Genesis Begins Again

by Alicia D. Williams

“Huh? You mean just recording them?” I say, confused.

  “Oh snap!” Terrance yelps. “You thought you were gonna be onstage with us?” And he bursts out laughing.

  “I thought I heard an animal howl.” Yvette comes out of the classroom and drapes her arm over my shoulders. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” I say, feeling dazed by my own STUPIDITY! Sophia was right!

  “Your girl thought she was gonna be onstage with me and my boy,” Terrance informs her.

  “What? Are you fraternizing with the enemy, Genesis?” Yvette smiles, smooth. She plays with my hair, saying, “She’s in our group, sorry, boys.”

  “Oh, so you recruited her. I see you, Yvette,” says Terrance. “Making moves like a chess player.”

  Chess player? What does that mean? I can hardly think, or think beyond how, once again, I am so stupid. I AM SO STUPID! Like I was going to prance onstage alongside Jason. There’s no way I’m going let myself be played by him and that jerk. So I say, loud and clear, “You know what, Jason, I won’t be singing for y’all.” I shove past them into the classroom.

  Behind me, the jerk keeps mouthing off. “She loco if she thought she was gon’ be onstage with us. Look at her!”

  Stupid boy didn’t even notice my skin. Or hair. My thoughts, however, aren’t enough to drown out Terrence’s yapping as he, Jason, and Yvette saunter into the room.

  “Yvette,” he’s saying, “what happened to your other singer—” Quick, quick, I fake busy. What did happen to her? Yvette’s voice goes low when she answers, and I can’t be sure, but it sounds like—do whatever it takes to win. Then snickering, and not just from Terrance. But by the time I swivel Yvette’s way, she’s composed, glances from me to the guys, then back to me, and rolls her eyes as if to say that she, too, thinks Terrance is a jerk.

  Mrs. Hill announces that we’ll start preparing songs for the graduation ceremony. Cheers from the eighth-graders go up. My focus remains on Mrs. Hill, because despite Yvette’s eye roll, I don’t know what happened to the other singer in her group and can only guess the meaning of “whatever it takes.” And no way am I looking in Jason’s direction. Does he feel the same as Terrance?

  Before class is over, Mrs. Hill reminds us that our song title for the talent showcase must be turned in for the program by Wednesday. After everyone’s gone, Mrs. Hill informs me that she noticed I was “somewhere else” in class. What do I tell her? The truth? No. “Anxious for the talent show?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. But all I want to do is escape it all. Listen to Billie or Ella and go somewhere else in my head. But I gave back the Ella CD. I’d had it for more than two weeks. Maybe she’ll lend me another? I ask, and for once something goes right—Mrs. Hill leads me to her collection.

  “You’ll find both my old and new gems mixed in here.”

  These must be all those old singers and musicians that Mrs. Hill identifies us as. Like when she said I was a Billie Holiday, it was a good thing. Billie Holiday opened my ears and showed me that there’s a way to ooze out pain. Even though she didn’t peg me as Ella Fitzgerald, Ella reminded me to bring out the positive amid the hurt. But now I search on my own, not sure what I need. I play a few bits from several CDs. Nothing speaks to me. I try a few more. Nothing. I’m just about to give up, when I pop one last CD into the machine and hear the first strums of a guitar, and then a smoky, mellow voice cries out, “Something told me . . .”

  I restart it and listen. I press repeat and listen again. I do it one more time—in disbelief. This is it! Dad’s mystery song, the one he always hums. I push the headphones tight against my ears, gulping the song down, trying to figure if it’s the words that move Dad or her voice. It’s another song about a broken heart, but the way she sings it, man . . . I feel it deep in my belly. I finally found it—then I think with a laugh, no, Etta James found me.

  twenty-nine

  Even though Mama told me to be a kid, my brain doesn’t want to stop trying to figure out what Dad might be doing all day. Thought bubbles hover above my head as I smear the cream onto my face and hands. And suddenly I’m struck by a terrible thought. What if I’m doing all this and Dad still doesn’t consider me beautiful? What then?

  Perhaps if I read more books, then I’d see things differently . . . see things like Troy. Eagle-eye Troy. I still can’t get over what I said to him. I know, I know, he was only trying to help. I’ll fix it, I promise myself.

