If I Tell

by Janet Gurtler

  I grabbed my straw and swirled the ice around, fizzing up the cola in my glass. I was afraid to say the truth out loud. I’d always protected Lacey. And my mom couldn’t handle knowing. But I had to trust someone.

  “I saw Lacey. With my mom’s boyfriend, Simon. Making out.”

  Jackson whistled softly through his front teeth. “You’re sure?”

  “Definitely. In November. At Marnie’s party. They were in the basement. I was looking for Lacey to tell her I was there. I didn’t even know Simon was at the party. He’d come to pick up his brother, and, well, instead he picked up Lacey. I saw them. Very hot and heavy.”

  Jackson ran his fingers through his hair. “Whoa.”

  “I know. It’s horrible, right? And the next day, when I was going to tell my mom the truth, I found out she was pregnant. So I couldn’t tell her.”

  Jackson sipped his drink. “That’s pretty harsh.”

  “I know.” I shuddered, imagining them together, and then reached for the saltshaker, picked it up, and put it down again. “So anyhow. I belted him.”

  “What?”

  “I did. Today. At lunch. I hit Simon in the face. He showed up at school and dragged me to McDonald’s all hurt and upset that I wouldn’t talk to him anymore. He was acting all worried about my mom, and I wanted to confront him, but I couldn’t. Holding it in made me so angry that I smacked him.”

  Jackson tugged his bottom lip. “You are full of surprises.” He studied me. “Did your mom find out? About him and Lacey?”

  A tear slid out and rolled down my cheek. I wiped it away. “No, and I can’t tell her. My grandma already says Mom isn’t handling her pregnancy well. My grandma is worried about her. I mean, my mom’s pretty old to be having another baby.” I wiped under my eyes. “I haven’t told anyone about Simon and Lacey. You can’t tell a soul.”

  “I won’t.” He tugged on his bottom lip again. “Does he know you saw them?”

  “No. Maybe he suspects now. But I doubt it. He thinks I’m being a jerk because I’m jealous that he’s going to be around for my mom’s baby.”

  “Man. That totally sucks. I’m really sorry, Jaz.” Jackson picked up his drink and swallowed soda. He chewed on some ice thoughtfully. “So are you ever going to tell her?”

  I thought about my mom and how she would probably have to leave Simon if she found out. She’d be left alone again. To raise her baby on her own. It wasn’t what I wanted for her. I knew it wasn’t what she wanted. Not again. I hesitated. “Do you think I should?”

  “Man, it would mess things up.”

  I nodded once. “I know, right? How could she ever forgive him for doing that? Especially when she was pregnant. I mean, I wouldn’t forgive that. Even if it was just kissing. It’s still betrayal.”

  Jackson pulled his lip again, and I watched it pop back in place when he let go. I wondered if it was soft. If I’d ever know how it felt to kiss a boy like him. Not because I was drunk or because he had been dared to kiss me.

  “It must have freaked him out, finding out about the baby. People do really stupid things when they’re scared. And drunk.”

  “Not that stupid.”

  He nodded. “Has he done something like that before?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t think so. God. I don’t know what to believe anymore. He seemed so in love with her. He still does.” I reached out with my foot and nudged my guitar case. “Is this what guys do, Jackson? Get drunk and fool around?” I grabbed my guitar charm and rolled it between my fingers. “Do you think drinking makes it okay?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  His voice sounded uncertain though. I wondered if he’d ever done the same to some girl. My heart ached. For the girl and for me.

  “He can’t really love her though, can he? If he did that with Lacey?” I wanted so desperately to understand why he’d done it. Why Simon could pretend it had never happened.

  Jackson lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know. I mean, people screw up sometimes. Even if they are in love. We’re an imperfect species.”

  “Screwing up is locking himself in the bathroom when he found out my mom was pregnant. Not hooking up with Lacey.”

  Jackson’s expression turned cloudier than a Tadita rainy day.

  “I don’t think my mom would forgive him if she found out. I mean, I can’t even forgive him and he’s not my boyfriend.”

