Love, Margaret
I folded Margaret’s letter up and added it to the small pile of letters inside my drawer. I had taped the poem Margaret sent me to the top of my dresser. The edges were starting to fray and some of the words were fading. Her teacher, Ms. Peazle, had entered the poem in a contest, Margaret wrote to tell me. If it won, Margaret was going to read the poem in front of the mayor. I whispered the poem, feeling the back of my throat closing up with each word: My pen doesn’t write anymore,
It stumbles and trembles in my hand.
If my dad were here—he would understand.
Best of all-it’d be last summer again.
But they’ve turned off the fire hydrants,
Locked green leaves away.
Sprinkled ashes on you
And sent you on your way.
I wouldn’t mind the early autumn
If you came home today.
I’d tell you how much I miss you
And know I’d be okay.
Mama isn’t laughing now,
She works hard and she cries.
She wonders when true laughter
Will relieve her of her sighs.
And even when she’s smiling,
Her eyes don’t smile along.
Her face is growing older,
She doesn’t seem as strong.
I worry ‘cause I love her.
Ms. Dell says, “Where there is love,
There is a way.”
It’s funny how we never know
Exactly how our life will go.
It’s funny how a dream can fade
With the break of day.
I’m not sure where you are now,
Though I see you in my dreams.
Ms. Dell says the things we see
Are not always as they seem.
So often I’m uncertain
If you have found a new home.
And when I am uncertain
I usually write a poem.
Time can’t erase the memory,
And time can’t bring you home.
Last summer was a part of me
And now a part is gone.
The poem seemed strange to me all of a sudden. It was about her father and about me all at the same time. I wondered how she had done that—woven two people around and over each other until you couldn’t really tell one from the other.
“It’s just talent,” Ms. Dell would have declared, nodding. “That’s all it ever is.”
Jealousy. It flared up without me even expecting it. I swallowed, but it was still there. Margaret had something I didn’t have anymore. A belonging.
Beside her pile of letters, I had one of my own. Letters I had not sent her. I fingered my stack. Some of the envelopes even had stamps on them. For a moment, I thought about mailing one, any one, to let her know I was alive. But I didn’t want her to know who I was here, that ever since our conversation at dinner, Charli, Sheila, and Marie hadn’t spoken to me, and even though other girls sat down at my table, the only time I talked at mealtime was when Miss Norman or Ms. Bender sat down next to me. I didn’t want her to know how alone I was, how even when we made group trips to the movies or dances or state fairs, there was something missing that left me unconnected, feeling like I was on the outside of Blue Hill somehow, watching. Even when people treated me nicely, there was something, always, always, always missing. Something about being here that left me feeling like a shadow, an outline, not whole. So I closed the letter drawer slowly, sat down and began my history homework. I had gotten an A on my history test.
I looked out the window at the blue hill. The temperature had dropped in the past three weeks and the yard looked cold and empty. Two girls walked across the field wearing the heavy, dark blue jackets with BLUE HILL embroidered across the back in white. Long-dead flowers lay crusting over in abandoned window boxes. In the distance, as Ms. Bender had promised, the leaves on the trees had changed to colors that set the sky on fire.
“Hey, Maizon,” Sandy said, slamming into the room. She was on the cross-country and volleyball teams and worked on the school paper and literary magazine. On weekends she usually went home. We didn’t see or talk to each other much. When she asked me questions about my life, my answers were guarded. I guess she took this as a sign that I didn’t want to be friends with her, and about two weeks into the school year she stopped asking. I liked Sandy. But I was afraid she’d disappoint me the way Marie and Sheila and Charli had. I didn’t want to take chances. I had friends I was sure of back on Madison Street. I’d just have to wait until we were reunited.
“Hey, Sandy,” I said, sticking my head further into my book but watching her-out of the corner of my eye. Sandy took off her jacket and sweats, then grabbed a towel and headed off to the shower.
I stared out the window until she returned.
“It’s getting colder out there,” she said. “If you’re not used to Connecticut, it could surprise you.”
I shrugged, looking at the words in my history book, and said nothing.
“I saw Charli just now. They won their game. She plays basketball too. The team’s gonna start practice soon.”
“That’s nice.”
“Are you thinking about playing?”
I shrugged again. “I might give it a try.”
“I think you’d be good, Maizon.”
“Aren’t we all good?”
“What d‘you mean by that?”
Behind me, I could hear Sandy pulling on her pants. It was Saturday and we didn’t have to wear our uniforms.
“Nothing.”
“You’re a hard one to figure out, Maizon.” I turned to catch Sandy shaking her head and smiling.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
“You’re hard to get to know. I mean, we’re roommates and people are always asking me, ‘What’s your new roommate like,’ and I can’t really tell them, because I don’t really know.”
“They just want to know to be nosy.”
“Maybe some of them. But I think there are girls here who wouldn’t mind being your friend.”
“I have friends. I came here to learn.”
“That’s the only thing everyone knows about you. That you’re smart. My friend Pam is in your math class and she said the teacher asked you to stop raising your hand, because you know all the answers.”
