Dorinda's Secret

by Deborah Gregory

  “Your name is Dorinda?” Tiffany asks me, her eyes getting even wider.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Tiffany”

  “Hi,” I reply, not knowing what else to say.

  “This is so weird, huh?” Tiffany says. I can tell she’s excited. And it doesn’t seem to bother her at all that I’m black.

  Mrs. Tattle must have told her about me. But when she told me about Tiffany, she never mentioned the fact that she’s white.

  Why not? I wonder. Is it because she thought I’d be prejudiced and wouldn’t like her?

  That’s ridiculous, I think. I’m not prejudiced—I’ve never been prejudiced. I mean, I live with a bunch of kids that are white, black, red, and brown, and I love them all just the same. But how can my natural half sister be white? It just doesn’t make any sense!

  I’m waiting for Mrs. Tattle to explain, but she doesn’t say boo—and Tiffany just keeps smiling at me, kinda like a friendly puppy, expecting me to say something more.

  Finally, Mrs. Tattle gets up. She motions for us to walk with her. “Aren’t you cold, Tiffany?”

  “No, I’m all right.”

  I think Tiffany’s shorts are too short, and maybe that’s why her cheeks are so red. If Ms. Dorothea saw her in those white shorts after Labor Day, she’d get sent to Cheetah Girls detention for the rest of her life! White after Labor Day is a fashion no-no! No way is she meeting my crew in that outfit!

  “Dorinda, are you sure you don’t want something to eat?” Mrs. Tattle asks me, like she wishes I would say yes.

  “No, I’m fine.” What I really want to say is, what in the world is going on here!

  “Well, I know you two girls have a lot to talk about, so why don’t we go sit on the bench?” Mrs. Tattle suggests. Then she quickly adds, “Or would you rather go skating first?”

  “Skating,” Tiffany says right away. She starts skating along, and I push off on my skateboard, keeping alongside of her. Tiffany looks over at me, like she’s really happy to meet me. Obviously, she couldn’t care less that I’m black.

  She’s really nice, I think. And just then, because she’s not looking where she’s going, she trips over a piece of garbage, starts wobbling, and falls flat on her butt!

  Dang, she is clumsy! That is not at all like me!

  “You okay, Tiffany?” Mrs. Tattle asks, helping her up.

  I just stand there, too spaced out to realize I ought to help, too. I feel stupid about it, and guilty, too. I mean my reflexes are kinda in slow motion, and my brain feels like a big blob of cotton candy. Tiffany said she gets clumsy when she’s nervous. Maybe we aren’t so different after all—just a different kind of clumsy.

  “That’s why I wear kneepads,” Tiffany says apologetically. Then she sees my knees, which don’t have pads on them, and I realize she knows why I don’t have any safety equipment. “Oh. Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”

  “It’s only cause my little brother lost them,” I explain. And because we’re too poor to afford new equipment right away, I add silently. “I usually wear all that stuff.”

  “I have an extra set of equipment at home,” Tiffany says. “I’ll bring it for you next time. You can keep it—I don’t use it anymore.”

  Suddenly I feel bad, because I wasn’t nice to Tiffany when Mrs. Tattle first introduced us. She sure is being nice to me.

  “Your skates are dope,” I say, warming up to her. I can tell they cost a lot of duckets; that’s for sure. Her adoptive parents must be doing all right.

  “Thanks,” she giggles back. “How’d you learn how to skateboard?”

  “When I was eight, I used to have this friend named Sugar Bear. He taught me how to skate on his board ’cuz I used to help him with his homework. Then I got my own skateboard, last year.”

  “What happened to you and Sugar Bear—did you have a big fight or something? How come you’re not still friends?”

  “One night two years ago, his mother didn’t come home. That’s what my neighbor Ms. Keisha told me. Ms. Keisha knows everybody’s business in Cornwall Projects. She knew I was tight with Sugar Bear. She told me he got sent down South to live with his grandmother.”

  I can feel my throat tighten up, remembering it. “He didn’t even get to say good-bye to me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tiffany says. She means it, too, I can tell. Her eyes have tears in them, just as if it happened to her.

  “I wanna learn how to ride a skateboard,” Tiffany says, her eyes opening wide and getting twinkly. “Will you teach me sometime?”

