Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (6 page)

“It’s not people like Suse you need to be angry at.”

“
She’s ignorant. What? I shouldn’t be angry at igno
rant people?”

“She’s not. She just . . . she has her own way of seeing
things.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Astoria said with a
snort.

I sighed, shook my head, and picked up the magazine I had brought over. We sat there in silence for a while.

“A few rich, old, white men own everything in this country when you really get down to it. And until that
changes, nothing’s gonna change,” Astoria broke the
silence when she realized I wasn’t going to say anything else about Suse.

“Astoria, you’re such a cynic.”

“But say I’m wrong, though. Say I’m wrong.”

“I’m saying I hope you’re wrong. Look at all the good
things in the world. All the world aid organizations that
have really stepped it up in the past few years. And people
are discussing race in a serious way. Especially after what just happened. Some—a lot—of people realize it’s still a
valid issue and that something needs to be done.”

“But for every one of those, there’s a discount depart
ment store that begrudges its employees minimum wage
and basically tells them to not even think about health
care. And the products sold in those stores? Made in
some sweatshop where children are dying. Brown chil
dren. While those greedy old bastards are steadily trying
to increase profits.”

“Well, see, now you’re getting more into a class issue
than a race issue.”

“
Maybe. But what ‘class’ are most of us in? Forced
into?”

“Well, I still think there’s hope for a country that
elected a black president.”

“Yeah, well, let’s hope he doesn’t get assassinated
somewhere along the way. You heard about those crazy
people in Tennessee.”

“I can never win with you, Astoria.”

“This country can never win with me. I don’t know
how you can be so complacent in a place where hate is
constantly running just under the surface.”

“You can’t give the ignorance any legitimacy.”

“I can’t have any legitimacy because of the ignorance.”
“Astoria, it has to start somewhere. Why can’t you just
open your heart and mind to the possibility that love can kill ignorance?”

“That possibility is taking too long to become a
reality. That’s what King died for, and the noose is still a
symbol of hatred toward our people. Our women are still
being degraded. Our men emasculated.”

“Well, our ‘emasculated’ men are doing a lot of the
degrading.”

“That’s the only thing they feel like they have left, I
guess. I can’t blame a man when the system’s set up
against him. Do you blame my brother, an innocent
man, for ending up in prison?”

“That’s different.”

“Like hell it is.”

It always depressed me to have that conversation. I
felt like there was so much that needed changing and so
l
ittle we could do in comparison. The easier thing to do
was not to think about it. But that was obviously not a
solution. And every senseless act of hate was a stabbing
reminder of how real the problem was.

But at the end of the day, all you can do is your part.
Anger, while understandable, isn’t going to get anyone
very far. Closed-mindedness is exactly what’s caused this
mess, so it isn’t going to help to mimic that basic reasoning flaw. Understanding and open-mindedness are much more effective than ignorance and hate.

It is important to always strive for that elusive line
between realism and pessimism. Crossing over can easily
throw you into loss.

I walked down the street that my apartment complex
was on, still thinking about Astoria while searching
through my bag for my keys.

CAN I GET A RIDE?

Thursday, after we finished studying at the library,
John was nice enough to walk me home even though he
lived in the complete opposite direction. Again, I was
reminded of one of the million good reasons he was not
available. And like it would matter if he was. Dating
wasn’t for me. Not my scene.

We were talking about Halloween, which was only a
few weeks away, as could be seen in the red and brown leaves scattering across the sidewalk and the fact that it
wasn’t even dinnertime and the sun was almost gone. We
turned into the parking lot of my apartment complex.
We slipped between two cars parked a little too close to
each other and I was awkwardly aware of the lengths we’d
gone through not to touch each other since Saturday.
Not that we’d said a word about any of it. Mostly because I was insisting to myself that there was nothing to say a
word about. I had the feeling John was telling himself
something similar. If he even thought about it at all. Maybe I was just creating fantasies in my head. I was
good at that.

John said, “So have you ever been to that haunted
hayride thing in Hanover?” We continued to pick our
w
ay through rows of parked cars, cutting across the
parking lot to reach my place.

“Please.” I laughed. That thing was a joke.

John shrugged, grinning that melty grin at me. “I’ve
never been on a hay ride. I think it’d be fun.”

“What? Sitting on stinky hay while some lame-o
comes out of the woods with a plastic ax and makes a
pathetic attempt at acting like he’s going to kill you? You
think that’s fun?”

“Sure. I think it’d be a good time. If nothing else, hilarious. We should go.”

“We?” My heart leapt for all of a moment.

Until he said, “Yeah, and oh, um, you should invite whoever, you know?” He scratched the back of his head
and his eyes moved across the parking lot. “I’ll ask my
friend Ral. You should invite your friends. Uh, and
Erich. You should invite him, too. He’s a fun guy and you
should—yeah.”

“Erich?” What did he know about Erich? “You know
Erich?”

