by Robin Farmer
“Mom says he should be here any minute,” he says, wiggling next to me.
Charles opens the comic book, where he keeps his clipping of the local article about me winning the national essay contest. Mommy collected as many copies as she could to share with friends, family, and her co-workers.
“I’m starting a scrap book for you,” he says.
I plant a wet one on his cheek so he can pretend to be grossed out. Then I pick up the clipping. In the margins are elaborate drawings of superheroes.
“Charles, did you draw these free-hand or trace them?”
“Free-hand. You like them?”
“You’re really good. I love them.”
“So when you write your children’s books, can I draw the pictures?”
“They are called illustrations,” I say, nodding.
“Yup, that,” he says. Charles throws back his head and lets loose a deep laugh at nothing in particular, but everything good.
A car approaches, blasting my latest jam. Our heads bob and shoulders sway to possibly the best summer house party groves ever. The car’s occupants, grown folks my parents’ ages, smile and give our seated boogie movies a thumbs-up.
“Young sister and brother, get up and show us what you working with,” the bearded, bald-headed driver says. His booming voice is equal parts admiration and amusement.
“Dance with me, Charles.”
My brother looks like he would rather wash broken dishes.
Feeling self-conscious, I respond with a shy giggle. I wave to the old-head admirers and they wave back, then the car rounds the corner.
“All I need now is a piece of gum or—” I snap my fingers. I reach into my pocket and pull out the last two pieces of apple Now and Laters. We slap five and rip off the waxy wrapping. Mouth watering, my nails and teeth scratch off the paper in record time. I bite down on the most fantastic sweet-sour candy in the free world and taste a good time.
Charles struggles to open the wrapping with his chewed-up fingernails. I scrape my long thumbnail across a stubborn stretch. His appreciative slurp is the best thanks.
Shoulder to shoulder, we chew with our mouths open while shielding our eyes from the lemony sun. A low-flying plane zooms overhead, leaving white streaks.
“They’re called contrails,” Charles says, pointing.
My eyes sting from watching the plane, so I close them. I inhale the heady scent of Mom’s potted gardenia.
“He’s here,” Charles says, nudging my side.
I open my eyes as the mailman bounds up the stairs.
He hands me a big manila envelope for Mom, some bills—and my magazine! I set the other mail on the step and tear the wrapping off the July Right On! In the corner a red headline reads: “Black Awareness Essay Winners Inside.” I open the magazine and flip the pages looking for my photo. It’s on page 33 in the lower right-hand corner.
I become a human pogo stick screaming at my black-and-white image. This magazine has featured every Black celebrity known, and now I’m in it.
“That’s me!” I read the caption, “‘First-Place Winner Roberta Forest, 13, Philadelphia.’ I’m in the same magazine as Michael Jackson!”
“First place in the whole U S of A,” Charles yells and shimmies.
When we calm down, we lean against each other, scrutinizing the photo Dad took of me with my brand-new electric typewriter. My photo is the only one shown of the first-place winners from three age categories. We read the article detailing all of the prizes awarded.
“So neat you beat kids older than you, including twelfth-graders!” Charles is giddy with awe.
A tingly sensation starts in my heart and spreads all over. Perfect moments do that.
The screen door creaks open, and we turn to find Mom standing at the top of the steps in her new jeans matching mine. She smiles with her whole face at us cuddling and enjoying each other’s company. Her mood lifts me higher. Soon I may float away on a cloud of joy.
“Mom, it’s here,” I say, waving the magazine. “You got mail, too.”
She scans the large sized envelope. “This is information about evening classes at Temple,” she chirps. “It can wait. Let me get a look at my daughter’s photo. The famous writer. My buttercup.”
I hand her the magazine folded open to the article on the contest winners. Mom’s eyes widen and grow glassy at the photo of me with the typewriter and in the Easter hat Mom-Mom bought. She shouts and hops so high Charles and I lapse into a giggling fit.
“I am so proud of you.” She dabs her eyes on the back of her hands. “It feels good out here. I think I’ll join you two.”
Mom slides next to me, and I realize it’s been years since we’ve sat on the steps together. Why has it taken so much and so long for this to happen again?
Mom hugs me and pecks my cheek. She smells like the best nose candy ever.
“Mommy, your perfume smells better than those flowers,” says Charles.
“I suspect that’s indeed what you are smelling, but thank you, baby.” Mom ruffles Charles’s hair and pats my Afro. She threads her arm back into my mine as I loop my other arm with Charles’s.
Entwined like a human pretzel, we watch a trolley push a broken one down the avenue, electrical sparks shoot overhead. Horns blare from the backed-up traffic. Wherever they’re going is going to take longer than expected. Don’t I know it.
Still, I feel weightless, free of the anger, dread, and uncertainty that dragged me down so much of eighth grade. I close my eyes and let the sunshine nuzzle my upturned face. I feel radiant, strong, loved, and capable.
Here, at this moment, one thing is for certain and two things are for sure: I am exploding with happiness and anticipation for what comes next. I’m so ready.
I exhale as the dazzling rays grow warmer on my skin. Pleasure bubbles from the inside. Joy feels like this.
