Pretty

by Justin Sayre

  “He’s nice.”

  “You’re, like, super lucky and everyone is, like, so jealous.”

  I want to ask if everyone includes her. But I don’t want to actually fight with her. I don’t feel like I’m some different or older person now. Why does she even care? And why is she talking about me with people?

  “Have you kissed yet?” Allegra asks.

  “No,” I yell. Allegra laughs at how loud I’m being, but I don’t care.

  “You should. I bet he’s, like, a great kisser,” Allegra says, turning on her laptop. How would Allegra know about him anyway? Allegra starts watching makeup tutorials, so for at least a little while we can pretend to be thinking about other things, but the whole time I just want to know what we’re really doing here. Are we in a fight? Because it feels like we are.

  When we get called down for dinner, I’m trying to forget about our weirdness or at least ignore it. Allegra’s mom doesn’t cook, so we order Indian and just take it back up to her room to watch more videos. Allegra and Kylie have an argument over a piece of naan that ends up with a slap. Besides that, it all goes by pretty smoothly.

  But the minute we get back to Allegra’s room, she starts in about Ryan again. Or rather, she just wants to know how I feel about him. How does he make me feel when we’re together? What do I think about going out with a boy like him? She’s asking me like she thinks there’s something I know that she can’t find out for herself. But I don’t and I can’t understand why she’s treating me like this. Most of it I answer, always trying to change the subject, until she says, “It’s like you’re a whole different person now.”

  “What does that mean?” I ask, already angry.

  “I’m not, like, saying it to be mean.” Allegra stops. “I’m just saying that it’s like you’re on a different, like, level now. Like you’re higher above the rest of us because you have a boyfriend.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, Leg,” I answer, harder than I’d like but wanting to make it really clear to her.

  “Okay, but why can’t you just be, like, happy about it?” Allegra says. “I would be.”

  I don’t answer that because I was going to say something so mean to her. I just fake a text from my aunt and take the subway home. When I get there, Auntie is sitting in the kitchen and looking at the photo album she brought from her apartment.

  “How was your friend’s? Did they feed you?” she says, smiling but still looking at the book.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” I answer.

  “There’s corn bread on the counter if you want. I got lonesome for something real like that, looking at these.” She draws me over and brushes a few braids from my face. She’s looking at a picture of my mother. At least I think it’s my mother. It’s black and white, and the girl in it is shading her eyes from the sun.

  “Is that Janet?” I say, pointing at the picture.

  “Yes,” Auntie Amara says, kissing my cheek.

  “Where are you?” I ask.

  “I took the picture. Your mama was the pretty one.”

  I don’t know why, but that makes me sadder than anything that’s happened today. It’s not what was said, but what wasn’t. Pretty seems like a rotten thing to be.

  CHAPTER 15

  Because I feel bad about lying to him, I walk home with Ryan again. It’s a nice thing too. I like him, but it’s weird that you can talk to a person and hold their hand and walk home with them for days, and still they can know you so little. He doesn’t really ask about me. He tells me a lot, and I like listening.

  His hand is still clammy, but I almost find that cute now. And he repeats his stories. I mean, I feel like I’ve heard about him getting lost in the park at least three times. When he asks about my day, he asks questions that I think a boyfriend or whatever should ask, but they’re just silly things. He never gets into anything else, and even if he did I don’t know what I would tell him.

  There’s still nothing from Janet. I’ve gotten so used to being without her, I sometimes forget she’s coming back. Ryan doesn’t know any of this. He just smiles his cutest goofy smile when I leave him at the gate. I should really ask him in, but I put it off. I can let Auntie meet him another day. He’s talking a lot about going to the movies tomorrow night. He’s super excited about it, but I don’t know what he’s expecting us to do. I mean besides the movie. We’re thirteen and neither of us has money to go into Manhattan or go out to dinner or anything. I’m trying not to laugh at how serious he’s taking all this when a lady with her dog walks past us and gives us a look.

