Color Me In

by Natasha Díaz

  Despite the ringing in my ear from her slap, my arms close around my aunt. The olive oil cream in her hair smells the same way the bathroom does after Janae or Jordan gets ready in the morning. I’ve never been able to share things like that with my mom. In the summer, I would run over and hold my arm against her leg every five minutes as she lounged by the pool to see if being in the sun had made me closer to her complexion. I would study her, counting the few similarities we shared to make sure they hadn’t disappeared, blown away by a gust of wind. I have always been desperate to hold on to anything that brought us closer together.

  It never occurred to me that Anita might have been feeling the same thing her entire life. I never knew that our hearts suffer the same ache every time a bit of my mom drifts away in front of our eyes.

  Anita calms herself and regains her composure, uncomfortable in her vulnerability.

  “Nevaeh—”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  Anita holds two fingers up to my lips, blocking my dismissal and demanding the entirety of my attention.

  “I’ve been holding all this anger for your daddy for years, and I let it slip out onto you. We all make assumptions about each other. It doesn’t matter if you’re family or a stranger on the subway; we do it everywhere, even here, in our safe spaces, where we’re supposed to love each other up and down.

  “People are always going to want to split you into pieces so they can feel more comfortable with who you are, and I am sorry no one ever sat you down to prepare you for that. In some ways, you’ve got it easy, but you’ve got it hard too, and your hard is different—tricky. Like a piece of paper that flies out of your hand in the wind and keeps getting away just before you’ve closed your fingers around it.”

  Anita stops to take a breath. Her face is filled with so much exhaustion even her eyelashes tremble.

  “One day, Nevaeh, you’re going to realize that you’ve got magic coursing through your veins. Same as me and your mom and Jordan and Janae and your grandma. You’ll know once you’ve found it; there’s no way you won’t. It feels like lightning and thunder and sunlight all at the same time. But get ready, because when you do find it, everyone around you is going to try to snatch it away. That’s okay, though, ’cause once you’ve got that magic, you’ll know no one can take it from you.” She grasps me by the chin to make sure I’m really listening. “THAT is how we thrive.”

  Anita’s eyes well up again and I look away, pained by the ever-growing reservoir behind my eyes that refuses to release. It hurts too much, so I move to leave, but she grabs me.

  “What is it, Nevaeh?” Anita begs. “What happened? I can’t help either of you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  “He cheated and she caught him and he didn’t even feel bad. He just…moved on.”

  The truth falls out of me and crashes ten feet below the base of the house, deep in the earth, a tremor that causes the pipes and tunnels of the underworld to shiver, just as Anita and I do above, on the stairs, in the dark.

  “Sit down,” Anita commands. “And tell me everything.”

  Chapter 12

  I can’t tell if it’s being up here, at the highest point in the house, that makes me feel lighter, or if it’s because I’ve confessed the truth to Anita. I told her everything: the affair and the bat mitzvah and the hideous, sharp new furniture and Abby and the vomit. Well, almost the whole truth—I kept finding my mom’s journal a secret.

  The jelly beans from my backpack are warm, but that doesn’t matter. I move the candies around in my mouth and coat my teeth with a sticky, fruity film as I crack open the book and fall into my mother’s memories.

  August 29, 1998

  Northwestern begrudgingly let me move in a day early. The flight was cheaper on a Sunday, and the truth is, I couldn’t wait to get away. Every day since the school dance has felt like the countdown clock on a bomb. My hair is falling out in clumps. Mummy said it must be the shampoo she bought at the dollar store to save money, but I can’t help wondering if it’s my own body attempting to escape from itself. The only way to hide the quarter-sized patches of scalp is to pull my hair up to the top of my head, tight and slicked.

  My father was irritated that I chose to leave on the day of the Lord, so after services, Mummy, Anita, and I trudged back to the house to send me off without him. None of us are particularly good at goodbyes, mostly because we’ve never done them. I’m the first to leave for more than a day trip. Just a quick pat on the back and a promise to call once I got settled in the dorm—that was the way I started my new life. If only I could have left my stupidity behind me.

  The older woman next to me on the plane asked to switch from the window seat to the aisle; she said she hated the reminder of how far away from Earth we were. I spent the whole ride with my face pressed against the cold, thick glass. The growing distance between me and New York made me feel safer, despite the forty-thousand-foot drop to the ground.

  When I arrived at the dorm, the scantily clad resident advisor met me outside the building.

  “No drinking in the building. If anyone dies, it’s on me, and I will make your life a living hell.”

  She dropped a key into my hand and shot off the rest of her rapid-fire instructions.

  “You’re room four-oh-four. The elevator is out; stairs are to your left. Move-in starts at eight a.m. tomorrow, so be up unless you want to meet your roommate in bed.”

  After unpacking my two bags, I took out a calculator to go over my budget for the millionth time. Even with the scholarship and my parents helping me out with the cost of room and board, I need spending money, which I’ll make at the campus job I’ve been assigned in the library. As long as I keep to my plan, I’ll be able to save at least $2,500 a year, almost double that if I can get myself hired as a resident advisor for the next three years. And then I might have enough to get my master’s degree, the first to do so in my family, like I’ve always wanted.