Shaking with belly-hurting laughter, I hold on tight to Mommy and Charles. I am Roberta Forest, an award-winning writer. For a few seconds, everything shifts and tilts as the whole world revolves around me.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
The racist comment that kicks off the story happened when I was 11 and in sixth grade. As the daughter of the indomitable Dolores Farmer, I shared her resiliency and bounced back from the traumatic experience. My coping strategies included losing myself in books and writing poetry. And while I did write about the racist encounter—in an essay that won first prize in Right On! magazine’s first national Black Awareness Essay Contest—much of the story is fictionalized.
What remains emotionally true are the life-affirming lessons about truth telling, family bonds, spiritual quests, and forgiveness that I hope readers of all ages ponder, discuss, and when appropriate, act on.
My harrowing classroom experience launched my journey from institutionalized religion to a more spiritual trek, one I continue today. The incident also shaped the trajectory of my career, solidifying my desire to write for a living while pursuing truth. As a journalist, I am happiest scrutinizing powerful institutions, holding the mighty accountable and amplifying the voices of the marginalized.
I first wrote this story as a screenplay. Unable to sell it, I adapted it into a novel.
I hope Roberta’s story speaks to young readers struggling with that elusive thing called truth, a feat even harder in this age of alternative facts. The issues gripping the nation today are the same ones I grappled with over 45 years ago. Much work remains.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Malcolm X and Alex Haley for collaborating on an autobiography that enlightened and empowered me and inspired this novel.
To Michael Paul Williams, the husband of my dreams and the writer I most admire, I love you to infinity. To Dolores Farmer, tons of love and appreciation for teaching me to read and write at age four. I told you in second grade I wanted to write as a grown up and you said I could. To Aluster “Chuggy” Farmer, your faith in me since childhood is a gift. Love you. A special thank you to the follo
wing wordsmiths doubling as awesome people: Padma Venkatraman, Heidi Durrow, Lauren Francis-Sharma, Anne Westrick, Maya Smart, Meg Medina, Ginger McKnight-Chavers, Jenn Stroud Rossman, Patty Smith and Bonnie Winston. For years of encouragement as I worked this story, much appreciation to Kristin Swenson, Stacy Hawkins Adams, Anne Westrick, Gigi Amateau, Ellen Brown, Laura Browder and Virginia Pye. Tons of hugs to my early Beta readers: Sonia Johnston, Anne Westrick, Bianca Farmer, Maya Shaw, and Chad Martin. Nothing but love to my homegirls: Laronda Jenkins, Wanda Reese, Kenyatta Haley, Laurie Bundick, and Bernita Mapp. Thank you for your friendship for over 45 years and for championing this story. Incredible residencies at the Rowland Writers Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program allowed me to elevate my manuscript while befriending many exceptional artists. I am fortunate to have honed my writing and editing skills as a proud member of James Rivers Writers and the Virginia Screenwriters Forum. I stood on a mountain of nos to get the yes to publish Malcolm and Me, a winner of the 2019 She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) contest. I’m so appreciative of the opportunity and everyone who worked behind the scenes. I want to give a special shout out to Brooke Warner, Samantha Strom, Julie Metz, and Laura Matthews. And to you dear reader, thank you for spending time in Roberta’s world!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photo © Clement Britt
Robin Farmer is a national award–winning journalist and the 2019 She Writes Press and SparkPress Toward Equality in Publishing (STEP) winner. At eight, she told her mother she would write for a living, and she is grateful that her younger self knew what she was talking about (many young folks do). Her other interests include screenwriting, poetry, movies, and traveling. She’s still hoping to write stories about young people for television and film. Robin earned her degree in journalism from Marquette University. The transplanted Philadelphian lives in Richmond, VA.
ABOUT SPARKPRESS
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SELECTED TITLES FROM SPARKPRESS
SparkPress is an independent boutique publisher delivering high-quality, entertaining, and engaging content that enhances readers’ lives, with a special focus on female-driven work. www.gosparkpress.com
A Song for the Road: A Novel, Rayne Lacko. $16.95, 978-1-684630-02-8. When his house is destroyed by a tornado, fifteen-year-old Carter Danforth steals his mom’s secret cash stash, buys his father’s guitar back from a pawnshop, and hitchhikes old Route 66 in search of the man who left him as a child.
The House Children: A Novel, Heidi Daniele. $16.95, 978-1-943006-94-6. A young girl raised in an Irish industrial school accidentally learns that the woman she spends an annual summer holiday with is her birth mother.
The Leaving Year: A Novel, Pam McGaffin. $16.95, 978-1-943006-81-6. As the Summer of Love comes to an end, 15-year-old Ida Petrovich waits for a father who never comes home. While commercial fishing in Alaska, he is lost at sea, but with no body and no wreckage, Ida and her mother are forced to accept a “presumed” death that tests their already strained relationship. While still in shock over the loss of her father, Ida overhears an adult conversation that shatters everything she thought she knew about him. This prompts her to set out on a search for the truth that takes her from her Washington State hometown to Southeast Alaska.
The Frontman: A Novel, Ron Bahar. $16.95, 978-1-943006-44-1. During his senior year of high school, Ron Bahar—a Nebraskan son of Israeli immigrants—falls for Amy Andrews, a non-Jewish girl, and struggles to make a career choice between his two other passions: medicine and music.
Colorblind: A Novel, Leah Harper Bowron. $16.95, 978-1-943006-08-3. Set in the hotbed of the segregated South, Colorblind explores the discrimination that an elderly African-American sixth-grade teacher and her physically challenged Caucasian student encounter at the hands of two schoolyard bullies.
