Girl in Reverse (9781442497368)

by Stuber, Barbara

  “These are marks of prejudice. Things like this happen to me every day.” I tilt my head—ching-chong. I touch my eyebrow for slant eye. I demonstrate sidesteps in the hall. “Oh, and the buckteeth . . .”

  There’s the faint squeak of Mr. Howard unscrewing a lightbulb in the ceiling. Otherwise there’s not a sound.

  “Fear creates prejudice. Fear thwarts thinking.”

  The guy sitting next to my empty desk looks confused. “ ‘Thwart’ means to stop something. Thwarted thinking is the opposite of using your brain. It’s letting your brain get washed.” I wait for someone to cough “thwart.” “During war we don’t usually know the enemy as distinct people who live in another country. We typecast whole races of people from a distance.” I know the word “typecast” is lost on everybody, but at least I know what it means. “The wars happening in this building are very quiet—an ink mark, a cough, a look, but they’re deadly too.”

  Mr. Howard and I both know I am quoting him almost exactly. I hear my chest fill with air and exhale.

  I hold up Elliot’s new cartoon. “I would pass this around, but since I have touched it, you might become infected with Communism.” Neil sits, arms folded, legs extended, ankles crossed. I lock eyes with him for half a second. He stretches and produces an elaborate yawn with a long huh . . . at the end. I know what he’s doing—waiting for the chorus of affirmative yawns from his classmates. But there aren’t any today. I feel unexpectedly sad for Neil, who is still acting so stupid. I guess he doesn’t know what to do. Maybe I wouldn’t either.

  “That’s me in the crosswalk. The weapons pointed at me aren’t guns, they’re words.” I cover my mouth and cough the word “commie.” I sneeze “chink.” Anger buzzes through me thinking of Ralph feeling the slap of prejudice because of me. Infuriating. “Any one of us might be in this crosswalk mistaking the thoughtless insults of others for truth. We draw mustaches on each other all the time.”

  I pause, my heart pounding. Mr. Howard hangs above the doorway—huge and immovable. Miss Arth is silent. She must know he will swoop down and eat her whole. My next remark, before I die, is just for her. “Witnessing slurs and doing nothing is silent encouragement.”

  I pin my two current events to the bulletin board.

  Miss Arth checks the clock, traces her chipped purple fingernail down her grade book, and announces the next presenter. Patty Kittle!

  Patty’s report is about the fund drive the Red Cross Club is sponsoring. “Uh, Elliot James is, uh, or was, donating his award-winning artwork for our auction,” she says, slicing me with a look. “But . . . uh . . . now I don’t know what he’ll . . .”

  Atalanta and Meleager. HA! I sit, feeling the flame jerking and fluttering inside. I can’t get my heart to slow down. I did the right thing, with help.

  Just before the dismissal bell, maybe on purpose or maybe not, Mr. Howard drops a lightbulb on his way down the ladder. It pops off the floor and shatters. “Oops!” He gets busy, a buffalo with a whisk broom and dustpan blocking the doorway so everyone has to congregate in front of the bulletin board before heading out. They peer at my current events, wordless, and inch out of the room—an army of snails, tucked under their shells.

  * * *

  I leave school and walk all the way to The Thinker. Our class acted dull as a dry sponge. Mr. Howard was amazing though. Bodhisattvas can climb ladders when they need to.

  “I did it,” I say to The Thinker. “I made a speech in front of my whole class. I will probably get a detention for insulting my teacher, which is fine by me. Detentions are doorways.” Squirrels skitter all over the sculpture. A lady with two dogs shuffles up. They sniff my shoes and go on. Hello, good-bye.

  I sit back, a chilly mist on my face, fighting the nasty tide starting to roll inside me—the front edge of a familiar storm of old insults—wondering if I’ll be an even bigger target now, remembering how Neil tried to start an all-class yawn and how nobody did it. Funny how someone not yawning in your face can feel like a victory.

  On Monday everybody will probably act like it never happened, the same way my parents act like Michael Benton never happened. They simply dropped the subject of him—a whole human poofed away—the Firestone way. All I notice is that Dad acts less joke-book and a little more man-of-the-house weird and Mother looks right through me. She’s made me invisible, which is much worse than her disappearing into the bedroom.

