Open Mic (7 page)

The question hangs in the air.

We remain statues.

Callie finally shifts. “They seemed interested in gym class.” She tugs at the necklace around her reddening neck. “And I think I overheard them saying something about how they used to play at their old school.”

The way she speaks, low and mumbling and more to the table than us, doesn’t do her any favors.

Now it’s Rebecca’s turn to glance in my direction. “Callie, don’t make stuff up.” They’ve been friends since nursery school, so she never holds back.

I stare at her, and with my eyes I yell:
Control-Alt-Delete! Control-Alt-Delete!

Rebecca doesn’t get my silent code. But then again, she’s a Mac type of girl. Those commands don’t exist in her universe. “You thought they’d be good at sports because they’re African-American. Admit it.”

Callie shakes her head. “I never . . . Why would I —?”

I plaster the biggest smile I can muster to my face. “Like Callie would ever think something like that. You guys have seen me play basketball, right? Two-legged cockroaches jump higher than me.”

They all laugh. Quietly. Politely.

Nothing like the way my cousins laughed when Benji cracked the same lame joke about me this summer.

Once everyone’s provided the appropriate amount of laughter, we stuff whatever remains on our trays into our mouths.

Rebecca steals a few more glances at me but doesn’t speak.

And Evan spends the rest of lunch talking about Tinkerbell.

So much for volleyball-playing twins.

The next day, right after calculus, I see the Harris twins coming down the hallway. Buds in their ears, heads bouncing. They’re almost as tall as me, and I’m a hair under six foot.

I pause, letting everyone else slide past me out of class. When the twins are close enough, I try to catch their gaze, to give them a head nod — quick tilt back, chin up.

They keep walking. Don’t even look in my direction.

Maybe they’re too busy listening to their iPods.

Maybe they’re too busy thinking about their next class.

Or maybe I just blend in with everyone else.

I see them a few other times over the next couple of days, sometimes in the hallway, sometimes in the caf, but I never have the opportunity to speak. I mean, yes, I
could
speak to them, but what am I supposed to say?
Hello, my Negro friends. Welcome to Hobbs Academy, which is whiter than rice and eggshells and vanilla-flavored milk. If you act like Bryant Gumbel and Wayne Brady, you’ll fit right in.

(My modification of yet another series of lame jokes about me, courtesy of Benji. Uttered anytime I walked, spoke, breathed, or blinked.)

So I don’t speak to the Harris girls. And they don’t speak to me. We just pass each other, day after day.

It’s quite possible that I could have gone on avoiding Violet and Jasmine for another week, or maybe forever, if Rebecca hadn’t called me out.

“They asked about you,” she says one Thursday night when we’re doing our homework in the study room on her floor. Boys are allowed on the floor until eight p.m. I’ve been here every night this week, even on days I didn’t have homework. It’s like I can’t help myself.

“Who?” I ask, playing dumb.

“Violet and Jasmine.”

“Oh. What did they want to know?”

“Just your name. Where you were from. If you were ‘cool.’”

“Why’d they ask you?” I know the words come out harder than they’re supposed to, but I need to know.

“Violet thought . . .” Rebecca flips a page in her chemistry book. “They see us together a lot.”

We don’t speak for a few minutes. I move on to my next calculus problem, but I may as well be deciphering Sanskrit.

It doesn’t help that Rebecca’s wearing her hair like she did on our trip to New York last year. The drama club went to see
Wicked
on Broadway — and even though I was a set designer (well, more like a grunt for the set designer), I got to tag along. The play was okay, I guess. All I remember is Rebecca sitting beside me, dark curls spilling over her shoulders, skin smelling like oranges and mangoes, thigh pressed against mine during the entire show.

The musical was named right. There had been something wicked going on in my head. And in my pants.

“The young twin has a boyfriend,” Rebecca says. “But not the older one. Not Violet.”

“Um . . . okay.”

