Color Me In

by Natasha Díaz

  “You can’t rhyme! That’s cheating!” I yell.

  Jesus stands when he sees me, shocked, and glad, I hope. I try my hardest not to reveal my eagerness, so rather than run, I speed-walk through the people huddled around a makeshift bong. He picks me up and spins me around the moment I reach him. I wrap myself around his neck, so the smell of the product in his hair gets into my sweater, and we breathe each other in, a simple comfort that makes all the difference in the world.

  “You’re here!” he says.

  His boys greet me one by one, once I’ve been returned to the ground: Bobby, Kevin, Jeff (“El Jefe”), Brian, Big Ben, Tomas, and Malcom.

  “You want some?” Jeff asks, handing me a plastic takeout-soup container filled with a terrifyingly pink liquid.

  I look to Jesus for guidance, and he takes a sip before he passes it to me.

  “Take it slow. It’ll knock you on your ass otherwise,” he says.

  He’s not joking. The drink is equal parts sweet and strong, and each of its elements accosts my senses.

  “What is this?” I gasp.

  “That’s a nutcracker, baby girl,” Brian says with a grin and a wink, swiping it from me and taking a large gulp.

  “You’re light as hell. What are you?” Tomas asks, looking at me with one squinted eye.

  “She’s Black and white,” Jesus says, coming to my aid.

  “Oh, you got you a zebra,” Tomas says with a chuckle.

  I shield my eyes with my hand, in search of something in the immediate space that I seem to have suddenly misplaced.

  “Whatchu lookin’ for?”

  “My bad—I didn’t realize this was the entrance to the zoo,” I snap back. “I was trying to get to this house party to see my man.”

  “YOU JUST GOT SONNED!” Jeff bellows in Tomas’s face.

  The guys crack up and start the game over, this time with the accent category. They hand me the soup tub again, and I relish the strength and courage the nutcracker gives me each time it touches my tongue.

  “You all better come on. We’re ’bout to blow the roof off this place!” Janae calls into the kitchen from the doorway.

  I look at the clock: 11:57. Damn, alcohol really does make the time fly.

  Someone lowers the music, and the large TV screen focuses on the huge ball attached to the top of a building in Times Square. The living room is stuffy with sweat and booze, but no one cares. It’s about to be a new year, which at our age actually feels like a chance for a new beginning.

  I look around. Janae is on a chair at the front of the room, positioning her phone to take a 360 shot at midnight. Stevie stands surrounded by Jordan and her girls, one arm shaking under the weight of all four of their purses and the other raised before him, accentuating his thoughts whenever he can get a word in edgewise.

  I remind myself not to let him live this shameful performance down. As another die-hard Potterhead, Stevie’s Hufflepuff card is practically in jeopardy of being revoked with his muggle behavior.

  Jesus comes up behind me and slips his arm around my waist.

  “You ready?”

  I nod, afraid that if I open my mouth now I won’t be able to stop myself from kissing him, and you only get your first New Year’s Eve kiss once, so I don’t want to ruin it.

  “Ten…nine…eight…,” the room shouts along with the announcer on-screen. “Seven…six…five…”

  I turn to face Jesus and put my arms around his neck.

  “Four…three…two…”

  He dips down and bumps my nose with his, and hot, sweet breath streams into my nostrils, alleviating my need to remember to breathe.

  “One…”

  He kisses me, and in the midst of the cheers and whoops and Janae’s laughter and Jordan’s chest bumps with her girls and Stevie’s hope that his eyes might meet Jordan’s, we stop being anything but one.

  When we finally break apart, the world is different.

  The change is subtle, but it feels as real as Jesus’s lips on mine and makes me believe that maybe we all are really going to be all right.

  Chapter 29

  As the date of the audition has neared, Stevie has relocated our daily lunches to the rehearsal room he’s reserved for the foreseeable future.

  “Just watch it one more time, okay?” he pleads, and takes a bite of the Korean bulgogi burrito he got from the food truck of the week. I opted for the Korean fried chicken tacos, which were tasty but tiny, so I snatch some of his kimchee nachos as payment for attending this final dress rehearsal.

