Maizon at Blue Hill

by Jacqueline Woodson

  I nodded, not knowing what to say.

  “Mind if we sit down?” Mrs. Miller asked, sitting down on the bed across from mine and running her palm across the wrinkles in the dark blue blanket. The beds were identical, right down to the white sheets and blue-flowered pillowcases. I had chosen the one closer to the window.

  Miss Norman pulled a chair away from one of the two small desks against the wall and brought it up to the foot of the bed. She was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt that had Blue Hill Chameleons in bright orange-and-black letters across the front.

  I closed my suitcase and sat down on a small corner of the bed.

  “So, how’re you settling in, Maizon?” Mrs. Miller asked, crossing her legs and pulling her dress down around her knees.

  I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. This school is pretty.”

  “Scary, isn’t it?” Miss Norman leaned forward a little, . resting her elbows on her knees. A glint came into her eyes when she smiled.

  I nodded. “I met some people already. Charli and Sheila ... and Marie.”

  Mrs. Miller gave a small laugh. “Blue Hill’s own welcoming committee.... Did Charli try to recruit you for our field-hockey team yet?”

  “I don’t know how to play.”

  “That’s not a problem. Miss Norman is the best coach this school has seen in I don’t know how long—field hockey and basketball.”

  “You play basketball?” I couldn’t believe it. In Brooklyn, even the girls’ basketball coaches had been men.

  Miss Norman held up one of her feet. “This year’s sneaker,” she said about the red-on-white Nike high-top. “The whole team will have them. B-ball doesn’t start until winter though. Nice shoes, huh?”

  I nodded. I’d always loved high-tops.

  “Think about joining, Maizon. Junior varsity could use some new blood.”

  I shrugged. The last thing I wanted was to look spastic in front of a bunch of strangers. “Maybe ...”

  “Well,” Mrs. Miller said, “there’s also the debate team and track, and of course, the Blue Hill Journal.That’s our school paper. I hear you like to write.”

  “Yes. But I think I’m going to need to study a lot—”

  “There’ll be plenty of time to study,” Mrs. Miller said quickly. “Ask any student here. And I’ll be happy to tutor you in math if you need it.”

  I shook my head. “I’m taking advanced math—Algebra Two. Tested into it.”

  She nodded. “Then I’ll be seeing plenty of you. I’m teaching that class this year.”

  Miss Norman slapped her thighs and rose. “Think about field hockey, Maizon. I’d love to have you on the team. And feel free to come over and talk to me. I’m in the English Department when I’m not on the field.”

  “What do you teach?”

  Miss Norman grimaced. “British literature this year. Any interest in Beowulf?”

  I giggled. “I like Grendel better than Beowulf. And the Green Knight better than Sir Gawain.”

  “My goodness!” Mrs. Miller said, raising her eyebrows. “When did you do all of this reading?”

  I swallowed, looking down at my loafers. “I spent a lot of time reading when I was at home. Sometimes that was all I had to do. I don’t really like television. So I had a contest with myself. I went to the library and tried to read all the fiction that I could pronounce the titles of. But last summer I didn’t get to read so much. I was spending a lot of time with my friend, Margaret. Then her father died and she started spending more and more time with her family. I went back to reading when Margaret wasn’t around. That’s why I’m here, I guess. Everybody thinks I should keep learning more and more.”

  For a moment neither teacher said a word.

  Then Miss Norman’s soft voice floated through the silence. “We’re here for you to talk to, Maizon. The first few weeks are the hardest. I think you can get through them though. Especially if you think about playing field hockey!”

  I looked up to see Mrs. Miller grinning.

  Miss Norman winked at me again. “We’re sort of what Charli, Sheila, and Marie are aspiring to be—the welcoming committee.”

  “Did the girls tell you that your roommate will be here later this evening?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Her name is Sandra—Sandy. She’s in her second year here. I think you two will get along well.”

  “Is Charli still wearing those shades?” Miss Norman asked.

  I laughed and nodded.

  “I tell you,” she said. “That girl is going to take them off one day and not have any eyes behind them!”