Another flip of the page. “You know . . . in case you were interested.”

I shake my head harder than necessary. “I don’t like her,” I say. Loudly. Just to be sure she hears me. “Not like that, anyway. I don’t even know her.”

Rebecca shrugs. Opens her mouth. Closes it. Shrugs again. Shuts her book. Takes a breath. “You said you were going to call this summer.”

Her voice is low, and the hurt on her face slams into me harder than a thousand of Benji’s lame, flat, painful, offensive jokes.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Is it because . . . ?” Whatever bravery she exhibited confronting Callie on the first day of school has withered away.

“It’s because I’m stupid.”

We’re both quiet. Rebecca’s hair falls over her face, hiding her full, round cheeks. “You should talk to them,” she says softly. “They’re lonely.”

Now it’s my turn to shrug.

The next day I head for the library, hall pass in hand. Rebecca stands at the circulation desk but busies herself by looking in every possible direction except mine.

It doesn’t take me long to find Violet.

At least, I assume it’s Violet. They are twins, after all.

“Violet?” I ask, nearing the table.

She looks up from her textbook and slips the buds from her ears. “Griff. Wassup.”

I sit down across from her. Her skin glows under the hard, bright fluorescent lights. “I just wanted to officially introduce myself. I’ve been meaning to, but —”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m sure you got better things to do than hang with someone like me.”

The sweat collecting underneath my arms approaches oceanic levels. “What makes you think that?”

“I’m a freshman. Low man on the totem pole.”

“Sophomores aren’t much better off,” I mumble. “So where’s your sister?”

Her smile falters. “In study hall, texting that sorry, trifling boyfriend of hers.” She leans closer to me. She smells like aloe vera. Nice, but nothing like citrus. “I miss my boyfriend, too, but you don’t see me moping around.”

She has a boyfriend.
I want to turn toward Rebecca and her dark curls and citrus-scented skin and yell,
She has a boyfriend!

“It ain’t just him. It’s home.” She strums the table. “She misses home.”

“Hobbs takes a while to get used to.”

“How long did it take you?”

I laugh. “When I get there, I’ll let you know.”

I’m in the middle of telling her about what cafeteria meals to avoid when Mrs. Whittaker walks over. The school librarian is out on maternity leave, so Mandy Whittaker’s mom offered to substitute. Like an English degree, two snobby teens, and a huge bank account make you an expert on all things literary.

“You two getting any work done?” Mrs. Whittaker asks.

“Griffin was nice enough to come over and introduce himself. He’s giving me some pointers about school.”

She glances at Violet’s notebook. “What are you studying?”

“English.” She moves her hand, giving Mrs. Whittaker full view of her notebook. “I’m working on an essay on
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
By Maya Angelou.”

“I’m familiar with the book,” Mrs. Whittaker says, touching the top button of her blouse. “I thought your class was reading
The Book Thief.
”

“By Markus Zusak. I read it last year.” She doesn’t blink an eye. “Mr. Brooks and I thought it would be more worthwhile to focus on another book.”

“I see.” Mrs. Whittaker’s voice is different. Smaller. She looks around the table, letting her eyes settle on the open Angelou book. The pages sport an assortment of highlights and underlines, with notes in the margins.

“It’s my personal copy,” Violet says.

“Of course.” Mrs. Whittaker nods to Violet, then to me. “Let me know if I can help, okay?”

After Mrs. Whittaker leaves, Violet shakes her head. Her eyes remind me of a dull penny. “Sorry ’bout getting you into trouble. My bad.”

It’s almost magical, the way she switches talking like that.

Some people call it slang.

Teachers call it bad English.

Idiots call it Ebonics.

And me — I call it just talking. Like you do with family.

I want to be like her, loose and carefree with my vowels and consonants, right here at Hobbs. Because lately, even at home with my cousins, the words are starting to come out stiff and broken and wrong. The last time I was home, they said I sounded white.

