The Only Black Girls in Town

by Brandy Colbert

  “We were telling Caleb about how you’re the best kid we know, so he has a lot to live up to,” Tim says.

  That’s such a nice thing to say, I don’t know how to respond. I look at the baby. He’s a bundle in Denise’s arms, wrapped in soft blankets. A tiny cap is perched on his head.

  Denise plants a soft kiss on his forehead. “Are you ready to meet Alberta?” she whispers.

  She turns him toward me when I reach the bed. When I realize she’s holding him out, I shake my head and take a step back.

  “You don’t want to hold him?”

  “I’m… I don’t want to drop him.” Or breathe on him wrong. Or hold him too tightly. He’s so new, it feels like there are a billion ways to break him.

  “You won’t drop him. Babies are a lot stronger than people think.” But when I just stand there staring at her with my skeptical face, she smiles and says, “Go sit over there in the chair and Tim will bring him to you.”

  I’m still feeling shaky when Tim places the swaddled baby in my arms. But I sit back, take a deep breath, and try to remember what Denise said. I stare down at Caleb. Newborn babies look funny. They’re all squishy, and they’re never awake. And when their eyes are open, they always look so confused and sleepy.

  His eyes are closed now. Everything about him is so teeny. His little nose and chin and ears. The cap on his head is knit into the features of a baby fox. He smells good, too—clean and sweet, like milk. He opens his mouth and yawns, showing his little gums. My heart feels like it is melting.

  “He’s so sweet,” I say. “So little.”

  “He’s perfect,” Dad says.

  Caleb’s skin is a tawny color now, the perfect blend of Denise’s and Tim’s skin tones. I was super light when I was born. I wonder if his color will darken like mine did. He’ll be beautiful no matter what.

  Denise clears her throat. “Alberta, Tim and I want to ask you something.”

  “And we think now is the perfect time,” Tim adds.

  I finally look up from the baby. I think I could stare at him for hours.

  “We were wondering,” Denise says slowly, “if you would do us the honor of being Caleb’s godmother.”

  I look back and forth between the two of them. “His godmother?” I feel like someone has funneled me into an alternate reality. I never expected someone to ask me this.

  “We’d love if you would consider it.”

  “What does it mean? Being a godparent?” I don’t think I have a godmother or a godfather. Do I? I look at Dad.

  “Well, Denise and I aren’t religious, so it’s more in a spiritual sense,” Tim explains.

  “Your father and Elliott have always been like family,” she says. “And you are, too. You’ve grown into such a wonderful young lady that we’re just so proud to know, Alberta. We’d really love you to have a relationship with Caleb as he grows up.”

  “He’ll be lucky to know you, too,” Tim says.

  They are still smiling, but they look nervous. Do they think I’ll say no? Denise and Tim are reason enough to say yes, but when I look down at Caleb’s squishy little face, I can’t think of anyone else’s godmother I’d rather be.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, please. I want to be his godmother.”

  Denise’s eyes well up. “We’re so glad.”

  Dad comes over to give me a hug, rubbing the back of his finger over one of Caleb’s chubby cheeks. Tim snaps a picture of us, and Denise is brushing tears from her face as she watches.

  The only person missing is Elliott, who’s at work. But then I look down at Caleb Elliott in my arms.

  He’s here in name.

  FAMILY

  EDIE CLUTCHES THE METAL BOX TIGHTLY IN THE front seat of Ms. Whitman’s car.

  I stare at it. All the journals are in there. We stacked them in order from top to bottom. It’s weird to think we’re letting go of them now, after spending so much time with them over the past few weeks. What if Mrs. Palmer doesn’t want them? What if it’s not her mother and we’ve made a huge mistake?

  As we bump along Ewing Street, toward the library, I want to go back. I didn’t tell my dads about this, and I hope Mrs. Palmer doesn’t get angry with us and tell them before I can. I haven’t kept a lot of secrets from them—at least nothing this big.