  Broken Pieces, the title of his performance, is set to a compilation of pop hits that all tell the same story: young love lost. Stevie choreographed the whole thing and knows it front to back, but he’s convinced he can do more.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I tell him, distracted by the unlikely pairing of fermented cabbage and cheese and wondering if it’s truly delicious or if I am stress eating, anxious about my impending poetry performance.

  The date of the BSU event was finally announced, and it turns out it’s the same day as Stevie’s audition.

  “Can’t you skip it?” he whines, irritated that I have my notebook out rather than focusing all my attention on him.

  “What?! No! This is my first real performance, like an official one people buy tickets to see!”

  “It’s a fund-raiser, Nevaeh. They’re buying tickets to support the cause,” he reminds me with an eyebrow raised in judgment.

  “Look, I’m just saying, you’re not the only one here with a looming deadline, Stevie. LaShawn stopped me yesterday. I’m going to be the headliner.”

  It’s sort of the truth. She appeared out of nowhere in the bathroom doorway to tell me that their initial headliner, an underground rapper called Royce II, dropped out to perform at Afropunk and asked if I could introduce Darnell as the final performer of the night, which means, by association, I’m kind of the runner-up. (Plus, it’s not like I’m sitting here complaining about Stevie not being there to support me.)

  The Lena Zahira audition is being held at our rival school, Fort Hilten, which used to be an armory and was converted to a school in the seventies. Our schools compete against each other in everything, but there are clear lines drawn between us: they have the stronger arts program, and we’re better at sports. Stevie paces the room, no doubt imagining the huge auditorium filled with kids from Fort Hilten, who will heckle and try to psych him out during his performance.

  Stevie’s anxiety makes me want to remind him that if he’s selected, he won’t be at Pritchard with me next year, which means I’ll be alone, so asking me to help him is cruel. I want to remind him that once word of my belated bat mitzvah is announced instead of a fancy sweet sixteen, I’ll be the laughingstock of the school. Sometimes I feel like he forgets that he’s not the only one with talent or a dream, even if mine blossomed only recently.

  “B?” Stevie stands before me with eyes that beg me to see how important this is to him. They remind me that without his mom, there is no one else to cheer for him, since he can never count on his dad.

  “I’ll be there. I promise. There’s more than enough time between the two events,” I reassure him, and push my work aside to give him the attention he so desperately needs.

  “Go on, one more time.”

  The last chip on the plate is the perfect nacho, with an equal ratio of chip, kimchi, and cheese, so I pop it into my mouth to enjoy the crunchy, vinegary gooeyness and hit play on his phone yet again to watch him soar.

  * * *

  —

  A member of Rabbi Sarah’s synagogue, Mrs. Rosenstein, passed away years ago and left her belongings to the temple. Rabbi Sarah claimed the task of organizing the stash in exchange for the small office (an upgrade from her former closet) where it has been stored.

  The furniture is overused and lop
sided, but that doesn’t seem to bother Rabbi Sarah—the untold story behind the couches and chairs makes her appear to have an origin, which I think is all she has ever wanted.

  The door to her new office bursts open, and Mordechai, dressed in a tweed jacket, and six other nine-year-olds swarm in. After a few seconds, a tall girl in a head-to-toe flannel ensemble screams and waves a flat package covered in gold wrapping paper above her head, and the others disperse as quickly as they came.

  “What was that?” I ask.

  “Seder,” Rabbi Sarah says, and walks past me with a smirk.

  The classroom is dimly lit, and we peek in, careful not to disturb the lesson. Chaya, the teacher I met the first time Rabbi Sarah dragged me down here, stands in front of a long, banquet-style table made up of the smaller tables that are usually positioned in clumps around the room. Beaming, the tall girl carefully places the golden-wrapped rectangle in her teacher’s hands in exchange for a small package.

  “How is this night different from all other nights?” Chaya calls out, reclaiming the attention of her class.

