In the Silences

by Rachel Gold

  Three weeks into the semester, Aisha came in late to class. She and Chloe, this white girl in her Algebra 2 class, both walked in more than five minutes after the bell. Mrs. Alexander had been giving out assignments for a class-wide project about testing household chemicals.

  Chloe walked in first and said brightly, “Sorry I’m late, Mrs. Alexander. Aisha’s with me too, she got stopped by the hall monitor, but she’ll be right here.”

  Of course she did. This would be the second time she’d gotten stopped in three weeks. How many times had I been stopped? None. Not even when I was fifteen minutes late because I’d forgotten my book in the cafeteria, then stopped to pee, then stopped to look out the window at a massive, fuzzy Newfoundland being walked next to the school.

  “Oh,” Mrs. Alexander said to Chloe. “I’ve given all the assignments out. What’s your lab partner doing?”

  Chloe popped into her spot and scanned the page her lab partner held out. “Checking the manufacturer’s websites.”

  “You two can split that one.”

  Aisha came in, face scrunched with annoyance, and sat on the stool next to me. I put the tips of my fingers on the side of her thigh.

  “I’m sorry for being late,” she said, sitting up straight, addressing Mrs. Alexander.

  “I told them,” Chloe said.

  “We’re doing a project,” I told Aisha. “You can do my part with me.”

  Mrs. Alexander came down the aisle between the desks, pausing in the middle of the room and asked me, “Which part are you doing?”

  “Posting our results online.”

  “We already have enough people for that. Aisha, you keep track of the amounts of household items and chemicals.”

  “Sure, Mrs. Alexander.”

  Over the next few days, we all brought in cleaners and other chemicals from our houses. I don’t think Aisha had imagined—I sure hadn’t—that Mrs. Alexander honestly meant for her to pour out all the contents of these and record how many milliliters of each we had. Every day. Because the amounts decreased as we tested them. Not only was this boring as fuck, but it left Aisha with a bunch of glassware to wash at the end of class. This class backed into our lunch period, which was only thirty minutes.

  I stayed back with Aisha to wash glassware. At least we didn’t have to listen to as much of Trina, Eve and Sofia’s boring lunchtime chatter, but we missed the best food. After two days, Aisha packed us lunches.

  She handed me one as we sat at the cafeteria table that Eve, Trina and Sofia had vacated. We had six minutes to eat. I unpacked my bag and stared down at the roast beef sandwich, apple, chips. The sandwich had fresh butter lettuce and the right kind of horseradish: the kind that was strong enough you could see the texture of the grated root.

  “You wanted something else?” Aisha asked.

  “No, just, I love you.”

  “Because I brought you lunch?” she asked, grin going huge across her face and I realized what I’d said.

  “Oh shit, I totally meant to say that way more romantically. I almost had a plan but the treehouse is getting cold and if we lit candles at your house we’d probably set off the smoke alarm so I was thinking maybe Christmas lights—”

  She reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around mine. “I love you too. And let’s say it again when we’re home so I can kiss you.”

  “Yeah. A bunch. You always make things better. Even with the chemistry crap and everything. Sometimes I want to curl up in my room and never come out again, except to go over to your room.”

  “I’ve got more people than you,” she said. “And I curl up in my room plenty. You’ve seen that.”

  “You’re always cuter than me about it,” I insisted.

  “Matter of perspective. You’re cuter.”

  “No way.” I grinned and rubbed my thumb over her fingers. “This whole chemistry thing is a pile of steaming shit. Mrs. Alexander should know you couldn’t help being late.”

  “You think she’s going to admit to herself that the hall monitor stops the black kids way more often than anyone else?” Aisha asked. “If she could be bothered to notice. And you know I’m only acting calm about this shit.”

  “Yeah, still I couldn’t.”

  “You could. If you didn’t have a choice. You know what happens if I get mad about this, I’m just another angry black woman, and I mean ‘woman’ not ‘girl.’ You know why the hall monitor stopped me this time? He didn’t think I go here. He thought I was twenty. And then he had to look at my ID for forever because my hair’s different in that photo.”