  And that’s where I end my thoughts for now, ’cause Etta James is blowing through the speakers with her soul. As much as I tease Dad for singing old Motown songs, I never thought I’d be listening to ol’-school blues. Track two plays: “I’d Rather Be Blind.” When Etta James hits the first three notes, I immediately feel the hurt in her deep, raspy voice. Struggle, too. I restart it and sing along, restarting the song over and over until I determine how she moves her voice, until I can pull up my own bad memories that help me match her strength. I can’t of course, not nearly as well as Etta, but I put everything into it, eyes closed, being blind.

  Overnight, my light spots have grown—definitely noticeable. My fingers are really light around my fingertips and there’re a few dots on my hands. On my chin, where my scrapes were, is a little spot. Two on my left cheek about the size of a fingernail, and three on my right. A few smaller dots are on my forehead, too. When I put my arm next to my face, I swear my skin shade has gotten a teensy bit lighter; shoot, it’s not much, but I’ll take it. Mama will surely zoom in on the changes, so I stall in the bathroom—half the time admiring my face and combing my hair, and the other half getting ready for school—until I know she’s left for work.

  Here’s the thing about friendships: sometimes you gotta admit that you were wrong . . . and they were right. And in my case, Sophia was right again. That’s why I immediately need to explain to her what I’ve decided. When Coach tells us to run four laps on the track, I jog alongside her, arranging the sentences in my mind. Because even when I told myself I was using Yvette and Belinda as much as they were using me, I realize it’s just like #86: Because she let them call her Charcoal, Eggplant, and Blackie. And here’s Sophia, who’s never wanted anything from me, except friendship.

  I gotta own this. So I flat-out say, “Sophia, you were right about Jason.”

  “What makes you say that?” She curves off to the side of the track.

  “I kinda knew it, but I . . . got caught up in a fantasy, you know?” We stop and catch our breath. “There’s one more thing. I’m quitting the group.”

  Sophia looks at me now, so closely that she has to see my spots. But she keeps mum. She keeps mum because I am her friend. And I need to let her know that she is my friend. Yeah, I get all dazzled by the popular girls, but I think, maybe, a little, I’m learning to see beyond them. To seeing who my friends really are. So I ask Sophia directly, “What did Yvette do to you?”

  Sophia’s fingers now twist and untwist the bottom of her T-shirt. She glances toward Coach, who’s screaming as usual. She’s got her T-shirt twisted so high her stomach shows. Coach blows her whistle, waves at us to get running.

  “I know I should’ve asked you way before now, but—I was afraid to know.” There, I admitted it. Sophia’s twisting her T-shirt so hard I worry it’s going to rip right off, so I go on. “I didn’t want to know. I thought that if I didn’t know, then I could get to know them and they’d get to know me on their own. And I didn’t want it to mess up my friendship with them . . . or . . . what I wanted to believe was a friendship.”

  Sophia’s face has gone red, and she no longer meets my eyes. I almost regret fessing up, but hiding it was wearing me out.

  “Papageorgiou and Anderson, if you don’t get those feet moving I will hold you here after school and run you like racehorses!” Coach looks ballistic.

  Sophia pivots and faces the track. Slowly she takes off, and so do I.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” I ask, really, really needing her to say something, anything. Sophia’s
friendship is one of the only things that makes sense in my life right now. We pass Coach again, and she warns us to not let moss grow under our feet or she’ll keep us after school every day for a week. “What did they do to you, Sophe?”

  We slow down, but our feet keep shuffling. I’m sweating now, but for once there’s no need for me to worry about my hair kinking up.

  Sophia begins, “When I first got diagnosed, I was really upset about it. I tried my best to hide it. But kids would, like, make fun of me when I’d move my desk—you know . . . linoleum squares? Lining up?”

  I nodded—I could fully imagine Sophia needing to get her desk exactly along the lines of the linoleum square flooring. She was watching me carefully—I could tell she could tell I got it, because she continued.