“Pam’s just jealous. If she studied, she’d know the answers too.”
“And my friend Gina has Mrs. Winters’s science class with you. She said you know everything there too. They call you teacher’s pet.”
“Is that what people do, sit around and discuss me?”
“We’re just curious.”
“Well, don’t be. I’m not an animal in a zoo.”
“Jeez, Maizon,” Sandy said, falling back on her bed.
I turned back toward my desk and leaned on my elbows. “I hate this place,” I said softly. “I don’t belong here.”
“Yes, you do.” I could hear Sandy walking toward me and brushed my hand quickly over my eye.
“You, Miss Norman, Charli and them, nobody knows what it’s like to leave everybody you ever cared about miles and miles behind and come to a place where every single thing you touch or taste or see is unfamiliar to you. This isn’t the place for me. I don’t want to worry about who I choose to be friends with or where I sit in the cafeteria.”
“You shouldn’t worry about it,” Sandy said, timidly placing her hand on my shoulder.
“But I do worry about it. Marie and Charli and Sheila have been hurt by prejudice and I know I’ll get hurt too. I don’t want to be the minority. I want to be in a school where that’s not an issue. And here, even though nobody really talks about it, it’s on everybody’s mind. I never had to think about it before and I don’t want to think about it now.” I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.
“Maizon?” Sandy nearly whispered. “Why do you have to think about it all the time?”
I shook my head a
nd brushed her hand away. “You don’t understand, Sandy. And I can’t explain it to you.”
Sandy sighed and walked back to her bed. It felt like there were a million miles between us. But the miles weren’t about distance, they were about knowledge and experience and pain.
17
Hi, Grandma,“ I said cheerfully. It was Sunday morning. I was dressed in my uniform again, because we had to wear them to church. Service would start in a half hour, which gave me some time to talk to Grandma before walking over to the chapel.
“Maizon! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice.” Grandma sounded far away. I swallowed. I wanted to see her. “How are you, honey?”
“I’m fine, Grandma. I’m having a fun time here and learning a whole lot. Church is strange though. I’ve never been in a church full of girls in uniforms.”
Grandma laughed.
“It’s real different from church with you, Grandma. The sermons are so boring here. And you should see our hymn book. I swear, you’d fall asleep standing!”
“God’s there, Maizon,” Grandma said. “Don’t fall asleep on His spirit.” Grandma chuckled again, which made me blink back tears. “I’m so proud of you. Everyone keeps asking how you’re doing.”
“Tell everybody I’m doing real good, Grandma. I got an A on my history test. And Grandma, guess what?”
I heard Grandma laugh again. “What, my Maizon?”
“Tomorrow, in English, we’re going to start discussing The Bluest Eye. Remember that book I was reading last summer?”
“That’s nice it’s on your reading list.”
“No, it wasn’t. But the teacher took suggestions from everybody and that was my suggestion. So we read it. We discuss everything here. It’s not like it’s only the teacher talking. Everyone in class participates. And Grandma, there’re some smart girls here!”
“You’re one of them,” Grandma said proudly.
I want to go home, I wanted to shout in the phone. I don’t want to be here. Bluest Eye or no Bluest Eye, I want to go home!
“Are you keeping warm?”
“Yes, Grandma.”
“Are you keeping your hair neat?”
“I always keep it neat. It’s grown a little. I might let it grow long.”
Grandma chuckled. “And who’s going to comb all that hair you’re planning to grow?”
I smiled and shut my eyes tightly, trying to picture Grandma standing in the kitchen cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear while she rolled cinnamon-bun dough out on the table. I wondered if Margaret and Li‘l Jay were coming over to eat her cinnamon buns and listen to her stories of growing up on a Cheyenne reservation. Grandma! I wanted to yell. Please, Grandma,don’t hate me if I come home!
“I’m happy, Grandma,” I said. “Thanks for encouraging me to come here.”
“Oh, Maizon,” Grandma said again, “I’m so proud of you.”
“I’ll call you again during the week, if I’m not too busy with schoolwork. How’re your legs?”
“They’re getting me where I need to go, sweetheart. Don’t you worry. And don’t interrupt your schoolwork to put in a call to me. I’ll be here.”
Please be there for me always, Grandma.
I hung up the phone and leaned against the wall, letting my breath out slowly, slowly, slowly....
18
Ireally like this book, Maizon,“ one of the girls in my English class said Monday morning. ”I’m really glad you suggested it.“
I nodded, and found a place in the semicircle.
“Comments!” Mrs. Dexter demanded, when we were all settled.
“I liked it,” someone said.
“It was really great. Pecola was so sad.”
“Why was she sad?” Mrs. Dexter wanted to know. We didn’t have to raise our hand in her class, but if someone else was speaking, we weren’t supposed to interrupt.
“She was a black girl who wanted blue eyes,” I said. “She figured if she got blue eyes, then everyone would love her.”
“That’s what’s so tragic,” the girl sitting closest to Mrs. Dexter said. “I have blue eyes and not everybody loves me!”
