We pause by the open door to the classroom to say good-bye, and then Mitch leans forward and gives me a quick kiss on the lips. It’s our third real kiss so far. One on the first date, one when he left last night, and now! Oh, he’s given me a few pecks here and there, on the forehead and cheeks. But this kiss, right here in public, is a real attention getter for a girl like me. And as I walk into class, I can see that several people, including Jess, were watching us.
Okay, I’ll admit that I’ve always been the kind of person who made fun of public displays of affection. If I saw someone making out in the hallway, I’d usually make a face and sometimes even say something as lame as, “Get a room, why don’t ya?” But the rules have changed now. And I realize that I must change too. Change is good, right?
So I hold my head tall as I walk into class, taking a seat about halfway up, in the same row as Lauren and BJ.
“Whoa,” says BJ. “Guess I was right about you and Mitch after all.”
I try to act nonchalant. “Yeah, didn’t I tell you that we went out Sunday night?”
She looks surprised. “No, you didn’t. Man, you work fast, Ramie.”
“Yeah,” says Lauren in this cynical tone. “This girl is just full of surprises.”
BJ frowns at me. “Yeah, what’s the deal, Ramie?”
“Huh?”
“Skipping practice yesterday? What’s up with that?”
“I, uh, I didn’t exactly skip, BJ. Didn’t Coach tell you guys?”
“Tell us what?” demands Lauren.
“That I quit.”
“You what?” BJ looks seriously shocked now and Lauren looks furious. But Mr. Hyde is already up in front and class is beginning. And, as we all know, this guy will not tolerate “visiting in class.” Mr. Hyde starts droning on about the post-Civil War era, and I can feel BJ staring at me, and I know that Lauren is livid. I guess I should’ve seen this coming. I suppose I’ve been a little distracted with Mitch. Still, it irks me that Coach Ackley never told the team that I quit. What’s up with that anyway? But then I think I get it. I bet, like Mitch, Coach is still thinking he can talk me into staying. Too bad! He’ll have to think again.
History is barely over when both BJ and Lauren practically jump on me, one on either side.
“Have you gone nuts?” BJ studies me as if she really does think I’m losing my mind. “You’re the best player on the team. How can you just walk out like that?”
“Ramie,” says Lauren with narrowed eyes. “If this is about what I think it is, you cannot do this. This is not fair.”
“What do you mean?” BJ asks Lauren. “What do you think it is? What’s not fair?”
“Ramie?” Lauren ignores BJ and puts a tight grip on my arm. “Is it?”
“Let go of me,” I tell her, shaking my arm free. “What if it is? Don’t I have a right to make my own decisions? Isn’t it my life?”
“But you’re letting us all down,” Lauren says sadly. “And it’s just because of . . .”
“What is going on?” demands BJ. She glances over my shoulder now, toward the back of the room where Jess had been sitting earlier. For all I know, she’s still sitting there. “Is this about Jess?” asks BJ.
Lauren and I both turn around to see that Jess is in fact still sitting there. She’s watching the three of us and wearing the same scared look that I saw on her face at practice yesterday. The old deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression—like is she going to run for her life or just take the hit?
But I am getting seriously fed up now. I’m tired of tiptoeing around and playing these games. And so I just look back at Jess and loudly say, “I don’t know. Is this about Jess?”
She doesn’t say a word, but now her expression is changing from scared to angry. I think she’s about to really let me have it. I think she’s about to tell me off. And I know she can do it. Jess, when infuriated, can speak her mind with no problem. I’ve heard her. But instead of lashing into me, she just stands, picks up her stuff, and walks out.
“What is going on?” demands BJ.
“Ask Jess!” I stand, grab my stuff and split, almost running to get away from them. But they’re right on my heels, and I can hear BJ and Lauren bickering, and then BJ starts pestering me to tell her why I quit the team, and Lauren is nagging me to change my mind, but I just ignore them. I just keep walking faster and faster. But as I walk, I can feel myself getting madder and madder at my ex–best friend. This is her fault. She’s the one who brought all this on. But it’s like I’m the one who’s getting tortured here. I’m the one with the friends who are turning against me. I’m the one who lost a spot on the team. I’m paying the price, but Jess is the one who’s to blame. This is so wrong. So totally wrong. And then, just as I reach the science department and I think BJ and Lauren have temporarily given up on me, a light goes on in my head. Maybe this is how Jesus felt when people picked on him. Is it possible that I’m actually being persecuted for righteousness’ sake? If that’s the case, maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and bear it. God make me strong, I pray as I take my seat in chemistry. God help me.
This thought helps me to get through the rest of the morning, but by noon I feel slightly beat up. It seems like the whole school knows now that I quit the basketball team. Okay, that’s probably an exaggeration. But the whole team knows. And it seems like every single one of them has aimed their sites at me today. Rumors are flying fast and furious now. Mostly the arrows are targeted at my relationship with Mitch. My ex-teammates, other than Lauren, are assuming I betrayed the team just so that I could have more time to spend with my new boyfriend. yeah, right.
“How’s it going?” Mitch asks, after he’s caught me from behind, which wasn’t much of a challenge since I was plodding toward the cafeteria as slowly as possible.