  It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m happy to see the library is mostly empty. I let Ms. Whitman and Edie go ahead of me, but Mrs. Palmer greets me first with a big smile. Then she says hi to Edie, and turns to Ms. Whitman.

  “Calliope, right?”

  “Great memory,” Edie’s mother says. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Same. We really should be running into each other more in such a small town.” Her eyes slide curiously over the box in Edie’s arms. “Can I help you all with anything today?”

  Edie looks at Ms. Whitman, who nods encouragingly. She steps up to the desk and says, “We have something that we think belongs to you.”

  “We think it belonged to your mother,” I add, standing next to her.

  Mrs. Palmer frowns, but she moves aside a stack of books to make room for the box. Edie sets it down and slowly slides it toward her. “We found these in the attic of the B&B.” Her voice is thin. Nervous.

  Mrs. Palmer looks to Ms. Whitman before she carefully opens the box. Her eyebrows push together.

  “They’re journals,” I explain.

  “And we think…” Edie begins, but she can’t finish.

  “The girls read the journals,” her mother says, taking the spot on the other side of Edie. “They were in a corner of Edie’s bedroom in this box. And the girls think they belonged to your mother.”

  “Was your mom’s name Constance?” Edie blurts, her courage returning.

  Mrs. Palmer looks confused as she picks up one of the books. “Constance?” She flips it open and begins reading. Her eyes widen. “This is Mama’s handwriting.”

  Edie stares at me, her eyes even bigger than Mrs. Palmer’s.

  I pull the two old photographs from my notebook, where I’ve been keeping them safe, and place them on top of the books. Constance’s picture is on top.

  Mrs. Palmer breathes in and out slowly. “And this is Mama.”

  “The girls think—” Ms. Whitman begins, but then someone comes in who needs help.

  Mrs. Palmer barely hides her impatience as she plucks a book off the holds shelf. The whole time she helps the person, I notice her hands are trembling. As soon as the patron walks out the door again, she sighs heavily. She looks in the box. “This must be years’ worth.”

  “About thirteen, I think,” I say.

  “And you read them all? Did you…?” Mrs. Palmer looks like she’s doing calculations in her head. She flips open the journal on top to the page with Constance’s name and the year. She runs her fingers over the fragile paper. “I don’t know much about my mother’s life. She never talked about anything before marrying our father… not until she was nearing the end.”

  “Was her middle name Constance?” Edie tries again.

  “I don’t know,” Mrs. Palmer says, her eyes flitting back and forth from the journals to the pictures. “She always said she had no middle name. But I saw her driver’s license one time. And the middle initial was a C. Matilda C. Harris. When I asked her about it, she told me to stop being nosy and changed the subject.”

  “Her middle name started with a C?” I say. Even though I thought we were right, I still can’t believe things are adding up.

  “So if you read them, you must know.” Mrs. Palmer tilts her head to the side.

  Edie and I exchange another look.

  “That my mother was passing as a white woman,” she says softly. “For almost her entire life.”

  Edie lets out a breath big enough for both of us. I’m holding mine.

  “You knew,” Ms. Whitman says.

  “I always suspected there was something she wasn’t telling us.” Mrs. Palmer pauses. “I asked why our hair was so curly. And about our skin. She sa
id we had Italian ancestry, and maybe some Jewish on our father’s side. We don’t look totally European, but we don’t exactly look black, either. She told us the truth when our father died. She didn’t want there to be any chance of him knowing.”

  “But they loved each other,” Edie says. “Would he have cared?”

  “My father was a good man, and he was good to my mother. But I… I don’t know if she kept it from him because she was afraid he’d leave her or because the secret was so much a part of her.” Mrs. Palmer runs her index finger along the edge of the metal box. “I think she felt like she needed to come clean before she died. She wanted us to know at least a little bit about where we came from.”

  “Have you found any of her family? I mean, your family?” I ask.

  Mrs. Palmer shakes her head. “My grandparents are long gone by now. And Mama said her brother was, too. My brother and sister were glad to know, but they have no interest in visiting the past. I didn’t look too hard after Mama told us, but now… Well, it seems like these journals are a sign to start looking again.”

