Looking for Lily

by Africa Fine

  His name was Will Brandiman. It was a rather important name for a black boy from East Cleveland. When we were freshmen, that was, in fact, what some of the more aggressive white kids told him, except they preferred the term nigger. St. Gabriel’s was a small Catholic school located near crumbling downtown Cleveland. It had an identity crisis. The school catered to lower-middle-class white Catholics who would sacrifice any material comfort to make sure their children wouldn’t grow up in what had become of Cleveland public-school system. By the 1980s, what had become of the Cleveland Municipal School District was defined by an influx of black kids whose families were growing poorer, coupled with the panicky flight of everyone else.

  St. Gabriel’s was proud to serve those staunch Catholic kids from solid Cleveland families. The school was less proud of the small but steady population of middle-class black students whose families weren’t Catholic but who shared a disdain for the city’s public schools. Of course, our families’ disdain was based not on race, but on the declining quality of the education Cleveland was obliged to provide for its darker, poorer citizens.

  I became one of St. Gabriel’s students because Aunt Gillian believed I’d never amount to anything but a teenaged mother on welfare if she sacrificed me to the public schools. I was thirteen years old, and I argued that she was underestimating both me and the Cleveland Municipal School District. My argument was based on two things: 1) my conviction that no one would want to have sex with me, thereby negating the possibility of pregnancy, and 2) my sincere hatred of St. Gabriel’s uniform, which for girls included a garish plaid skirt in red for freshman and sophomores and green for juniors and seniors. The skirt, and my early lack of romantic prospects, would be the least of my problems at St. Gabriel’s.

  Like me, Will Brandiman was a junior, but he was eighteen years old, having been held back in the second grade for “social reasons.” That he was an older man was part of what convinced me that I loved him and that he loved me. I believed that he could have smiled at any number of sixteen-year-old girls, but he chose me.

  I was making too much of his choice. There were five hundred students at St. Gabriel’s, and only about forty of them were black. In 1986, there was no such thing as interracial dating at the school. So, assuming that twenty black boys had twenty black girls as potential girlfriends, Will Brandiman didn’t as much choose me as he ended up with me by default.

  Our romance began on a gray, icy day in February 1986. We passed by each other in the parking lot, I on my way to the bus stop, he on his way to his aunt’s dirty yellow Chevette. As usual, he smiled. As usual, I averted my eyes while rejoicing inside my head, because by that time, I’d had a full-blown crush on Will for months. Not so usual, at that very moment, I slipped on a patch of ice that had somehow been spared a coating of industrial-strength salt crystals.

  Before I could regain my balance, my considerable bulk plunked down onto the sidewalk with a sonic boom. I lay there on my back, crying from mortification more than pain, although I would soon discover that I’d sprained my left ankle and broken the wrist on the same side. When Will’s face, concerned and gentle, replaced the gloomy sky in my tear-clouded vision, I cried even harder, horrified that he had witnessed my lack of grace. To make my misery complete, my ankle and wrist began to sizzle and throb.

  I don’t think it ever occurred to Will that I might be embarrassed. He took my sobbing as an indication of extreme pain and he shouted to a passing classmate to call for an ambulance. Great. Now I wouldn’t just be the fat girl; I would be known as the Fat Girl Who Fell and Had to Ride in an Ambulance. I sat up and tried to stand, tried to tell Will that I was fine. In doing so, I put my weight on my left extremities. The pain was astonishing. I blacked out and woke up an hour later in the hospital.

  I was out of school for two weeks after the fall. One week was mandated by my doctor, and one week was tacked on because I didn’t want to face school. At the end of the first week, I dragged around the house looking pitiful, which was not a difficult task with a cast on my wrist and a serious limp. I managed to look so sad that my aunt agreed to let me stay home the extra week, provided that I kept up with my classwork. This wouldn’t be a problem, I assured her. I had Will.

  Will had been by my side every moment he could since I’d been taken away in the ambulance. He consulted each of my teachers, then typed the list of assignments during his seventh-period typing class. He brought all of my books home for me, and he even bought a red Sharpie, which he used to sign my cast.

  If I’d had a crush on Will before the fall, by the end of my third day of convalescence, I was imagining our future June wedding during my Demerol-induced naps. He wore a white morning suit, top hat included, and I, rendered slim by virtue of my imagination, wore a strapless, beaded white gown with a five-foot train. We were happy and my aunt cried.

  Will kept me entertained during the hours between school and dinner. My aunt had never allowed me to have a television in my room. A broken wrist and sprained ankle were deemed insufficient cause to change this policy. So Will and I played hours of gin rummy and Monopoly. He was a cheerful and willing participant and I let him win every fourth game or so. Even so, Will was awful at games.

  “You’re getting bankrupted by a girl with only two fully functional limbs,” I told him one afternoon as I collected rent on one of several hotels I had placed on Boardwalk.

  He shrugged. “Owning Baltic is an investment in the future. You’ll see.”

  I decided to commend Will for his sense of humor in the wedding vows I would write myself.

