Faking Reality

by Zaria Garrison

  The three girls stood in line with their compacts in hand to check their makeup and hair. A blond teenager dressed in a green elf costume with red and white striped tights took their money and led them over to Santa. Yolanda stood back and watched as they took their places on his lap and around him.

  “Come on, Momlanda,” Priscilla said, inviting her into the picture.

  Yolanda found a safe spot to lay their packages, then happily joined the girls standing beside Santa Claus. They moved around and did several different poses before finally leaving to allow the next child in line his turn. It had taken almost all day, but Yolanda was finally able to shake the feeling of being the oddball. She suggested that their next stop should be a place where they could find nice frames for their photos, and the girls actually agreed. Yolanda was ecstatic. As they stood by the printer waiting for their photos to print out, Yolanda suddenly heard a scream coming from behind her.

  “That’s her! That’s Yolanda Snow from Revelations!”

  She turned around and another scream went pulsing through the mall. “Oh my goodness, it’s really her!”

  Before she could stop it from happening, Yolanda was swamped by a sea of people screaming her name while asking for autographs and photos with her. The feeling of euphoria that swept over her was something Yolanda had never known was possible. As long as she could remember, she’d dreamed of being famous. As a child, she’d stand in her bedroom and practice saying her Oscar acceptance speech while holding up a bottle of lotion. In high school, she dreamed of the day when she’d have paparazzi following her every step and fans clamoring for her attention. With all of the commotion surrounding Julian and the strain it had placed on her marriage and family, Yolanda had completely forgotten the reason she’d so desperately wanted to do the show in the first place. A young black boy around the age often held up a piece of paper to her and it all came rushing back. “Can I have your autograph, please? You’re my favorite person on the show,” he said with a shy smile.

  “Of course, I’ll sign it.” She looked out into the crowd. “I’ll sign them all!” she said, beaming.

  For almost an hour, Yolanda smiled and posed for camera phone pictures, signed autographs, and even kissed a few babies as if she were running for president until mall security arrived and began to disperse the crowd.

  “Mrs. Snow, we need you to follow us and go out the back entrance so that we can clear this area. It’s beginning to get congested and dangerous,” one of the guards said.

  “Okay, I just have to get my daughter and her friends.” Yolanda began to look around for the girls, and then suddenly realized that she had not seen them at all since the crowd gathered. “Priscilla?” she yelled over the crowd.

  “We’ll find her, but first we have to get you out of here,” the guard said.

  Yolanda turned and smiled and waved once more to the crowd. Flanked by two security guards, she made her way through the mall, down to the food court, and out to the back parking lot.

  “I’ve radioed the valet. He’s going to bring your car around for you,” the guard said.

  “Thank you, but I need to find my daughter and her friends first. The last time I saw them, we were all standing next to Santa’s workshop.”

  Before he could respond, the guard received a call on his radio from the valet station. After answering he turned to Yolanda. “They said your car is gone. Apparently your daughter and her friends have already picked up the car and left. Do you want me to call a cab for you?”

  Feeling flabbergasted, Yolanda could not respond. She could only nod her head.

  Yolanda arrived at her home an hour later. She paid the cab driver and stormed angrily into her house. “Priscilla Monique Snow, get down here right now!” she screamed.

  “She’s not here,” Jimmy said.

  Yolanda stomped into the family room where Jimmy was sitting in his leather recliner. “Don’t tell me she’s not back from the mall yet? That girl is going to be grounded until she’s wrinkled and grey. How dare she leave me like that?”

  Jimmy laid down the magazine he was reading. “Calm down. Priscilla came home over an hour ago. She told me what happened at the mall, and I gave her permission to go over to Lavette’s for the rest of the day.”

  “What do you mean she told you what happened and you gave her permission to leave? Did she tell you that she took my car and left me stranded at the mall?”

  Jimmy nodded. “She also told me why she left you. Aren’t you interested in knowing?”

  “There is no excuse for what she did. I’m sure she gave you some lame explanation. Then she batted those long eyelashes and gave you the puppy-dog eyes, but I am not falling for it. When she gets home, she’s going to be grounded for the next month.”

  “No, she’s not.”

  Yolanda stared at him, stunned. “What?”

  “I said you are not going to ground her for a month. You really need to calm down and just listen for a few minutes.”

  “Listen to what? I just came in and told you that Priscilla left me at the mall, and you are sitting here defending her without even listening to my side of the story. You’ve never gone against me when I chose to punish one of the children. What is going on with you?”

  “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

  “You don’t have to ask me that. I just told you that Priscilla and her friends got into my car and drove away from the mall without me. They didn’t ask if it was okay. They didn’t say they were leaving. They didn’t say anything to me at all.”

  “That would have been kind of hard to do with all your adoring fans in their way, don’t you think?”

  “So I signed some autographs. What does that have to do with anything?”

  Jimmy gestured toward a chair, inviting her to sit down. “This shopping day has been a family tradition between you and Priscilla for years. Now I understand that you had no control over being recognized in the mall, but you could have handled it better.”