  She stares at us for a minute before she starts pretending she wasn’t. She starts to look at where her little dog might go, but she’s really just pretending not to be staring at us, which has her one step away from fully rolling her eyes or saying eww. Ryan doesn’t notice any of this. He wouldn’t even if he saw it, but I do because I know exactly what she’s doing. None of her covering hides it from me.

  Every day you go out in the world and you’re just like everybody else, at least you think you are. Maybe you have things worse than others, maybe your mother is a crazy screaming drunk who cares more about organizing her issues of Vogue than about feeding herself or you. Maybe you have to get up early to sneak out all her bottles without anyone noticing and only tell the truth to an embarrassed girl whose grandmother is digging through your trash. The specifics of your day might be different or unusual, but deep down you’re just like everybody else. You’re normal, if there’s even such a thing as normal at all. But then some old lady walking her dog stops cold and takes a minute to let you know that no, you’re not normal, you’re black.

  And you’re holding a white boy’s hand near Prospect Park, and that’s not normal either.

  I hate this old lady. I hate her stupid face the minute I look at her, and I do look back at her, hard. I look back in her stupid face, to let her know that I know exactly what she thinks she’s doing. She thinks she’s getting away with it, but she’s not and I want her to know it. I want her to feel as bad as she’s trying to make me feel. I want her to know how stupid and small and piggish she is. I even want her stupid dog to know. I almost want to kick it. But then I think it probably doesn’t know it’s owned by an idiot.

  It’s only a second, and nothing is actually said. Unless someone’s looking for something, they probably wouldn’t notice, but I do. I know it, and I know it’s real. It’s the one thing I actually learned from my mother. Janet gets furious about stuff like this when it happens. And it happens more than you would think. She stands up for herself. She never allows anyone to make her feel like this. It’s why no one talks to her in the little Korean grocery down the street from our house.

  I want to scream and shout like Janet. I even wish she was here to do it for me, but she isn’t. I’m angry and sad, and I want to cry as much as I want to fight, but the worst part is how embarrassed I feel. I feel like I’ve done something wrong, or that I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be. But none of that’s true. We’re walking to my house, past the park that I’ve been in a thousand times. There’s nothing wrong. I’m just black, and this lady wants me to know it and know that she doesn’t approve.

  I’m quiet for the rest of the walk home. Ryan notices but doesn’t ask me about it. I feel bad because I’m sure that he’s thinking it’s about him and that I don’t want to go out with him on Friday, but I don’t feel bad enough to tell him what really happened. I squeeze his clammy hand and wave to him twice before I go inside, but I really can’t do much more. I’m still a little too angry.

  The house is empty, and it makes me feel almost worse. I don’t want to be alone with this any longer than I have to be. In the kitchen, there’s a big pot on the stove and a note taped to it.

  Sophie,

  I had to run up to my apartment to grab a few things. I should be back by the time you get home, but in case I’m not there’s stew here for you.
Heat it up and eat it up.

  Love you,

  Auntie Amara

  It doesn’t seem like much, but at the moment, it’s the nicest thing anyone could have done for me. I fold the note and put it in my pocket to keep forever. I turn on the stove and get out bowls and spoons before I even feel the tears in my eyes. It’s a sad moment, but a happy moment at the same time. I just wish I wasn’t alone for it.

  Auntie Amara comes through the door about an hour later, calling, “Sophie, come help me with these bags.” Standing in the hallway, she gives me an exhausted smile and scoots a large bag of books into the hallway with her foot.

  “Why didn’t you take the schlepper with you?” I ask her, happy to help.

  “I didn’t know I would take this much. Once I started pulling, I just couldn’t stop. There’s another bag outside,” Auntie Amara says as she carries a heavy bag over to the foot of the steps. I squeeze past her and head out the front door to grab the other books. It’s cold, so I jump down the stairs to get the books in before I need a jacket.

