We pause conversation while we fill our plates, and I try not to watch Edie. I don’t want to think about her judging the food we eat or the fact that I’ve never eaten meat. Lots of people don’t eat animals because of their religion. Why is it so weird that we do it to help the environment?
Ms. Whitman takes a bite of soufflé and moans. “And you can cook, too! Is there gruyère in here?”
“Nice palate,” Dad says, smiling. “How is the B&B going?”
“Well, our things are finally supposed to arrive tomorrow. I know Edie and I are pretty tired of living out of suitcases.”
“When are you looking to open for business?” Elliott takes a bite of spicy bean salad.
“We’re going to take a little bit of time to get things in order since the busy season is winding down. But we hope to be up and running by October. After I get through all the paperwork and freshen up the furniture and rooms.” She pauses. “We’re thinking of just calling it the Whitman Inn. What do you think?”
“I think it’s perfect,” Dad says with a nod. “Keep it straightforward and simple.”
Ms. Whitman takes a breath. “A lot of people back in Brooklyn think I’m going through a midlife crisis for wanting to move out here and run a bed and breakfast. But it’s my lifelong dream. That I put on hold for many years. So with our circumstances… this seemed like the best possible time to try it.”
“A lifelong dream sounds like a good enough reason to me,” Dad responds. “You’ll never have to wonder ‘what if.’”
“Exactly,” Edie’s mom says, looking pleased.
“You know, we got a lot of questions about moving up here, too,” Dad continues. “Ojai isn’t very diverse, but the commune was. We heard Ewing Beach was starting to attract more families of color, so we thought we’d be okay helping pioneer that. But once we got here, it felt like someone had put the brakes on it and didn’t tell us. All those families of color who were supposed to be buying houses and having kids never showed up.”
Ms. Whitman sighs. “That was a concern of mine. Moving Edie from a place like Brooklyn to here. It’s going to be an adjustment. That’s why I just can’t believe our luck, to have moved in across the street from you all.”
“We feel lucky, too,” Dad says.
Elliott turns to Edie. “How do you like living in a bed and breakfast?”
I’m surprised to see her steadily eating the food, almost like she enjoys it. She pauses and makes eye contact with him. Her light skin blushes. “It’s all right. I like that my bedroom is in the attic.”
“And are you girls looking forward to starting school next week?” Dad asks.
“I’m glad to not be a sixth grader anymore,” I say. Back at Ewing Beach Elementary, our teachers warned us that we’d have triple the workload and super-strict teachers when we started sixth grade at the middle school. It turns out they were exaggerating a lot, but it’s no fun being the new kids in the building. People’s voices change when they say sixth graders, the same snooty way we used to talk about the kindergartners back in elementary school.
“I’m glad to have a friend already,” Edie says. I guess she knows that new-kid feeling, too.
Her eyes slide over to me. Nervous, like maybe she shouldn’t have said anything.
I give her a smile and she quickly returns it.
After dinner, Edie and I take our slices of blueberry pie out to the front porch (but only after Dad confirmed there was no lard in the piecrust).
“Do you like our school?” Edie asks. “You haven’t said much about it.”
“It’s okay.” I take a bite of pie. It’s really good, and I wonder if Ms. Whitman bakes a lot. I hope so. “Hey, do you want to come to the beach tomorrow? My surf camp is having an end-of-summer party. Laramie is coming, too.”
“Yeah, sure,” she says, not taking too long to think about it. I’m glad. I know the beach isn’t really her thing. “Who’s Laramie?”
“My best friend since fourth grade. And if you like Laramie, you’ll like the rest of our friends.”
Edie starts to say something but pauses as she looks across the street. Rebekah, the McKees’ nanny, pulls her Subaru into the driveway. Before she can get out of the driver’s side and open the back door, Stephan bursts from his car seat in back, screaming at the top of his lungs as he hops out. Nicolette sticks her head out of the passenger side, yelling something at him.