  This wasn’t the first time white people around us thought Aisha was four or five years older than me, rather than four months younger, despite her being shorter and smaller. More of Apocalypse’s mind control: change the way groups of people are perceived so it seemed natural to treat them differently. Of course I wanted to find that hall monitor and yell at him, or growl and bare my teeth Wolvie-style.

  I put my hands under the table, clenched my fists and pressed them hard against my thighs.

  “Okay.” My voice came out rough, so I cleared my throat and started over. “Okay, you don’t have a choice, then I don’t have a choice. I’ll bring lunch tomorrow. PBJ or PBB?” The second “b” was for banana.

  “PBB,” she said. “And Saturday, we both curl up in my room, right?”

  “All day,” I agreed. “With kissing. And I tell you again that I love you.”

  * * *

  We only spent half of Saturday in her room because we decided it was time to start telling our families we were dating. We figured we’d tell Tariq first because he’d be cool and excited for us—and he was the least likely to give advice. Then we’d tell Darius and Aisha’s folks, followed by my house, starting with Milo or maybe everyone at once over dinner.

  That Saturday when Aisha’s folks had gone to run errands, Tariq was planted in front of the Xbox with a pop and a giant bag of Cheetos. How he kept the orange cheese powder off the controller, I couldn’t figure.

  Aisha plopped onto the couch next to him and patted the spot on her other side so I squeezed in. He paused the game and looked over. I usually sat in the armchair because that fit me and Pickles—and because then I wasn’t tempted by being next to Aisha—so both of us being on the couch was weird.

  Tariq paused the game, eyebrows high. “You’re ganging up on me,” he said.

  “We’re going out,” I told him.

  “Where to?”

  I froze and turned to Aisha.

  She grabbed my hand and said, “We’re dating, numbskull.”

  “Oh shit!” he yelped, and looked around to make sure their parents were gone. He dropped the controller on the coffee table and stood up, paced a bit away and turned back to us, stared at our joined hands. “Fucking epic. Day was right.”

  “You guys really had a bet going?” I asked.

  “Informally,” he said, like that made it better. “No actual money. Just bragging rights.”

  “Hold up, you thought we wouldn’t get together?” Aisha asked.

  “You had that other girl. Don’t look at me like that. I don’t know how you all do things, crazy kids. So, who asked who?”

  “She did,” I said. “Except I pre-asked her not to say yes to anyone else, I don’t know if that counts.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re the complicated one, not like you don’t have game. Mysterious and kissable counts as game. Never got it to work for me, but congrats. Damn you two are cute. Who’s telling Day?”

  “Skype him,” Aisha said.

  “You Skype him.”

  Aisha sighed and ran upstairs to get her laptop.

  “You’re grinning like she’s the only girl in the world,” Tariq said to me.

  “Isn’t she?”

  Aisha put her laptop on the table and called Darius. It was two hours earlier in Cali, but it looked like he’d been up and to the gym, sweat darkening his tan T-shirt around the collar.

  “Why are you
all calling me? Folks okay?”

  “They’re great,” Aisha said. Then she put her hand on my chin, turned my face, and kissed me.

  “WHOA! YEAH!” Darius hollered, bounced back from the screen, and we heard him yelling, “My lil’ sis is finally going out with her longtime crush!”

  Two people off camera cheered and one of them snarked, “Riq owes you money, man.”

  Darius came back to his chair. A pretty black girl with a lot of curly dark hair leaned over his shoulder and peered at the screen. “Aww, babies,” she said.

  “Wow, nobody ever got this excited about anybody I’ve gone out with,” Tariq grumbled.

  “There’s a real reason for that,” Darius told him.

  “Yeah, but that one girl.”

  “Nah, you never had that one girl. I’ll tell you when you meet that one girl. Or that one guy.”

  “Or person,” Aisha said.

  Tariq sighed. “I’m done with every single one of you. Except Kaz.”

  “You want to go live at my house for a while? I’ll trade you,” I offered.

