“Tradition,” we say at the same time.
“That’s badass, what you did,” I say as she shakes her head. “Yes, yes it is. It’s beating them at their own game. It’s subtle, and it’s brilliant.”
“My friends aren’t on speaking terms with me.” She nods down to the tables in the center of the gym, where dozens of noisy students jostle around. The navy-skirted cheerleading squad seems to be at the center.
Except for Khabria, who’s hanging with me, the school outcast.
“Some of your friends aren’t,” I correct, offering her an uncertain smile. I’d like to think she and I could consider each other at least friendly acquaintances, but I don’t know how Khabria feels about that.
She smiles sadly. “I know it. And thank you. My girls think I’m being uppity, like I’m saying our prom isn’t good enough the way it’s always been. The white girls are just pissed because Ansley Strickland allowed some of her minions to ‘run’ against her this year, even though she knows she’ll win. She thinks if I get the entire African vote, I’ll win because the white votes might get divided between her girls.”
“Did she say that?” I ask, my voice hushed in horror.
“No one comes out and says anything, sweetie,” Khabria mutters. “No one has to. What has always been will always be, and anyone who mucks with that is enemy number one. That’s the way things work here.”
“Except it doesn’t. Work,” I add when she frowns at me. I shrug. “Well, it doesn’t.”
“Don’t I know it.” She rearranges the pleats of her cheerleading skirt. “Don’t think this is all just to make a statement. I’ve got my own shallow reasons for doing what I’m doing.” She crosses one slim leg over the other and kicks her bright white shoe out. “You don’t have the market on interracial dating cornered in this school.”
“Oh! Doyle? The thing is… I’m not… We’re not exactly…”
“Zip it.” She shuts me down with a wave of her hand. “It’s like you two are in your own love bubble. It’s a li’l nauseating.” She wrinkles her nose, then winks at me. “But I’m happy for Doyle. Lord, that boy could pick some fool girls to date. He finally made a smart choice.”
It’s incredible how bubbly and light one compliment from Khabria makes me feel. Now I get why peasants scrape and bow before royalty—it’s an overwhelming feeling when you’re in the presence of someone regal.
“Thanks?”
“Thank you,” she says. “I’m sure you two fell into it without ‘seeing color’ or whatever, but you opened Doyle’s eyes to something this school’s needed to shake up for a while. The boy’s a romantic, and I know he wants to get his tux on and take you to prom. But he’s got the same issue I’ve got.” She gives me a smile so soft, I know her next words will be bruising. “His date ain’t black or white.”
I rub my hands over my thighs and feel like my skin has been peeled back and examined a million times by too many eyeballs since I got here. People look at me and see black skin—skin I love, skin I’m proud of—but they think they know my whole story after a single glance.
It must be easy for Khabria. She is who she is, and she has this whole don’t-cross-me vibe that dares anyone to even try to mess with her. I’d make some shady deals with the devil to be that comfortable in my own skin at this point in my life.
“Right. I know some people guess that I’m biracial,” I begin. She’s curiously quiet, which opens the floodgates her straight talk would have otherwise slammed shut. “I’m black, but I’m not African American. My father is from the Dominican Republic. And it might be hard to tell if you don’t know, but my mother’s family emigrated here from Cork, Ireland, two generations back. My old school was this hippie-dippie Quaker school, which was a big draw for dignitaries for whatever reason. Like, I went to school with two daughters of a sheikh and a guy who was twelfth in line to be the king of Norway. Everyone knew me, and no one saw me as anything other than my own boring self. I guess I wasn’t ready for…all of this.”
I wave my hands around at…the air in the gym? The school itself? Georgia? The kind of nagging racism that never, ever lets me think about anything without analyzing this one narrow aspect of myself?
I don’t know what I mean, and now that I opened my gaping mouth so I could puke my cultural/racial backstory out, I close it fast and tight so I don’t sob like an infant in front of Khabria. Despite my best efforts, I wind up choking out an ugly sound and blinking fast while Khabria stiffens next to me.
Fantastic.
