Color Me In

by Natasha Díaz

In this room, there are four walls and a window.

  From the window, I see the mailbox on the street.

  The street is covered in grass that browns and shrivels or flourishes depending on the position of the clock.

  I watch you come and go as you please.

  Sometimes, you look up at me with a wave and a smile,

  But usually, you’re too busy, fumbling with your keys.

  From the corners in my room, I can run back and forth.

  Diagonal and horizontal, one way or the other.

  It took a while to realize that the direction doesn’t make a difference.

  Some days pass without a sound,

  Without a bird perched on the ledge or a gust of wind sending damp leaves onto the paned glass.

  I asked you once, through the window, “Why?”

  You replied, “To keep you safe and warm.”

  If safe is what you wanted, why didn’t you leave the walls blank, without this

  Looking-glass to the sky?

  Is it that safety only exists within the confines of your own dimensions?

  Or are you too afraid to believe that I can fly?

  I just have to make it a week here and then I go back to Pa’s house. Who knows? Maybe this is what Mom needs to snap her out of her daze. She won’t let him do this to me. I know it.

  Chapter 8

  At the office. L, D

  The same note that my father has taped to the outside of my door every day this week is there when I wake up on Sunday morning. I clean up bags of potato chips littering my floor from my midnight snacks and grab my stuff, ready to get out of this house before another terrible reality befalls me. As I wait for an Uber in the living room, the harsh new interior melts away, revealing my home as I remember it.

  The huge gray couch that I slept on for a week after I got food poisoning and where my parents took turns holding my cold, sweaty hand, sits against the back wall. The old couple in the painting my mom bought for her and Dad’s tiny apartment when she was pregnant with me during Dad’s law school years stares at me with their misshapen eyes. The big wooden coffee table where we played poker and Monopoly and Uno on Sundays before grilling or ordering Italian from Mina’s boasts a stack of half-completed Friday Times crossword puzzles, ready for my father to pick up and put down after solving a clue or two.

  A horn blares outside, so I leave before the mirage disappears; I let the memories stain my eyes so I don’t have to look at the truth.

  * * *

  —

  The car speeds all the way to the city and drops me on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 126th before the driver tears off in the same direction he came, hoping to avoid another passenger that will bring him deeper into the city. The streets are sleeping after the morning rush to church services that came and went an hour ago. Everyone else is still in bed, recovering from Saturday night in New York City, which for many didn’t end until the early hours of the morning.

  “Well, hey there, lil’ one,” Zeke says as I walk through the door. “I didn’t expect you until later, but now that you’re here, drop your stuff. I could use a hand at the supermarket.”

  Zeke walks on the outside of the sidewalk to shield me from any splashes of filthy water or any other liquid. He’s just old-school like that, and I can’t say I hate it.

  “So how was the visit?” he asks with genuine curiosity.

  “Ugh,” I grunt in response.

  “Come on.” His powerful arm rests on my shoulders like a block of lead. “It can’t have been that bad.”

  I roll my eyes—a language Zeke is fluent in after twenty-plus years of Anita—and he swiftly clamps his mouth shut with a smile.

  The new Whole Foods on 125th Street takes up an entire city block; the high-end market looms tall in the sky. The smaller grocery stores have all but disappeared, leaving this or a food delivery service as the only options for food shopping and the latter doesn’t work for Zeke; he needs to see his food before he buys it.

  We weave up and down the aisles as he picks up this and that, following the same path he takes week after week. The guys behind the fish counter greet him with a friendly nod.

  “What’s good, boss?” A tall man with tan skin and more freckles than me winks at us when it’s our turn. “The usual?”

  “Yes, sir, the ones in the middle,” Zeke says as he points to the salmon steaks.

  We take the fish and head toward the registers to pay.

  “Good morning.” The cashier bats her long eyelashes at Zeke but frowns when she notices his silver wedding band. “That will be one-oh-six seventy-seven,” she says in a lower, less flirtatious tone.

  Zeke shakes his head and lets out a tsk before he hands over a credit card so new it still has the activation sticker on the front. Instinctively, I reach for my wallet, but then stop myself. I know better than to offer to pay. If Anita ever found out, she would throw it in my face that they don’t need charity or help, not from anyone, especially me.

  The sun outside wraps itself around our bodies like a towel at the beach, a shock to our systems after the frigid central air in the store. Zeke charges ahead, and I have to add a hop to my step to keep up. A second wave of Sunday-morning Harlemites crowd the restaurant patios in desperate need of bottomless mimosas and fried food. Zeke swerves around them with grace, as though the four grocery bags filled with enough food for eight are nothing more than thick paper and air.

  “Excuse me?” A pink hand grabs my arm from behind while we wait for the light to change on the corner. Zeke drops the bags to guard me with his body, placing himself between me and what turns out to be a police officer in uniform. He looks young for a cop, mid-twenties, with silky dark brown hair that sweeps behind his ears and white teeth that bite his bottom lip.

  “Sorry, Officer,” Zeke says, embarrassed to have engaged with a police officer in such a manner. “My dad was on the force for forty-five years.”