  Jackson drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Who knows though? I mean, she really loves him, right? And what if it never happened again?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t forgive someone for betraying me like that. Could she?

  “Are you and Simon close?” Jackson asked.

  “We were. I really liked him. We talked about stuff since he’s, you know, black. Like me. And it helped. It sounds dumb. But it helped.”

  “It doesn’t sound dumb.”

  The waiter walked by our table, taking a tall black man and a black woman to their table. I stared at them. Longingly.

  I shook my head sadly. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Because now I can barely stand being around him. It makes me crazy. Keeping his secret for him. Protecting him. ” I picked up my drink and sipped it to calm myself. “Instead of sharing a heritage, instead of him helping me understand it, he’s made me hate him and everything he stands for.”

  Jackson glanced over at the couple who’d sat far enough away from us so we still had privacy.

  “What he did doesn’t have anything to do with race.”

  If I were a dog, the hairs on my back would have stood up. “I know that,” I growled. I wasn’t stupid. I knew it wasn’t an issue about race. “I meant everything he stands for as my mom’s boyfriend.”

  “Maybe you can think of it as not protecting him but protecting your mom?” Jackson said.

  I lowered my eyes to the table. “I don’t want to be the one to take him away from my new baby brother or sister.”

  Jackson sat quietly for a moment. “Maybe he just really did screw up, you know? A mistake. He does seem to care about your mom. And the baby. It sounds like he cares about you too.”

  I stiffened on the booth seat. “So you think it was okay?”

  Jackson took his arms off the back of the booth and leaned forward. “No. I’m not defending him or what he did. I’m just saying…”

  I shook my head. “It’s not right.”

  “Sometimes things aren’t always black and white.”

  I snorted. “You think I, of all people, don’t know that?” I pointed at the skin on my arm. “Black and white. Like me. Like the baby.”

  Jackson smiled. His mouth opened wider, and he chuckled.

  I stared. How could he make fun of this? I instantly regretted my stupid decision to trust him.

  “Sorry,” Jackson said, but he didn’t sound sorry at all, and he didn’t even try to wipe the smile off his face.

  “It’s not funny,” I said. I made a fist under the table. I seriously wanted to reach across the table and punch him. God. Thanks to Simon, I’d become a liar and a people smacker.

  “Jaz, open your eyes.”

  I glared at him. “You have a really weird sense of humor, Jackson.”

  “I guess I should explain. About my grandma.”

  “That you live with her?” I was about to reach under the table for my guitar and leave Jackson behind. So much for trusting people.

  “She’s black.”

  I blinked and stared at him. “What?”

  “My grandma is black. I guess my grandpa was a grumpy white guy, but Grams, not so much. My mom was like you. Well, lighter, but the same. She never let me forget it either. Whenever she was drunk, she told me I was ‘stained by black blood.’ And she was drunk a lot.” He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “She died when I was seven.”

  “Why did you not tell me this?”

  “You never asked.”

  I blinked at him, trying to absorb his story. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around it. How could he
have left out this little piece of information about himself?

  “I’m sorry. That sounded wrong. I wanted to tell you. But it never seemed to happen. Not the right time or something. But then I told you we would swap secrets someday. And I decided that when you could trust me, I would tell you the truth.”

  My mouth literally hung open. A mix of emotions filtered through my brain. Denial. Shock. Anger. How could he not tell me? How could he just walk around looking 100 percent white, blending in with everyone else, while I stood out like a zebra in a field of horses? How did I not know this? How did no one know?

  I stared at him, studying his skin tone. Light. Slightly tanned. His straight black hair. Not a sign of a curl. Brown eyes. Slender nose. And for a moment, I was overcome with envy. And then I felt a swoop of anger.

  “My mom died in a drunk-driving accident. Unfortunately, she was the drunk. Anyhow, after she died, I got tossed into foster care. A few weeks passed, and Grams found out about me and came and got me out. I was her family, she said. She’s looked after me since.”