  I head inside the museum, straight upstairs, and sink onto a bench in the temple. I cry a little from relief and from knowing that life, that I, will never be quite the same.

  My heart finally slows down. I look around. If a room could be the perfect blanket, the Chinese Temple is that room—the lacy carved gates, the trace of sandalwood, the warm light, the honesty between Michael Benton and his wife that I witnessed in here.

  If a statue could be a perfect person, the bodhisattva is that person. Its crystal gaze ignites the air. Michael Benton called it rasa—the feelings an object evokes in us. A wooden bodhisattva reminds us of our capacity for compassion and understanding.

  The power is not in the statue, it’s in us—waiting to surface.

  No wonder Gone Mom brought me here. She must have known the bodhisattva would eventually live here too. She and Michael Benton worked hard together. This is their room, their temple.

  I look up at the statue. We’re all just people messing up and trying again. Right?

  The bodhisattva is slow to answer. That’s right, which brings us back to the Elliot James issue, Lily. You need to thank him for the cartoon—in person.

  Okay.

  Think of something to give him.

  And kiss him back.

  Hmm . . . so strange and startling—these sparky ideas of mine.

  Have a double date with Atalanta and Meleager.

  “Ha!” I cover my mouth, my face hot. I swivel around, praying nobody heard my shriek.

  I stop at the case in the Main Chinese Gallery with Dr. Benton’s single cloud slipper perched on a little platform in front. The empty space beside it is sad. Lien never got to live with the love of her life. She gave me up too. Just like that. I turn away, their whole love story stuck in a stale glass box. I shut my eyes and clench my fists, trying not to let the raw edge of that fact shred my heart.

  * * *

  When I walk downstairs Evangeline and Ralph are chatting at the information desk. I jiggle my head, sure I’m seeing a mirage. But before I can say a word he flashes Mother’s compact at me. Ralph points behind the desk—lost and found. “It’s been in the safe under there all this time.” He glances at Evangeline. “It’s where they keep the valuables.” Ralph stuffs it in his pocket.

  “I was just trying to decide what type of art your brother might like, Lily.”

  “Chinese!” Ralph says.

  “Naturally,” Evangeline says. There’s wonder in her face, looking at the two of us. Wistfulness. She must be imagining her lost brother.

  “Ralph is my favorite work of art,” I say. “But no label quite fits.”

  “Do you want to go to Cooper’s?” I say on our way out.

  “What do you want from me this time?” Ralph says.

  “I want to tell you about current events today before I keel over and die from exhaustion.”

  “Oh, I thought you were gonna say you were getting married.”

  “God, get off of that, would you? He is not even speaking to me right now, not that I blame him. Plus I’ve never been on a real date with him, which would include meeting Mother, who would look down her nose and notice that his fingernails are inky and that his hair is everywhere and that he’s not in an ROTC uniform.” I hold up a finger. “But he does have one very positive feature—he’s not Chinese.”

  “Good point.”

  I flash on another fantasy scene—my meeting his parents. I see their crestfallen expressions, veiled aversion to tea-colored persons. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re not prejudiced. Maybe they’re like Elliot.

  We s
it at the soda fountain. I tell Ralphie about the chink mustache on Elliot’s drawing and my current-event retaliation.

  “Yeah, I heard about the mustache thing at Scouts. Jerry Newcomer told me. His older brother goes to your school,” Ralph says. “He thought it was pretty funny. And his Dad’s our leader!”

  “So did you say anything back?”

  “Yep.”

  “What?”

  “I called him Oodles, like everybody else does. I said he was a fat slob with no friends and BO.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “No. I didn’t. But he is.”

  On a napkin I sketch a messy version of Elliot’s cartoon of me in the crosswalk and explain everything that happened.

  Ralph’s eyes light up. “Do you think he’d do one for me for Scouts? You know, something to punch ’em all in the face.”

  “No. No. And no.” But just as I say this, somebody does pop into my mind—the perfect hero for Ralph’s troop. “How many guys in your patrol?”

  Ralph looks suspicious. “Nine. Ten with Mr. Newcomer. Why?”

  I tap the side of my head. “Just thinking.” I make Ralph promise not to give Mother her compact yet. We need a plan for that, but right now my mind is finished—too dead to even get brainwashed.