  “One day, Yvette saw me crying in the bathroom and was really nice to me. I’d never told anyone about my OCD, but I thought I could trust her . . . then, like, the very next day, everyone started mimicking me.” Sophia looks me straight in the eye. A pay-attention look. “She even made up a cartoon called ‘Fear the Walking Freak.’ Guess who the main character was?”

  “Dang, Sophe. That’s beyond foul,” I pant. Now I want to get on the stage more than ever. Not only in hopes that Dad’ll be in the audience, and that Mama’ll know that I’m even more courageous than she thinks. But for this—this might sound selfish, but—I want to beat the sequins off Yvette and Belinda. “You all right?”

  “Yep, I’m over it.” We speed up till we get past Coach. “So what’s up with the makeup? Is this part of the demands of the group or something?”

  I shake my head. “So, uhm, remember my secret?”

  Sophia grins. “Which one?”

  “Funny! The one where I told you what I didn’t like about myself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well . . .” I glance around, making sure no other girls are around before continuing. “This ain’t makeup.”

  Yvette and Belinda pass us on the track. They wave at me, but I refuse to raise a hand to them. They keep going, clueless to my angry rebellion.

  Sophia ignores them and sticks to the issue. “Then what is it?”

  I spill the full story about me researching skin bleaching online, how Troy found out, how I ordered it and now Troy’s acting funky because yes, I did flip out on him. I end with, “I can’t believe you even noticed them.”

  “Well, yeah, I noticed. And . . . wow . . . I can’t believe you did that.” Sophia purses her lips, thinking, then says, “How’re you going to explain to your mom and dad that all of a sudden you’re—”

  “I haven’t figured that part out yet.” My left calf is killing me. “I’m debating whether to tell people that I have the same thing Michael Jackson had.”

  “Vitiligo?” Sophia says. “I don’t know, Genesis, claiming a condition that you don’t have . . . you might jinx yourself. I wouldn’t if I were you.”

  Geesh. Even though she took away my one reasonable answer, she’s got a point. Plus, if I’ve learned one thing this week, it is to listen to Sophia’s advice.

  It’s time to talk to Troy. Once again, I don’t have a clue as to what to say, but I’ve gotta say something. When I meet him in the library, I drop my notebook down on the table.

  “You definitely know how to hold a grudge, don’t you?” Okay, not the best start.

  “You definitely know how to insult your friends, don’t you?” Well, at least he said “friends.” That’s promising.

  “Me flippin’ out on you wasn’t cool. And I’m sorry,” I apologize. “You taking it the way you did, well, I didn’t see that coming.”

  “It kind of just happens when it comes to people I care about.”

  I dare to smile—he didn’t say “used to,” he said he does! “But I don’t get it, Troy. That didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  Troy slides back from the table, shifting in his chair. “Yeah, you don’t get it. You were cool . . . just the way you were. You weren’t wearing fake hair down your back or trying to be a made-up superstar, somebody you weren’t. You were you, without all the extra.”

  “Hold on, you’re mad at me because I’m not what you wanted me to be?”

  “No, I’m not mad. It’s just that you started switching up. It’s like you’re falling in line with all the other girls.” Troy takes a moment, then says, “Remember me telling you that my folks made me read Malcolm X? And I said it taught me to think for myself? It’s like, you’re believing the hype without asking questions.”

  “Well, I didn’t read any of those books,” I say defensively. “So you saying that you never felt like how I feel?”

  “Of course I did, when I was a kid. But then I kinda realized, what’s so bad about the way I am? So I started telling myself, ‘Today I’m gonna beat the odds. Today I’m not gonna be a stereotype. Today I’m gonna be whatever.’ I have to psych myself up on the daily. So yeah, I know how hard it is, but what you’re doing . . .” Troy holds his hands in the air as if he’s done talking and leaves me to fill in his blanks, but he doesn’t take his gaze off my face, adding, “Do you even know what’s pretty to you? I mean, not what people tell you is pretty. . . .”

  I was all proud of my changes, hoping the world would notice, but he now makes me . . . want to run for cover. He’s asking all these questions that, I don’t know . . . I thought I had figured out. Now I want him to look at anything else besides my face. So I hold up my book and ask, “Are we working today?”