  9

  Come on, Maizon,“ Charli called, reaching for my hand and nearly dragging me to catch up with Marie and Sheila. I had changed into my uniform because we weren’t allowed to go into the dining hall in regular clothes. The skirt felt strange flapping against my bare thighs and the Peter Pan collar on the white shirt we had to wear was tight around my neck. My favorite part of the whole uniform was the patch on the pocket, with the gold thread that spelled out ”Blue Hill.“ Charli, Sheila, and Marie’s uniforms were different. Because they were in the upper school, they got to wear boxy blazers and dark blue skirts. I wanted a blazer like theirs, but Charli had explained that the school gave them bigger blazers to hide their breasts. Blue Hill didn’t think it had to worry about that problem with lower school freshmen. They were right. My blazer fell in a flat line across my chest. Even the white shirt underneath it didn’t cause it to bulk.

  We were walking across the field that separated our dorm from the main hall and I had dropped behind the others to watch the way the sun set behind the hill. It was so pretty, I thought I’d start crying. I wanted to tell someone about it, but I didn’t know Charli and them well enough. Clusters of girls were emerging from the other dorms, making their way to the dining hall. “Dinner doesn’t wait for anyone around here,” Charli said, pressing her shades up on her nose.

  The four of us entered the dining hall together, and for a moment, I felt like we were banding together against everyone. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make any friends here, but I didn’t want to risk it by hanging with just Marie, Sheila, and Charli.

  The dining hall was big and warm. There were about twenty tables all set with white tablecloths, off-white plates, and silver. Black-and-white rag rugs were laid out in the aisles between the tables. Logs sat at the far corner beside a huge fireplace.

  “Sit at our table,” Marie said. “It’s over there.” She pointed to the corner table and then went off to speak to a group of older girls huddled in the corner.

  “You have to serve tonight, Charli,” Mrs. Miller said. “With or without the shades.”

  Charli scowled, then headed off to the kitchen, leaving Sheila and me alone at the table.

  “I think you’re going to like Blue Hill, Maizon. It’s a good school. It’s hard on some kids. But it all depends on what you came here for.” Sheila shrugged. “Me, I just came here to get some good learning before I head off for Spelman.” She picked up a fork and twirled it on the table. “Sometimes, I hate this place.”

  “You just said it’s not so bad.”

  Sheila looked at me like she was about to say something, then caught herself and started twirling her fork again. “You’ll see what it’s like, Maizon,” she said slowly. “Then you’ll know what I mean.”

  I pulled out a chair at the head of the table and sat down. Then turned in my seat to see the other girls. Everyone seemed to know each other.

  “Somebody sock you, Charli?” someone called across the dining hall. Charli set a basket of bread on our table, then raised her shades and winked in the direction of the voice.

  “It’s this year’s look,” Charli said, heading back toward the kitchen. Another girl came out and set a plate of chicken on the table across from ours.

  The dining hall was filling up quickly. I had never seen so many girls together in one place.

  “Hi, Maizon.” A brown-haired girl stood at the edge
of our table. “I’m Sandy, your roommate.”

  “Hi,” I said. My heart sank a bit. I’d been hoping Sandy would be black.

  “Hi, Sheila. Happy autumn.”

  Without lifting her head, Sheila waved in the direction of Sandy’s voice.

  “Well ... I guess I’ll see you back at the room later, Maizon.”

  I nodded. “Later, Sandy.”

  We were the only ones sitting at our table, which was set for six.

  “Black bonding,” Marie said to me, pulling a chair out at the other end of the table. “It’s good for the spirit.”

  I served myself a piece of chicken, some peas, and a spoonful of rice. I chewed slowly, liking the newness of the food. The chicken could’ve used some salt and the rice was a little dry, but I was starving, so it didn’t matter.

  “Pass me the bread, please,” Sheila said.

  I took a dinner roll and passed the basket to Sheila.

  Marie looked annoyed. “Maizon, you don’t serve yourself when you’re passing the food. You let the other person help themselves first. Otherwise, it’s rude.”