  “Yeah? I might. How big’s your room?”

  “Same as yours, but it’s got a better closet.”

  “When I hit my dapper phase, we’ll talk,” he said.

  “Can I have my dapper phase at the same time?” I asked.

  “Oh hell yes, my sib from another crib.”

  We told Darius the story of me not asking Aisha out, her dating Meta, us finally getting ourselves together, and her asking me out even though I’d already sort of asked her.

  After he got done making cute, appreciative sounds at us, his mouth turned grim. “Aisha, you got to call me later.”

  “We’re talking now,” she said.

  “I’ve got something to tell you.”

  “There’s nothing you can’t say in front of Kaz.”

  “Thought I should tell you first, then you can decide,” he said.

  She picked up her laptop and walked up the stairs. I heard her bedroom door close. Tariq handed me the other Xbox controller and switched it to Rocket League.

  We’d only made it through one game, a few minutes, when Aisha came back down the stairs, tears gathered in her eyes, one streaking down her cheek.

  “Tell Kaz,” she said in a strangled voice as she put the laptop on the coffee table facing me. “I’ll be back.”

  “What happened?” I asked, moving the screen to face me as Aisha went back upstairs. Panicking that someone had been shot, maybe killed—no, not someone, Aisha’s trans cousin in LA. She was the most vulnerable of all of us. “Is everyone okay?”

  “Yeah.” Darius sighed and sat back in his chair. “I’m going down to LA next weekend to see family. And Mom asked me to bring a bunch of stuff, like always, but also…she wants me to drive around, check out some houses on the market.”

  “Yeah,” Tariq said, like no-big-deal, then looked at me and added, slowly, “Shit.”

  “No,” I said. “Just, no.”

  Darius said, “I think Dad’s searching for a job out here. Mom doesn’t like how much Aisha struggled in math last year. It’s not like her. And there’s something about a chemistry teacher?”

  “She gave Aisha a bunch of crap work to do,” I said around the tightness in my throat.

  “Mom emailed the teacher about it and called, didn’t get an answer.”

  Tariq groaned. “She hates that. So rude.”

  Darius nodded. “And the next two years of high school are important for Aisha getting into a great college. Next year especially.”

  I looked from Darius’s face on the screen to Tariq and back. “You can’t move.”

  “Maybe it’s her backup plan,” Darius said. “But I thought you should know.”

  I ran up the stairs and into Aisha’s room. She lay face down on her bed crying into her pillow. I knelt next to the bed and put my arms around her. She turned and grabbed me and pulled until I was in the bed and we could hold onto each other.

  She said, “I love you. I shouldn’t have to choose between you and a school that doesn’t suck for me.”

  I couldn’t talk. I nodded a lot, small motions of my face against her hair. I was probably holding her too hard, but she didn’t protest.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Early October 2017

  “We have to tell my parents,” Aisha said the next day. “At dinner. And then you go walk the dogs and I’ll field all my dad’s weird questions.”

  I kissed her ear because that’s what I could reach. If her mom knew we were dating, she’d stop the whole house search, moving-back-to-California thing, right?

  So we told Aisha’s parents at the family dinner that Monday. I’d had an open invitation to their family dinners for about a year and usually joined them on Mondays, which set up the whole week. Mrs. Warren would ask Tariq and Aisha and me about our schedules and write down anything important that wasn’t already on their calendar. I loved that she included me.

  She’d ask Tariq about his job and the two of us about schoolwork, what assignments were due, if we needed help on anything. I didn’t use to say yes, but now sometimes I did because Mrs. Warren dug into our chemistry homework like she actually enjoyed it.

  After we’d shared our schedules and schoolwork, Mr. Warren would ask for highlights of the previous week. He was big on accomplishments. And lately he’d added some other categories, so it became three As: accomplishments, acknowledgements, awesomeness. One thing you’d done well, one thing someone else did well, and one reason to be grateful.