I shake this thought away. “I’m not worried about Mrs. Whittaker.”

“That ain’t who I’m talking about.”

I look back toward the circulation desk. Rebecca is scrubbing the counter with a dust rag. I can almost see the varnish rising from the counter, and the steam rising from her head.

“She don’t have anything to worry about. Like I said, I have a boyfriend.” She glances at Rebecca. “She’s nice. Everybody thinks you two would make a nice couple.”

“Really?” I ask. “Everyone?”

The way she looks at me, I know she understands what I’m trying to ask.

“Don’t date her if you don’t want to. It’s a free country. But she’s got it bad for you. And from the way it sounds, you’re jonesing for her, too.”

That’s all she says. No jokes about the other white meat. No teasing about the black man’s kryptonite. No jabs about Mr. Oreo looking for a glass of milk.

She picks up her earbuds. “I’d better get back to work. This essay ain’t going to write itself.”

I take a scrap of paper and scribble my number on it. “Just in case you need to get ahold of me. About anything.”

She takes the paper. “Hey, whatcha got going on this weekend? Want to hang out with me and Jazzy on Saturday? It might take her mind off of home and that sorry boyfriend of hers.” She pops her knuckles. “I’ve been waiting for the right time to bring out the dominoes. And now that we have a third player . . .”

I think about lying or coming up with some excuse, but after the conversation we had, Violet deserves better. “I don’t know how to play.”

She blinks twice, like she’s processing the data. “Oh. Okay. We’ll teach you.”

I sit there, not sure what to say.

She’s already got her nose back in her book. “And if you want, bring Rebecca. That way we can play spades, too.”

I head to circulation, which smells of wildflowers and ammonia. And oranges and mangoes. “Thanks for getting me to talk to Violet.”

“No problem. I forgot you guys were even in here.”

Sure she did.
I reach across the wide desk and place my hand on hers. Mrs. Whittaker would have a heart attack if she saw, but who cares? “What are you doing for lunch?”

She glances at my hand. “You don’t want to go to the caf with Evan and Callie?”

“No. Let’s walk over to Pat’s.”

“Just us?”

“Yeah. Just us. Like we used to last year.”

She gives me a smile that grabs me and refuses to let go. “You’re buying.”

I squeeze her hand, smile one last time, and head for the exit. Right before I open the door, I look back at Violet and give her a head nod.

She sees me, and she nods back.

In high school, my friends and I owned two words — we were Black, and we were geeks. We had the soundtrack to prove the first: classic Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin renditions of “Young, Gifted and Black.” That song was as much a part of my regular diet as the lumpy and not-sweet-enough porridge I had for breakfast many mornings. My mom was an Excellence for Black Children mother, which meant that she battled for Parent-of-a-High-Achiever supremacy at monthly meetings and was quick to whip out the dashiki and boom box so that I could dance interpretively alongside my equally gifted and well-mothered friends at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. breakfasts.

We were on display at family gatherings, too — some evil auntie or uncle got the idea to have “the young people” perform every Thanksgiving before dinner. If we did not slouch to the center of the living room to recite a little Langston Hughes or perform a painful excerpt from our last piano recital, we could forget about eating. My cousins and I grumbled and threatened revolt, but . . . miss out on more codfish cakes and mac and cheese? We performed.

But let’s be honest. My friends and I didn’t need
that
much prodding to put excellence on display, especially the academic variety. We were serious geeks. Second proof: we voluntarily joined (and were the only members of) the math and debate teams. We brought
all
of our textbooks home daily (just in case) in book bags the size of igloos. K. and I would call each other breathlessly on report card day to tally our As and A+s. (It was understood that the occasional B was too devastating to discuss.) We took such excessive pride in our academic achievements that when K. received an A instead of an A+ with a 98 average, we hurried to Mrs. H. to rectify this grievous error, with me along as his consigliere. Maybe Mrs. H. had gotten confused?