But I’m so relieved to see him that I throw my arms around him and hug him tightly. “I’m so happy to see you!”
He grins with surprise. “Cool. Is there any special reason you’re so happy? Or is it just due to my sweet nature and general good looks?”
Then I give him the lowdown on my morning and how things just seem to be getting worse. I even explain the assumptions about how I quit the team because of him.
“That’s crazy,” he says. “If anything, I’m trying to talk you into staying on the team.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Maybe I should tell someone else about it.”
“You mean start some new rumors?”
“Yeah, we could start all kinds of rumors. Just make up a bunch of stuff, toss it out there, and see if any of it sticks.”
So we start joking about all the whacked-out rumors we could start, and before I know it I’m laughing. “You’re good for me, Mitch,” I tell him, but when we reach the cafeteria I stop in front of the door. I so do not want to go in there. I don’t want to see BJ or Lauren or Amy or any of them.
“Wanna go someplace else for lunch?” he offers.
I turn and look at him. “But it’s closed campus.”
He gets this mischievous look. “But you can sneak out with me, if you want to. I’m officially checked out, you know, so I can take my car off the lot without getting into trouble.”
“Yeah, maybe you can, but I might—”
“Hey, what do you have to lose?” He grabs me by the hand. “Maybe they’ll even suspend you from the team for a couple of weeks.”
I consider this. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right.” And so, even though I know it’s wrong, I go with him. We dash over to the parking lot, and then I actually hunch down in his car, like I really think some school official is watching, although Mitch assures me that’s not the case. “Don’t worry,” he says. “My friends and I used to sneak out for lunch all the time when we were juniors, and we never got caught.”
Still, I stay down until he’s a block or two from school. Then I pop up and start laughing. “This is kinda fun,” I admit.
“And from what I hear of your mom, it’s not like she’d get mad a
t you for something like this,” he says. “She sounds pretty understanding to me.”
I consider this. “Yeah, she’d probably give me a little talk about how it’s my life and how the way I live it is up to me, but that I’m the one who will have to deal with the consequences. Stuff like that.”
“But isn’t that true?”
I think about this. “I guess so. But I also know I need to obey God. And part of obeying God is obeying the rules and respecting your parents and authority and stuff. But you know all about that. your dad’s probably instilled that into you since you—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He kind of brushes this off like he doesn’t want to talk about his dad. “So where’s your dad in all this, Ramie? I mean I’ve heard a lot about your mom, but you never say a word about your dad. What’s he like?”
“What’s he like?” I slowly sink back into the seat as I contemplate on how to best answer Mitch. “It’s kind of a long story,” I say, hoping that might be the end of it.
“Okay, then let me treat you to lunch and you can tell me all about it.”
So it is that we’re sitting over cheeseburgers and mocha shakes and I start telling Mitch more about my dad than I’ve told anyone. Including Jess.
“I used to just think I didn’t have a dad,” I begin. “I mean I’d never actually seen him or anything. When I got old enough to realize that everyone has a dad, I asked my mom about him. At first she just told me that my dad lived in a different country, and I kind of accepted that.”
“A different country?”
“Yeah, he’s Jamaican. He came over here on an exchange program with my mom’s parents’ church. He was studying to become a pastor, and my grandparents were his host family. My mom was in her second year of college and, according to her, she had changed a lot after leaving home. you see, her parents were Christians, but extremely religious and extremely conservative, not cool like your parents. So as soon as my mom got away from them she went a little wild.”
He chuckles. “That sounds familiar.”
“Anyway, she said she had this need to rebel against them so that she could find herself, you know? By her second year of college she was smoking pot and drinking and doing pretty much anything she could think of that they wouldn’t approve of, which didn’t sound too difficult since they pretty much didn’t approve of anything.”
Mitch laughs. “Sounds kind of like what my older sister did when she went off to college. Man, my parents freaked big time. But after a couple of years, she straightened up. She married a pretty nice guy, and now everyone seems happy.”
“Well, my mom never straightened up—at least not in the opinion of my grandparents. They’re still estranged.”
“Too bad.”
“Maybe. Anyway, it was Christmas break and my mom went home to visit her parents. And that’s when she met David, the aspiring pastor.”
“The Jamaican exchange student?”
“Yeah. She and David kind of hit it off. My mom said he was really handsome, and she was really pretty then. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, good figure, you know. And they were attracted to each other.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. She’s admitted to me that their little fling might’ve had as much to do with getting back at her parents as it did with liking David. But she also assured me it was mutual. Apparently she didn’t have to do much to lead the poor man astray. Of course, she had never planned on getting pregnant.”
“Her parents must’ve been fuming.”
“She didn’t tell them.”
“Never?”
“Not for a long time. She went back to school and got a job to support herself, got some kind of assistance, and then just kept plugging along until she got her counseling degree.”
“Wow, she must be a pretty strong person.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So have you ever met your father?”
“Nope.”
“Does that bug you?”