  “Okay,” I say. “If you promise you won’t skateboard right into a tree.”

  Tiffany laughs. “You must think I’m the clumsiest person on the whole planet,” she says.

  “You’re all right,” I say, and I mean it, too. It doesn’t matter to me that she’s white. But I still can’t believe we’re sisters!

  We stop in front of an old-looking park bench, and Mrs. Tattle catches up to us. “Let’s sit right here,” she says, motioning to Tiffany. Both of us sit down like robots, on either side of her. I can tell we’re both more comfortable with each other when Mrs. Tattle isn’t around.

  “Tiffany, why don’t you tell Dorinda a little about yourself?” Mrs. Tattle prods gently.

  “You mean, about finding the records and stuff?” Tiffany asks, with a sly little smile on her face.

  “Well, that’s not exactly what I mean, but whatever you’d like to tell Dorinda would be fine,” Mrs. Tattle counters, sounding like a principal.

  “Oh, okay,” Tiffany says. She giggles, then moves her feet in parallel motion, so her Rollerblades screech on the ground. I guess she’s nervous.

  “Well, I was looking through my parents’ drawers—I was trying to find—I guess I had no business doing it, but I’m the curious type—nosy, you know? And sometimes I just can’t help myself.

  “Anyway, I came across this box, so I opened it. There was all sorts of baby stuff inside,” Tiffany says, looking at me. “Baby booties, a little spoon, and some baby pictures. On the back of them it said, ‘Karina, eleven months.’”

  Her smile is gone now, as she remembers the moment she found the pictures. I can see the tears welling up in her eyes; and now I’m getting emotional, too—feeling it along with her.

  “Then I found the adoption papers … and I saw the name Karina again, Karina Farber. It was next to my name—Tiffany Twitty. That’s when I realized—I must be Karina Farber—the baby in the picture!”

  “You mean, you didn’t know you were adopted?” I blurt out.

  “No!” Tiffany says, getting all emphatic like she’s trying to avoid static. “I swear I didn’t!”

  “Don’t swear, Tiffany,” Mrs. Tattle says, flexing again on the principal tip. “Dorinda was just asking you a question. Some adoptive parents inform the adopted child when they’re old enough to understand. Some choose not to.”

  “Well, my parents never told me anything,” Tiffany says with an attitude. Then she gets quiet.

  “Now, go on, Tiffany,” Mrs. Tattle says, prodding her.

  “So anyway, I started reading all the papers. There was a lot of stuff in there—like my real mother’s and father’s names—Eugene and Frances Farber!”

  My mother’s name was Frances Rogers. I’ve known that for years and years. I guess she took the name Farber when she hooked up with Tiffany’s birth father.

  I roll my foot on my skateboard, which is flat on the ground. I’m waiting to hear how she came to know about me.

  “Then it said that my birth mother had a child from a previous marriage,” Tiffany says. “It said she gave that child up, too. Just like she gave me up.” She looks up at me and smiles. “So that’s how I knew I had a sister.”

  Tiffany gets quiet again. Maybe my attitude is making her uncomfortable. I smile at her, to let her know it’s okay with me that she’s white.

  Tiffany smiles back at me, and says, “By the way, your name was the same in the records—it’s always been
Dorinda. I guess that’s because you weren’t adopted or anything.”

  “Dorinda,” Mrs. Tattle takes over. “Your mother surrendered custody of both her children at the same time. You were eighteen months old, and Tiffany was seven months. You were placed in a foster home, and Tiffany was placed with adoptive parents.”

  “You’re trying to tell me that Tiffany got adopted because she’s white, and I didn’t, because I’m black?”

  Mrs. Tattle clears her throat. I can see this is difficult for her. “I’m sorry, Dorinda,” she says. “The agencies tried to place both of you, but we were only able to place Tiffany. The caseworkers did the best they could.”

  Now I’m crying buckets. “That’s so unfair!” I say through my tears.

  Tiffany hugs me. She’s crying, too. “I wish we could have stayed together,” she says. “I’ve always missed having a sister.”

  I push her away, angry that no one wanted me. I’m sure it was because I’m black and Tiffany’s white. Not that it’s Tiffany’s fault, but why can’t people see that a black child is just as sweet and good as a white one?

