Naomis Too

by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich

  “No, I think that cat’s a little bigger,” says Naomi E. “And maybe his white patch is smaller?”

  “Duhhhh, maybe it’s actually a girl cat, duhhhh,” says Bri. “You guys need to go back to kid-nergarden. Duhhhh.”

  I liked it better when she said “Question.”

  Momma meets us right at the door when we get home. “Welcome home, girls! Tom’s making us a special dinner!”

  Uh-oh.

  “And by ‘making’ you mean . . . ?” I ask.

  “I mean I’m not quite sure what it is, but he’s worked very hard, so let’s be supportive, okay?”

  “That’s silly! Tom doesn’t know how to cook, Momma,” says Bri. “Everybody knows that—even Shelly Ann!”

  “Shelly Ann knows what?” says Tom, walking out from the kitchen. He looks really sweaty. There’s some kind of purplish sauce on his shirt. As Idris Thompson, Teen Detective would say: “This does not bode well.”

  “Guys, I’m sorry, I was trying to make us something special, but . . . it didn’t quite work out.”

  “Yay!” yells Brianna, then “Ow!” after I elbow her.

  Momma clears her throat. “Honey, thanks for trying, but . . .”

  “But what?” says Tom.

  “But THANK GOODNESS!” Momma says, and she starts laughing. After a beat, we all join in.

  “Shake Shack?” asks Tom.

  For once, Momma doesn’t make us choose between fries and a shake, and we order both, but she says we have to have broccoli salad when we get home. Which is fine, because I love broccoli salad with apple bits and golden raisins and everything, and also because I made it yesterday and it’s even sweeter and tangier the next day.

  “Can we get Shelly Ann’s on the way home too?” says Bri.

  Momma just looks at her, and we move on.

  “Nice try,” I whisper to Bri. “I’m proud of you for recognizing opportunity. I’ll show you how to make it work next time.”

  “Or Morningstar,” she says to all of us. “I like that place too.”

  “I agree,” I say, and Momma and Tom smile big. Our buzzer thing goes off, and they both go to get the food.

  “Thanks for the Morningstar shout-out, Bri,” says Naomi E.

  “Maybe if we’re all good, we can get Shelly Ann’s AND Morningstar,” says Bri, smiling even bigger than Momma and Tom.

  I’m even more proud!

  After we eat, we decide to walk home even though it’s a little chilly. Momma and Bri go slow because Bri’s trying to play a version of the license plate game that no one understands but only Momma has the patience for. Naomi E. walks with them, but she’s wearing her hood up, which I know means she’s listening to music while Bri says things like “Alaska! Peter’s Chair! 5467819!”

  Tom walks next to me. “How are things going at school?”

  I shrug. “Okay,” I say.

  “Just okay?”

  “Yes, just okay.” I smile to let him know that I’m not trying to be difficult, and to remind him that talking to stepdads is difficult.

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  I sigh. Parents. I know he’s using one of those get-your-tween-to-open-up techniques from a workshop. He and Momma don’t realize that they always start talking like TV parents whenever they talk workshop talk. I know he’s being nice. He is nice. And he’s trying. I guess there’s something in that.

  “Well, the high schoolers were protesting because this guy Josh Cranstock is giving money to the school—”

  “Oh yes, the Eco-Casita thing . . .”

  “Yeah, but apparently he also said some stuff once about how ‘inner-city’ kids should be in separate schools because they’re not as smart as other kids.”

  Tom coughs. “That’s pretty not-okay.”

  I nod. “Yeah. Not exactly those words, but I read some articles about it. Momma said he was ‘dog whistling.’”

  “You know, Naomi E. and I were talking,” he says, “about differences, and how we’re all learning to respect them, and how hard it is when people say or do things that are . . . disrespectful. Like that Jennifer girl. Or Cranstock.”

  “You mean racist?” I say, surprised.

  “Yes,” he says. “I mean racist. I don’t know why I didn’t just say that.”