  Chapter 35

  A miracle sentence marches out of my father’s mouth. “I should meet Dr. Benton!” It’s just the two of us in the kitchen squeezing oranges, on what was a normal Sunday morning until the world tilted and everything slid off into never-never land.

  Oh, wait, I get it. He’s kidding. Blowing smoke rings. “He’s not a joke, Dad.”

  He turns to me. “I’m not joking.”

  If he’d said he was leaving home to marry Lucille Ball I couldn’t be more shocked. “But . . . ?”

  “It seems right somehow. I should meet the man. I’m not saying tomorrow.”

  “Have you told Mother?” I whisper.

  Dad taps his palms on the countertop. “Nope!”

  I feel a tiny shift, relief. Just the idea that he has actually had an individual thought about this topic, that he would bring it up at all, is jarring because Michael Benton was headed pell-mell for burial in the Firestone cemetery of unmentionable subjects. He was crushed down into being my burden and shame, like I should have chaperoned him and Gone Mom in China and kept myself from being conceived.

  “Although, of course, your mother would disown me if I did. . . .” Dad says.

  Would that be so bad?

  I shoot him a glance. “Me too.” She owns us both, or used to, anyway.

  And that’s the end of it for now. Short and sweet and baffling. Back to waffles and juice making. But he’s thinking.

  * * *

  The long glass crystals are thirty cents each at the toy-and-science store. I get ten. They’re skinny, but they will work fine, splashing the spectrum wherever the sun shines through.

  Mr. Howard loved my idea, but he’d agree to come only if I did too. So here I am. Mr. Howard says it is his first speaking engagement and he needs coaching. He shows up at Ralph’s Scout meeting in his truck with his stepladder in the back. He carries it into the church basement. I carry the prisms and fortune cookies.

  I’m nervous. I pull in a deep breath like I’m holding Ralph inside, protecting him. My eyes burn. Talking to eleven-year-olds should be a cinch compared to the halls of Wilson High School, but I’m furious at all these stupid boys for hassling my brother. We meet Jerry Newcomer, who thought my mustache was so funny, and his dad, who is the adult leader. They do some ritual stuff first—pledges and oaths and the secret sign for their “Flaming Arrow” patrol. It comes with an eerie whistling sound effect.

  Jerry’s father is polite. If Mr. Howard being a Negro puts him off, he doesn’t show it. They shake hands. He tilts his head and asks Mr. Howard if he has served in the military. Mr. Howard answers “Okinawa.” Mr. Newcomer’s eyes get big. He seems to blink back a string of questions, shakes Mr. Howard’s hand a second time.

  Ralph introduces me. I smile at everybody, but I really feel like strangling them. They are pip-squeaks compared to my brother.

  The guys are super quiet, sitting in a semicircle facing Mr. Howard, who seems to be moving especially slowly—laying out the crystals, a radish, and a gleaming silver meat cleaver on a spindly table. He takes forever unfolding his ladder at the front of the room, checking its position relative to the church basement windows, adjusting, checking, and adjusting again. Then he climbs two steps from the top and gazes down at everybody. A few boys wave self-consciously and exchange looks.

  Mr. Howard cups his hands around his mouth. “Can y’all hear me down there?” They nod. Mr. Howard digs through his pockets, shifts his feet. The ladder creaks. The boys have stopped breathing.

  “What’s this?” Mr. Howard demands, pulling a big crystal from his pants pocket. It hangs by a piece of fishing line.

  “Glass,” somebody says.

  “A crystal,” Ralphie adds.

  “So true.” Mr. Howard pulls his head back and examines it himself as if he has never seen one before. “What color?”

  Answers from the group: “Clear.” “Clear with fingerprints.” “Plain.”

  “Clear. Everybody agree?” Mr. Howard says. Nobody would dare disagree with Mr. Howard at this particular moment.

  “Yeah.”

  He turns, steadying himself by holding his palm against the ceiling. Mr. Newcomer exhales for everyone. Mr. Howard reaches a bit too far out to hold the crystal in front of a ceiling light. “Still clear?”

  “Yep!” somebody squeaks.

