again?”
“Um … Kansas City.” I couldn’t look up from my knocking knees. The twins wore the same baby-blue polish on their toenails.
“She’s from the North, stupid. They were part of the group that invaded the Confederacy. They don’t say nigger up there anymore.”
“I could not imagine. You need a ride home, Kat? That black family’s car smells like a junkyard. That can’t be safe for your lungs.”
“Our daddy bought us a convertible Bug for our sixteenth. We’ll take you to the black people’s house if you want.”
I nodded, still speechless. They had just called me a nigger and a loser; well, they called Toya a nigger and a loser, but still.
All the way home they talked about this person and that person, the kind of insults that should draw pity rather than laughter. For instance, Amera called a guy retarded—worst part was, the guy she called retarded truly had Down syndrome. Jim was the sweetest, gentlest soul walking the halls of Edgewood High. Amelia, not to be outdone by her sister, said Tina Dillard had a lazy eye because her dad beat her. I didn’t say a word, just laughed along like a sheep.
We reached my driveway. “Ew, what the hell kind of dog is that? It looks like it has the mange.”
“Thanks for the ride.” I shut the door, and Hampton let out a low growl in the direction of the twins.
“Hey, Kat?” Amelia rolled down the passenger-side window. “The dance team is having a party for the new recruits this Saturday night. Josh will be there. You in?”
I nodded enthusiastically to the two girls who’d called me, my brother, my mother, and my father niggers. For a fleeting moment, my guts hit the driveway.
“You text?” asked Amera.
“I don’t have a cell phone, sorry.” I shrugged.
“They didn’t even give you a cell?” They were outraged. “We’ll tell you about it in swim, see you tomorrow.”
When I opened the door, I realized that I had forgotten something, something big.
Alex.
GOOD THINGS FALL APART ALL THE TIME
By the time Alex walked through the front door, the sun was gone and the Unsolved Mysteries closing credits were rolling. I jumped up to meet him.
“I waited for an hour. Then I looked for you. I screamed into the girls’ bathrooms like a pervert. A freshman girl called me one!”
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Who brought you here? Did they have air-conditioning?” He focused on the strangest things when he got his feelings hurt.
“The twins.”
He looked at me like I had snakes crawling on my head. “They hate us!” He was right. Or he was almost right; they hated Toya and Alex, not Katarina. He shuffled up the stairs. When he reached the top, he yelled, “And I found quarters on the way home! Enough to afford a whole meal. That I ate! By myself!” And he slammed the door.
When he reopened the door, I hoped for his change of heart. “Mom!” he yelled. “Did I get any mail?”
“Not today,” she yelled back from the living room.
And he slammed the door again.
Most girls despised their big brothers, but not me. Alex and I were the best of friends. When our parents went rolling off the deep end, we held on to each other for dear life. My brother and I had rarely fought. Sure, we argued over McChicken quantities, and who got the front seat, but never about anything of substance. I ached for both of us. For him because he was alone, and for me, because I couldn’t fully enjoy success unless he succeeded, too.
Earlier that day, I had not thought twice about his feelings. To be honest, I forgot him completely. I was free of him—of us—for the first time, and it felt magnificent. However, when he walked into that house, sweaty and exhausted, my heart dropped and splattered on the hardwood with my dad’s spilled coffee. Yesterday, I imagined I loved my brother more than I loved myself. Today, I wasn’t so sure.
“You’re fighting the members of your own army, you know.” Mom sat in the dark, listening. She recycled about twelve parables that she made to fit every life situation. “What’s going on with you two?”
“Some girlfriends brought me home, and I forgot Alex,” I said.
“I gathered that much from the argument; I meant what’s the real issue? You two never fight.” She sounded almost wounded by the thought of us fighting.
I sat on a pillow next to her. “Everybody fights, Mom.” I wanted to ask her what she expected us to do with two parents who fought more than they breathed.
“That’s not true. Some human beings are put on Earth for one another. When your father and I brought you home, Alex looked at you like you were God’s screaming little miracle. I would say that he protected you, but even then you had a symbiotic relationship.” She had been watching National Geographic Channel, and she’d picked up science words.
“You looked out for each other. Alex was mischievous. He needed discipline, but you wouldn’t have it. Whenever he was in trouble, you wobbled in front of him—Pampers and all—as his human shield.” She paused. “You love each other, Latoya.”