  When Will was there, I forgot that I was fat, that the other black kids accused me of trying to be white when I used the proper English my aunt demanded. I forgot that I hated my name, Ernestine. I forgot that I had no friends, that I sometimes felt a crippling loneliness. I forgot about my aunt’s disapproval, about the world’s indifference. Will smiled, and his smile made me into someone who deserved it.

  I was so happy it scared me.

  “You don’t have to come see me,” I told Will near the end of the first week. I was being weaned off my pain medication and I was feeling cranky and sore. “Just because you saw me fall doesn’t mean you’re responsible for me.”

  I imagined that Will felt an obligation to me, some variation on the loyalty television characters feel when they have saved someone’s life. I craved his attention, but I couldn’t bear pity.

  He just shook his head and gazed at me. I recognized the look on his face. It was the same way he looked at me just before he said “I do” in my dreams.

  “I just want to be with you, Tina.”

  It was the first time in my life that I felt wanted.

  Aunt Gillian did not like Will. She tolerated him, because he was the first friend I’d brought home in a long while. He was the first boy I’d ever brought home, and I could tell she didn’t want to discourage me. But as in all things, she could not hide her disapproval. She was polite to him, thanking him for helping with my schoolwork and commending him for keeping me entertained. One afternoon, she even baked him chocolate-chip cookies to take home in a tin. But I knew that none of that should be taken as approval. The less my aunt liked a person, the more impeccable her manners.

  I didn’t want to care what my aunt thought, but I did. After Will left one evening toward the end of the second week, I asked her about it as we were sitting down to dinner.

  “Why don’t you like Will? He’s nice. He saved me.”

  I had succumbed to the romantic idea that Will and I were linked forever because of my fall on the ice. It was destiny, I had decided. Aunt Gillian raised her eyebrow, a tiny movement that conveyed a considerable amount of skepticism at my interpretation of events.

  “I never said I didn’t like Will.”

  She believed it was uncouth to express overt disapproval, although this point of etiquette somehow did not apply to her relations with me. She picked up her fork and took a small, delicate bite of broccoli. She knew I hated bro
ccoli, but it was a staple at our dinner table as a part of her unending quest to put me on a diet.

  “I know you. You don’t like him.” I pushed the broccoli aside and bit into the small piece of French bread I was allowed. I would have preferred fries, but that was out of the question.

  She sighed and took another bite of broccoli, as if to demonstrate proper eating form and content. She chewed for a long moment before putting down her fork and looking over at me.

  “He’s not what he seems to be. He will hurt you.”

  I dropped my fork, furious. “You just don’t want me to be happy. You try to ruin everything for me!”

  I screamed this in the dramatic way only a sixteen-year-old can. It was the first time I’d ever raised my voice at my aunt, and I expected her to retaliate.

  She was calm. “I’ve known a lot of men in my life, men who seemed nice on the surface but who had other…agendas. I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.”

  “What do you know about men?” I sneered. “I’ve never even seen you with a man. What man would want someone as old and dried-up as you?”

  I didn’t know where the words came from. I wasn’t even conscious of having such thoughts about my aunt. At the time, she did seem both old and old-fashioned to me, but I wasn’t prepared for the force of my own hostility toward her. Looking back, she wasn’t that old (just fifty-one years old when I was sixteen), and many of her words now seem protective rather than critical. But then, she was the enemy.

  I wanted my words to hurt her. But they either had no effect, or she wasn’t willing to give me the satisfaction. She frowned, took another tiny bite of her ultrahealthy dinner, and began to speak in a patient tone.

  “Ernestine—”

  I cut her off, shouting, “Call me Tina!”

  I stomped out of the kitchen, ran up the stairs and barricaded myself in my room. Two days later, I lost my virginity to Will while my aunt was out shopping for a new sofa.

  I had never been one of those girls who cherished their virginity, who viewed it as a sacred gift to be given the man of their dreams. In fact, I had not considered the practicality of sex. My romanticism focused on ceremonies and style, or words and gestures instead of what went where, and when.

  I did, however, think that the moment of my first sexual experience would be more than a collection of jerky movements, pain, and embarrassment. There was no seduction. I told Will I wanted to do it. He agreed without even a token bit of hesitation. There was no effort at romance or tenderness. It began, it hurt, and it was over. While Will buttoned up his clothing, which had been mussed throughout the entire process, I could only think of my wrist, which ached, and the day of the week. It was Thursday.

  I was not surprised that Will didn’t come by the next day, or Saturday, as was his habit. I wasn’t even surprised that he ignored me in the halls at school. What surprised me was how much I missed his smile.

  * * *

  For another type of girl, the Will Situation might have created a certain level of caution when it came to love. For me, it was the beginning of a five-year stretch of poor decisions, extreme loneliness, and intermittent promiscuity. Instead of avoiding boys, and men, I threw myself into relationships that had two things in common: They were short, and they were painful. My sudden sexual popularity in high school was due to Will’s gift of gab. Although the experience hadn’t seemed to me like much to brag about, it seemed that my willingness to participate made me a hot commodity. This made me popular among boys with sweet smiles and active libidos, and even less popular (if that were possible) among the girls they dated and called girlfriends.