“Sorry. I just… I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.”
“It’s complicated.” Khabria pointedly stares to the side, giving me some privacy so I can to get my panic under control. “You know, I’m not just African American. My granddaddy fought in Vietnam, and that’s where he met my grandma. She’s the one who stayed with me while my mom went back to get her nursing degree, so I speak Vietnamese and all that. But I hardly look like her. I take after my mama’s mama.”
“My best friend is Vietnamese,” I tell Khabria. “I’m visiting her family in Vietnam with her this summer.”
“Yeah?” Khabria looks excited. “That’s cool. I’d love to go sometime. Ba Ngoai told me about the village where she grew up, but she was nervous to go back after so many years away.” She blows out a shaky breath. “Some days I want to tell people exactly who I am and where I come from, let them know they don’t know me just by looking at me the way they think they do. Other days I want everyone to mind their own goddamn business. Actually that’s most days.”
Oh. There are so many layers to the prejudices and stereotypes swirling around, I guess we’ve all been guilty of thinking we know people when that’s not the case. Maybe that’s not such a depressing thing. If we’re all messing up, we’re all going to have to try to do better and fast. That’s a solid, clean-slate starting point.
“I’ve been blowing this whole prom thing off,” I admit. “I didn’t feel like dealing with it. So… I suck.”
“Nah, you’re fine. My ex-boyfriend, Calvin, is running for Rose Prince. That was part of the reason I wasn’t about to run for Rose Princess. See? Shallow.” She tugs on my arm and points to the door, where the baseball team is jogging out in their navy-and-white uniforms. She nods to the back of the line. “See the Chinese guy with the big ole shoulders?”
A tall, muscled guy with a shiny black undercut and goofy smile catches sight of Khabria and waves so hard, I’m scared he’s going to dislocate his shoulder.
She waves back with the tips of her fingers and puts a hand over her mouth to cover up a gorgeous laugh. “Bo Han. His family owns China Delight, that place across from Walmart. You know it?”
“My mother and I would have starved to death if it wasn’t for the delicious takeout from China Delight. I love that place.” My stomach rumbles just thinking about their Happy Family combo platter.
“Cool. Remind me, and I’ll hook you up with some coupons. Bo asked me out right after I broke things off with Calvin, and…” She whips out this huge shrug/giggle combination that instantly transforms her into a whole different version of herself. Even more beautiful, which I didn’t think was possible. “I think I love this boy and, trust me, I don’t fall in love easily.”
I nod and I trust her. Khabria strikes me as someone who’s all or nothing about the important stuff.
“But he’s not white. And he’s not black. So…” She narrows her eyes so they’re sharp with determination. The next words lash out like a fierce vow. “We need to get ourselves a new prom.” She peeks at me from under her eyelashes with a sheepish smile. “See? Not noble at all. I’m just a sap who wants to dance with her man.”
I look at Bo Han, so busy grinning like a fool at Khabria, he doesn’t hear the coach call his name three times. He’s still grinning like a fool when his teammates shove him where he needs to go. I’m in the presence of pure, beautiful, stupid love.
I turn to Khabria, and it’s like love itself has given this
mission its blessing. There’s no possible way we can screw this up.
“You’re just a girl who wants to dance with her man? Well, Richard and Mildred Loving were just two people who wanted a wedding certificate. Let’s do this.”
TWENTY-FIVE
“I need to talk to you about the prom.” I’m leaning against Doyle’s locker, feeling a combination of guilt and regret over the sad fact that it was always him staking out my locker before.
That ship has sailed. I thought Doyle was the most easygoing person I’d ever met, but I’ve seen a whole new side of him since we fought about That Night. Boy can bottle up his feelings like nobody’s business and, coming from me, that’s saying a lot.
A familiar fire crackles in his eyes when he looks down at me. “Yeah?” He stuffs his books into the top compartment of his locker and a grin slides over his lips. “So are you gonna ask me—” He stops short, and his cocky smile turns panicked.