  My anger vanished. I hadn’t bothered to look past the surface of his life. I’d been too wrapped up in myself. I’d assumed his home life was fine, normal, despite his thing with drugs. I’d never once asked him why he lived with his grandma.

  “My mom drove drunk all the time, so the good thing was that no one else got hurt. It could have been worse.” He smiled but looked sad. “I missed her at first, of course. Even though she’d mostly treated me like crap. She blamed me for my dad leaving. Grams told me he was a redneck. Lily white. He couldn’t stand having a ‘part-nigger child.’ The ultimate hypocrite, really.” Jackson tugged on his earring.

  My fingers instinctively felt for my charm. I tried to imagine him as a boy. Little. Neglected. At least my grandparents had treated me right. I ached for the little boy he’d been.

  “My mom was even too drunk to bother putting me in school on time. I didn’t start school until she died. Two years late.”

  “So that’s why you’re almost two years older than me. You didn’t fail kindergarten?”

  Jackson laughed, a hard unpleasant hoot. “You believed that rumor? Kindergarten dropout.”

  I peeked out at him, hiding behind a curl covering my eye. “Your family sounds worse than mine.”

  He lifted his shoulder slightly. “It hasn’t been so bad. Grams is cool.”

  “You’re close?”

  “She doesn’t put up with crap from me, but she means well. She’s the one who put me into juvie when she found out I was dealing. When I got out, she moved us out of Canada and back here to get me away from my old friends. She lived in Tadita when she was younger and still has friends here.”

  I looked down at the tablecloth. “You don’t look black,” I told him. I almost wanted him to be white.

  “That doesn’t mean squat.”

  I snorted. “That’s debatable. No one knows about you by looking. People take one look at me, and they know I don’t belong to either race.”

  “You belong, Jaz. You’re a human being. Color isn’t what you are. It’s just your shade. You’re beautiful. Inside. Where it counts.”

  I looked down at the table. Yeah. Inside. Where no one could see. Just like Jackson’s color.

  “That’s easy for you to say. How come no one knows then? You can tell me you’ve never been ashamed of your grandma? You’ve never worried about people meeting her or judging you for it?”

  “Never.” Jackson said. “Grams took me in. She was already old but she fought for me. No one knew where my dad was. She told me if they found him, she’d fight for me. What could I possibly be ashamed of? Black is a part of who I am. Just like you.”

  I chewed my lip. “Not like me.”

  “I don’t try to hide it, Jaz. It just doesn’t come up. It’s not like I keep my grandma in a closet so no one will find out.”

  I bit my lip, wishing I had the option of my color pattern not coming up. “What about your grandpa? What was he like? The white guy,” I asked, trying to get rid of my uncomfortable and irrational anger with him.

  Jackson smiled. “He died before I was born. According to Grams, it was just as well. He’d have killed my dad and blamed him for my mom’s death, she said.”

  I nodded. “My grandpa died when I was thirteen,” I told him. “He was my real dad in the ways that mattered. Most people don’t get that.”

  The two of us sat in silence, thinking of our families.

  “I’d have told him,” I finally said. “About Simon, I mean. My grandpa would have known the right thing to do.”

  Jackson drummed his fingers on the table and leaned forward. “What do you think that is?” He grabbed my hand.

  I stared at his fingers on my own, and my heart played a mean drum solo in my chest. His hand made mine look little, almost dainty.

  “What do you mean?” I whispered.

  “What do you think the right thing to do is?” Jackson took his hand off mine and reached for his drink, and my fingers missed his immediately.

  I thought about his question. “I don’t know.” But in that moment I realized that in my heart I did. I’d known my answer all along.

  “I can’t tell. What if my mom rejected the baby if I told her? Like she did with me? My grandma is too old to bring up another baby. I don’t want to ruin someone else’s life.”

  “Then don’t tell.” Jackson’s fingers tapped up and down on the checkered cloth, and I listened to the rhythm. It sounded like a song. I smiled in spite of myself. He stopped, and I willed his fingers to move again but they were still on the table.