  The policeman’s shoulders are squared, his fists clenched at his sides now that Zeke moved me out of his grasp. He relaxes slightly when Zeke backs up but doesn’t take his eyes off him for a second.

  “Can I speak to you?” he says sternly.

  “Is there a problem, Officer?” Zeke asks as politely as possible.

  “Not you,” he says to Zeke. “Her.”

  I look up at my uncle, confused.

  “It’s all right, lil’ one,” Zeke says.

  The cop beckons me to follow him as he steps back a couple of feet without looking, narrowly missing a mother and her small child, who dodge him at the last second.

  “Miss, is everything all right?”

  I look around, still unclear why he’s speaking to me. My nerves act as superglue between my lips and I nod yes. He widens his stance and bends at the knees to move his face closer to mine.

  “Are you sure? Because I can help you if you’re in trouble.”

  “I’m fine,” I say.

  “Is that man making you do anything you don’t want to do? They sometimes target pretty girls like you, you know.”

  His words travel to my ears in slow motion, one at a time, so it takes me longer than normal to piece together why he has chosen to question me.

  “What? No!” I shout, surprising both of us. “He’s my uncle!”

  The cop looks back and forth, gauging whether this is a well-crafted ruse or he has made a terrible judgment call.

  “Can I go?”

  He nods and turns on his heels, disappearing before I make it the three steps back to the corner. Zeke kneels by the grocery bags he dropped to protect me, where a puddle of egg yolks ooze onto the street. He pulls out some soaked pasta boxes and holds them up.

  “Shit!” Zeke roars with a power that makes me hold my breath. “Sorry.”

  “No, no,
don’t apologize. Tell me what you need; I can go back to the store,” I offer, sick to my stomach that this might cost him more money on top of everything else.

  Zeke rests an elbow on his knee and holds his forehead with his fingertips, massaging his temples. He keeps his eyes fixed on the ground.

  “Just go home, Nevaeh,” he whispers with such agony it almost sounds like a prayer.

  And I walk away quick so Uncle Zeke can wipe the silent tears that roll down his cheeks onto his sleeve without an audience.

  * * *

  —

  I wake up in my bed damp with sweat. I forgot to plug my fan in when I got back, and the heat must have lulled me to sleep. My gut twists with guilt as I remember the events of earlier today. I should have asked for the cop’s name or badge number. I should have done something.

  My stomach jumps again, but this time from hunger. Based on the smells wafting through the house, it’s time for dinner.

  I hear shouts rising up the stairs, so I tiptoe down to the dining room to listen at the door. Anita and my mom stand on opposite sides of the table with their fingers pointed in each other’s faces.

  “She has to learn about her culture, Corinne. We went to J’Ouvert every year when we were young; it’s time to recognize that your fairy-tale life is over. It’s time to give up the act!” my aunt yells.

  “How dare you!” my mom screams. “The past sixteen years wasn’t an act; it was my life. I loved Samuel and he loved me, but you think it’s been easy? All diamonds and champagne? All these years and those white women still stare when I walk in to their stupid brunch parties, trying to figure out whether I’m a guest or a server. I did my best. Nevaeh goes to one of the top schools in the state of New York. She’s traveled, and she has—”

  “What? She has what, Corinne? What does she have that’s so much better when she’s walking through the world not understanding who she is? You think that’s worth fancy trips and clothes?” my aunt yells.

  “We’re not going to J’Ouvert,” my mom says firmly. “Samuel would never allow it, and the last thing I need is to get him upset with everything up in the air right now.”

  They must not know I’m home. Zeke must have forgotten to mention it. I don’t blame him; he probably willed himself to forget I existed so he could get on with his day. A creaky floorboard announces my presence as I attempt to back away.

  “Hello?” Anita calls out cautiously. “Who’s there?”

  With no choice, I step forward and my mom drops into her seat like a balloon deflating and falling to the ground.

  “Nevaeh—” My mom starts to say something, but I cut her off. I’ve heard enough.

  “This joo-vair thing…Dad doesn’t want me to go?” I ask, with all eyes on me.

  Anita looks at my mom and then shakes her head to confirm.

  “You can do what you want,” I say to my mother as I take my seat. “But I’m going.”

  “Well, that,” Anita says, pausing to wink at me with pride, “settles that.” Then she gets up to make me a plate.

  Chapter 9

  At two a.m. the reggae music starts blasting through the house and Janae comes dancing into our room to wake us; she throws me a tank top with a Jamaican flag on it.

  “Get up!”

  My exhaustion is overpowered by the adrenaline of disobedience and adventure gushing through me, so I do what she says.

  Downstairs, Anita has cereal and fruit laid out because despite Jerry’s whining, no one is cooking at this hour. Everyone is in Jamaican pride colors: yellow, green, and black. I’ve never seen my aunt so…undressed. Her tank top has slits across the back, exposing her bra. My uncle takes immediate stock of her short shorts with raised eyebrows and pursed lips as he comes down the stairs.

  Anita and Zeke have a secret language that’s been developing since they were fifteen. They communicate through looks and smiles and winks, so subtle that sometimes I find myself accidentally tuning in to their silent conversations. His cut-off T-shirt reveals the tattoos on his arm, one for each of his kids. Three black lines in the shape of a triangle, symbolizing their bond for the entire world to see.

