Coffee Will Make You Black

by April Sinclair

  I sat up and blinked in the November sunshine that poured into the school nurse’s sorry office. Nurse Horn was bent over her desk reading something, so I checked out the posters on the tired green walls. I studied the four food groups and yawned at the picture of the Red Cross nurse with the silly smile on her face. The posters got old quick.

  So I started thumbing through a fashion magazine. Nurse Horn wasn’t skinny or glamorous like the ladies in the pictures, but she wasn’t fat, and she was attractive in her own way. She wore her hair short, not so short that she looked like she was about to go into the. Marines, but probably too short for most men’s tastes. I wondered if Nurse Horn would’ve found a husband by now if she wore her hair longer. She was pretty old not to be married; she looked every day of twenty-five, as Mama would say.

  “How’s the patient?” Nurse Horn turned around, smiling.

  “She’ll live, I guess.”

  “You guess? You seem a whole lot better.”

  “Yeah, I was seriously considering a sex-change operation.”

  “You’d have to go to California for that.”

  Nurse Horn walked toward me, and I noticed for the first time that she wore a white terry-cloth bathrobe instead of her nurse’s uniform. She felt my forehead like my mother did, first with the back of her hand and then with her palm.

  “Jean, you’ll be fine.”

  “How come you’re in a bathrobe? What happened to your uniform?” I asked, pointing to the white dress draped over the heater.

  “Oh, Crystal Jones vomited on me this morning.”

  I made a face. “Yuck!”

  “All in a day’s work. I keep this robe handy for just such emergencies.”

  “Crystal Jones threw up on you this morning. Morning … morning sickness,” I whispered excitedly.

  Nurse Horn raised her eyebrows like she knew she’d let the cat out of the bag.

  “I didn’t say that.” She tried to pretend like I was totally off base. “And I shouldn’t have mentioned Crystal’s name to you at all.” Nurse Horn let out a sigh as she shook the thermometer down and walked toward her desk.

  “You didn’t have to; the word is already out. This just puts the icing on the cake. Some folks say it’s Calvin’s baby, but Carla says Dwayne was Crystal’s main squeeze a few months ago.”

  Nurse Horn turned around and faced me. “Shush. I don’t want to hear another word about it. This is not some sort of game. You’re talking about a person’s life. And I won’t listen to you make light of some poor girl’s misfortune.” Nurse Horn’s eyes narrowed, and I could tell she wasn’t jiving. I started getting dressed and Nurse Horn sat down at her desk and began writing out my pass.

  “I’m supposed to tell you that a young man came by while you were asleep.”

  “Sean, that’s my boyfriend. Isn’t he cute?” I pulled on my corduroy pants.

  “I believe he did say his name was Sean.”

  I stuck my head through my turtleneck.

  “Actually, Sean is what you call fine, and he’s a senior.” Shoot, plenty of girls wished they could get next to Sean. Out of all the girls, I’m the one he asked to go with him. It was like a dream. I was Cinderella and he was the prince. I put on my boots.

  “You’re not in love, by any chance?” Nurse Horn turned around at her desk.

  “I guess you could run a train up my nose,” I answered.

  I stood behind Nurse Horn waiting for her to give me my pass. But she just sat there staring out the window like she was in a daze.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “It’s snowing. It’s the first snow of the season.”

  “Yeah, but I bet it won’t stick. I hope it does.” I watched the puffy white snowflakes drift slowly to the ground. “How come you seem so sad? Will you have to shovel it?”

  “Just reflecting.” Nurse Horn turned around and looked at me and then went back to staring out the window.

  “In a few months we’ll all be sick of it.” I tried to force a laugh.

  Nurse Horn turned and looked at me again, but a smile was nowhere near her face. She made no move to give me the pink slip of paper on her desk.

  “Jean, I guess I’m a little concerned about you now, frankly.”

  “Concerned about me, why? What are you concerned about me for? Hey, I’m not the one who’s pregnant.”

  I didn’t know where Nurse Horn was coming from; why was she tripping on me? I didn’t want her putting me in the same boat with Crystal Jones.