  “Oh, kill it, Marie. I don’t mind.” Sheila took a roll, broke off a piece, and buttered it.

  “I do things my way, Marie.” I laid my fork beside my plate and glared at her. She glared back. “If I want a piece of bread, I take it.”

  “It’s rude. It means you have no home training.”

  “I don’t care if it means I paint my nails green. It’s my way of doing it, and to me, that’s how it’s done!”

  Marie glared at me a moment longer, then stuffed a forkful of peas in her mouth.

  I tore my roll in half, buttered it, and crammed the whole half into my mouth.

  “There’s Pauli,” Sheila said, motioning her head in the direction of the door.

  A black girl was walking briskly toward a table at the far end of the dining hall.

  “Oreo,” Marie muttered under her breath.

  “What grade is she in?” I asked hopefully. Pauli looked about my age. Maybe a little older.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Charli said, rolling her eyes. “Pauli doesn’t hang with sisters.”

  “She’s assimilated,” Marie added, snidely.

  Pauli had thrown her head back and was laughing with the group of white girls sitting at her table. They stared at her adoringly.

  I picked up another piece of chicken with my fingers and dared Marie to say something.

  Charli turned to me. “Pauli really doesn’t hang with us, so it doesn’t matter what grade she’s in.”

  “Sort of sad,” Sheila added. “She’s way disconnected. Every time Blue Hill does something like a black history month celebration or bringing a black woman up to speak for women’s history month, Pauli never gets involved. It’s like she doesn’t want to face the fact that she’s black.”

  “Maybe she’s just not interested in those things,” I suggested.

  Charli raised her shades and crossed her eyes at me. “Maybe she just doesn’t deal.”

  I shrugged. What they were saying made me even more interested in Pauli.

  “Speaking of dealing,” Sheila cut in, “Cadman is having a dance this winter.”

  They all squealed and giggled. Charli blew a kiss at nothing, then laughed.

  “Cadman’s the boys’ school in the next town, Maizon,” Sheila explained. “Do they have some fine numbers going there!”

  “Remember Ron? Brown skinned, brown eyes baby-cakes?” Charli closed her eyes. “Man, could that boy turn a slow dance into a dangerous thing!”

  “And Curtis, who graduated last year? I’m gonna write him,” Marie added.

  “Marie, you already have a college boy. No stockpiling.” Sheila laughed, elbowing Marie.

  I hated the way girls got silly-eyed over boys. I didn’t get it. Something about boys made even the smartest girls seem dumber than tree stumps.

  “We’ll hook you up with someone nice, Maizon,” Charli offered.

  “No interest, Charli.”

  They all looked at me, saying nothing. Then Charli smiled. “Don’t worry. I didn’t have an interest either. Then one day I woke up and boom!—the boys were all right!

  “Anyway,” Charli added, rising, “We’re having chocolate cake for dessert.”

  “What does that have to do with guys?” Marie asked.

  “I don’t know.” Charli lifted her glass of milk to her mouth and drained it. “Figured since we’re so smart, maybe we could make some sort of connection.”

  I giggled and forked the last bit of rice into my mouth before handing my empty plate to Charli.

  After dinner, I walked slowly back from the dining hall by myself, wanting to take in Connecticut without anybody else around. A group of girls giggled past me, their Blue Hill jackets draped across their shoulders. One girl turned and waved and I waved back without smiling.

  The sky was the color of ink. Black like my mother’s eyes in the pictures Grandma had on the mantelpiece back home. Stars speckled it with tiny dots of light. I stopped in the middle of the field and clenched my eyes against the tears I knew would come if I let them. The air blowing against my face was cool. I swallowed big gulps of it. There was something I wanted to consume. I was thinking about my father; only, he wasn’t like the man in the picture with Mama. That man was tall with skin the color of autumn—all golden-brown and soft—and curly hair. The man that came to mind was Margaret’s father—Mr. Tory—even though he died last summer. Mr. Tory was blocking out the image of my father. I walked slowly, swallowing every few steps, my head thrown back against the breeze. An awful loneliness came over me, working its way up from the middle of my stomach to the center of my chest. I needed to picture my father and I couldn’t. I hated him so much for leaving me. Hated him like I’ve never ever hated anybody. Margaret was lucky. She had a word for what her father was. Death was something solid—something with a name and place to it. Something certain. But for where my father was, I didn’t have anything. I didn’t know if he would ever show up again. The only thing I was sure of was that he had come to Grandma’s house on a cold day in April with me bundled up in blankets. He had me in one arm and a suitcase in the other.