  All I used to care about was making something of myself, but now I just want to feel like my old self again. With every day that passes, that seems less feasible, so turning into someone completely different is the next best option. Anything to stop feeling the way I do: Used. Dirty. Worthless. Foolish.

  The silence as I mapped out my future was calming. Normally, the mixture of sounds in my house would overwhelm me: Anita chattering away, my mom humming as she cooks, plantains popping in a cast iron skillet, but here, it was like I had moved to another planet.

  When I was growing up, my father said that the devil was on the radio, so all we listened to when we were kids were the older records Mummy convinced him were acceptable. Mostly gospel, and Gloria Gaynor’s single “I Will Survive.” Until Walkmen were invented and allowed me to sneak a wider array of music into my repertoire, I blasted that song on repeat, drowning Anita out as she talked on the phone for hours.

  Gloria came with me on the move. I put my headphones on, grabbed my Discman, and listened to the song. I danced around the twin beds that were positioned at opposite corners of the room. I danced around the walk-in closet and into the bathroom, which smelled like pine-scented cleaning supplies. I danced in front of my new windows as people walked through the streets, unaware that I was watching from a hundred feet above.

  When the song finished for what must have been the eighteenth time in a row, I saw a figure behind me in the window’s reflection. There’s nothing like abruptly being made aware you are not alone, in a strange place, with nowhere to go. Instinct told me to grab a weapon; the closest item I could find was a pencil.

  “What do you want?” I shouted, jumping around with my makeshift sword.

  “Sorry to scare you. I didn’t know anyone else had moved in. I’m Samuel.”

  His friendly demeanor and muffled laugh did little to calm me. That brash voice in my head told me not to let my guard down, not after the last
time.

  “I’m Corinne,” I said.

  “Have you eaten dinner yet? There’s a great pizza place close by, if you wanna join.”

  The last time I’d eaten was that morning, at home. The adrenaline of the trip must have gotten me through the day, but now that food had been mentioned, the overwhelming feeling of unadulterated hunger made it impossible to understand how I had gone this long without sustenance.

  “Sure, I’m starved.” I was surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth.

  He held the door open for me and smiled in a way that made my whole body tingle, half from excitement and half from concern. The last person who’d smiled at me that way was Raymond.

  It’s just pizza, I told myself, and made sure to keep at least six inches between us as we walked the few blocks.

  The only available booth at the restaurant was essentially in the kitchen, but our hunger was far more powerful than the need for comfort. A blond woman materialized before us. She bent down and whispered a halfhearted greeting as her eyes darted to her other, mostly white customers with concern that our interracial presence disrupted the space like a loud alarm in need of silencing. Samuel ordered a pepperoni pie for the two of us, and the waitress hesitated before turning the Midwestern charm up a notch and vanishing to place our order. For the first time since we’d met, I took a good long look at Samuel. His face was chiseled and sharp, the way Disney princes’ always are, with green-blue eyes that played off his thick, dark, wavy hair.

  The pizza, which by New York standards was not even remotely close to pizza, was delicious, but glances from other patrons kept distracting me. The waitress stopped by to check on us, and by “us,” I mean Samuel. She batted her eyes and giggled, lingering until he graciously thanked her. She took the dismissal in stride and bounced away without offering me the time of day.

  “So, tell me about yourself,” Samuel said, oblivious to the attention we were drawing. He put another slice of pizza on his plate. “Where are you from? Why are you here early?”

  “Got a good deal on the flight. New York City.”

  “But like, what are you? Where are you from, from?” he pressed.

  I get this question often, mostly from white folks trying to determine whether my lighter complexion means I’m more accessible to them. Most of the time, I think they mean it as a compliment, but it always feels like a burn—like just being me will never be sufficient. I know how it feels to be dismissed, ignored, and underestimated. It’s been that way my whole life. Not fun enough, not brave enough, not anything, really, until Raymond noticed me, and even then, he wasn’t interested in getting to know me. Or maybe it’s that once he did, he saw that I only had one thing to offer.

  “My mom is from Jamaica and my dad is from Liberia.”

  “Aha! I knew there was something exotic about you!”

  He locked eyes with me. Those irises looked like the pictures of the ocean Mummy has from when she was young, crystal clear gemstones that seduced me with their regal sparkle. His long, thick eyelashes fluttered with each blink, casting a shadow over his face that stretched all the way down to the dimple that dots his chin. His smile revealed a tiny drop of sauce at the corner of his mouth, and I had to stop myself from reaching over the table to clean it with my thumb.

  “And what about you?” I responded.

  “Oh, nothin’ special. Just your run-of-the-mill East Coast Jewish boy. Although…” He stalled with a dangerous grin. “I have been known to make a French toast so delicious that it will make you wanna marry me on the spot.”

  “Yeah, and why are you here early?” I ask, suppressing a giggle.

  “My mom is certifiable, so I had to get out of there. I’ve been here for a week. Convinced her I was joining the Jewish student house and we needed to get a head start on the first freshman Shabbat.”