  “I know that it’s a family tradition, and I was really looking forward to our day together, but she wanted those girls to come along, and I agreed. Then she and her friends ignored me all day. They barely said a word to me, and when I spoke, they acted as if I’d committed a cardinal sin.”

  “They were being teenagers. Did you really think she wanted to try on a frilly lace dress in front of her friends? She’s seventeen, not seven. You’ve been shopping with Priscilla and her friends before. Was it really that different?”

  “Well, no, but I just felt so left out. I wanted to spend the day with Priscilla. It’s our tradition.”

  “And she wanted to spend it with you too, especially after all the tension that’s been going on around here lately.”

  “If that’s true, then why did she leave me? Tell me why.”

  Jimmy laughed. “Oh, so now you wanna know?”

  “Stop teasing and just tell me.” She tossed a throw pillow at him.

  “She was upset because you guys had planned to get frames for your photos, then drop the girls off and the two of you were going to dinner. But you forgot about all of that to pose for pictures and sign autographs. She stood there for half an hour waiting. Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

  “What was I supposed to do? Just turn all those people away? They were fans of the show. The last thing I wanted to do was be rude to them. Being rude to your fans can kill your career.”

  “What career, Yolanda? We are done with that reality show, and you don’t have a career. You don’t have to be rude to people, but you are getting caught up in this whole celebrity lifestyle and making bad decisions because of it.”

  “You don’t understand, Jimmy,” Yolanda pouted.

  “You’re right. I don’t understand. I have no idea why you would care more about photo ops and autographs than you do about your relationship with our daughter. Even with all of the turmoil being on television has brought into our lives, you are still basking in the glow of your own starlig
ht. Our daughter was embarrassed and ridiculed because of your actions on this show, and you left her standing alone to watch you being cheered by your fans? I don’t understand that at all.” He stood up to leave the room. “By the way, I already grounded her for one week because regardless of how hurt she was, she was still wrong to leave you the way that she did.”

  “If you grounded her already, then what was the reason for this whole conversation we just had?”

  He looked at her with sadness in his eyes. “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

  “And what does that mean, Pastor?” she asked sarcastically.

  “That’s something you are going to have to figure out on your own, Yolanda,” he said before leaving her alone.

  Yolanda slumped back into the couch and tried her best to figure out the scripture Jimmy had just recited. As much as she loved him, it annoyed her when he recited scripture, then left her to figure it out. She’d much rather he say it plainly, but Jimmy rarely did. She was still thinking it over when Jimmy came running down the stairs half an hour later.

  “I just got a call from Brandon. The police found Tia. Get your coat and let’s go.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Charlene stuck her fork into her third piece of sweet potato pie. She slid it into her mouth and swallowed without even tasting it before digging in and taking another bite. Since she’d been a teenager, Charlene had been an emotional eater. By her sixteenth birthday, her clothing size matched her age due to her inability to find another way to deal with her issues.

  After medical school and during her residency, she managed to conquer her weight problem with diet and exercise, but the emotional eating was still a part of her life. Whenever she failed a test, she ate. If her superiors were displeased with her work, she ate. The morning after she experienced the death of a patient for the first time, she ate. All of the turbulent moments of her life had been punctuated with eating binges. But those moments had been few and far between. Thankfully, after meeting and marrying Zack, things had been so perfect she’d never had a reason to eat a whole box of Mallowmars in one sitting. But now that he was gone, she found herself absorbed in food once again.

  Her children were spending the remainder of the holiday week with her parents, while she carried on a clandestine affair with leftover turkey and mashed potatoes. After that, she’d consumed a can of cranberry sauce, two bowls of green beans, four dinner rolls, and a half pan full of broccoli casserole. Now she was lying in her bed, polishing off the last of the sweet potato pie and hoping that her sister had forgotten to take the last few slices of her homemade coconut cake.

  During their family’s Thanksgiving dinner the day before, Charlene had been stunned at her family’s reaction to her asking Zack to leave. As they sat around the dinner table, she could hardly believe the words coming out of their mouths.

  “You put your husband out because you found out he’s black?” her mother asked.

  “No, Mama, it’s not because he’s black. It’s because he lied to me about being white. All this time that I’ve known him, he’s been pretending to be someone else.”

  Her brother, Peter, laughed. “I’ve always said Zack was the blackest white man I’d ever met. He loves soul food, gospel music, basketball, and thick women. I bet next, we are going to find out that Bill Clinton is passing too.”

  “It’s not funny. How can you sit here and make jokes about it? Zack has been passing for most of his life. I can’t believe I’m the only one bothered by this,” Charlene complained.

  “I understand that you are upset that he’s been hiding this from you. But unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes, you have no right to judge him. I’m confused sitting here listening to this story. I can only imagine the life of confusion he’s lived,” her mother said.

  “So he was confused, I get that. But why couldn’t he confide in me?”

  “He did, and you threw him out of his home,” her father chimed in.

  “But, Daddy, that was after living with him for twelve years believing he was white. He’s been hiding in the basement dying his hair and putting in contacts all this time. He paid someone ten grand to keep his secret. How could he keep this from me for so long?”