  “I can’t take care of her,” he had whispered to Grandma, handing me over.

  And then he was gone, taking with him one big suitcase and the face my mother had fallen in love with. The thought of him drifts back and forth and I’m always wondering if he’ll return. Sometimes I pray that he doesn’t. And sometimes I hope he will. I wish on falling stars and eyelashes. Absence isn’t solid the way death is. It’s fluid, like language. And it hurts so much ... so, so much.

  A mosquito buzzed closed to the side of my head and I shooed it away. “Eeny Meeny Miney Mo ...” I sang softly to myself. Somewhere far off, bells were ringing. I walked through the grass, feeling the earth go soft beneath my loafers. “Let’s catch Maizon by her toes. If she hollers, don’t let her go.... Eeny Meeny Miney Mo....”

  Something was missing. I wondered if Blue Hill was the beginning of something always being missing.

  10

  Maizon, can I borrow your soap?“ I wrapped my towel tighter around me. Claudette stood in front of me, stark naked. I’d met her at orientation last night.

  The bathroom was big, with three showers and four toilet stalls. But I had never had to share a bathroom with anyone, and standing on the cold tile with other girls brushing their teeth at the sink and one in front of me stark naked was something I’d never imagined myself doing.

  I handed Claudette the plastic soap container.

  “Thanks,” she said, darting toward the shower. “I left mine back in my room.” I walked over to a sink that was freed up by a girl I didn’t know who had been blow-drying her hair in front of it, and started combing my hair. Around me, other girls went about their morning duties in various stages of undress. Most of them just had on bras and panties. Even if I wore a bra, I wouldn’t walk around in it with nothing else on. I looked
at my skinny shoulders in the mirror. Sharing or no sharing, I wasn’t about to let the girls see how undeveloped I was.

  “You can give it to me later,” I called to Claudette, gathering my stuff together.

  “Thanks,” she yelled back over the running water.

  Back in my room, I dressed slowly, then tried to get some more unpacking done. Sandy had already left, so I had the room all to myself for a few minutes. My tour person would be coming at nine. But at eight forty-five, there was a knock on the door.

  “I’m Susan,” a brown-haired girl with glasses said. “I’ve been assigned to show you around. I’m a junior here.”

  “I’m Maizon,” I said, moving aside to let her in. “Make yourself comfortable. I was doing a little unpacking.”

  “I’m kind of in a rush,” Susan said, brushing past me and sitting on Sandy’s bed.

  I hung a pair of sweatpants in the closet, then folded a T-shirt and put it in the dresser drawer at the head of my bed. “I guess this can wait until we come back....”

  Susan watched my hands as I worked and I wondered what she could be thinking. I had seen her in the cafeteria last night, but hadn’t paid much attention to her. She was shorter than I was, with a face that sort of pinched itself into a frown.

  “You remind me of the lady who works for my family,” Susan said. “She has hair like yours—cut short. And she folds and hangs everything up carefully like you. Her last name is Peterson. You know her?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought maybe you guys were related.” Susan leaned back on her elbows and eyed the room. “My room’s bigger than this.”

  “Yeah, so’s Marie and Sheila’s down the hall. They say lower school freshmen get the short end of the stick around here.”

  “I thought they gave you a cheapie room ‘cause you’re on scholarship, since you’re not really contributing to the cost.”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me. I don’t need a lot of space.” I started counting to ten in my head, because Grandma had said I should do that before deciding I didn’t like a person. She said sometimes by the time you get to seven, you’re already liking the person more.