  I didn’t care. I ignored all the bad things about my encounter with Will and focused on the one bright spot: I’d felt wanted. All I required of the boys was a week or two of superficial attentiveness, and I was theirs for a night, or more—however long it took for reality to set in. I was fat. I was unpopular. I was too smart. They were ashamed of me and their desire for me.

  Despite their shame, there were many boys, both black and white, who passed me notes in the halls, or smiled at me during class, or struck up conversations with me after school. There was no such thing as interracial dating at St. Gabriel’s, but those rules didn’t apply to illicit sexual encounters that ranged from simple petting to sex in the backseats of cars.

  I brought none of them home, of course. I had refused to speak to Aunt Gillian for a week after Will stopped coming around, somehow blaming her for what happened. She neither asked about him nor mentioned his name again, but it rankled that she had seen through him in a way that I couldn’t. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of being right again.

  When I graduated high school and went away to Georgetown, little changed. I was still fat, and I still needed to feel wanted. My methods, and those of my suitors, became more sophisticated, and casual sex was more acceptable on the college campus than it was at my provincial Catholic high school. Until senior year of college, I convinced myself that I was in charge of my own sexuality, that I was taking what I needed just as the men were. This, I told myself, made me a feminist, liberated, strong. This, I told myself, was why I had few women friends, none close; they were not as enlightened as I.

  Francisco Alexander and Monica Coleman changed my mind.

  Chapter 10

  “The Latino Agenda”

  By the spring semester of my senior year, I had fulfilled the requirements for my English and literature degree. I wanted to take something different, so I enrolled in a women’s studies class called “Twentieth-Century Feminism: Still Battling the Sexes.” I wasn’t sure what the class would be like, or even what the title meant, but it sounded interesting. It was January 1993. I was twenty-two years old. It was my first class of the day, on the first day of the semester.

  I noticed Francisco right away because he was the only man among the fifteen people sitting around the seminar table. If I had been the only woman in a class full of men, I would have been nervous. But he looked comfortable, slouched down in his chair and wearing the slightest smirk on his face. I looked around and saw the other women noticing him, too. I had experienced this phenomenon before, having a man invade what is a woman’s space—and even in 1993, men were infrequent visitors to the Women’s Studies Department. It was often in a beauty salon, where a man would be getting an ill-advised perm or some other kind of treatment normally reserved for women. Or it was in an aerobics class, where the men had one of three goals: 1) get in shape, 2) ogle women in leotards, or 3) make fun of the institution of aerobics.

  At the start of “Twentieth-Century Feminism,” we all wondered whether Francisco was here to learn, to gawk, or to antagonize.

  He was there for all three, as it turned out, although I wouldn’t realize that until much later. Francisco Alexander was Colombian, which we knew because he made sure to mention his family in Bogotá at every opportunity. He insisted on being called Francisco, not Frank or any other shortened version of his name, because, as he told us on the first day of class during introductions, “I was named after my great, great abuelo Francisco, who lost his life fighting for freedom.”

  He was the kind of person who peppered his speech with Spanish words, although he had no discernable accent except that common to inhabitants of Reston, Virginia, where he and the other freedom-fighting Alexanders had settled. This bothered me from the very beginning, but I told myself I was being unfair. Spanish was his native language, I told myself. Why shouldn’t he retain it in his everyday conversation?

  Francisco was dark haired and fair skinned, handsome in a wiry, lithe way. He wore a uniform of faded jeans, black suede Pumas, and either a bright-colored sweater or t-shirt, depending on the weather. He topped this with an ancient leather jacket that looked as if it had belonged to a World War II pilot. He seemed to glide along instead of walking (later, I would think of it as slinking), and he felt as if he belonged in any setting. He had an unshakable confidence; he could not be convinced that he and hi
s views were anything other than right. Some people called it arrogance, but his conviction captivated me.

  What made him most interesting was his passion. Francisco did nothing without giving it his full attention. When he read our first assigned book, Sex, Art, and American Culture by Camille Paglia, he devoured it, quoting it from memory as if opening the book would take too much energy away from the point at hand. Then he went on to read many of Paglia’s other works in order to contextualize her writings. He made sure we all knew he had read them, and none of us could question him on those, since we hadn’t read them. I supposed the professor had, but she tended to let you hang yourself with your own rope, so to speak, so she never stopped Francisco from holding court in class.

  He ate every meal with the graceful manners of the upper-middle class, and he enjoyed each bite as if it were his last. He made love as if he meant to savor each movement, to remember each curve along my skin. He always had a new idea, and he was spontaneous. One day he would whisk me off to a Brazilian restaurant, and the next day we would drive four hours so we could see a Broadway show. On Broadway.

  He was romantic and generous, exciting and challenging. Francisco was a living, breathing example of how to live in the moment.

  We spoke for the first time during the discussion of Paglia’s book, which was a collection of essays examining contemporary feminism and popular culture. The professor began the class by asking what we thought of the book.