  Nurse Horn looked me dead in the eye. “Not yet, at least you’re not pregnant this month.”

  I felt myself getting all hot around the collar, and I jumped back and put my hands on my hips. “You’ve got no right to say that. I’ve known the facts since I was twelve.”

  “Do you know that if you play with fire you’re going to get burned? Do you know that fact?” Nurse Horn stood up and faced me with her arms folded.

  She looked silly standing there all stiff, staring me down. Who did she think she was? I was even about an inch taller than her. “Who says I’m playing with anything?” I raised my eyebrows and folded my arms too.

  Nurse Horn cleared her throat. “I didn’t say that you were.”

  “Well, why are you all up in my business then? I came down here to get well, not to catch hell.” I wished it was time for chemistry and I was learning how to make a stink bomb, instead of dealing with this mess.

  “I’m sorry you see it that way.”

  How was I supposed to see it? I wondered. Why was this woman all over my case? Here I finally had a real boyfriend and I couldn’t even enjoy it. Nurse Horn was acting like I was a baby or something. I turned sixteen almost two months ago. I was the only sixteen-year-old virgin left on the whole south side of Chicago, according to Carla.

  “Look, even if I was doing something, how could you help me? Could you get me the pill without my mother knowing?”

  “The only pills I can give you are aspirins, you know that. But I can help you determine what you want out of life.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to determine what I want out of life. Maybe I just want to live.”

  Nurse Horn shook her head. “I just know what can happen, and I’m concerned, that’s all.”

  “I don’t need your concern; just because I said I have a boyfriend, you start getting on my case.” It hit me that Nurse Horn was probably jealous of me because she was an old maid. But that still didn’t give her the right to jump on my case.

  Nurse Horn started pacing with her arms folded. “I just don’t want you to end up another statistic.”

  “A statistic! Oh, please!” I threw my hands up in the air. “First of all, my name is Jean ‘Stevie’ Stevenson, not Crystal Jones. And second of all, you need to be concerned about the statistics of your finding a husband, steada worrying about me.” I was surprised to hear that come out of my mouth. I bit my bottom lip and felt kinda sorry about what I’d just said, but it was too late.

  Nurse Horn walked toward me with her face all scrunched up, pointing her finger at me. “Shut your mouth, young lady, because right now I feel like slapping you!”

  I’d never seen Nurse Horn lose her cool, but I took a few steps backward just to be safe. “Oh, yeah, you hit a student and you might get fired, not to mention that I’d hit you back.” I tried to sound tough.

  “Jean, you’re skating on awfully thin ice.” Nurse Horn pointed her finger up in my face again. I was scared and mad at the same time. Nurse Horn had her nerve talking about smacking somebody. What did she think this was, Gone With the Wind?

  “You don’t have to point your finger up in my face. My mama ain’t dead.”

  “Okay, Jean, you had to push it. Get your things and get out of my office now! I want you out of my sight!”

  My mouth flew open. This lunatic in a bathrobe was actually calling herself throwing me out of the nurse’s office. I stuck my hand out for my pass. Nurse Horn knew I’d get stopped in the hallway without it. Sh
e started waving her arms in the air all dramatic like. “Just go over there and sit down.” I wished the woman would make up her mind.

  Nurse Horn glanced up at the clock. “This period is halfway over anyway; I don’t want you to leave with things like this.” She let out a big sigh. “I’m going to make us some peppermint tea. I got it from a health-food store in New Town.”

  I plopped down on the cot and watched Nurse Horn fill up the teapot and plug it in. I had never even tasted peppermint tea before. Nurse Horn was really a trip, I thought. One minute she was going off on me, and the next minute she was making me tea. It wasn’t like we were in England or some damn where.

  I sat across from Nurse Horn, staring into my cup and breathing in the peppermint steam. Nurse Horn leaned forward, holding her cup with both hands. She took a sip of her tea.

