to my school in Ardmore from someplace closer to inner-city Philadelphia. She wore her hair in hundreds of tiny braids close to her scalp and clipped at the ends with plastic barrettes. She wore T-shirts with gold shiny lettering, and soft velour track pants, her sneakers star-tlingly white and huge for the size of her feet. She was different, and we all stared when she came into our classroom.
The teacher, Miss Dippold, had told us only that morning we’d be getting a new student. She’d taken care to mention how important it was to be kind to new students, especially those who weren’t “the same.” She’d read us a story about Zeke, the pony with stripes who’d turned out not to be a pony at all but a zebra. Even in second grade, I’d seen the end of that one coming from a mile away.
What I hadn’t seen coming was Miss Dippold’s command to me to shift my desk so Desiree could sit beside me. I obeyed, of course, atingle with delight at being chosen to befriend the new girl. Was it because I was the class’s top speller for that week, with my name on the board and first-in-line privileges for recess? Or had Miss Dippold noticed how I’d lent Billy Miller my best pencil, since he’d left his at home again? My desk scraped along the floor, curling small shavings of polish off the wood as I moved it aside so Randall, the janitor, could fit in another desk and chair for Desiree.
It was none of those reasons, but one I’d never have guessed.
“There,” Miss Dippold said when Desiree had settled herself into the new desk and chair. “Desiree, this is Olivia. I’m sure you’ll be best friends.”
Desiree’s barrettes clacked against one another as she turned her head to look up and down at my pleated skirt, knee-high socks and buckled Mary Janes. My hair, twisted into tight curls and held back with a matching headband. My cardigan sweater.
For a second-grader, Desiree already had a lot of attitude. “You got to be kidding me.”
Miss Dippold blinked behind her huge tortoiseshell glasses. “Desiree? Is there a problem?”
She gave a world-weary sigh. “No, Miss Dippold. Nothing wrong with me.”
Later, just before lunch, I leaned to take a peek at the drawings she was making on her notepad. Mostly swirls and circles, shaded with pencil. I showed her my own doodles, which weren’t as elaborate.
“I like to draw, too,” I said.
Desiree checked out my drawings and snorted. “Uh-huh.”
“Maybe that’s why Miss Dippold thought we’d be friends,” I explained patiently, still trying. “Because we both like to draw.”
Desiree’s brows rose up to meet her hairline. She looked around at the others, classmates who were getting restless in anticipation of sloppy joes and afternoon recess. She looked back at me, then took my hand and laid it next to hers. Against the pale gray desktops, our fingers stood out like shadows.
“Miss Dippold didn’t know anything about my drawing,” Desiree said. “She meant it’s cuz we’re both, you know.”
“Both what?”
Now she gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes at me. Her whole tone changed. “Because we’re both black.”
It was my turn to blink rapidly, trying to take all of this in. I looked around the room, at a sea of white faces. Caitlyn Caruso was adopted, too, from China, and she looked different than the other kids. But Desiree was right. She’d pointed it out as if I should’ve known all along.
I was black. This revelation stunned me into silence for the rest of the day, until I went home and took down all our family albums to flip through page after page of photos. I was black! I’d been black my entire life! How had I never noticed it before?
The answer was simple—my parents had never said so, never made it a big deal. I’d been brought up to appreciate diversity. I had little choice. Born to a white mother and a black father, I’d been adopted as an infant by parents in a mixed marriage, though of religion, not race. My nonpracticing Jewish mom had married my fallen-away Catholic dad and they’d raised two sons together in a haphazard clash of holidays until they divorced when I was five. We never talked about the color of my skin, or what it meant, or if it should mean something.
Desiree didn’t stay long in our class. Her family moved again a few months later. But I never forgot her for pointing out to me what I should’ve known my whole life.
But here’s the thing about people like Nadia, who pride themselves on being color-blind—in the end, all they see is color. Nadia hadn’t introduced me to her boyfriend because we both liked to draw, or we both listened to Depeche Mode, or even just to be polite. Carlos and I knew it.
Nadia didn’t get it. She chattered on between us, dropping names as if I should know them, referencing hip-hop songs. Carlos caught my gaze and gave me a small shrug she didn’t see. He looked at her with obvious affection, though, stopping her finally with a single murmured, “Baby.”
Nadia laughed, looking confused. “Huh?”
“If you don’t let me eat some of this food, I’m going to pass out.”
“Carlos works out a lot,” Nadia confided as her boyfriend began to decimate the buffet table. “He’s always hungry.”
I was saved from having to comment by the kerfuffle arising in the living room. I’d still been aware of Alex Kennedy at the corner of my vision. He hadn’t strayed from the fireplace. The man he’d been talking to had raised his voice and his hands, gesturing and pointing. Accusing.
This would not be the first time drama had exploded at Patrick’s house; throw a party for a bunch of queens and there are never enough crowns to go around, as he was fond of saying. I wasn’t the only one who turned to watch, either. Alex, instead of engaging in the back-and-forth, only shook his head and lifted his beer to his lips.
“You…you’re such an asshole!” cried the other man, voice wobbling in a way that made me cringe in sympathy and embarrassment for him at the same time. “I don’t know why I ever bothered with you!”
It was easy enough for me to see why he’d bothered. Alex Kennedy was a smoking-hot piece of yum. He stood, stoic, in the onslaught of another round of insults and accusations, until finally the other man stormed off, followed by a few clucking friends. The entire incident had taken only a few minutes and had turned only a couple of heads. By far not the most exciting or dramatic argument ever to hit one of Patrick’s parties, and in fact likely to be forgotten by the end of the night by everyone but the two men involved.
Well, and me.
I was fascinated.
He doesn’t like girls, I reminded myself, and dug into the roast beef, diet be damned. And when I looked up from the carnage of my plate, Alex Kennedy was gone.
It was a good party, one of Patrick’s best. By the time midnight rolled around, I’d had my fill of goodies and gossip and had to hide my yawn behind my hand so nobody would accuse me of being the old lady I sometimes felt I’d become. Karaoke had begun in the living room, where so many people were dancing both the menorah in the window and the Christmas tree in the corner were shaking.
Was that…? Oh, no. It was. I covered my eyes with a hand and peeked through my fingers as a man took center stage to sing along with Beyoncé’s runaway dance-club