  Mr. Howard lumbers down, repositions the ladder a few feet away, by the wall in front of a high window. The Saturday-morning sun is just right. The crystal explodes its spectrum of color on the boys. He tilts it, washing rainbows across the boys’ faces, the floor, the ceiling. He angles it at me, and then holds it away from the window.

  “So all of us who said it was clear weren’t exactly wrong, we just weren’t looking at it in the right light, from all possible angles. We were picking black and white instead of color. Lots of you guys probably knew this was a prism with much more hidden inside than on the surface, but you went ahead and called it clear because somebody else did. Scouts are no fools, but if you label something or somebody wrong, you can sure feel like one.

  “You don’t wanna be dumb, and neither do I. Right, Mr. Newcomer?” Jerry’s dad gives Mr. Howard the Scout salute. “Every time you notice somebody mislabeling somebody, maybe calling them something bad or stupid because of what they see on the surface—light up the prism in your brain and think smart.

  “Miss Firestone and I have been party to name-calling, and I’ll bet some of you have too. It takes a hero to stop it, but you Scouts are brave by nature.” He raises the prism. “I salute all you wise young men.” Mr. Howard’s voice has gotten more oratorical. He seems to have gained five inches in height.

  He leans over us, his eyes flashing. “If any of us hears some kinda nasty name, especially if it’s coming out of our own mouth, we risk being a fool. No words do justice to the hurt it causes. And if you are the victim of it from somebody else, I say put a stop to it—a little fury is good fuel.”

  Ralph is glued to Mr. Howard. So is everyone else.

  “Are any of you fellas married?” Mr. Howard asks. The Scouts squirm, smile. Mr. Newcomer’s hand shoots up. “Me too,” says Mr. Howard. “I am lots of things besides being a Negro. I am a janitor and a Chinese chef at the House of Chow—by the way, if you haven’t tried pot stickers, I suggest you get on it right away. I’m a husband and a dad with two boys about your age. I play the flute.” He starts down the ladder, his boots scraping each rung. “I can even transform a piddly little radish into a rosebud. There’s only one thing I’m sure I can’t do—the splits!”

  Mr. Howard stands at the table, pinches the radish in his fingertips, wields the cleaver, and with precise blade positioning and a twirl of his wrist, transforms it int
o a rosebud. He passes it to the boys and turns to me. “Miss Firestone, would you please allow these gentlemen to select a fortune cookie?” I pass the basket around. “Everybody gets a different fingerprint,” Mr. Howard says, “and everyone gets a different background, just like everybody draws a different fortune from the basket of life.”

  He gives a prism to each boy and shakes each hand. “Polish these up to remind you to be a hero, stalk that nasty name-calling, and stop it in its tracks.”

  * * *

  “Late lunch on me at the Chows’,” Mr. Howard says, snapping us the Boy Scout salute as we exit the meeting room. “They’re expecting us.”

  We sit three across the seat of his truck cab, still filled with the heavenly light he rained down on that crew of boys.

  The minute we walk in, Auntie Chow steers Ralph to the aquarium. “Fish cranky. Stomach growl.” She pushes a box of fish flakes at him. “You feed.”

  Fiery red fish with gold crowns, and copper and orange fish, brush the glass with frilly fantails. Water fire. Ralphie bites his lip, watches them, transfixed. I know he’d love to shrink down and jump in. “Water mean flow of life. Red for joy and happiness. Prosperity.” Mrs. Chow points to a catfish. “Bottom-feeder. Keep tank clean.”

  Mr. Chow greets us waving a wooden spatula. He uses it to push a glob of steel wool around a gigantic wok. “Keep clean. No soap. Soap make sticky,” Auntie Chow says. I picture Vivian Firestone’s under-the-sink arsenal of scouring soaps and how she’d rather starve than eat from a wok. Mr. Howard helps Mr. Chow tilt the heavy pan, swish the hot cleaning water.

  Auntie tosses me an apron printed with starfish and beach umbrellas. “Now, you! Come on.” Gathered on the counter are a stack of pale, paper-thin squares of dough, a bowl of minced meat and vegetables, and a dish of water. “Make little hat,” she says, demonstrating the construction of a wonton. She peels a wonton skin off the stack, sticks a pinch of vegetables in the middle, gathers the sides, wets them, and twists. Cute as can be.

  She motions. My turn.