“What’s up with that kid?” Edie asks, watching Rebekah follow Stephan to the porch. He’s pounding his little fists against the front door.
“Stephan McKee. He’s a total spoiled brat. His parents aren’t very nice. Neither is she,” I say as Nicolette steps out of the car.
“No kidding. I hear him screaming constantly.” She shudders. “But what’s up with her?”
I lower my voice. “Nicolette? She’s just never been nice to me. We’ve been on this street longer than them, but their family always acts like they’re the only ones who belong.”
Edie frowns. “What do you mean?”
“They just… Nicolette says stuff sometimes. That’s prejudiced. Or maybe…”
“Racist?” She says it so plainly, it startles me. Sometimes that seems like a bad word. Like people are more afraid of being associated with it than actually not being it.
Across the street, Nicolette glances over at us. There’s a second where she pauses, as if maybe she’s weighing the idea of making a good first impression on Edie versus being her usual snotty self. She chooses the second option, giving us a long, unsmiling stare before she slams the car door closed and follows her brother and nanny inside.
“Well, she’s not friendly,” Edie says, making a face. “What kind of stuff has she done?”
“Um, I don’t know.” I have more stories than I can count on two hands. I’ve known Nicolette since I was seven years old, which is almost half my life. But now that I have the chance to share all the ways she’s been mean to me, I’m feeling shy. There was the thing at the beach, but I don’t feel like reliving that right now. Not even for someone who might actually understand. “Lots of little things that just sort of add up, I guess.…”
“I believe you,” Edie says, looking at me with a serious face. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, of course.” But that’s a lie. I’m not used to someone else just knowing what I’m talking about when it comes to things like this. Every time I bring it up with Laramie or one of our other friends, they say it’s probably not what I think. That Nicolette or whoever else said something gross or unkind to me probably didn’t mean anything by it.
“So,” Edie says, “is it true that you were the only black kid in our grade before I got here?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling weird because I haven’t told her that yet. So she had to find out from someone besides me. I didn’t want to make it into a big deal, but then after a couple of days it seemed weirder and weirder to just bring it up out of the blue.
“My mom told me. I guess one of your dads told her.” She chews a forkful of pie and swallows. “I knew there weren’t a lot of black people here, but the only one?”
“I know.” I use my fork to swirl a blueberry through the crumbs on my plate. “There are lots more Asian and Latinx people than black people here, but not a lot. Almost everyone is white.”
“Is it weird for you? That I moved here?”
“No! I’m so glad you’re here,” I say, looking at her until she looks back. I want her to know I mean it. “I don’t want to be the only one.”
Edie nods and smiles a little bit. “Good.”
A YOU-AND-ME THING
THE WATER WILL BE COLD, BUT THE SUN IS HIGH AND bright for the surf camp party.
I decided to bring my board, so Dad drives Edie and me over to Laramie’s house. Edie stares at the surfboard with big eyes as Dad and I remove it from the rack on top of his station wagon and asks if she can touch it.
“What’s it made of?” She runs her fingers lightly over the front. The
board is white with diagonal shades of blue and green running down the bottom half.
“Epoxy,” I say.
Her eyebrows wrinkle. “What’s that?”
“I don’t really know, actually,” I admit. “But all boards used to be made of fiberglass.”
“Call us when you’re ready to be picked up,” Dad says, getting back behind the wheel.
Laramie’s front door opens. She steps out and waves at Dad as he backs the wagon onto the street. He toots the horn as he drives away.
“Hey,” I say to Laramie. “This is Edie. Edie, this is my best friend, Laramie.”
“Cool name,” Edie says, and I feel a twinge of something when she says it. I guess I don’t expect anyone to think my name is cool, though. It’s old-fashioned, like somebody’s grandma. Dad’s grandma, in fact.
“Thanks,” Laramie says. “I like your jeans.”
Edie smiles. I did a double take when she walked over to our house this morning. I have on my swimsuit under a long-sleeved T-shirt and board shorts. My wet suit is in the bag slung over my arm. Edie’s wearing black combat boots and black jeans with rips in the knees.