  She is answered by the strong voice beside me as Rabbi Sarah sings the first response in Hebrew.

  “On all nights we need not dip even once, and on this night we dip twice!” the kids read along with conviction.

  Chaya tilts her head, glad to see us, as she and Rabbi Sarah harmonize in Hebrew. Mordechai, unable to control himself around a perfect duet, jumps up to conduct his classmates in the accompanying answers in English.

  “On all nights we eat chametz or matzah, and on this night only matzo.”

  “On all nights we eat any kind of vegetables, and on this night maror!”

  “On all nights we eat sitting upright or reclining, and on this night we all recline!”

  The group hangs on Chaya’s every word as she launches into the story of Passover. They gasp when she describes Moses raising his staff to the Red Sea as Pharaoh’s army closes in, channeling God’s power to part the water as easily as a fine-toothed comb through some down hair like mine.

  Mordechai and the rest of the class cheer once they’re sure all the Jewish people make it to the other side before the sea crashes back to its rightful bed of sand, killing some of their former enslavers and marooning the rest on the other side. The kids dig into the plates before them, dollops of different foods around the circumference. A sliver of boiled egg, a stick of celery next to a thimble-sized cup of water, a piece of matzah, and a pinch of fresh herbs next to a clumpy tan spread that looks like the organic chunky almond butter Ashleigh eats for her cheat meal.

  “Thanks for blessing us with that gorgeous voice,” Chaya says flirtatiously to Rabbi Sarah as she hands me a plastic cup of sweet grape juice. “Maybe I can repay you with a drink later?”

  Rabbi Sarah’s face is overcome with terror. “Um…maybe. Gotta run.” True to her word, Rabbi Sarah bolts up the stairs two at a time. I follow, barely able to keep up as she heads right out of the front door and onto the street.

  “What is going on?” I hiss at her as she barrels down the sidewalk with no regard for the innocent bodies unknowingly in her way.

  She tries to catch her breath.

  “Chaya seems nice,” I prod, trying to gauge whether she has any interest. “It’s just a drink.” I’ve never heard her talk about friends or partners; I don’t even know whether she’s straight or gay or if she falls somewhere else on the spectrum of sexual preference.

  “It’s got nothing to do with her. Relationships and me don’t work. I like it better alone. So just drop it, okay?” she says out of the corner of her mouth.

  I almost push back to try to get her to explain, but I’ve never seen her so distraught. So I drop it…for now.

  Our power walk brings us from the East Village to the north end of Union Square, the big cement area by the park where the city holds a large farmer’s market four days a week. Rabbi Sarah saunters over to a jam stand and begins tasting the samples systematically. Behind the counter, the white hipster lady in a Biggie Smalls T-shirt under a pale pink cardigan ignores her, as if customers do this all the time.

  “OMG, go for the truffle honey next. It’s everything!” she tells me with a wink.

  A young Black girl walks over, maybe a year or two older than me, and reaches to pick up a jar of jam in front of her, but the lady behind the counter coughs right before the girl’s hand closes over the top.

  “Can I help you?” the lady asks, though her words sound more like an accusation.

  “Just looking,” the girl says, but not before she quickly pulls her hand back to her side. Burning with shame, she walks to the far end of the tent, and the white lady repositions herself so she can still watch her out of the corner of her eye.

  How do you think that’s ever going to change if you keep your mouth shut? Jordan’s voice challenges me from my memory.

  “I don’t see a sign that says No Touching Without Assistance,” I say. “Did I miss that?”

  I lean over the counter, dramatizing my search for a notice I know does not exist, at least not for all of us. The woman behind the counter glares, incredulous that I, someone she mistook for a member of her home team, am not siding with her.

  “We should get back and get at least one run-through in,” Rabbi Sarah says to me. “But thanks for the walk. I just get overwhelmed sometimes.”

  I try to decode her language. After months of sessions, I can still count on one hand the personal details Rabbi Sarah has shared with me, but I feel closer to her than to either of my parents. She has become my safe place.