  “You might not be used to saying it,” I say, shrugging. “Anyway, hearing that he said that really bugs me, even though I think it would be good for us to have money for the Eco-Casita. I just wish it wasn’t his money.”

  “I can understand why that might be a concern for you,” says Tom.

  “For me?”

  “For all of us, for your school, our community,” he responds. “You know, your mom taught me the phrase ‘check your privilege’ in one of her . . . personal workshops when we were dating.”

  I laugh. “I know about Momma’s personal workshops. Last week, I got one about not looking up how to qualify for the National Spelling Bee until after I finished my regular homework.”

  “So, you know what I mean,” says Tom, smiling. “The thing is, I was surprised, and I shouldn’t have been. I hadn’t thought much about my privilege for most of my life. It was just . . . my life. But the truth is, it’s important that I do think about it. That I acknowledge that racism is a real part of American society. Not just a long time ago, but now.”

  We just keep walking. I turn back and see Bri trying to guide Momma toward a guy selling fruit snacks. Gold star for Bri today!

  “Do you talk to Naomi E. about this stuff? Racism and privilege?” I ask after a while.

  “Yes,” says Tom.

  “Sometimes it’s hard when you do want to talk about it, but nobody wants to listen,” I say.

  “That’s one thing I’ve learned about the first step to checking my privilege,” Tom says. “It starts with listening. So . . . how’s school going?” he asks again, and we both laugh a little.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “I don’t like being not sure, but middle school is more complicated than I thought it would be.”

  “Life goes that way, doesn’t it,” he says. “But more complicated doesn’t necessarily mean bad.”

  “We don’t need to go to any more workshops, Tom,” I say, smiling. “I think we can probably run our own.”

  He high-fives me. “Did I ever tell you I volunteered for Greenpeace when I was in college?”

  “Yes,” I say quickly. We stop and let the others catch up. We walk together for the rest of the way, and Naomi E. and I play Bri’s game of jumping into little piles of leaves.

  “Guys, guys, I was just telling Momma that we should get black-and-white cookies every day so we can remember that we’re a Black-and-white family!” says Bri.

  “And I was saying that I don’t think we’re going to forget,” says Momma, and we all laugh.

  Naomi E. looks like she’s about to choke. “Is it okay to laugh about that?” she asks.

  “About race?” says Momma. “Sure, when it’s appropriate! The important thing is to talk about it. It’s part of who we are, all of us. There are a lot of parts to each of us, and they all have value.”

  I think about how different Naomi E. is from Jennifer. At least Naomi E. wants to learn, wants a second chance. I still think it’s not my job to teach her everything, but I can be supportive if she decides to teach herself. I think about books and music and computers and sewing and dancing and cake and broccoli—and how loving all those things at the same time is a part of who I am.

  Yes, AND again, I guess. Yes, AND.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Naomi E.

  I hate to admit it, but some nights—not all, though—Dad’s color-coding-workshop idea actually helps. If I do one quick assignment and one long one and take a short break, even though I’m taking a break, it takes less time. Because I don’t have to focus on everything at once, which makes me . . . unfocused.

  Long-term assignments and the endless revisions Katherine has me doing have a way of hanging over you, takin
g the good time you should be having and covering it with a thick coat of guilt about the work you’re not doing. And even though I still have some math to finish up, I’m feeling pretty good.

  Luckily, Edie also left her math homework for lunch, so we’re in the same boat. She’s scribbling down her work, and I’m staring out the window. Some of the trees are already all-the-way bare. There are piles of brown leaves everywhere.

  “I still have seven problems left,” she says.

  “Yeah, I have a bunch too,” I say. “But we’ll get it done. We always . . . we almost always do.” I’m getting better at working even when there are distractions around. And it’s so nice to be with a friend, doing the same thing together, not crazy-worried about always being behind.

  “Shoot,” she says. “I actually have eleven problems left.”

  Math is not Edie’s greatest strength.