“You guys ready to go?” I ask, holding tightly to my board. I don’t know if I’ll surf today, but I don’t feel right showing up to the party without it.
“It’s not even eleven yet,” Laramie says. “We don’t have to be there right on time, do we?”
“I guess not.” But I like showing up to things on time. Probably because Elliott and Dad make such a big deal about not being late or keeping people waiting.
“Come inside for a minute? I need to finish getting ready.” Laramie waves us through the still-open front door. “Leif is making one of his famous concoctions if you’re up for a horror show.”
Leif’s famous concoctions are weird and pretty gross, like the time he stuffed pizza rolls into a pizza pocket and tried to make a giant calzone out of it all with premade dough and canned pizza sauce.
Today he’s making what he calls a Dagwood sandwich. He turns around for a minute to say hey to us and give Edie a nice-to-meet-you smile. Then he goes right back to building what is the tallest, fattest, drippiest sandwich I’ve ever seen in my life.
“What’s in it?” Edie asks, looking enthralled and disgusted at the same time.
“More like what’s not in it,” Laramie says before she runs upstairs to finish getting ready. Whatever that means. She looks ready to me, with her black-and-red striped swimsuit under a pair of jean shorts.
“Well,” Leif says, amused by Edie’s amusement, “there’s Swiss cheese, American cheese, ham, turkey, tomatoes, corn chips, onions, pickles, mustard, mayo, relish, olives, and roast beef. Oh, and peppers.”
All of it separately sounds normal, but looking at it together makes me anything but hungry.
“Are you really going to eat that?” Edie says it exactly like I think girls Leif’s age would know to say that to him. Like she thinks he’s silly and funny and cute. It’s flirty. I haven’t figured out how to flirt with boys my own age, let alone ones who are older than me.
“I’m gonna try,” Leif says easily. “You want a bite?”
“I’ll pass,” she says. “I’m still full from breakfast.”
I think part of her wants to try it, but probably the part that’s worried about getting messy is more important.
“Stop trying to poison the new girl,” Laramie says, slipping on her heart-shaped red sunglasses as she comes back into the kitchen.
I look at Edie to see if she’s annoyed at being called new girl, but she just grins at Leif before tossing her hair over her shoulder.
We leave him with his towering sandwich and walk out Laramie’s back door, through the back gate, and over to the stairs that lead down to the beach.
The surf camp is right by the pier, like Irene said. They’ve set up a volleyball net and two portable grills, and the little kids are building sandcastles and running around one another, screaming and laughing.
As we get closer, Irene waves us over. Her red ponytail swings wildly as she passes sodas from a cooler to kids from the beginner group. We make our way down the beach to her, Edie and Laramie trailing behind me.
“Hey, Alberta,” Irene says with a big smile, which she extends to Edie and Laramie. “Glad you all could make it. Jed just fired up the grills, ice cream will be here later, and Leslie is keeping an eye on the surfers. The volleyball net is fair game, too.”
Laramie gets a soda, and Edie and I grab waters. I look around, but maybe Laramie was right. Maybe we’re too early, because no one my age or older is here. Just the younger kids and their parents. I’m not ready to get in the water yet, so we find a space close to the party but far enough away that we can talk without people hearing us.
Edie spreads out the beach blankets she carried over and we all plop down. Well, Laramie and I do. Edie eases herself down almost… gracefully. She sits with her legs crossed and stares around the beach with her hand over her eyes like a visor.
“So, what do you guys do when you’re here?”
“Here?” Laramie looks confused.
“The beach,” Edie says, sweeping her arm around. “I mean, when there’s not, like, a party going on.”
“Oh,” Laramie says, and I understand her confusion.
People who haven’t ever lived somewhere like here think of the beach as something different or separate from the rest of the town. But the ocean is such a big part of Ewing Beach that I can’t imagine a day where I don’t think, see, or talk about it. Laramie sees it every single day from her bedroom window.