  “No worries,” I say. “Just one sec.”

  We wait to make sure that the girl moves on to her next stop at the market unscathed and then walk back to the temple.

  Chapter 30

  The BSU fund-raiser is being held in one of those hidden New York gems that from the outside look like dingy, decrepit buildings but inside are completely renovated. This facade masks a spacious loft with colonial columns and walls of endless windows. The ceiling glimmers with hundreds of hanging tea lights, and the wall behind the stage is adorned with a huge sign that reads Black Lives Matter.

  LaShawn scurries around, lining up chairs and shouting orders to her minions, all of whom look like they haven’t slept in forty-eight hours. When she sees me, she marches over.

  “LaShawn, meet Jordan and Janae, my cousins,” I tell her, making introductions.

  I got Janae a gig recording the event, and Jordan tagged along because she wants to support the cause, but I get the feeling she also wants to be here in case I fall on my face.

  “Is Darnell with you?” LaShawn asks. “We offered a last-minute digital ticket for people to get exclusive access to his reading, like a private performance live streamed directly into your living room. Which one of you is the videographer?”

  Janae raises her hand.

  “Come with me. There’s a tripod holding an iPad that’s set to start recording automatically at five-thirty on the dot. I just need you to position it so you have enough room to film the entire event with your setup.”

  Despite the fact that this is a Pritchard Black Student Union–hosted event, the school did not offer any financial assistance—claimed it was too political.

  My phone rings, and I step away from Jordan to answer it.

  “B, when the hell are you getting here? This place is packed, and it’s all Hilten heads. Abe came, but I made him sit in the back so his breath wouldn’t knock the judges out.”

  Stevie’s dad promised him he would be at the audition today, but at the last minute, he backed out. Mr. McConnell claimed it was a work trip he couldn’t miss, but I think he just couldn’t bear the idea of watching Stevie do the one thing he and his wife could never agree on.

  “I’ll be there, I promise. I’m only reading one poem and doing the intro for Darnell; then I�
��m there,” I tell him. “Just listen to ‘Bodak Yellow’ to hype yourself up.”

  The place has already begun to fill with guests. They swarm to the food and drink stations before taking a seat. For a student-planned event, the place looks fantastic, clean and classy with a touch of urban chic that Janelle Monáe would approve of.

  Darnell strides into the space just before the live auction begins and pats my shoulder.

  “How you doing?” he asks, all calm, cool, and collected in a stunning bright green V-neck dashiki.

  I am freaking out and I can’t believe I agreed to go through with this! the voice in my head screams.

  “Whenever I’m about to go onstage, I get really nervous, but then I remember that there might be someone listening who needs to hear what I have to say more than I’m afraid to speak,” Darnell tells me, reading my mind.

  “But what if everyone thinks what I have to say is meaningless?” I ask, desperate for his wisdom. Darnell holds his chin with his forefinger and thumb, considering his answer judiciously.

  “That’s the beautiful thing about being a writer—all words have meaning,” he says, and walks away to pick at what’s left of the snacks just as Jesus enters the room.

  “What is it about him?” he asks, eyeing Darnell with jealous curiosity. “All y’all women look at him like he’s the goddamned messiah.”

  I hate myself for the butterflies I feel in my chest when he gets jealous—it’s so pedestrian and antifeminist—but I can’t help it.

  “I dunno, but whatever it is, it’s working,” I tease, unwilling to feed into his insecurity.

  LaShawn begins the auction onstage, so Jesus kisses me good luck before he takes a seat.

  An unexpected bidding war over a set of photos pushes the whole program back, so by the time LaShawn calls me up, I only have five minutes to get through my performance and intro Darnell before the automatic live stream begins.

  “Break a leg,” Darnell whispers.

  Rabbi Sarah crashes through the door and walks straight into a garbage can just as I reach the microphone. I see Jesus turn and look at her. I can’t believe she’s here. Ever since I announced the performance at Hannukah, she has been on my case for details, but I deflected her questions. She must have taken it upon herself to find the information online.