  “Family should know family,” Ms. Whitman says quietly.

  Mrs. Palmer nods. “Yes, they should.”

  “Did she tell you why she left? And started passing?” Edie asks.

  “She was pretty vague about that, too. But in those times… it could have been anything. I know that there was some violence that involved someone close to her.”

  Edie and I glance at each other. Sanford?

  Just then, Jordan the tortie pads across the counter, curls herself into a cat loaf right in front of Mrs. Palmer, and starts purring up a storm. As if she knew Mrs. Palmer needed her.

  “I know she left a man she loved, but she felt like it was the only choice for a good life. I’ll never forget—” Mrs. Palmer’s voice breaks and she scratches under Jordan’s chin. She breathes in and out before she goes on. “I’ll never forget, when Mama told us—she said that before she left, she promised her mother she’d send money once she got settled. And my grandmother told her that she didn’t want the money of a black woman pretending to be white. That it was dirty, dishonest money. She told my mother that if she was going to leave on those terms, she didn’t want to see or hear from her again.”

  “Wow,” Ms. Whitman breathes.

  “I know.” Mrs. Palmer lets out a heavy sigh. “The thing is, this wasn’t that long ago, that people felt like this was their only option. It makes me sick to think she believed she had to live another life to get the equality she deserved.”

  “How will you find your family?” I ask. “She didn’t give a lot of details about her life before California.”

  “Something tells me you’ve already done some research on her yourselves.” She smiles as she looks between Edie and me. “The microfilm?”

  We nod, embarrassed. Busted.

  “I’ll find a way,” she says. “I’m a librarian, after all. Who’s better at finding information than us?”

  “Oh!” Edie says suddenly. “We did find someone. With the last name McCrimmons. Maybe you can talk to her. She said Juanita, from the photo, was a distant cousin, so that means you’d be related, too, right?”

  “I think that’s exactly what that means,” Mrs. Palmer says with a smile as I rip the page with Rosemary McCrimmons’s name from my notebook and hand it to her.

  “We’ll get out of your hair now,” Ms. Whitman says. “Unless you have any more questions? And you’re free to stop by the B&B anytime to make sure she didn’t leave anything else you might want to have. She had quite the extensive library.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Calliope. Maybe we could have coffee sometime.”

  Ms. Whitman grins. “I’d love that.”

  Mrs. Palmer turns to us, and her eyes have gone misty. “I want to thank you girls.”

  Edie shrugs, staring down at her boots. “We didn’t do anything.”

  “But you did. Thank you for taking care of my mother’s things, and for returning them.” Mrs. Palmer looks at me now. “Mama was so happy when you and your dads moved in across the street. I think being around other black people reminded her of the life she’d shut off so long ago… the life that she missed.”

  ALL APOLOGIES

  IT FEELS LIKE A BILLION YEARS SINCE LARAMIE AND I have sat next to each other at the Coleman Creamery counter, but when she asks me to meet her there on Saturday afternoon, I say yes right away.

  She’s waiting for me when I get there, watching Leif work. She looks over when the door moos, and smiles. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I say, sliding onto the stool she saved for me.

  Leif is busy, but he asks what I want. Laramie almost drops her cone when I tell him to surprise me.

  “What happened to butter pecan?” She sounds almost accusatory.

  I shrug. “Life’s too short to only try one ice-cream flavor.”

  “Have you brainwashed her?” Laramie says to Leif.

  He just grins. A couple of minutes later, he hands me a cup of curry mint ice cream. Laramie stares in disbelief as I try it, declare it’s good, and take another bite.

  “Anything else you want to tell me? Do you suddenly eat meat now, too?”

  I laugh. “Uh, no. But Denise and Tim and the baby left yesterday, so nobody will be cooking meat in our house, either.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I don’t tell her that I cried a little bit when I hugged Denise good-bye. I can still smell the patchouli as she leaned down, kissed my cheeks, and said, I love you, sweet girl. “The house was a little crowded, but Denise is, like, the best person ever. And they asked me to be the baby’s godmother.”