I rolled my eyes. Mrs. Dexter saw me. “Maizon, you have something to add to that?”
“What was sad, what is sad, is that she thought that. And she thought it because the little white girls she saw had blue eyes and happy lives. And it was tragic that she could never be what they were ... and that she wanted to.” I shrugged.
“It is also sad,” a blond girl named Annie added, “that ours is a society that teaches us that this is beauty. Pecola took media interpretations as reality. She couldn’t see her own beauty.”
I blinked. I couldn’t believe Annie had caught all this in one reading. I didn’t think any of the girls in the class would really get what the story was about.
For a moment the rest of the class was silent, as though this were something they had missed. Annie smiled and looked timidly in my direction. I wanted to hug her! She wasn’t like the other girls, who saw Pecola as sad for not getting blue eyes. Annie had realized that what was so horrible was that Pecola, a dark-skinned, brown-eyed girl, wanted blue eyes.
“Toni Morrison is pretty incredible,” someone else offered. “The way she uses children to show us how adults have screwed up society is amazing.”
We discussed The Bluest Eye for the rest of the class. Slowly, I realized that more and more girls had gotten the story. I wasn’t sure how I felt. I wanted them to get it, but at the same time I wanted The Bluest Eye to be my book—a book only I,a black girl from Brooklyn, could interpret. I felt cheated and not as bright as I had felt a few minutes ago.
When class was over, Mrs. Dexter asked me to stay after. “I’m thinking of recommending you for the high school literature course next semester, Maizon,” she said. “Do you think you’d like that?”
“I don’t know if I’m coming back next semester, Mrs. Dexter,” I said carefully. I had not meant to say anything about this and didn’t know what had made me tell her.
Mrs. Dexter looked stricken. “Not coming back? Maizon, that’s ridiculous. You’re doing so well.”
I shrugged. “I’m just thinking about it. I’m not a hundred percent sure or anything.”
“Well, don’t make a rash decision. I’d absolutely hate to lose you.”
I swallowed. For some reason, I didn’t expect Mrs. Dexter to react with such shock. I knew she liked me but didn’t realize how much.
“I’ll really, really think about it,” I said.
“Is anyone giving you a hard time? Is there anything I could do to keep you here?”
I swallowed and pressed my fingers to my eyes. This was hard.
“I just ... I just don’t want to be here,” I cried. Mrs. Dexter placed her hands on my shoulders. “I don’t belong here....”
“Maizon—”
“I don‘t, Mrs. Dexter. I don’t. I don’t know where I belong, but it’s not here. And I don’t know if I’m so mixed-up because I don’t know where I’ll go after this or because I’m afraid I’ll never belong anywhere. I just don’t know.”
“Oh, Maizon ...” Mrs. Dexter said, pulling me to her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Please don’t tell anybody, Mrs. Dexter ...”
“But Maizon, maybe someone could help you adjust and—”
I pulled away from her and rubbed my eyes. “Please, Mrs. Dexter. Not until I’m sure. Please.”
Mrs. Dexter was still for a moment, then she nodded. “You’ll come to me before you decide, Maizon?”
“I promise.”
“And you’ll really give it a lot of thought.”
I nodded.
“I’d hate to lose you, Maizon. You’re one of the brightest students I’ve had in a long time.”
The schoolwork was harder here. I had spent so many hours buried under the bright light of my desk lamp, studying. In Brooklyn, the work had been easy and I hardly studied at all. But it wasn’t
any fun to shine here, to get nineties and hundreds on tests. I didn’t even care that there were a lot of girls doing better than me here. There sure were a lot doing worse, much worse. But there was a dullness about doing schoolwork here. It didn’t matter. I wanted it to matter again like it had at home—in Brooklyn.
I nodded. “I’ll tell you when I’m sure, Mrs. Dexter.” But I knew, and knew Mrs. Dexter knew, I was lying. I had made up my mind.
19
Hey, Pauli,“ I yelled, running across the field, my knapsack bumping against my back. I had been at Blue Hill over a month and a half, and somewhere during that time, the fall had been replaced by winter. The wind had an icy edge to it, and too often, the sky was clouded over.
Pauli stopped in the center of the field and turned. When I caught up to her, I saw the confusion in her eyes.
“You called me?”
“Yeah,” I said, out of breath. Pauli’s uniform was blue, with a blue-and-gray plaid blazer over her dark blue skirt. She wore her hair in a pony tail, which she tossed across her shoulder when she spoke. “Where you going?”
Pauli looked at me for a second, then frowned. “I’m going to return a book to Terry, who lives on the third floor of Chapman. Why?”
The ice in her words matched the cold air. I hadn’t expected that. For some reason I thought she’d be interested in walking and talking with me.
“I was wondering. Just wondering,” I said, falling into step with her.
“I’m sure Charli and them had a few words to say about me ... Maizon, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, whatever they had to say doesn’t really matter to me.”
“They said I shouldn’t stick with you,” I offered, feeling only the slightest tinge of guilt for talking behind Charli, Marie, and Sheila’s backs.
Maizon at Blue Hill Page 7