I realize he was probably about to say so are you gonna ask me to prom? Then flex his biceps and brag about how he can “cut a rug” or whatever weird Southern saying he’d whip out on the fly. But he hit the brakes on that joke because (a) our school prom is a racist joke and (b) we lost that fun, easy back-and-forth that I took for granted, and we can’t seem to get it back.
Reason A should have me furious and upset, but, to be honest, it’s reason B that’s breaking my heart. How can it be so hard to reach someone I love so much?
“You know, actually I’m gonna be late for ag class.” The skin on his cheekbones flames bright red. “Mebbe I can catch you at lunch…?”
“It’ll take two minutes.” On impulse bred of stupid habit, I grab his hand.
He pauses. It’s like I can feel the hairline crack, and it gives me hope.
“All right.” He draws closer, and all of him—the lavender eyes, the sweet grin, the golden stubble my hands are itching to rub against—makes me a little woozy. It’s impossible not to take inventory of how his bruises have gone from purple and blue to sickly yellow and green. It brings up memories I’d much rather bury, the way he asked me to. The way I fought against.
Why do I always fight what’s easier?
I try to focus on what I need to do instead of how screwed up things between Doyle and me have gotten.
“I talked to Khabria. And she’s in.” I wanted it to come out badass, like we’re members of this supercool club of defiance, but Doyle plays dumb and ruins the effect.
“In for what now?” he asks cautiously, but the flicker in his eyes dances brighter.
“The alternaprom.” My smile overstretches my mouth painfully.
He frowns. “Oh. That.”
“What do you mean ‘Oh. That’?” I demand.
He sighs. “It’s just…putting on an alternaprom’s gonna be a lotta work. We’d have to plan and organize and fund-raise—”
Every molecule in my body goes Irish, and my temper blazes with the fury of a thousand drunken redheads. I cannot believe that, after the way he pushed for us to march in to see Armstrong, he’s willing to just give up because it’s “gonna be a lotta work.”
I slam his locker shut, barely missing his fingers.
“You know what? Screw off, Doyle! You should just go to the racist prom with Ansley, Queen of the Friggin’ Roses, and you can be her puppet king, ruling this hick county by her side, and it’ll all be goddamn amazing!”
I spin on my heel and stomp away, not even caring that Doyle doesn’t follow. At least I’m pretty sure I don’t care, until my heart flutters at the thump of his boots.
“Hey! Hey, hey, Nes. Wait.” Doyle grabs me by the elbow, and I shake him off.
“Go to ag class or whatever you have to do,” I say over my shoulder, warming to the feel of the ball bouncing back into my court.
“Nes!” I stop and wait. “I don’t wanna do this thing if…if we don’t wind up goin’ to prom together.”
I turn slowly and clear my throat, because I’m a little choked up all of a sudden. “Huh.”
“Huh?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
I blink back tears of relief. “I wondered what force would be strong enough to topple that massive ego. I guess I’m just surprised it wound up being prom. I mean, if you’re too chicken to do this unless you know I’ll take pity on you and be your date—”
The sparkle in his smile radiates like sunshine off the morning dew. “You callin’ me chicken?”
“If the bok fits…” I flap my elbows at my side and cluck slowy. “Bok, bok, bok.”
“All right, all right,” he laughs. “Cut it. I guess I can be a little late. What did Khabria say?”
“That she’s just a girl who wants to dance. With her guy, Bo Han, who’s stuck in the middle just like I am. It’s messed up that she and Bo can’t go to prom together.”
“Maybe they can.” He reaches out, and his fingers curl around mine. I let him, because I’m allowed a weak moment. He leads me into an empty room just as the bell rings. It’s dark and so quiet, I can hear the sound of our breathing, his exhales staggered against my inhales. He kicks the door shut and keeps his hands on me. “You’ll get in trouble for skipping.”