  “I still don’t understand how Tiffany could be my sister,” I blurt out. “She doesn’t look half black. Is she?”

  Mrs. Tattle gasps, surprised. “Dorinda,” she says hesitantly, “you do know that your mother is white, don’t you?”

  “No!”

  I can hear the words leave my mouth, but my mind sorta goes numb. I stare down at my sneakers, because I’m too embarrassed to look either Mrs. Tattle or Tiffany in the face. I feel stupid. “Nobody ever told me!” I moan.

  I can’t believe this! Here I am, wondering how Tiffany could possibly be my sister if she’s not part black—and all the time, I’m half white!

  Well, so what? I say to myself. Galleria’s half white. Chanel’s all kinds of things mixed up in one cute cuchifrita. I guess it’s okay that I am what I am. I just can’t believe I’ve lived all these years and never known! How could they not have told me any of this? It makes me so furious, I could scream!

  Mrs. Tattle heaves a sigh, then talks quickly, like someone who is trying to cover her booty “Dorinda, you have to understand—so many things get lost in translation when a child is placed in foster care. A caseworker enters a new situation, and there isn’t always enough time to explain everything.”

  Yeah, well, I understand, all right. Nobody cares enough about me to tell me anything but lies—not even Mrs. Bosco! And how unfair is it that Tiffany got adopted when she was only a little baby, and I’m still in a foster home at twelve years old?

  I sit there, crying and crying, and Mrs. Tattle gets really uncomfortable. I still can’t look at her, but I feel her shifting her weight on the bench.

  “So what happened to our mother?” I finally manage to ask through my stream of tears.

  Tiffany looks at Mrs. Tattle with bated breath. She probably doesn’t know where our mother is either. I guess that wasn’t in the files—or Tiffany would have already told me the whole story.

  “Well,” Mrs. Tattle says, “according to the records, she went to California, and became involved in, um, some sort of social organization. But that was several years ago, and we’ve lost track of her since that time.”

  I secretly wonder if Mrs. Tattle is telling a fiberoni. Maybe she doesn’t want to tell me—I mean us,—the truth. Tiffany looks at me as if she’s thinking the same thing. What kind of organization is Mrs. Tattle talking about? Why doesn’t she just come out and say it?

  Instead of asking Mrs. Tattle, I turn to Tiffany. “How did you find me?”

  “I told my parents I found the records,” Tiffany says proudly. “Then I told them I wanted to meet my sister.”

  “You didn’t get in trouble?” I ask, surprised.

  “No way—they felt bad for not telling me everything in the first place,” Tiffany explains, cracking that mischievous grin again.

  I find myself smiling back. Tiffany is kinda funny. And she’s got some serious mojo, too, to stand up to her parents like that!

  “They know I’m here, and everything,” she tells me. “They even wanted to come and meet you, but I told them, ‘No way!’”

  Now Mrs. Tattle is smiling too. “Tiffany’s parents contacted us, and told us that Tiffany wanted to meet her sister. Then we contacted Mrs. Bosco. She gave her consent, as long as it was okay with you.”

  Now I feel bad that I got mad at Mrs. Bosco. She probably thought all this would be good for me. And I guess it is—except now I can feel this stabbing pain in my chest. It’s this achy feeling, like my heart is broken. Somebody isn’t telling the truth about something—that’s what I’m talking about.

  “Would you girls like to go skating together while I sit here?” Mrs. Tattle asks, concerned.

  “Okay,” I mumble, then get up and start dragging my back foot on the deck of my skateboard. Tiffany skates alongside me. “You don’t look the way I imagined,” she says smiling.

  “Yeah, I guess not,” I chuckle. I bet she didn’t know I was black.

  “No, I mean I thought you’d be chubby like me,” Tiffany says, giggling.

  “I’m getting skinnier, though,” she goes on. “I’ve been on a diet. I already lost five pounds! Of course, I’ll probably never be as thin as you.”

  That makes me chuckle. I can’t imagine Tiffany without her cute, chubby cheeks. They kinda fit her. “It must be your dad’s genes,” I say.

  “My dad’s what?”

  “Genes. You’ll learn all about it in biology when you get to high school,” I tell her.