  We all watch Jerry as he eats, adorable as ever, bouncing around so his belly jiggles as he gyrates his hips to the music. Anita hands me a bag filled with what looks like ketchup squeeze bottles from a diner.

  “What’s this for?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says.

  She keeps us moving, delegating last-minute tasks and cleaning up behind us. Anita, for all her brashness, never ceases to amaze me with her level of productivity, especially when multitasking.

  Once everyone has eaten something, we pile into my uncle’s SUV. Grandpa walks us out and waves to the neighbors, all of whom seem to be headed in the same direction we are. The summer night is crisp and dark, but I can still see Pa watching us on the stoop when we get to the corner to head downtown.

  “How come Pa isn’t coming?” I ask.

  “This ain’t his thing, lil’ one,” Zeke explains in the rearview mirror.

  Traffic is crazy for a Monday at two-thirty a.m. The highway is packed, and my cousins are super hyped. They dance to music and wave their mini-flags out the window to honks and cheers. It takes us almost an hour to get to Brooklyn, and then we have to park a fifteen-minute walk from Eastern Parkway, which is apparently where everything goes down.

  Walking through the streets, I can taste the energy. It’s like Pop Rocks and electricity. Like those sparklers you get on the Fourth of July to write words that melt into the sky. People cheer, and some of them yell, “Jamaica!” at us in solidarity and recognition. My mom walks stiffly through the crowd, the only person out of thousands wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans.

  “What is this?” I ask, motioning to the crowd around us.

  “The J’Ouvert festival. It’s the kickoff for the West Indian Day Parade,” Zeke says, guiding me forward gently, as if this were my first ride without training wheels. “J’Ouvert means ‘daybreak.’ It’s a chance for us to wake everyone up with our pride. Just enjoy it and stay close, okay?” My uncle puts his big arm around my shoulders.

  Under the streetlights,

  All I see is brown on brown on tan on yellowish golden on brown,

  And it is breathtaking.

  We flood the pavement with a confidence that screams out into the universe:

  “We are powerful!”

  “We are beautiful!”

  “We deserve to be celebrated!”

  The air is filled with incense and sounds that I take in with deep, full breaths.

  As I drink in the delight, a transformation takes over,

  One that is sudden and brave,

  Swift and loud,

  As if until this very moment, I have lived confined to a two-dimensional outline

  Waiting for a chance to be whole.

  Together, we move through the street and descend upon the festival. The steel drums vibrate so intensely it feels like we’re in a bubble and the music is bouncing off the buildings back into the center of everything.

  Everyone wears their country’s colors; some women even have their nails painted with tiny reproductions of their native flag on each finger. I hear my aunt beg my mom to enjoy herself, and I wonder if maybe I should just go back with her and protect everyone from her moroseness, but before I can act on anything, Janae pulls me into a dance circle.

  Two women bend over, their butts competing with each other to move faster. More women crowd around and cheer them on until there are so many of us that there is no more center and we’re just a clump of people, standing shoulder to shoulder. My cousins and everyone else in our makeshift clique begin to move their bodies the same way: with their eyes closed and their faces held up to the moonlit morning sky. Their movement speaks to me in
a language that, until now, I was unaware I was fluent in, but I respond with twisting hips and rolling shoulders and playfully bite my lip as they challenge me to go faster or lower or slower.

  By the time our parents spot us in the crowd, we are drenched in sweat.

  I can’t tell if we have an actual destination or if we’ll all just go until we don’t feel like going anymore. As we inch forward, the smells of sweet plantains, jerk spices, and coconut bread hit us. No one makes coconut bread like my grandma used to, but the smell brings her back to me.

  I can see her shaking her hips and sucking her teeth playfully at the women running around in pum-pum shorts and BeDazzled bras, gyrating their way down the avenue.

  The summer before she died, Grandma showed up at our house in White Plains and found me in jeans and a tank top, covered with a cardigan. It was a million degrees outside, but my dad had just had a new commercial-grade central air system installed and the house was an icebox. Confused, she led me by the hand into the nearest bathroom.

  We emerged a few moments later, Grandma marching with confidence and me attempting to conceal my now-bare midriff, exposed by the four inches she’d hacked off the bottom of my shirt with rusty shears. Her aged black purse was at least two decades overdue to be replaced, but I never saw her without it. She spent her life collecting a handful of inexplicable items she stowed in that purse, certain that at any given moment, they might be required.

  “Show us whatchu got in dis hot sun!” Grandma declared.

  She always spoke like she had an audience, even if she was the only person in the room.

  Her body was damp with sweat, but in the natural light, her brown skin glistened like a diamond. She moved me back and forth across the floor as she made a beat with her footsteps. In the huge mirror in the hallway she caught her own reflection and opened her mouth to laugh a laugh so strong it opened the sky and sent beams of magic through the windows onto us.

  Grandma was the only person who ever talked to me about my Black identity. She wanted me to know I belonged. She wanted me to know I should be proud. I always smiled and listened politely, but I never believed her, and now that she’s gone, I’ll never get the chance to ask her “how?”.