Boaz Brown (12 page)

“Yeah.”
 
Mother Alderson shifted her hat on her head as she looked in the mirror. “You’re right about that,
 
Marlaine. The only reason that white woman is with him is ‘cause she couldn’t find a white man who had just the same going for him. I’m sure she would much rather be with a white man—just wasn’t one out there that could match Pruitt.
 
I
 
sholy
 
hate to see that, though.
 
And I know
 
Hester
 
‘nem
 
ain’t too happy about it.”

Mother Alderson looked away from her reflection and gave me a sympathetic grin. I grinned back and then looked down at my feet, expecting to see a pool of urine form around them if Mother
 
Marlaine
 
Cook didn’t hurry up and get out of that stall. They had been talking about Paul, I knew, and I wanted to jump in with my two cents’ worth, but it didn’t seem the right thing to do. At least not in church, anyway. Maybe, somewhere out with Peaches or in the car, I could say all the things I felt.
 
But not in church.

I thought about Emily as I traveled home. She was a child, now, but what would she be like when she grew up? Would she still hug black people? Would she still accept a black man kissing her on the cheek, or would she be one of those white girls who would tell the principal when a black boy expressed an interest in her? Would she like black boys? Would she follow her mother’s example and date or marry a black man?

I wondered next how Emily’s father must have felt about a black man kissing his daughter.
 
Hmm.
 
I
 
betcha
 
it would burn him up that his little angel was in the company of a black man. He’d probably sue for custody.

Chapter 6

Daddy had his reservations about letting me join the debate team, let alone going off to competition with them. “How many black kids do they have on the team?”

“None.
 
I’m
 
gonna
 
be the first.”

“Hmm.”
 
He’d rubbed his chin with his thumb and reread the permission slip I’d given him.

I sat across from him at the kitchen table, waiting for the verdict. Beneath the surface, I crossed my fingers and forced my fret to stay still.

“Well, I guess you can sign up. There’s bound to be some more black kids who’ll want to get on this debate team in the future. It’s important that you open the door—but don’t forget your way back out! And keep
 
lookin’ over your shoulder, that’s for sure. White people get real crazy when it comes to competition.”

I rode with Amy
 
Baltensperger
 
and Judith
 
Pinchowski
 
to the movie theater following our debate team’s victory at Marley High School. We’d worked together long and hard on our arguments and impromptu chemistry, bringing in the crucial points that led to our team’s first-place trophy.

“LaShondra, you were awesome,” Amy complimented me, her braces shining like flashlights in the front seat. “When they called our name for first place, I was like, shoot yeah, thanks to
 
LaShondra. Nobody from those other schools knew we had someone new on our team. You’re like our secret weapon.”

Secret weapon.
 
I liked the way it rang, but didn’t know if I liked the connotation. Nonetheless, we’d won the tournament, and these two were my teammates.

“Did you see the scores the judges gave us?” Judith asked. “I mean, I swear, they were so high I was
 
freakin’ out.” She went on and on about how great it was that we were a team, especially since we were all juniors. “Next year, we will dominate!”

Judith pulled into the theater parking lot and took a space next to her boyfriend Daniel’s car. Daniel worked in the theater’s box office and had promised to get tickets for Judith and her friends after the competition. They bounced out of the
 
car. Try as I might, I could not match their enthusiasm.

Their bubbly personalities could be observed from the flouncing of their spiral curls to the spring in their steps. I didn’t have anything against being friendly, but Judith and Amy took it to another level. I couldn’t help but hope that next year there would be other black students on the team.

We approached Daniel’s booth, and Amy happily informed him of our victory.
 
“First place!”

“Cool!” he said. And then he saw me. “Who’s she?”

“Oh, babe, this is my friend
 
LaShondra. She’s on our team.” Judith introduced us.

His eyes traveled my body in disgust. “I don’t have a ticket for her.”

“Daniel.
 
. .
 
“Judith looked at me and then back at him. “I thought you said you could have as many as—”

“Not for coons,” he said.

“Oh, my God, Daniel!
 
I don’t believe you just said that!” Amy shrieked.

“I don’t have a ticket for her,” he repeated, and smiled, swinging his brown hair away from his eyelashes. He refused to look at me and spoke as though I weren’t standing right there in his face.

I have replayed that instant a million times, thinking about what I should have said or done at that precise moment. How I should have spoken up for myself. How I should have approached that window as though I were going to purchase a ticket and then reached through that hole in the glass and popped him dead in his face. But I didn’t. I just stood there, frozen by his verbal ambush.

Judith and Amy apologized the whole way home for Daniel’s behavior. “I can’t believe he
 
said
 
that, “Judith kept saying.
 

Amy kept shaking her head. “I didn’t know Daniel was like that.”

When they dropped me off I faintly waved good-bye and went to my bedroom. I cried with anger and disbelief. Somebody
 
actually called me a coon?
 
In the ‘80s?

 
The only thing that made me angrier was to learn that Amy and Judith had gone back to the theater later and watched the movie using Daniel’s free tickets.

I never signed up for debate again.

* * * * *

I was ready to go back to work after the long weekend. I woke and spent a good half hour in prayer and meditation before beginning the week. Following prayer, the rush was on—shower, brush my teeth, do my hair, put on a dab of makeup, and eat a bowl of cereal if I had time. For a single person with no kids, I
 
should
have had the morning thing down pat.

Nevertheless, I left seven minutes later than I wanted to.

I listened to a compilation of greatest gospel hits as I drove in to work, but my mind was far from the familiar tunes that came across the speakers. Rather, I was consumed in thought about the previous weekend.

Since Saturday night, I had been perturbed about this race thing. I could feel myself sliding, albeit minimally—a gradual distancing from my
 
Father. I felt it, much the same way you feel a void when a friend has moved out of town. Perhaps it’s not so bad the first day or the second day. But as time goes on, you miss that
 
person,
 
begin to know how much their presence meant to you. I knew then that God meant business about what He’d shown me in Galatians.

I wondered how, if ever, I could see past a white person’s skin.
 
How do you see someone and not see what color they are?
 
I knew, theoretically and morally, that labeling people was wrong and there was always an exception to the stereotype. I didn’t appreciate being stereotyped any more than the next person. But
 
it
 
was a fact—a reality of life in twenty- first-century America. I wasn’t as adamant about things as Daddy, but I did believe in Blackness, in unity, and in the power of our solidarity.

An even greater question was whether I
 
wanted
 
to start dealing with white people beyond casual and professional acquaintanceships. Miss Jan, my secretary, was okay, and most of the white people on staff were fine. I cared deeply for every student on the campus, regardless of race. Bottom line, I did love everybody.
 
Don’t I?
 
I mean, I wouldn’t kill or hurt someone just because they were white or Hispanic, and I didn’t wish anyone any harm.
 

Still, I knew Father well enough to understand that He wasn’t talking about the cordiality most of the population extends to every other human on the planet. He was after my heart.

“It’s just a matter of time,
 
LaShondra,” I said to myself, breathing in and then exhaling until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
 

I
 
had no idea what
 
I
 
was getting myself into, but experience had shown me that the best thing to do when convicted by the Word is to surrender. “Okay, Father.
 
I
 
submit to
 
Your
 
will.”
 

Well, the devil always gets extra busy when you start breaking down a stronghold. Can
 
I
 
get a witness? He met me bright and early when I walked into my office.

“Ms.
Smith, the Donovans are waiting for you in your office,” Miss Jan forewarned me.

“Why didn’t you have them wait out here?” I asked her.