“Yeah, we play racquetball together sometimes. Aren’t
you guys . . . friends? Or something?”

“Yeah.” Or something. Astoria had started dropping not-so-subtle hints about Erich ever since Tuesday. “I
guess.”

Erich was good looking enough. He was light skinned
and tall. He had an adorable baby face with dimples. He
had black, wavy hair. I couldn’t understand why he was
single anyway. I kept intimating he was gay. Astoria kept
insisting he was trying to get at me.

“Well . . . how ’bout it? Hay ride? Halloween night?”

“Um, I’ll check my calendar. Let you know. I think I
might have something for BLSA that night,” I said.
BLSA, the Black Law Students Association, was doing
something, but I wasn’t going to it. I didn’t have anything
planned for Halloween since it fell on a Thursday. I just
didn’t know how to respond to John yet. I didn’t know if
I wanted to go sit on hay between Erich and John. And I
was still reeling from this new info about John and Erich
hanging out. Weird. The guy I had a crush on and the
guy Astoria wanted me to have a crush on. I should have
picked a bigger school.

“Sure,” John said.

We reached my front door and I stood there. My
mood had crashed from where it’d been leaving the
library. And it kept getting worse. Thinking about Erich
led to thinking about how little John mentioned Sasha
and wondering if he’d mentioned me to her. I didn’t want
to have any of these thoughts.

“See you in class tomorrow,” I said, pulling my keys out of my pocket.

“Yeah.” John looked surprised by the suddenness of
my goodbye.

We said good-bye and he walked back toward the parking lot. I turned the key in the lock and slumped
against the door, pushing it open. For some reason, my
mind chose that moment to fill itself with images of John
and I sanding the wall together. Traitorous mind.

I
sat across from Astoria and next to Suse at a diner
downtown Friday afternoon, waiting for my salad and
wishing I had ordered country-fried steak. I wasn’t in the
mood to listen to them pick at each other. My mind was
firmly on John Archer and riding . . . hay.

It was frustrating not to even be able to whine to
Suse, though. There were not many people who could
put up with my constant complaining without rolling
their eyes and telling me to shut up. Especially not
Astoria. I’d never met anyone in the world before like
Astoria Banks. And I don’t think I ever will again. Most of the time, I thought that was a good thing.

“This food is never coming. Imma starve to death,”
Astoria grumbled, pushing a salt shaker around the table.

I barked a short laugh, shaking my head. That just
about summed Astoria up. Impatient and always having
something to say.

“Astoria, must you complain about everything?” Suse
asked, raising her eyebrows.

Astoria snorted, sat back in the booth and crossed her
arms over her chest.

“Are you really this angry about the food? I thought
you said you weren’t even that hungry,” I said, slowly
bringing myself back to the table, noticing the conversa
tion had nearly died.

“I’m angry I have to go to that stupid training
tomorrow. I’m angry I didn’t get that job I interviewed
for last week with that civil rights group. I’m angry Yeardley is the worst faculty advisor alive. I’m angry
about a lot of things.” Astoria tapped a long, manicured nail against her fork. Her lips scrunched up in irritation.
Suse muttered something under her breath about not
knowing why Astoria had come. I looked over at Astoria,
worried, hoping she hadn’t heard. If she had, she was
ignoring the comment. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to my reverie.

I didn’t really want to participate in their conversa
tion. I wanted to think thoughts about John Archer. And
I didn’t dare tell them that, especially Astoria. So I wal
lowed alone in my uncertainty about the John situation.

What was wrong with me? Even if John was single
and interested, he wouldn’t have been an option.

I’d already had my brush with death—okay, love, but
were they really all that different? I could have done quite
fine without another, thank you very much. I had the
single thing down. I had plenty to keep me busy. And
whenever I did get lonely, Astoria and Suse were there for
me.

Single was easier. Less to think about. Less to agonize
over. I didn’t have time, energy or heart left for relationships. Romance was the furthest thing from my mind, and
I would thank John Archer very much not to confuse me.

Law school protected me. I enjoyed the challenge.
Thrived on the stress. I was able to hide behind case
books and journal articles. In a way, I resented John for
transferring. As irrational as it was, I felt as if he had
intruded on my life by coming to Richmond. My crush
was a little scary. John stood for so many of the things I
had tried to block out of my life.

I
had a plan to avoid all things too emotional and too
real and things started to get a lot better. Emotion was
dangerous. Emotion had almost cost me my bachelor’s degree. Joe had ripped everything out of me that I needed
to love a man.

I thrived. And a lot of it came from avoidance. I
didn’t want to acknowledge a lot of the ugly feelings I had
inside. A lot of the disappointments life had rained down
on me in the past. I managed to trick myself into
thinking everything was fine. That my life was great. And
from the outside, what wasn’t to love? Law review. Good
grades. Trial team. Friends that loved me. It was easy to
not think about the missing pieces.