No One Ever Asked

by Katie Ganshert

“Her time was awful. She’s struggling, and is it any wonder? Her coach isn’t giving her the time of day.”

  Anaya could feel the heat rising up her neck. That was hardly the truth. She was raising Shanice up, not pulling Taylor down. Camille simply couldn’t handle the fact that a girl from South Fork was being set on an equal playing field with her daughter. “I am giving Taylor all the attention she needs.”

  “Well, she obviously needs more.” A muscle twitched in Camille’s jaw. “Look, you don’t like me. That’s fine. I’m okay with that. Just don’t take it out on my children.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are Paige’s teacher and Taylor’s coach. You can go on thinking I’m a horrible, racist person. That’s your prerogative. But maybe, just maybe, you don’t actually know the first thing about me!”

  It was a loud, heated outburst.

  A luxury Anaya couldn’t afford, lest she be labeled an angry black woman.

  And yet here was Camille Gray, pitching a fit in Anaya’s classroom because her daughters weren’t getting special treatment.

  Anaya delivered her rebuttal with ice in every syllable. “And you, ma’am, don’t know the first thing about me, either.”

  * * *

  To: Undisclosed Recipients

  From: graypartyof5@msn.com

  Subject: Calling All Volunteers!

  Date: Thursday, May 9

  Greetings, Parents and Coaches,

  We need your hands! Or should I say, we need your students’ hands.

  As you know, the Crystal Ridge Memorial Day 5K is just around the corner, and this year it’s going to be a color run! To cut down on cost, we decided to fill the color ourselves. Which means we’re in need of lots and lots of volunteers!

  We thought this would be the perfect opportunity for our Crystal Ridge sports teams to give back to the community that supports them so well.

  We will begin filling bottles on Monday, May 13. We’re not sure how long it will take, but we figure this far in advance should give us plenty of time. The community center kindly offered their upstairs banquet room to get the job done. We will have everything ready to go with bottles to fill every weekday, from 4–8 p.m., and weekends, from 1–5 p.m. Encourage your players to come on down, and please join in the fun yourself. The more people we have helping, the quicker we can fill those bottles!

  With Sincere Gratitude,

  Camille Gray

  Fifty-Two

  Anaya walked into the back of the office. There were two doors—one for visitors and parents at the front, and one in the back for staff, right next to the copy machine and the mailboxes. It was nearing the end of the day, her kids were in gym class, and she almost forgot to make copies of the homework sheet they needed to take home with them.

  She set the copier for twenty back-to-back copies, fed the paper through the tray, and hit the green Start button. She turned around and pulled the stack of items from her mailbox—a white envelope with her check stub, two Scholastic book-order magazines, and twenty bright-purple flyers paper-clipped together.

  The Crystal Ridge Memorial Day 5K is getting technicolored! Don’t let your child miss out on this fun event. Sign them up for the one-mile kids’ run. Registration is online, and the early sign-up rate ends soon!

  The flyer reminded her of Camille’s email early this morning. That woman had a lot of nerve.

  “Well, what did she expect?” Jan said.

  Anaya looked over her shoulder.

  Jan McCormick was talking with the resource teacher—a frizzy-haired woman who had an affinity for gypsy skirts.

  “It’s not like you were making up random rules to pick on her son. You were following a long-standing district policy.”

  “It isn’t a policy she was very happy with.”

  Jan sighed loudly. “That’s how it is with these South Fork mothers. Every time one comes into the office, I can expect an earful.”

  The copier beeped.

  The printing job was complete.

  Anaya stood there, unexpectedly gut punched.

  She straightened her spine, grabbed her photocopies and the stack from her mailbox, and slipped out of the office, away from Jan and the resource teacher. But the conversation followed her. She kept trying to rub the hurt away, but the muscles in her neck and shoulders tightened.

  Every time a South Fork mother…

  In other words, every time a black mother.

  It stung.

  Anaya wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard the stereotype before, unfair as it was.

  But even if it were true—even if there was a hint of truth to it—maybe there was a reason. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that for centuries, black women had been silenced. They were told where to go, what they could do. Years upon years, they learned that if they wanted their voices to be heard, then they’d better yell.

  And how was direct confrontation any worse than the passive aggressiveness running rampant among Crystal Ridge mothers? Smiling to your face, tearing you down behind your back? A knife was still a knife, even when it was dipped in sugar.

  She gritted her teeth and marched down the hallway, replaying Camille’s outburst in her classroom. Just last week. What a luxury to have. She could rage all she wanted and somehow she would always be a good mother fighting for her child. The Jan McCormicks of the world would sit up and listen, because if Camille Gray was upset, then that policy must be very bad. A black woman did the same thing and she was dismissed as one of “those.” She was either not there or too there, and the injustice of it all rankled.

  Rub it out, Anaya. Just rub it out.

  The phone in her classroom was ringing.

  She wouldn’t have time to check voice mails after school, so she hurried inside, plopped the papers on her desk, took a deep breath, and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello, Miss Jones speaking,” she said, her voice calm and measured. Nobody listening would know anything was wrong.