“Sometimes. Especially when I was about fourteen. For some reason I got totally obsessed over it. All I had of my father was this faded photograph that Mom gave me of this nice-looking dark-skinned guy standing in front of a Christmas tree. But he seemed like a perfect stranger. I told my mom that I had to meet him, and I almost talked her into letting me go to Jamaica that summer. But then she did a little research and found out that he had become a pastor after all, and he was married and had four children under the ages of seven. She helped me to understand that he hadn’t really abandoned me, since he never knew I existed in the first place. And since I was a Christian by then, well, I decided I had to just forgive him and move on with my life.”
“Wow.”
I shrug. “It’s no big deal, really. I mean it’s just the way it is. you get used to it.”
“What about your grandparents? Did you ever meet them?”
“Yeah. Mom took me out to meet them when I was eight, just before we moved to Greenville. I think she was actually hoping they’d welcome her with open arms, and maybe she’d find a job in her old hometown and we’d settle down there.”
“But they didn’t?”
“Not even close. It was pretty pathetic, really.”
“Too bad.”
“Yeah, I think it’s too bad for them. They seem like they’re trapped in this phony-baloney Christian world. I mean I’m a Christian too, but I sure don’t want to be like them. you could tell they were embarrassed by us. Probably me mostly. Anyway, we couldn’t get out of there quick enough.” I take a final sip of my shake and glance at my watch. “Whoa, I better get back or I’m going to be late for French, and this time I don’t have an excuse.”
“Let’s go,” he says, standing quickly. “I’ll drop you by the east wing. If you run, you can probably make it.”
As I run in through a side door, Lauren spies me. She has French during fifth period too, although I was actually hoping to be late enough to avoid seeing her before class.
“Did Mitch take you to lunch?” she asks as we both jog toward the classroom.
“Yeah.”
“Must be nice.”
I glance at her. “Huh?”
“To keep people from thinking anything about you and Jess.”
But now we’re inside the class and it’s too late to respond. Still, I find it hard to concentrate on conjugating verbs as I replay her little comment. Like what did she mean by that? And was it as bitter as it sounded? Finally, class is over and I take Lauren aside.
“What’s up with what you said just before class?” I ask.
She glares at me now. “It’s like you’re just running away from everything, Ramie. And you’re leaving me all by myself, just holding the bag.”
“Holding the bag? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’m the only one, besides you, who knows about Jess’s . . . you know, her lesbian thing. How am I supposed to feel?”
“I don’t know.” I stare at her. “How are you supposed to feel?” What I want to say is, What does this have to do with me? Why is this still my problem? I mean she can’t possibly think that I’m personally responsible for Jess, can she?
“I don’t know what to do, Ramie,” she says, her voice softening some.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I point out.
“You mean the way you haven’t done anything?” she says, her anger reigniting. “Like you didn’t quit the team, like you didn’t run out and get a boyfriend, like you’re not avoiding all your old friends now? Sheesh, why don’t you just change your name and assume a whole new identity?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Yeah, right.”
I really do not deserve this kind of abuse. “Well, I’ve got to get going, or I’m going to be late to health class.”
“You can’t get off this easy, Ramie,” she yells after me. And I wonder what that’s supposed to mean. Easy? Like who is she kidding? I feel like I’m walking a tightrope backward and blindfolded with both
hands tied behind my back. How is that supposed to be easy?
ten
BY THE END OF THE DAY, I AM DRAINED. ALL I CAN THINK IS THAT I WANT TO go home. I don’t even care that I’m not on the basketball team, that I’m not going to practice. All I want is an escape. I don’t even mind that I’ll be riding the stupid school bus. Anything to get out of this place.
I sit close to the door during English, my last class of the day, ready to bolt. Joey Pinckney is sitting in the chair opposite me, on the other side of the door, and he’s looking pretty uncomfortable. I suspect that he’s preparing to dash out of here too. Maybe it’ll be a contest to see who will get out the door first. I wonder if people have heard about him going to the gay alliance meeting too. Is he taking some heat about it? And does his going mean that he’s gay too? I look away, asking myself why I should care.
My main reason for wanting to make a quick exit is because Lauren and Amy are in this class too, and judging by the way they keep glancing at each other, then looking back at me, I suspect they plan to nab me if they can. But I’m a step ahead of them. I already stopped by my locker to get what I need so that I can make a fast break and get out of school altogether.
I keep my eye on the clock and as soon as the second hand goes straight up, before the final bell even starts to ring, I am up and outta there, sprinting down the hall. Pinckney never had a chance. I can see the side door now, the one that I’ve already chosen to use for my speedy exodus, when I hear a familiar voice.
“Ramie!” she yells. Although I know it’s Jess, I’m surprised that she’s calling my name. Even though I’m slightly curious as to why, I just keep on going, making it almost to the door.
“Ramie!” she yells again, even louder. “Wait!”
Something in me breaks now. I mean Jess is going through some hard stuff right now. Maybe she’s even rethinking this whole thing. Maybe God is finally answering my prayers. So I stop and, catching my breath, I wait.
“We need to talk,” she says when she reaches me.
“Okay.” I hold my backpack in front of my chest, almost as if it’s a shield, and wait for her to say something.
Bright Purple: Color Me Confused with Bonus Content Page 7