  One lucky thing: I’m not dreading getting my assignment back from Katherine, because I’m used to it now. She lists the many ways my work falls short, I listen, and I try again. It’s routine now—nothing to fear.

  Until I walk into the classroom. Because now it’s all I can think about. And then I get a really sick feeling. And sure enough, it goes the same way it always does. She passes out our corrected assignments. She hands back a paper to Jen, who looks at her grade and grins, then shows it to Naomi Marie, who shuts her down with a stare that says, I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR GRADE. I actually start to laugh, and Naomi Marie smiles quickly at me as I pretend to turn that laughter into a cough.

  But Naomi Marie does care about her grades. It’s not a secret. And I watch a smile creep across her face when she gets her paper back. She puts it on her desk and goes through the pages, reading each comment, nodding, writing some notes of her own down.

  And I don’t get mine back.

  Of course.

  It’s an easy period, at least. The people who want to can read their memoirs aloud. It’s kind of interesting the different moments and people other kids wrote about—Gruber’s next-door neighbor made him realize that not all Jets fans are horrible people. He honestly didn’t know that until he was in fifth grade? Okay, Gruber.

  I keep waiting for Naomi Marie to read, because I know how everyone would look at her, nodding and snapping, and how she’d have every person’s attention. But we run out of time before she gets a turn.

  I try to push down the awful feeling of knowing I tanked another assignment. Because once you do poorly, you have to keep writing new drafts, trying to do better, extra work. It’s endless.

  When the bell rings, Katherine calls me over to her desk. I’m still gathering my things when Jen bumps into me, totally on purpose, and loud-whispers, “Who’d have thought you’d be the Naomi who can’t even do her work right?”

  Words just fall out of my mouth. “Wow, Jen. What an incredibly racist thing to say. Who’d have thought you could be so many kinds of awful?”

  Jen’s mouth is open and she’s trying to block my way, but Katherine calls over, “Is there a problem?” I’d like to tell her a problem or two, but I walk over to her desk, and at some point Jen leaves.

  “This won’t take long,” Katherine says.

  It never does.

  She reaches out to touch my arm, and I think, How weird—teachers never touch. But maybe she does it to make me look at her face. When I do, she says, “This was extraordinary, Naomi E. When I read this the first time, all I could think was that I couldn’t wait for you to share it with the class. But when I read it again, I realized maybe this is a more private kind of memoir, perhaps too delicate with both writer and subject in the same class. And I’ll be discussing this in class next time, but I was thinking that students should be allowed to give some indication if they don’t want to share, a private designation of some kind.”

  I nod, because she should have always had that. “That would be great,” I say.

  “But just look, Naomi E. Look what you are capable of! Haven’t I been telling you this was inside you?”

  I start to read the first page.

  The first time I met my sister, we didn’t know we’d be sisters. Everyone was focused on how funny it was that we had the same name.

  My life changed when we met. Or maybe that’s when it started to change.

  We have the same name. We are the same age. And even though we live in the same yellow house, she lives in a different world than me. A bigger one. And often a harder one, I think. She sees things I don’t see. And she has made me want to be able to see them too.

  I’m still figuring it all out. I have a lot of work to bring my “racial lens” into focus. (We went to lots of workshops, so I know lots of terms, I just haven’t figured out how to use them in my regular life.)

  The thing about Naomi Marie is she is almost bigger than life. And when I’m not wasting time feeling a little lost in her enormous shadow, she makes me want to live a bigger life too.

  So she changed me, not just the way I think about something—the way I think about everything. I am trying to . . . grow. I have a long way to go, but I have my eyes on the best, truest teacher there could be. And I’m ready to listen, and to learn.

  “Forgive me for being nosy, but what did Naomi Marie say when she read it?”

  “When she read it?” I ask, practically choking. “No, she hasn’t—read it! You know that private-designation thing you said we could have? I think I need that with my sister a little too.”

  “I think you should show it to her.”