  Wait till Tiffany meets Ms. Dorothea, I say to myself with a smile. Then she won’t worry about dieting anymore.

  Suddenly, I shriek inside. Tiffany can’t meet Ms. Dorothea—she can’t meet my crew! No way, José—not yet, anyway! They wouldn’t understand about me having a white sister. I had a hard enough time understanding it myself!

  I look over at Tiffany, who is happily and clumsily skating along. “Did you just learn how to skate?” I ask.

  “No. I’ve been skating for a long time,” Tiffany says proudly.

  I’m surprised. Maybe she doesn’t have good coordination or something. Secretly, I can’t help thinking, I don’t believe she’s my sister. We don’t look alike, and she isn’t anything like me.

  Then the big bulb from above goes off in my head. Tomorrow I have biology. I’m gonna ask my teacher, Mr. Roundworm, about it. Maybe he can tell me if this whole thing is a hoax-arama.

  “Where do you live?” Tiffany asks me.

  “Harlem,” I shoot back. “One hundred sixteenth Street.”

  “Oh,” Tiffany says, kinda embarrassed.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Eighty-second Street and Park Avenue,” she says, then scrunches up her nose. “I hate it—I liked California better.”

  “You lived in California?” I ask curiously.

  “Yeah, till I was seven.”

  “I can’t believe you really found your adoption records like that!” I tell her.

  “Actually, I found the locked security box, and then I searched all over the house until I found the key,” Tiffany says proudly. “It took me two Saturday afternoons!”

  I laugh out loud. It seems Tiffany’s a whole lot better at sleuthing than skating.

  “Where do you go to school?” I ask her.

  “St. Agatha’s of the Peril,” Tiffany says, like she’s disgusted. “I hate it. They’re so strict there. Yesterday I had to go to detention, just because I was wearing nail polish. They made me take it off, too.” She scrunches up her nose to show me she’s unhappy. “Where do you go?”

  “Fashion Industries East High,” I say proudly.

  “Wow, that is so cool!” Tiffany responds. “I love clothes but I’m tired of my mom picking out everything.”

  The way she looks at me, all impressed like that, it makes me feel proud and excited about everything that I’m trying to do. So I tell her some more about myself.

  “I
design some stuff, too—and I’m in this singing group, the Cheetah Girls,” I tell her.

  “Yeah, Mrs. Tattle told me. I’m really into music. Maybe I could come hear you sing some time.”

  “Uh, yeah,” I say, because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But inside, I’m saying, I don’t think so. I can just see the looks on my crew’s faces.

  “I can tell Mrs. Tattle’s really proud of you,” Tiffany says.

  I guess I never thought about it—but if it’s true, I’m glad. “You don’t have a caseworker, right?” I ask.

  “No,” Tiffany responds.

  “Yeah, I guess not.”

  All of a sudden, Tiffany bumps into a garbage can and stumbles. We both start laughing. When she regains her balance, she moans, “I’m tired of skating—you?”

  Even though I’m not, I say, “Let’s go eat some hot dogs.”

  Tiffany smiles, and her eyes light up. She and the twins would get along hunky chunky—the way they cook, Tiffany would probably never leave their house!

  Whoa! There I go again, I think, and stop myself. The twins would not understand about Tiffany. And neither would the others.

  “I wanna be a singer, too,” Tiffany tells me, like it’s a big secret.

  As we skate back toward Mrs. Tattle, I tell Tiffany about everything that’s happened so far with the Cheetah Girls. She seems really fascinated.

  “I’m trying to get my parents to let me go to performing arts school,” she says. “They want me to go to Catholic school,” Tiffany informs me sadly. “We fight about it all the time.” Then her big blue eyes light up. “You know, I just got a keyboard for my birthday!”

  “That’s dope,” I exclaim. “I don’t know how to play any instruments, even though I’ve always wanted to play the piano. See, Mrs. Bosco didn’t have any money to get me lessons.”

  “Maybe you could come over my house and we could learn keyboard together!” Tiffany offers, getting excited.

  I wonder why she’s being so nice to me. She doesn’t even know me—and who says we’re really sisters, huh? I’m still not totally convinced this isn’t all some big mistake.