“Swim, read comics, walk around,” Laramie says. “And Alberta surfs, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Edie says in an exaggerated voice.
They look at each other and laugh at the same time. I giggle along with them, but it takes some effort. I guess I don’t get the joke.
Edie looks around. “But, seriously, you don’t have a boardwalk?”
“Not one like you’re talking about. But all the shops and stuff are right up there.” I point to Ewing Street behind us.
“Coney Island has so much stuff to do,” Edie says, digging a tiny hole in the sand with her pinkie. “The boardwalk and the Cyclone and the carousel… And there’s the Mermaid Parade every year with bands and costumes and floats.”
“How long did you live in New York?” Laramie asks her, and I wonder if she’s getting as annoyed as I am that Edie thinks Ewing Beach is so boring.
“My whole life. I’ve never lived anywhere but Brooklyn. I haven’t even lived anywhere except our brownstone… until now.”
Laramie nods. “I came here in fourth grade. From Colorado. Why’d you move?”
I give her a look, but she doesn’t even glance at me. I told her Edie’s parents had split up. I thought she’d know not to ask about it. But Laramie doesn’t think much before she speaks. It’s never to be mean, but she ends up saying a lot of things she should probably keep to herself.
“My parents are getting divorced.” Edie says it like she’s unsure. Like she’s still getting used to it.
“Sorry,” Laramie says. “It’s just me, Leif, and my mom. My dad took off a long time ago.”
“That sucks.” Edie sighs. “My dad is back in Brooklyn. With my brother.”
“Is he as annoying as my brother?” Laramie rolls her eyes.
“He’s pretty annoying. Especially lately. My mom says it’s because he’s ‘in the thick of being a teenager,’ but I’m not going to be a jerk like he is when I’m sixteen.”
“Leif is sixteen, too,” Laramie says, sitting up a little straighter. “He’s not so bad, but he has his jerk moments. And my mom just lets him act that way. She says he’ll grow out of it.”
“Mine, too!” Edie shakes her head. “But if I say the wrong thing, I’m grounded for a week.”
Laramie smiles at her like no one has ever understood her better, and it sends that twinge through me again. How are they already acting like old friends
? I look at Laramie to see if she’s staring at Edie’s black lipstick, but it’s like it’s something she sees every day.
“Leif is working at the creamery later,” Laramie says. “He’ll give you a free cone.”
“The ice cream there is so good,” I say. “Especially the butter pecan.”
Laramie laughs. “Alberta should know. It’s the only flavor she ever gets.”
“Because it’s the best flavor.”
But I can’t help feeling a little weird that she offered Edie a free cone. And if she were looking at me right now, I wonder if she’d see in my eyes what I really wanted to say: Leif’s free cones are a you-and-me thing. My gaze slides over to a seagull hopping around a few feet away from us, pecking at the sand for stray bits of food.
“The creamery is way better than Craig’s job,” Edie says. “He’s a barista. I love coffee, but the only thing he ever gave me for free was day-old muffins. If he was in a good mood.”
I look over Laramie’s shoulder and groan. “What is she doing here?” I mutter.
“Who?” Edie asks, following my gaze.
“Nicolette. Our neighbor.”
“Oh. She looks different with sunglasses, I guess.”
Laramie turns around, too. And waves. I hold my breath, waiting to see what Nicolette will do. Maybe she’ll ignore her since she’s with her friends, a couple of other soon-to-be eighth graders. But she waves back. And, I’m shocked to see, starts heading our way.
“What are you doing?” I say, pulling my board wax out of my bag.
“Saying hi,” Laramie says. “Being nice.”
Edie looks back and forth between us. “I thought you didn’t like her.”
“I don’t.”
“Hey, Laramie,” Nicolette says when she and her friends are standing in front of us, blocking our sun. She definitely didn’t bring her board. She’s not even wearing a suit, just jeans and a tank top. “Hey, new girl,” she says to Edie. Finally, she nods at me.
The Only Black Girls in Town Page 5