  “Jean, perhaps I was a little unfair to you, and I apologize. It’s just that I see girls get into trouble year after year and sometimes I get frustrated. In many ways, it was easier when I was in high school back in the late fifties. At least there weren’t as many pressures. We certainly weren’t in the middle of a sexual revolution.”

  They barely had TV back in the fifties, I thought to myself.

  Nurse Horn continued, “Why, I remember my best friend and her boyfriend getting suspended from school for wearing look-alike sweaters. The administration didn’t think it was appropriate.”

  I rolled my eyes in shock. I was glad it was 1969, but I didn’t say anything. I just let Nurse Horn speak her piece.

  “It’s part of my job to care about students, but I’m also a person. I don’t just shut my feelings off every day at three-thirty P.M.” Nurse Horn sipped some more tea.

  I finally looked up at her. I realized that I never even thought of Nurse Horn going home. I guess I never pictured her outside of this office, at least not without her uniform on. But I had to admit that Nurse Horn probably was a person. I drank some tea.

  “I feel that there is something special about you. I know that you try to act tough, but I remember the first time that you came down here: you were just a scared freshman.”

  I was surprised that Nurse Horn could remember the first time I’d ever come down here. I couldn’t even remember that myself. And it was hard to picture myself as a scared freshman. “A scared freshman, I’m a mighty junior now. Are you sure you don’t have me mixed up with somebody else?”

  “Positive. I know that you can be sensitive. Maybe that’s why I was so hard on you, because I think you have a lot of potential.”

  I could hardly believe Nurse Horn was saying all this stuff. I took a big drink of tea. “How do you know I have a lot of potential?” I belched. “Scuse me, or is that what you tell all the girls?”

  Nurse Horn smiled and set her cup on the floor. “No, but it’s what I’m telling Jean ‘Stevie’ Stevenson.”

  “The only time you see me, practically, is when I’m throwing up or rolling around in pain.”

  “Well, I saw you in the school play, and you were almost as dramatic.”

  “You saw me in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds?” I was surprised that Nurse Horn kept up with things outside of her office.

  “Yes, I did, and I was quite affected.”

  I had to admit that I had been good. Carla had said, “Girl, you played your heart out up there on that stage.”

  “Thanks,” I said to Nurse Horn, feeling shy all of a sudden. “We wanted to do No Place to Be Somebody or Nobody Knows My Name, you know, something really happening. But Mr. Turner was too evil to check them out.”

  Nurse Horn looked embarrassed, like she didn’t want to go along with bad-mouthing the drama teacher. I slurped my tea.

  “So are you trying to tell me that you think I’m special out of all the jokers that come down here needing medical attention?”

  “I wouldn’t put it exactly in those terms.”

  “When did you first notice that I had potential? When you saw me in the play or the first time that I threw up?”

  Nurse Horn picked a piece of lint off my arm.

  “Sometimes you just have a feeling about someone. You can’t always explain it logically.”

  “Like Carla liking Tyrone counta he’s bowlegged and got curly hair?”

  Nurse Horn smiled and looked at me with her soft gray eyes.

  “Well, not quite. I care about you and I want you to have a good life.”

  I swished some tea around in my mouth, thinking. Nobody had ever told me that they wanted me to have a good life before—a good day, yes, but not a good life.

  “If this was a TV show, this is when they’d play the music.” I sighed.

  “What music?”

  “You know the kind of music they used to play when they found Lassie.”

  Nurse Horn pinched my cheek playfully. If I hadn’t just made sixteen, I would’ve wanted to bury my face all up against her terry-cloth robe; she looked so warm and cozy.

  I set my cup down on the floor. “Nurse Horn?”

  “Yes, Student Jean.”

  I laughed. “Okay, Miss Horn; Miss Horn, I’m sorry about the stuff I said about you needing to find a husband.”

  Nurse Horn looked at me like everything was cool.

  “And I’m sorry about making light of some poor girl’s misfortune, too.”