  This week, when dinner got to the three As, Aisha said, “I’ll go first. My three A’s are all the same thing: I’m super grateful for the fact that when I asked Kaz—whose pronouns are still they/them, Dad—to go out with me, they said yes. As in ‘we’re dating,’ I’m Kaz’s girlfriend.”

  I said, “That’s mine too because yeah, of course.”

  “I’m glad to see you both this happy,” Mr. Warren said, sitting back and resting his hands on his thighs. He couldn’t resist asking, “What goes with girlfriend? Personfriend?”

  “Works for me,” I told him.

  Mrs. Warren said, “Congratulations, you two. Aisha, you’re leaving your bedroom door open from now on.” She had the biggest smile I’d ever seen on her, so her serious tone didn’t land very hard.

  “Mom!”

  “Same rules as anyone else, you know that. You didn’t argue when you were dating Dani Mehta.”

  “But Kaz is also my best friend. We have secrets and stuff.”

  “You can whisper. You leave your door open.”

  Aisha pursed her lips like they were holding back some choice words. I didn’t like this any better, but I appreciated it. And anyway, we had the treehouse.

  “Thank you,” I told Mrs. Warren. She gave me a forehead-wrinkling look, so I added, “For not treating me different.”

  “You’re making me look bad,” Aisha grumbled. I caught her hand under the table and squeezed it.

  No weird questions came up at dinner, but Mr. Warren was terrible at having private conversations. His voice carried. Like he didn’t realize that his voice being on the high side made him easier to hear, so he’d talk louder. Also I’m guessing he’d lived in houses with a less open floor plan. Aisha and I were pretty used to making a quick exit from the living room when he and Mrs. Warren were having a conversation we did not want to overhear—or getting quiet if we did.

  Things we did not want to hear: romance, gross attempts at sexy talk, money.

  Things we did: anything about us.

  So after dinner when Tariq went out and we sat in the living room with our homework, we didn’t run upstairs when we heard Mr. Warren ask, “Does this change anything?”

  “The two of them dating?” Mrs. Warren asked. Her voice was muffled. I caught, “…worried if they break up…best friends…”

  Aisha looked over at me like: Do you want to run for it now? And I shook my head: No.

  Mr. Warren said, “Aish
a has so many friends. It would be harder on Kaz. Do you think she’s told her family?”

  “They’ve told their family.” That was clear enough because Mrs. Warren said it loudly and firmly, followed with, “I don’t know if they’ve told their family. We could ask them.”

  “‘Them’—both of them or just Kaz?”

  “Jack.”

  “Are you going to talk to Aisha about sex?” he asked.

  “Mmhm, I’ll talk to her about why she’s still too young to be having sex and the emotional implications of being sexual with her best friend. But in terms of emotions, I’m guessing the horse is pretty far from the barn at this point.”

  “And all the other stuff?”

  “Sweetie, she’s known the other stuff for years. Including why I want her to wait until she’s at least sixteen, preferably seventeen, consent, safer sex, having good experiences, and not being the victim of any fool’s black girl stereotypes. Am I missing anything?”

  “I love you so much,” he said. “Can I hear that talk about good experiences?”

  “Not in the kitchen you can’t. You know those kids are listening to us from the living room. I haven’t heard a peep or a page turn since you said ‘sex.’”

  Mr. Warren leaned his head around the dividing wall and saw us both staring. We didn’t even try to pretend we hadn’t been.

  “I’m telling my family soon,” I said.

  “And you have to get better with pronouns, Dad,” Aisha told him. “It’s disrespectful.”

  He ducked back around the wall and muttered, “I’m not ready for these kids.”

  I couldn’t make out Mrs. Warren’s reply, only her laughing, soothing tone.

  * * *

  That was not the end of awkward conversations about me at the Warren family household. A few days later, hanging out in the living room, we’d been playing on the Xbox. When we got bored, Aisha opened her laptop, playing Angel Haze videos, looking at a million photos of Angel.

  “You could rock that hat,” Aisha told me.

  “I don’t know how to wear a hat. Aren’t I supposed to take it off inside? And then I’m hat hair all day.”