“I’m tired of following the rules.” This dim, unfamiliar classroom feels neutral, so I make a quick decision to tell him every single thing I’ve kept bottled up since he jumped out of my bedroom window, I put it out there in such a rush, I almost pass out from not taking a second to breathe. “I meant what I said that day in my room, but I never meant to hurt you—at all—and if that’s the way you took it, I’m sorry, but someone needs to tell you that you’re allowed to be something other than the white knight who rides in on your steed and saves the day for everyone.” I swallow the huge breath I’m trying to suck in and hiccup out, “And I miss you, okay? I l-lo—really care about you, Doyle.”
Damn my wimpy heart.
The seconds stretch into an awkward infinity of regret while I wait for him to answer.
“I know it,” he whispers, his eyes hooded, his hands running up and down my arms in a slow massage that’s the polar opposite of my jangly, breathless confession. “You got no idea how bad I’ve been missin’ you, Nes. And much as it pains me to admit it, you’ve been right all along. I got one of them hero complexes, and I didn’t like you pointing that out, I guess. I don’t like anyone seein’ me fall. ’Specially you.”
“That’s what it means to l—” Love is balancing on the tip of my tongue, and I’d mean it with my whole heart if I let it tumble out. But that word is still stuck deep in the bowels of That Night, twisted in a strange combination of beautiful and horrible. “That’s what it means when you care about someone. You stick by them through the good and the bad. Especially the bad.”
“I always feel like, if I’m not doing it all jest right, I’m lettin’ down the people I love.” He wraps an arm around my waist not so much to be romantic, but like he’s anchoring himself.
Like he’s leaning on me, finally.
“Have a little faith in me.”
“Okay. But it’s not easy for me. I want to, I really do.” He dips his face close to mine.
I want to kiss him so badly, my lips tremble like they’ll fall off my face. But I can trace a direct line from all our troubles back to the night we got physical. We’ve just patched things up, and I’m not about to sledgehammer it apart again for one quick kiss.
I position my palm flat on his chest and push back. “So let’s not make this any harder.” I stick my hand out to shake, and the gesture puts more distance than I’d like between the two of us. “Friends?”
He stares at my hand, regret sharp on his features. But then, typical Doyle, he shakes it off, cups his hand over his mouth, and hocks a loogie.
This time I don’t hesitate before I spit.
“Friends,” he declares as our loogied palms slide against each other.
The line we just drew in the sand is wavy at best. He wouldn’t stop me if I pushed for more. I could tug him clos
er, press my lips to his, run my hands all over his—
“Right. So how are we gonna plan this alternaprom?” I ask in a rush, yanking my hand away so I can wipe it on the leg of my jeans. I need immediate distraction.
“You wanna brainstorm?” The best imitation of his old smile stretches across his face. He grabs an easel.
“Pull it over here. Let’s start by making a list of people who’d actually want to break some precious Ebenezer traditions and raise some hell.”
I uncap a marker from my backpack and get ready to detail the lists and plans that will help us take down some decades-long racist traditions. In the meantime, I just have to avoid kissing Doyle Rahn…at all costs.
Should be a piece of cake. I’ll just have to figure out a way to will myself into a constant lobotomized state.
TWENTY-SIX
I dreamed of a senior spring break full of beach days with Ollie, but she’s holed up practicing for her spring concert. Doyle is working extra hours at his family’s business while Brookes is on a mission trip with his church group.
I wind up spending hours with only my mom for company, floating in the pool, trying to fill time until Doyle comes over to help plan for alternaprom.
“I cannot believe how muggy it is.” Mom fans herself with a copy of the The New Yorker as she walks out onto the patio smack in the middle of spring break week. “I got the mail.”
“Mmm-hmm.” I let my fingers drift in the water and try to will myself to unstick my sweaty skin from the float so I can get in the pool and cool off.
“You got mail,” she singsongs.
I perk up. “Yeah?”
“It’s postmarked New York,” she says, her smile wide. “New York University.”
“Oh my God!” I screech, falling off the float and into the cool water. I come up choking and sputtering like a little kid and claw my way onto the deck. “Is it…? Is the letter big or small?”
“Open it and see!” Mom is trying to build the excitement, but she knows exactly what a college rejection letter looks like, and if she thought I got one from NYU, there’s no way she’d be smiling like she is.
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