  Back inside, Auntie’s already stirring the stew, with music blasting, and the feelings I had while alone start to melt away. I drop the bag of books and run out to the kitchen. I want to be with her, and I want to talk. I talk to Auntie Amara not like I’d talk to an adult, where I leave out the details of what I’m really thinking or clean up the language so they don’t think I’m stupid or dirty. But I don’t talk to her like a friend either. It’s something in the middle. I tell her more than I thought I would, but there’s still a bunch I didn’t say. I don’t mention the lady by the park. I don’t want to get mad again.

  “Why did you change your name?” I ask her, out of nowhere.

  “What, baby?” Auntie smiles. I think she heard me, but she might be stalling to answer me, which makes me worry that I’ve asked the wrong question and ruined everything. I have to repeat it now or I’ll make it worse.

  “Why did you change your name?” I ask again, looking down, hoping that if I have screwed up she will at least forgive me because I look sorry.

  “It’s a powerful thing to take a name, Miss Sophie.” She smiles. “I hope you get to do it one day.”

  Auntie wipes down the counter as she talks to me and tells me all about it. “I never felt like Sheryl. I mean, do I look like a Sheryl to you? I do not. It was a name my mother gave me to be respectable, but I didn’t know that I wanted to be respectable. It got to the point that even the sound of Sheryl would turn my stomach. Sheryl. Oh, you shouldn’t ever hate the sound of your own name. And I did. I hated it. Or maybe I just hated what it meant.

  “Your grandmother Adelaide was a tough old lady. She terrorized your mother. I got off easier, but that’s only by a matter of degrees.”

  “Is Adelaide alive?” I ask. Janet always says mean things about her mother, but I’ve never actually heard her name.

  “No, your grandmother died about four years ago,” Auntie says. “I’m not mad at her anymore. She had a tough time of it. Took a lot on her shoulders, raising us girls all alone. My father died when I was eight and your mama was about six. And she did the best she could by us. We were fed and had clean clothes. Both of her girls went to college. But so much of how we spoke to each other was set out to hurt the other person. It wasn’t a fun place to be.” As she says this, she’s laughing, but the sound of her laugh changes a bit, like she’s trying to distract me from actually listening.

  “I went to Spelman College. Your mother went right to New York and never went back. I couldn’t blame her for that. Adelaide was at her all the time. Watching her, picking at her, just mean and jealous. I was a thick girl and dark as a berry, so she didn’t pay me half the mind she did to Janet. I don’t know which was worse.

  “It wasn’t until I was away at school that I even knew I was smart. I got the first taste of being on my own, got the first taste being seen as a person with my own thoughts and wants and beauty, maybe. I’d wanted that feeling forever.

  “I wanted to be my own person, I wanted my life to be my own, and part of that was naming myself for myself. It might sound a little silly, but Sheryl? That’s the name of some sickly little thing sitting in an office in Minnesota. I’m a dark, thick intelligent woman and I need a name that lets everyone know that I love every inch, every dimple on my fat black brilliant butt. So I picked Amara. It means grace in Igbo.

  “I was reclaiming myself. Who I knew I was inside, or who I would turn myself into. My name came from Africa, where I was from, from a language that fit into the grooves of my mouth and that was and is very important to me. Your mama hates it,” Auntie says, laughing and clapping her hands loudly. “She thinks I’m putting something on. That I had to make myself special in some extra way because Sheryl just wasn’t cutting it. And you know what, she’s probably right to a degree, but so what if she is? I deserve to be a little special, don’t you think?”

  I agree, nodding and laughing along.

  “She was mostly mad because she thought I didn’t like white people.”

  “Don’t you?” I ask. It’s the first time I’m nervous during the whole conversation.

  “I do. It’s like how I felt about my mother. Sure, she was mean and grouchy, and I could only take about a five-minute phone call at a time, or I’d be breaking plates in my apartment, which is pretty stupid, because they’re my plates, but behind all that, I loved her. I wanted her to be well and happy, as happy as she could be. I want the same for white people. I just know how much I can take. Janet never thought I liked your father.”