  “Hi…Anaya?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Ellie Sorrenson. I got your extension from the staff directory.”

  “Ellie Sorrenson?” Anaya didn’t have a Sorrenson in her class, and the voice was unfamiliar.

  “Mr. Davis’s student teacher. We met at the district-wide meeting back in January. I was hoping we could talk.”

  * * *

  The temperature stretched into the upper eighties—unseasonably hot and humid for May. Anaya felt like a teakettle set on a burner, the pressure slowly building as a group of boys sat in the bleachers, loud and obnoxious while her girls practiced on the track.

  Her thoughts were scattered. Her arms didn’t feel connected to her body as she held a stopwatch in one hand, a clipboard in the other, trying to focus on Taylor as she came around the bend. Taylor was struggling. One look at the stopwatch made that pretty obvious. Anaya watched as Taylor slowed, slowed, slowed like a gasoline-starved car petering to a stop. Two-hundred yards from the finish line, she did.

  “Gray!” Anaya called, walking toward her. “What are you doing?”

  Taylor walked the rest of the way on wobbly legs—her face red from exertion. When she reached Anaya, she bent over her knees and sucked at the thick air.

  “Are you taking care of yourself?” Anaya asked. “Drinking enough water?”

  “I’ve been drinking tons of water.”

  “Are you eating?”

  “All the time.” Taylor shook her head and wiped at the beads of sweat on her brow.

  “Why don’t you go grab a water bottle and have a seat.”

  Anaya watched her go. Was she coming down with something? Zeke and Madison were both out sick today. The nurse said the stomach bug was making its rounds. Was Taylor going to get sick all over the track like Alexis did before the invitational?

  A loud,
sharp wolf whistle sounded from the bleachers.

  It was a sound that had Anaya feeling like a dog with hackles raised.

  “You’re looking hot out there, Gray!”

  The boys guffawed.

  Taylor didn’t pay them any attention. She grabbed a water bottle and sat on the long metal bench where the football players sat during the home games in the fall.

  “Hey look, Malone. She’s in your spot!”

  The boys guffawed again.

  Anaya pressed her lips together and turned her attention to her 400 relay team. They were practicing their handoffs. But the boys’ voices carried, as if they purposefully wanted Taylor to hear. The problem was, Anaya could hear too, and the things they were saying turned the burner to high heat.

  “Ouch, C. She won’t even look at you.”

  “Whatever, man. My interests have shifted.”

  “Oh yeah. To who?”

  After a small beat, the boys all laughed.

  “Shanice?” one of them said. “Are you serious?”

  The pressure in Anaya’s chest began to bubble.

  “I guess now that Taylor’s trying chocolate, Cody wants to get a taste too.”

  Anaya whirled around.

  A blond kid with longish hair and preppy white tennis clothes sat in the center of the group. Anaya knew his name was Cody Malone. Darius had taken his spot on the football team. He was rubbing his chin and smirking. “Do you think she’s as fast off the track as she is on?”

  “What did you just say?” Anaya yelled.

  The boys covered their laughter and their smarmy smiles behind fisted hands.

  And the bubbling pressure turned into a boiling steam that rushed past her lips. “You better shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you!”

  Cody stared back at her with a face full of insolence. “Was that a threat?”

  She threw down her clipboard. She threw down her stopwatch. Steam screamed from her ears as she marched up the bleachers and got in Cody’s face. “You better believe that’s a threat! I won’t tolerate that kinda talk, not at my track. Not about my girls. So unless you want me to go find your coach and your mama right now and tell them exactly what you been saying, then you best stand up and get out.”

  The boys had turned into statues—gaping-mouthed, wide-eyed statues.

  “I said, get out!”

  They scrambled away as the words echoed across the stadium.

  Anaya’s chest heaved, her lungs inhaling and exhaling the hot, humid air as everyone—all the runners, all the coaches, all the high jumpers and the shot putters—stopped what they were doing and stared.

  Fifty-Three

  Two teenage boys wrestled on the lawn. One raised his hand to wave at Darius. The other grabbed both the kid’s legs and took him down. They started rolling around in the grass. As Anaya and Marcus and Darius and Shanice walked past, the kid on the bottom grunted, “I’m letting him win.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Shanice said.

  Marcus opened the front door of the community center.

  Noise filtered down the stairs.

  All four of them were on edge after the latest news about the South Fork School District. Mama was at home making phone calls. And Anaya was here.

  One hour.

  She could handle one hour. She would do her duty, and tomorrow, when someone inevitably came up to her with color-stained hands asking if she’d been to the community center to help yet, she could hold up her own hands and say yes, she had.

  If only Camille Gray wasn’t standing outside the banquet room, her attention flitting from Anaya to Darius as they came to the top of the stairs. The last time the three of them were together, Darius had his hands up in the air in Camille’s yard. Anaya wondered if Camille was thinking about that moment too. Or maybe the pink tinge in her cheeks had everything to do with their last encounter in Anaya’s classroom.

  Whatever she was thinking about, she fixed a smile on her face and stuck out her hand to Shanice. “We haven’t officially met yet. I’m Taylor’s mom.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Gray.”