  It makes me think of when Naomi Marie let me see that she had a list of things she liked about me when I was stuck on my origin story assignment, and how I wondered if she had to make that list because she needed reminding. Even if that was the case, I felt good knowing the list was so long.

  And it actually feels pretty good to think about showing this memoir assignment to her too. Someday.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Naomi Marie

  Xio’s coming over after school and so is Gigi, and I’m so happy but also scared about my worlds colliding. We’re all going to do the first episode of the Global Girls vlog. I figure if we make it first and it’s amazing, which it will be, then I can convince Momma to let me have a vlog.

  I finally figured out what to write for my “how my thinking has changed” memoir. Last night I watched this fancy author do a talk about “the danger of the single story.” I really liked the part where she said that it’s not that the single story isn’t true, “it’s that it’s incomplete.” Like how Waverly is angry; and she’s also a great artist and sensitive and funny too. I think that’s how my thinking has changed—I don’t have to pick one self; I can be all of my selves at once, or at different times. Sometimes people (often named Jennifer) won’t get it, but I get to choose. I get to decide who I am and who to share myself with. I will not be terraformed just because someone else isn’t comfortable with all of me. Poor Katherine. She said five hundred words. I know I’m going long. Momma has always taught me that it’s better to write more than less. She also told me not to tell my teachers she said that, though.

  At lunch I notice that Gigi is wearing an outfit I never saw before: red leggings with cats on them, a blue mini skirt, and a yellow hoodie that says SUPERHERO in glitter letters.

  “Cute outfit!” I say.

  “Do you think Xio will like it?”

  “Absolutely,” I say. “But she’s not the type to judge people by their clothes, you know.”

  “I know; it’s just that you’re always talking about her and how she’s your best friend and how cool she is. . . . I just want us to get along.”

  I hug her. “Xio is going to LOVE you and you are going to LOVE her and I LOVE you both—and of course, you both LUVVVVV me, so we’re all good,” I say.

  “Gross,” says a voice behind us. Gruber’s on recycling duty, so he’s holding a bucket filled with half-eaten food ready to compost. “Oh, Naomi Marie the Black Sister,” says Gruber suddenly, “I read that Jumbies b
ook you told me about. It was pretty good. Are there any more?”

  I ignore the very literal nickname and say, “Yeah! The sequel’s even better: Rise of the Jumbies! And if you like scary, try Spirit Hunters. It is awesomely creepy.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” he mumbles. “Are you guys going up to the library?”

  “Um . . . yeah,” I say, even though Gigi is poking me in a definite NO NO NO way. “Um, maybe we’ll see you up there.”

  Gruber just rolls his eyes and makes like he’s about to dump the bucket on us. Lori, who’s on lunchroom duty today, swoops in out of nowhere and hauls him off, to a round of snaps from everyone in the vicinity.

  This group has gotten into the habit of heading up to the library every few days; it’s not officially a club or anything, which is kind of what I wanted to do, so we could have rules and officers and plans, but Daisuke and Momma and everyone in the group said they thought we should just leave things relaxed and casual. Oh, well. I can still start clubs at Ms. Starr’s library.

  “Hey, are you guys leaving?” It’s Naomi E. We haven’t had lunch together in a while. When school started, I thought we’d have the same friends, the same life, the same everything.

  It hasn’t been like that. It’s been better and surprising and lonelier all at once. Part of adjusting my vision without compromising my principles has definitely meant letting two itchy feelings exist at the same time.

  Gigi grabs my stuff. “I’ll take your trash and meet you in the library.”

  After she moves away, Naomi E. turns to me. “Gigi’s cool. I like her.”

  “She and Xio are coming over after school,” I say.

  “Oh yeah, I remember,” says Naomi E. “I have a Drama Club meeting, but I hope I get back in time to see Xio.”

  “Yeah.” I pause. “We’re doing a thing about kids and activism.”

  “Is it another club?” she asks. “Are you working on setting a club-starting record? I’m pretty sure you already have.”