  But Troy’s not done. “You know that that stuff can give you cancer, right? It can burn your skin.”

  “It’s not like I plan on using it for that long,” I argue, but my brain is sending off an alarm bell. I didn’t actually know that! “ ’Sides, people do stuff all the time that’ll cause cancer and they’re fine.” Like Dad’s smoking.

  “Genesis.” Troy lowers his voice, looking right at me. “Here’s the deal. You were dope before the auditions. Before the fancy hair. Before all of it. Because you weren’t chasing the hype.”

  Chasing the hype. Hmph.

  “Anyway, you still mad at me? I miss my friend, you know?” I say, leaning against the table.

  “I’m not mad. Well, I was . . . you went off on me, and I was like ‘whaaa?’ ” He rubs his hand back and forth, back and forth, over his own curls. “But it’s all good.”

  “Good.” I grin big, and it feels good. Troy sees me. And because of this, I want to help him, too. “Troy,” I say, “it’s time we talk about your violin act, ’cause you’re pretty dope too; let me help you harness all your dopeness.”

  thirty

  Mama’s in the laundry room when I get home. My plan is to sneak to my room without her noticing me—noticing my hair and face—so I call out, “I’m home,” before shutting my bedroom door. But then she responds with, “I’ll be right there. I brought some boxes.”

  Shoot. I scramble to tie on my night scarf and try to shade my face. She opens my door, and I immediately turn my back and start digging in my book bag. “Ma, I have a ridiculous amount of homework,” I tell her.

  “Okay, but let me first tell you about the jobs I’ve been applying for . . . right out here.” Mama sits on my bed. “So I don’t want you to get too excited, because I haven’t had any interviews yet, but—”

  “Ma, can we please do this later? I just said I’ve got a ton of homework. Plus, I need to practice for the show.”

  “I know, I know, the show. But you’ll want to hear this, come sit down.” She pats the space next to her. I work my way over while pretending to look out the window. Mama takes my hand and rubs it. “Time is running out here, but I’m working on at least moving us back to the area. . . .”

  I slide my hand out of hers, but she grabs it back. “Listen now, we should discuss one—wait, what . . . what is this?” Mama examines my fingers, holding them tight so I can’t pull away. “You been playing in my makeup again?”

  “No.”

  “Then why your fingers look lik
e this?” she asks. Then she takes hold of my chin and inspects my face. “If it’s not makeup, then explain what’s on your face.” Mama’s eyebrows are scrunched in examination mode, and she cries out, “Oh no . . . I know what it is. I’ve seen these before. . . .” She stands up. “We need to see a doctor to be sure, but I believe it’s . . . what’s it called?”

  “Vitiligo.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what it’s called, vitiligo.” She reaches for my hand again, as if she’s about to haul me to a doctor that second. “I think that’s what you have.”

  I turn away. “I don’t, Ma.” Sophia had just asked me how I was gonna explain these spots to my folks. To think that I was so close to claiming this condition, but our talk convinced me otherwise. And guess what? I still don’t have an answer to this question.

  “How would you know?” Then the look on Mama’s face turns from fear to concern.

  I hide my hands in my lap, wishing that this whole moment would just—poof! But no, Mama’s still waiting for my response, and I drop my head.

  Now she’s pacing. “It’s that brown bag nonsense, isn’t it? Why my mother have to—” Mama keeps going, not giving me a second to answer, even interrupting herself. “I thought that after our talk and how I told you I was teased . . . I thought you’d realize that you are who you are.”

  Mama doesn’t understand. She just doesn’t understand. So I tell her. I finally tell her, “I want to look like you.” Mama’s eyes brim instantly with tears. And then I admit that it’s a cream, and right away apologize for using her credit card. And boy, oh boy, I was not expecting her to blow up the way she does.

  “You used my credit card?! You stole my credit card?!” And all of a sudden, I’m a bunch of irresponsibles, untrustworthies, and lacking of moral character. These are only a few of the words that I pick up. They sting the most because, well, that’s how Dad’s employers saw him. When Mama’s tired herself out from fussing, and I’m ripe with the most awful, spoiled-milk feeling ever, she holds her hand out and with a voice full of bass, says, “Give it to me.”