  “Oh, please call me Camille. Mrs. Gray sounds too much like my mother.” She turned her fixed smile on Marcus. “And you are?”

  “Anaya’s boyfriend, Marcus.”

  “You brought your boyfriend. How wonderful. We certainly need all hands on deck. It’s a much bigger undertaking than we anticipated. But there’s no going back now, is there? All we can do is learn our lesson and hope and pray that we actually get these bottles filled in time. Something tells me a color run wouldn’t be very fun without color.” She handed each of them a pair of see-through plastic gloves. “You’ll want to wear these if you don’t want your palms stained for the next three days. It’s surprisingly hard to get off skin, and yet somehow it washes out of clothes without any problem.”

  “Hey, Camille?” A tiny woman with a baby strapped to her chest interrupted Camille’s overly cheerful welcome. “Do you know where that box of extra funnels went?”

  “It’s not in the concession room?”

  “If it is, it’s hiding very well.”

  With a look of relief, Camille thanked Anaya, Darius, Marcus, and Shanice again for coming and bustled inside like a woman on a mission.

  Marcus gave Anaya a nudge and leaned close to her ear. “I didn’t see any horns.”

  “That’s because they’re retractable.”

  He chuckled.

  The four of them walked inside, Shanice and Darius in front.

  Her brother didn’t like taking the South Fork bus home from school. He said it took too long. More often than not, he hung around during track practice, and since Anaya gave Shanice a ride home afterward, it gave the two high schoolers plenty of travel time to get to know each other. They loved to argue about deep and meaningful things, like who was the best basketball player of all time—LeBron or Jordan—and their weapon of choice in case of a zombie apocalypse. That one might have been a conversation instigated by Anaya, and although she didn’t think either of them would stand a chance against zombies, she did think they would make a cute couple. She suspected Shanice would agree. If only Darius would open his eyes and see the amazing girl right in front of him.

  Instead, he was scanning the tables, searching the crowd.

  For someone in particular, no doubt.

  He found her in the back of the room, waving them both over.

  “I guess now that Taylor’s trying chocolate, Cody wants to get a taste too.”

  The week-old words still burned her up inside. So did the humiliating memory that came afterward, when she screamed at Cody and his posse to get out. They were the jerks, but everyone was gaping at her. She could see it happening, right there in all those open-mouthed stares. She had become an entertaining story they would tell later. Ripple after ripple, confirmation after confirmation. Of a stereotype she worked hard to disprove. All of it left her with a growing pit in her stomach.

  After that practice, she had asked Taylor how she was feeling. Anaya was surprised when she said, “Better after you put Cody in his place.”

  She’d experienced a surge of affinity for the girl.

  Anaya didn’t have a problem with Taylor. But that didn’t mean she wanted her brother to be with Taylor.

  Darius slapped fives with some guys from his football team—big, burly linebackers who seemed genuinely happy to see him. There were girls on the track team too. They welcomed Shanice with smiles that didn’t seem fixed or forced. And yet there was a brittleness in Anaya’s heart as she watched them. A predisposition of distrust. She didn’t want it to be there. These kids weren’t villains. Sure, they were rich and white and most likely oblivious, but they didn’t have horns—retractable or otherwise. She tried to force her muscles to relax, unwind. But then she spotted Cody.

  He was si
tting at a table right beside the one Darius had joined, and he was looking at Shanice in a lingering way that made Anaya’s skin crawl. Just like that, the pit in her stomach opened back up, filling with sick. Sloshing, slurping sick.

  “Do you think she’s as fast off the track as she is on?”

  She wanted to go over and stand between them. She wanted to take Shanice away to a place where boys like Cody didn’t exist. Instead, she followed Marcus to a table and put on a pair of gloves and began doing her part for a race that would benefit a community that already had plenty of benefits, while Cody’s words repeated on a loop in her mind. They repeated and repeated until she could no longer pour the color neatly into the funnel.

  It spilled everywhere.

  Marcus stopped his small talk with the gentleman across the table and gave her a concerned look.

  She turned away in search of something to clean it with and nearly bumped into someone. “Excuse me, I wasn’t…”

  Kyle Davis stood in front of her, his face brightening. “Anaya! Hey. It’s good to see you again.” He glanced from her to Marcus. “And you’re…Marcus, right?”

  “Yeah, man. Sorry. I don’t remember meeting.”

  “We haven’t officially. But Anaya used to talk about you all the time, so I made a guess. I’m Kyle Davis.” He shook Marcus’s hand. “Anaya was my student teacher last year. Anaya, this is my girlfriend, Jenna.”

  Jenna was a blonde with blue eyes and a spray of freckles across her nose. She said hello with a voice both high and soft.

  “Jenna’s going to run with me this year.”

  “It’s my first race ever,” she said. “I never run.”

  “Did you sign up?” Kyle asked Anaya. “Or are you still recovering from that injury? I’m assuming your girls are all going to run. That Shanice will probably win the whole thing. Talk about a star.”

  Anaya didn’t get a chance to respond.

  She didn’t even get a chance to breathe.