  “I guess you have to trust that it won’t happen again.” Jackson paused. “What about Lacey?” he asked.

  I tucked my hands in my lap. “What about her?”

  “Can she keep a secret?”

  I leaned back in my seat. “I think so. No one has said a word about it. And she’s not exactly the hero in this story.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, and then the waiter approached our table with a huge piece of apple pie. He placed it in the middle of the table. A scoop of vanilla ice cream had already started melting all over the crust. He put down two forks and left us with a smile.

  “Mmm.” Jackson said. “Dig in, Jaz. You need to be fattened up.”

  I gave him a dirty look, but he grinned and dug his fork into the pie, shoving a big piece in his mouth. “Mmm. It’s still warm. Come on. Do you know how many girls would kill to be told that they need to be fattened up?”

  “Well, not me. I hate being called skinny.”

  He chewed. “Skinny? Ha! You’re perfect, and you know it.”

  I lifted a fork and shook it at him. “I am not and I do not.”

  He laughed. “Your forehead gets all wrinkly when you frown like that.” He shoved more pie in his mouth.

  I took a bite of his pie. The taste of apple and cinnamon warmed my taste buds.

  “I can’t believe you’re part black.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I never would have guessed.”

  He dug his fork back into the pie. “People see what they want to see.”

  I took another piece of pie and thought about it. We ate in silence for a minute. I knew he’d never gone through what I had. Ignored by the black kids. Ignored by the white ones.

  “So your grandma really shipped you to juvie?” I asked.

  “Yup. She’s tough.” He put down his fork and folded his hands, his expression serious. “I’ve never claimed not to have faults. I’ve done some stuff. Drugs.” He grinned but looked like a boy caught with cookie crumbs on his mouth. “But now I’m back in school. Hell, I’m even holding down a part-time job.”

  I wanted to ask him if he still dealt drugs. If the phone calls were what I thought. But I couldn’t make myself say the words.

  He smiled. “Amber knows about juvie. I had to tell her when I applied for the job. Apparently she had some druggie years of her own when she was younger.”

  “Amber?” I
put down my fork, finished with the pie.

  Jackson nodded. He dug in. “You want the last bite?”

  I shook my head.

  “Sure?”

  He grinned, scooped it up, and shoved it in his mouth. “So? You want to come to my house and play?”

  “Play?”

  He nodded at my guitar on the floor. “I do a fierce ‘Smoke on the Water.’”

  I made a face, sure he was teasing me again. “You do not. I’ve heard you sing.”

  He laughed. “Okay. You’re right. I play. I didn’t say I played well. Not like you. But I play. What do you think I did to keep out of trouble at the Bad Boy School?”

  I stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

  “Mastered guitar chords, of course. Taught to me by fellow juvenile delinquents.”

  I scowled. “You’re making that up.”

  He grinned. “Nope. I learned to play guitar in juvie.” He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “I don’t want to brag, but I have a custom-made Martin. My own inlay design.” He leaned forward, grinning at me. “But I guess you’re not interested in seeing it.”

  “You do not have a Martin.” I chewed my lip, almost drooling at the thought of a custom Martin guitar.

  “Oh, I do all right. You want to see it?”

  chapter thirteen

  Jackson drove to the oldest part of Tadita, where the mountains were clearly visible on the horizon. He pulled his car up to an old brick apartment building and parked on the street in front.

  “It’s not exactly the Ritz, but it’s home,” he said with a shrug.

  The building looked like it had been around for a long time. Old but still in nice condition on the outside.

  He turned to me. “You sure you want to bring your guitar in?” he asked. “I don’t know if your Alvarez can handle it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Another secret. A custom Martin.” I wasn’t sure I believed him yet.

  “I don’t want to make it jealous of Marty.”

  “You named your guitar Marty?” I slung my guitar case over one shoulder, my backpack over the other, and opened the passenger door.

  “What was I supposed to call it, Fred?”