  “He couldn’t tell you on your first date because he had no idea where this relationship was going. After you became serious and decided to marry, it was too late. If he’d told you at that time, you would have reacted exactly the same way as you are now,” her father chided her.

  “Daddy’s right,” Peter added. “You expected him to share something with you that nobody even shared with him until he was ten years old. It’s a secret that his family still doesn’t talk about. You are always ranting about how much you love Zack, but you have no compassion for what his life must have been like.”

  “His life has been made easier by passing. I understand that.”

  “Has it really? Let me ask you this. Has his family even seen Coretta yet? Or a better question might be, do they even want to?” Peter asked.

  “Zack is not close to his family, and they’ve always had a problem with the fact that he married a black woman. They are the ones who made him pass in the first place. So no, they haven’t seen Coretta, and they probably don’t want to.”

  “Charlene, think about it.” Peter poked her in the forehead to emphasize his point. “If they don’t want to see your children, can you imagine what kind of life Zack had having to live with those people? They hated his blackness and made him hide it.”

  “You’re right, but why did he continue to do it after he moved to Atlanta?”

  “They are still his family. Until he married you, they were all that he had. You make it seem as if the choice was obvious and easy. I’m sure that it wasn’t,” Peter said.

  “We never liked the fact that you married a white man, but that didn’t make you turn your back on us. Family ties are sometimes complicated, but you hang in there with love and understanding. I’m certainly not going to sit here and defend his dishonesty. It was clearly wrong. The man painted himself into a corner, and I understand that you feel betrayed, but is that enough reason to end your marriage?” her father asked.

  Charlene didn’t answer him. Instead, she grabbed the last turkey drumstick from the table and stuffed it into her mouth. Rather than deal with her feelings about Zack, she had continued to eat almost nonstop.

  Now she was lying on the bed swirling her fork around the empty pie tin, wondering what else she could find in her kitchen to eat when she heard a knock at her back door. She tied the sash on her tattered blue terry cloth robe and slipped her feet into a pair of bunny slippers. One of the bunny’s ears was missing, but they were warm and comfortable, so she put them on anyway and trudged downstairs.

  I’m going to fire Marty, she thought as she saw Vanessa standing on the other side of the door. She’d given him specific instructions to not let anyone past the gate because she wasn’t in the mood for company. “What do you want?” she asked grumpily.

  “Stop playing, girl, and open this door,” Vanessa ordered.

  Charlene unlocked the door and walked away so that Vanessa could let herself in while she went to the refrigerator in search of her new best friend. There were no more leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, so she grabbed a pack of sliced ham and the jar of mayonnaise from the fridge. Then she grabbed a loaf of bread from the bread box, sat down at the table, and began making sandwiches. “Want one?” she asked.

  “Why don’t you stop eating all this food and call Zack?”

  “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  “Girl, please. I’ve known you your whole life, and I know that when you eat like this, it’s because you are upset.”

  Charlene piled three slices of ham on her sandwich and took a big bite. “I’m upset because my husband lied to me.”

  Vanessa sat down at the table and pushed the food out of Charlene’s reach. “Look, I’m the last person that you’d think would def
end Zack, but I really think you are being too hard on him.”

  “You too, Vanessa?”

  “What do you mean, me too?”

  “Yesterday at dinner, Momma, Daddy, and Peter were all defending him. For all of these years none of you have given two flips about my husband, and now, you all are taking his side over mine. It’s crazy.”

  “We are on your side, Charlene. The fact that we’ve all put aside how we personally felt about Zack all these years should tell you something. We’ve had our issues, but we all know that Zack is not a bad person. He’s weird, with his sneered-up nose and refusal to shake hands, but weird is not bad. It’s just who he is. Frankly, I don’t understand why you asked him to leave.”

  “Okay, let me say this really slowly so you can get it. My husband has been pretending to be white for years, when he’s really black.”

  Vanessa shrugged her shoulders, “So?”

  Exasperated, Charlene went back to the fridge and grabbed a six-pack of her son’s chocolate fudge pudding and a spoon from the drawer by the sink. She sat down again in front of Vanessa. “What do you mean, so?” she asked between bites.

  “What is it that you always say to me?” Vanessa paused, then continued while doing her best impersonation of Charlene. “Zack is a good man, and he loves me. What difference does it make what color he is?”

  Charlene scraped the bottom of the pudding cup, and then opened another one. “It really doesn’t matter to me what color he is. How come nobody understands that it’s the dishonesty that I have an issue with?”

  “To be perfectly honest, I don’t believe you for one minute.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Charlene rolled her neck. “What do you mean you don’t believe me?”

  “I don’t believe you. I know you, girl. I think that you’ve enjoyed being in an interracial relationship and all the attention that goes along with it. Now that you know the truth, you realize that you aren’t special anymore. You are married to just another brother like the rest of the sistas.”

  Charlene shoved in two more spoonfuls of pudding before answering. “I’m so ashamed, but you’re right. When Zack told me he isn’t white, I felt . . . I felt disappointed. Isn’t that awful? I mean I was mad that he’d been dishonest, but I was suddenly disappointed that I didn’t have the white man that I married.”