“Like you and Evilyn?” I asked, my voice thick with sarcasm.
“Latoya Williams, you watch your tongue about your auntie,” she answered with a touch of rage. “You don’t know as much as you think you do, child.”
I began to apologize. “Mom—”
“I’m not the best mother. I’ve never put on that I am.…”
“Mom … I’m—”
She held her hand up to stop me from talking. “But I’m here now. And if you never listen to me again in life, listen to me now. Never abandon your big brother.” Mom lifted herself from the pillows and walked toward her room—head down.
“I hear you, Mom,” I said after her. I really was listening, but was I supposed to put my life on hold for him? How were either of us going to grow up with a Velcro sibling? I was doing him a favor. I was like the mother bird that throws her chicks from a tree to teach them to fly. I had never seen one plummet and splat. They all figured it out halfway down and then ascended toward the clouds. Alex would be just fine.
* * *
The following morning seemed the same as any other, only different. Dad spilled the coffee in the foyer, Mom screamed bloody murder, and we all jammed into the Fiat. But Alex was different. He wore black from head to toe. Even his mismatched socks were black; one was a faded ankle riser and the other more of a stocking. The whites of his eyes were red and veined, his shoulders curved forward, and he didn’t look my way once. He was a brother in mourning.
When we pulled up to school, he hung back and let me walk ahead. Eyes still beat down on me, but today they turned up at the corners—smiling.
“Hi, Kat,” chirped a random freshman cheerleader.
“OMG. You look so supercute,” squeaked another one.
Instinctively, I checked for Alex. He was already gone.
“Hey, pretty girl.” Amera hooked on to my right arm.
“You have Mrs. Roseland first period?” Amelia hooked on to the left.
“How did you—”
“People talk. Let’s skip.” They grinned identical grins and led me to the bleachers lining the practice football field. They yapped on about the less popular kids. While they gossiped, I thought about how Alex still saw the same old Toya with the hair, and the skin, and the nose. I realized how excruciating that must’ve been for him. I was his best friend, and completely unreachable.
“Hey, Kat, Josh is totally digging you.” Amera snapped me out of it.
“Digging me?” I sat up a little straighter.
“Totally,” said Amelia. “I texted Stephen last night. He’s been Josh’s BFF since, like, kindey. He texted that Josh would not shut up about the sexy new exchange student. He said that he was going to ask that loser Alex about you, but I texted him never to talk to that guy
in public or else.”
“Or else what?” I wanted to hear it from her mouth.
She laughed. “Stephen is a ginger, not a babe like Josh. But he’s just as popular, so I let him rub on my boobs sometimes.”
Amera added, “If Stephen goes around talking to losers, he’s deducted popularity points.”
“Guys like Josh can talk to whoever they want. Stephen can’t, and if he does…”
“No more boobies…”
“And all guys really want to do is to touch boobs.” Amelia bent in and whispered, “I let him kiss my nipple once.”
Amera punched her arm. “Why do you always have to one-up me?” They bickered about breasts, boys, and popularity until the ocean whooshed. We made it back in time for second period, kissed the air twice, and went our separate ways. I paid no attention in my next three classes, and I even dozed in Barnhouse’s biology.
Mr. Barnhouse was a staple in Edgewood culture. Old, white-headed, monotone, and utterly predictable; teaching the same material year after year. The cell cycle project, and A through D bubble quizzes. About a decade back, some senior made up a Barnhouse bubble quiz cheat song using penis mnemonics for all eight twenty-five-question tests. The first quiz mnemonics were Big Cokes (only he didn’t say cokes) Big Cokes Ass Cokes Big Ducks (only he didn’t say ducks) Ducks Cokes Ducks Big Ass Cokes And Ducks All Cokes And All Ducks And Asses Are A+. Needless to say, all Barnhouse biology students since then scored straight As. Excluding Toya, who didn’t do well in any subject. I’d always considered myself a smart girl—school just wasn’t made for people like me.
One day when Mom let me stay home from school, I half watched The View where Whoopi Goldberg said structured education wasn’t for her, either. Instead, her awesome mother let her spend those hours at the library learning on her own. I think that’s a testament to high school simply not being for everyone, especially offbeat black girls like Whoopi and me. I’d take eight hours in the library any day if it meant avoiding these wannabe bozos. Of course, Katarina was now the reigning queen of wannabe bozos, but what the hell, right?