  The waitress came by with the bill and left it, along with her number written on the bottom next to a smiley face. She didn’t even consider that I could be competition. Samuel threw money down on the table before I even got a chance to open my wallet. So what if he wanted to know what I am? The fact is, he wants to talk to me more than he wants to talk to that waitress. I watched her look at the untouched receipt with her number, baffled as to why he hadn’t taken it.

  “Thank you for dinner,” I said to Samuel, loud enough for her to hear.

  “No problem,” he said, and opened the door for me. “My pleasure.”

  Out of nowhere, I heard Gloria Gaynor on the radio,

  “As long as I know how to love I know I’ll stay alive.”

  The words reverberated through the restaurant and onto the street as we left. It felt like a sign from the universe that in this new life, everything was going to be okay. But then Samuel insisted on taking me to my dorm room, even after I assured him I would be fine. My body went numb on the walk up the stairs—I’d done it again, given the wrong impression. When we got to my door, he blocked the entrance to my room, boxing me in so I couldn’t move. He leaned in, so close I could smell the pizza sauce on his breath, and I resigned myself to doing what he expected, but he just kissed my cheek and stepped away.

  “Good night, Corinne,” he said softly. “I’m glad I found you.”

  And then he went to his room a few floors up, leaving me with the hope that maybe this time, everything would work out the way it does in dreams and fairy tales.

  My mom and I used to dance to “I Will Survive” in the living room. I know every word, backwards and forwards. The day we moved to Harlem, we lay in our shared bed listening to the honks and cries of the city. That song was the sound of home and safety, an anthem of strength and perseverance, the first song I ever remember hearing as a child, and I needed it, so I took my iPhone out and began to play it on speaker. My mom snatched the phone from me and turned it off so fast she almost cracked the screen with her nail. Then she grabbed my face with her velvety hands and pulled me toward her so we were eye to eye.

  “You don’t play that song anymore, okay, Nevaeh? I never want to hear it ever again.”

  My mom let her words sink in, and when she was ready, she lay back down and our new life began in complete and utter silence.

  Chapter 13

  It turns out that the nervous teacher who got caught in the crossfire of my regurgitation on the first day of school is also my science teacher, Mr. Bowels (pronounced “bowls”). He’s young, one of the annual crop of new teachers, fresh out of their master’s program, who come in bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ill-prepared for the unique, privileged wickedness private school teachers face. There are bets circulating that he won’t make it past the first month.

  Principal Lackey greets us as we enter biology and does not look pleased to be here. Her face is set in its natural sour look, the one where her nose and eyes and lips scrunch together like she just took a giant bite of a lemon. Mr. Bowels towers over Mrs. Lackey, but he shakes in fear as he stands before us. Word must have gotten out about the class-wide wager on his tenure, which can’t be good since it’s only his second week on the job.

  I slide into a table in the back of the room to unpack my textbook and notepad along with everyone else. The empty seat next to me makes me wonder what Stevie is doing in his first-period class, but I snap to when Lola Perkins pulls out the seat next to me and pauses for my approval before she sits down.

  “You catch that rally yesterday? The cops tried to block us, but we shut down the West Side Highway for a couple hours. Got some real face time on CNN. I’m so sick of these pigs thinking they can do what they want to us and get away with it.”

  I heard about the Black Lives Matter rally. Jordan and Anita got into a fight about it last night when Anita just about chained herself to the door to prevent Jordan from leaving. She claimed she wasn’t going to let Jordan put her life in danger to march around with a group of reckless, destructive kids a
ll in the name of “the culture,” but I’m not going to tell Lola that, so I just smile and nod.

  Lola is one of the few other students of color in my class at Pritchard. She hangs out almost exclusively with members of the Black Student Union, a tightly knit crew of Black and African American kids, unified in their otherness as a way to repel the whitewashed, patriarchal culture that permeates this private school. There is an even smaller Latinx group and a larger Asian one, but none of the self-segregated crews of color ever seemed interested in welcoming Stevie or me, so we’ve mostly just chilled on our own. To be fair, I didn’t make much of an effort to join any of the groups. I’m not a joiner by nature.

  Activism isn’t really a thing at Pritchard. The administration loves to believe they have created an inclusive environment, but we aren’t encouraged to engage in conversation that might break up the cohesive facade Pritchard markets to wealthy families. They love the idea of diversity until they realize it means actually engaging with living, breathing Black and Brown people.

  We, the chameleons,

  Come with a full range of disguises.

  Trained and deft in shape-shifting,

  Ready to fit in with the masses at the drop of a hat.

  The art of blending in becomes instinct.

  Stepford wives,

  conditioned and compliant,

  and thus worthy to serve as ambassadors.

  “Don’t get comfortable!” Mrs. Lackey shouts before shoving Mr. Bowels forward and transferring the power to him.

  “Thank you, Principal Lackey. Today, we’re going to switch things up and begin working in two-person teams. Over the course of the year, each team will complete a series of projects together, and the team with the most successful results will get to forego the final exam. We will discuss what ‘successful’ means in the weeks ahead.”