  Nurse Horn leaned over and hugged me. I felt myself get all stiff. Wait a minute, I wanted to say. Nobody hugs me ’cept my grandmother. I’m sixteen years old; my mother doesn’t even hug me. What if somebody walks in here and sees us all hugged up like we’re in a Hollywood movie? But it felt kinda good, and the terry cloth was brushing up against my face and everything, so I just broke down and wrapped my arms around Nurse Horn and hugged her back. Then I began to inch away because I didn’t know how long was too long to be hugging on somebody.

  “Nurse Horn, I mean, Miss Horn, about Sean, you see with Sean I’ve barely got my big toe in the water. I want to swim out there in that ocean of love, but in some ways I want to stay safe on the shore.”

  Nurse Horn rested her chin in her hand like she was taking in everything I was saying. Then the bell rang so loudly I jumped.

  I started grabbing my stuff together. “Thanks for the tea and all.” I handed her my empty cup. “It’s been real, but I gotta get to chemistry. Tyrone’s gonna show us how to make a stink bomb.”

  Nurse Horn frowned. “Well, promise me you’ll talk to me if you need to.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  “And watch your nutrition and exercise regularly, and you won’t get such bad cramps.”

  “Okay, less junk food and more sex.” I grinned. Nurse Horn pretended to hit me. I backed away, laughing.

  “Just kidding, now can I have my pass?”

  “Here, and stay out of that ocean.”

  A warm feeling went through me as I stumbled into the mad rush of students in the hallway. I was glad that Nurse Horn wasn’t married. I would hate to have to think of her going home to take care of some husband. Instead, I pictured her all curled up at home in a terry-cloth bathrobe, sipping peppermint tea and smiling to herself because she was thinking about me. Damn, I felt like running outside and tasting a snowflake steada going to chemistry and making a stink bomb.

  chapter 20

  Me and Carla were walking to school. We had just decided she should tell her new boyfriend, Ivory, to buy her the Temptations’ and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ new albums for her birthday. Carla’s mother had given her a choice between a new stereo and a birthday party after Carla told her about my new box. She’d chosen the stereo. Carla finally had her room to herself. Marla and Shark had both moved in with their boyfriends. They each had a girl and a boy now, but neither was married.

  “There’s Nurse Horn’s car, the blue one,” I said, pointing as we passed the faculty parking lot. “Carla, don’t you think Mustangs are hot?”

  “I already done told you that I want me a red Firebird. And you done showed me N
urse Horn’s stupid car before.”

  “Well, have you checked out Nurse Horn’s new pants uniform? And have you seen her new white earth shoes?”

  “Stevie, I don’t give a flying fuck about Nurse Horn or her car or her uniform! Do you hear me?”

  “Dog, Carla, why you got to curse?”

  “Cause you should be trippin’ on the prom, steada her white ass, that’s why.”

  “I am trippin’ on the prom.”

  “So, when you gon get your dress? Don’t wait till the last minute now.”

  “Carla, the prom is still almost two months away.”

  “I thought you said your auntie was taking you shopping?”

  “She is, we’re going Clean-Up Week to Carson’s. My Aunt Sheila’s got a charge there.”

  “Carson Pirie Scott, go ’head, girl!” Carla gave me five. “Who woulda thought you would pull a senior? Stevie, I’m jealous, girl; you should be so excited!”

  “I am excited, okay?”

  “Okay. So now, what the fuck are earth shoes?”

  “I like the way you dribble,” Sean teased me as I headed down the alley behind his house later that day. I jumped up, dripping with sweat, and made my basket. Sean grabbed the ball, slam dunking it and swinging on the rim of the hoop outside his garage door.

  “It’s getting late,” I said, glancing up at the purple sky. The wind was kicking, but it felt good after working up a sweat. I breathed in the cool night air mixed with sweet-smelling funk. Yeah, we were sweaty, but neither of us stunk, I told myself.

  Sean held me close as we snuggled, lying down in the back seat of his brother’s ’63 Buick in front of his house.

  “Stevie, I like that you can shoot some hoops.”

  “Most girls wouldn’t be into it, huh?”

  “No, but I’m glad you’re different.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t looking for the average bear.”