  “Aren’t we too young to be godparents?”

  “I guess not.”

  Laramie glances around the shop, tucking a piece of hair behind her ears. She’s been nervous ever since the rumor Nicolette spread, like she’s always worried people are talking about her. The noise has died down over the past couple of days, but some people are still whispering at school. Edie overheard one of them in art class. “Gross,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t you have anything better to talk about?”

  When Leif walks away to help a customer, Laramie swivels toward me. Her toes tap against the leg of my stool. “I’m sorry.”

  I lick ice cream from the back of my spoon and look at her. Dad always says you’re supposed to say what you’re sorry for when you apologize to someone. I wonder if Laramie is going to say anything else.

  “You were right about Nicolette. She’s not a nice person. Even when it wasn’t about me… she says mean things about people just because she can.”

  “So, why did you keep hanging out with her for so long?” I’m not trying to make her feel bad, but I actually want to know. It was like someone else took over my best friend’s body for a few weeks.

  “At first… I guess because she’s an eighth grader and popular.” Laramie sighs. “I wanted to see what it was like.”

  “But you’re already popular!”

  “I’m seventh-grade popular, not eighth-grade popular. There’s a difference.”

  She’s not wrong.

  “But then, I started to like Gavin, and I could tell… I mean, I thought he liked me, too. He would look at me different from how he looked at everyone else. And he’d always hang back to talk to me about comics when we were in a group. Even after Nicolette told me she liked him, I kept hanging around them because… I don’t know. I just thought it would work out, or whatever. I guess I should’ve known it was a bad idea when even Leif asked why I was hanging out with them.”

  “Did you have fun, at least? When you were with them?”

  Laramie shrugs. “Sometimes. When they weren’t so busy trying to be cool. But I missed you. I missed just being myself and people being okay with that.” She clears her throat as she looks at me. “Are we still… you know… best friends?”

  “Laramie.” I set down my ice cream. “Of course we are. I mean, Edie is my friend, t
oo, and I wasn’t just hanging out with her because you started hanging around Nicolette. She’s a good friend and person. And not a poser.”

  “I shouldn’t have said those things about her,” she says. “But Nicolette was—”

  “Can we make a pact?”

  Laramie looks at me curiously.

  “Can we try to go the rest of the month without saying Nicolette McKee’s name? It’s bad enough I have to look at her house every day.” I shudder.

  “Deal. Let’s try for the rest of the year.” She leans closer, her shoulder bumping mine. “Hey… can I have a bite of your curry mint? I’ve never tried it.”

  “You should really branch out more, Laramie,” I say in a voice that sounds a whole lot like She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

  Laramie laughs as she dips her spoon into my cup of ice cream.

  “Edie is coming over for our horror movie marathon this year,” I say. “The day before Halloween, since her party is the night of. Want to come?”

  Laramie makes a face. “Yes, but… do we have to watch Jaws?”

  “We definitely do not have to watch Jaws.”

  “Will you make fun of me if I spend most of the marathon with my hand over my eyes?”

  “Never,” I say. “But I can’t promise Elliott won’t.”

  Laramie laughs again, and I realize how much I’ve missed this. Sitting with her at the creamery, making plans and giggling about nothing. It’s nice.

  Leif glances over as he passes by. He gives me a thumbs-up with a questioning look.

  I nod, grinning. I’m pretty sure Laramie and I are going to be okay.

  ALL HALLOWS’ EVE

  THE B&B IS TOTALLY DECKED OUT FOR HALLOWEEN.

  Cobwebs cling to every surface outside, from the sign that now says WHITMAN INN to the eaves above the porch. Plastic skeleton bones are scattered around the yard, and two skulls sit on either side of the stairs leading to the porch. A ghoulish mask of a witch with bright red eyes and a screaming mouth sits over the door knocker.

  “They really go all out, huh?” Laramie raises her eyebrows as I knock.

  “It’s Edie’s favorite holiday.”