  “He’s a jerk,” I say out loud, and I immediately cover my mouth because I have never really said anything so honest to anyone. Auntie hoots at me twice and hits me with a dishcloth as she continues to laugh.

  “He is, and it’s not because he’s white. It just doesn’t help.” Auntie laughs here the loudest. We both do.

  “In some ways, you never get to choose the people you love. You don’t choose who you’re born to, or where or when. You have to deal with that and get over it. But you can always choose who you let in, and you can always choose who you want to be. You’re your own creation, baby, and don’t let anyone in the world tell you different.”

  “I won’t.” I smile. I believe it. I believe it so much and want to even more.

  Auntie Amara reaches over and holds me hard. I resist it a little at first. Auntie’s body is so big against mine that I feel like I have to pull back just to still feel like myself, but after a few seconds I settle into her. I squeeze hard against her and hold on.

  Before I can stop myself, I say, “Please don’t leave me,” into her shoulder. As the words tumble out of my mouth, so do tears. Tears that burn my face, because I’ve been fighting them back for years.

  “Janet is a drunk. And I hate her.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The next few hours go by in soggy faces and words and words and words that I barely believe I’m saying. But it’s me telling Auntie everything. All the screaming and crying and the mess, then the apologizing that never leads to anything. All the nights I’m alone in my room waiting for her just to pass out. How it all happens over and over again and it never feels like it’s ever going to get better. It all pours out, faster than I can handle. I say things that are true but sound made-up because I’ve never spoken the words out loud before. It is almost like someone else is talking about the broken bottles and screaming and the fights. It’s the voice of someone older and much more aware of everything, someone tired and frustrated and lonely. But as every word gets unstuck from the back of my throat, I know the voice is mine.

  Auntie holds my hand and listens, brushing tears away from my cheek with her milky palm and asking me questions when she can.

  “How long has it been like this?”

  “How did you get her up the stairs?”

  “Did she hit you hard?”

  None of Auntie’s que
stions are meant to stop me, like so many adults would want to do in this situation. They would want to tell me something, or teach me something, or make me understand something about what’s been going on with Janet, but Auntie does none of that. It’s the first time, ever, in my life that I feel like a person on my own. And it makes me want to say even more.

  When it’s done, or at least when I can’t say any more over the sobs gurgling up in my throat, she holds me close again and rocks me in the softness of her body. I cry the way a baby cries because it doesn’t know any words, because for me there aren’t any words left. When I lift my face, there’s a huge wet mark on Auntie’s shirt where I used to be. She sees it, but says nothing and holds my face in her hands. There are more important things.

  “I am so sorry, baby,” Auntie cries to me.

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” I sniffle.

  “You shouldn’t have had to do this alone. I should have been there for you, and I wasn’t.” Auntie starts to cry now too.

  We sit there for hours with each other. I want to take away her tears, because it’s not her fault, and I love her. I want to tell her that there was nothing she could have done, because with Janet, there wasn’t room for anyone else. The house has been crowded with her drinking for so long, it feels like there’s barely enough room for me. My whole life has been wondering how much has she had, how will it all hit her, or how long will I have until the next explosion. There have been whole years of what now and what next.

  The worst part is that I never saw it ending before now. I’d gotten so used to the rhythm of it that I could count the days like a formula, and numbers are always honest. Sure, sometimes she’d surprise me, but even then within seconds I’d know what I was up against and I knew I could handle it. It sounds bizarre to say, but I was proud of myself for that. But then there’s the embarrassment and the shame of it, all the time. The lying that she does, drinking booze out of coffee cups in the daytime to pretend she isn’t getting drunk, and acting overly nice to everyone she talks to on the phone. Even the lie of the front living room. Look how fancy and clean and white this room is, could somebody that passes out in the same clothes for three days and throws up every other morning have a nice room like this? Could they? It’s off-limits to both of us, because we both are keeping up the lie.