Color Me In Read online

  Another one of the rules in this house is “No one leaves the table until everyone is done,” which means that even though the tension is at an all-time high, we have to sit here until Pa makes his way through his plate.

  * * *

  —

  Every night my cousins and I switch off who washes, who dries, and who puts stuff away (there’s no dishwasher either), but I always seem to get stuck washing, which turns my hands into shriveled turnips that smell like a wet dog on the subway. Jerry jumps as Jordan stomps around the kitchen and slams every cabinet she touches, irritated that she is forced into such close proximity with me. As soon as the last dish is back in its place, she storms out, and the three of us count to twenty in our heads to avoid her wrath before we head to the stoop for the evening like we always do.

  The weather has finally cooled to a comfortable seventy degrees, and the fire hydrant has been opened for the younger kids, who prance and scream like they just discovered water. A Mister Softee truck rounds the corner, drawing everyone over for ice cream and Popsicles. Jerry saunters toward the truck, jingling a handful of coins in his pocket. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night to pee and I swear I can hear the truck making its way through the streets. That’s something I’ll miss if Mom and I ever move back to the suburbs. I like the idea that Harlem is the only place in New York where you can get ice cream right outside your door, twenty-four-seven.

  “I could do something cute with this, Ney,” Janae says behind me, grabbing a chunk of my locks to examine. “The texture is pretty fine, but you’ve got a lot of hair. What about cornrows?”

  “Okay.”

  I’ve never had cornrows, but I’ll do anything to gain an ally. Janae gets up and goes inside to grab her hair tools. From here, it seems like the whole neighborhood is on our block, yet somehow it doesn’t feel crowded. Young adults hang out on their stoops, passing around beers and jokes. Parents take photos of their toddlers as they drop ice cream on their feet and grab at it, confused as to why they can’t hold it in their hands like everything else.

  “Hey.”

  The guy who called to me earlier from the street corner now stands directly in front of me, interrupting my people watching. Up close, he’s even cuter than when I saw him from halfway down the block. I look behind me; the last thing I need is for Janae to come out here and think I’m talking to him to piss her sister off.

  “I’m Jesus,” he says, pronouncing it “hey-sus” with an accent that seems to only come out on certain words. He takes a sip from his water bottle and licks his plump, perfect lips, and I have to pull my eyes away before he notices me staring.

  “I’m…Nevaeh, Jordan’s cousin.”

  I look back at the door again. Confused, he peers at the house as well, but no one is there. “You waitin’ on someone?”

  “Did you need something?” I manage to say. “Jordan? I don’t know where she is.”

  I need him to get out of here, even if all I want is for him to stay and keep talking.

  Some kids run by and squirt water guns in our direction, soaking my shirt and revealing my lame nude sports bra that looks like old-lady wear.

  “Jesus!” I yell, shocked by the cold water. “Oh! Sorry! I—”

  A car pulls up and marijuana smoke seeps through the open window. It fills the street with a funk that is more appealing than the tables of oils and incense that billow on every other corner of Harlem but still makes me wrinkle my nose.

  “You got a cell phone?” he asks.

  I hold my phone up and he grabs it. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.

  “Um, yes,” I whisper.

  He leans in to take a photo of himself kissing my cheek and then puts his name and number into my contacts and texts himself.

  “I’ll hit you up,” he says before he hops into the car with his friends and drives off.

  My hand flies up to my face to touch the spot where the ChapStick impression of his lips makes my cheek tingle like the face peels I steal from my mom sometimes.

  “Scoot another step down,” Janae commands as she returns, miraculously none the wiser. She sets up a mini-tripod to hold her phone. The only places she isn’t allowed to record are the dinner table and church (more of Pa’s rules), so after a long Sunday, I know she’s dying to capture some new content.

  “Just gonna catch some B-roll,” she explains, checking the rig to make sure it’s secure. She starts combing out my hair in strokes that feel like she’s pulling my scalp clear off my head. I try to imagine that my butt is made of cement to root myself to the ground. The noise on the block stands in for conversation as she portions the section for each braid with razorlike precision, poking me with the comb every time I wiggle and mess up her straight lines.

  Jerry comes back and plops down next to me, licking a swirled soft-serve cone—half chocolate, half vanilla—that’s melting down his arm.

  “Is it real different here from where you normally live?” he asks me as he wipes the ice cream from around his mouth, smearing the thin line on his arm into a sticky blob.

  Jerry’s never been to our house in White Plains. No one has, other than Grandma. Anita and my father hate each other, and before the separation, my mom hadn’t seen her sister or any of the family in years. We attended relatives’ birthday parties when I was little, but as time went on, the distance between my mom and Anita grew until their only communication was a few phone calls a year and birthday cards. This summer is the first real concentrated time I’ve spent with anyone other than Grandma on this side of the family. We are strangers—practically craigslist roommates. Except we’re not. I always accepted that we didn’t see my mom’s family, without ever trying to figure out the real reasons why.

  “Yeah, it’s different,” I confirm.

  He thinks for a second.

  “Well, that’s okay. Here’s where you’re from too, with us,” Jerry declares with such confidence that for a moment, I almost believe it could be that simple.

  Uncle Zeke comes out of the house, sipping his Sunday-evening beer and ready to put on a show. He circles his arms around his head and dances to his made-up song.

  “It’s shower time! Wash your body, Scotty! Wash your booty, Scooty! Wash your booty, Scooty!”

  Mortified by his father’s childish behavior, Jerry climbs the stairs with a dramatic sigh. Zeke follows, relishing the final years of obedience and one-on-one time before Jerry outgrows the need for any parental attention at all.

  Janae finishes another braid and fastens a tiny band on the end, relieving me momentarily of the pressure between my scalp and skull. In the quiet evening, I can hear each strand of hair as she pulls it tight, so I ask the first question that pops into my head.

  “You excited about that college trip?”

  The words sound lame once they come out of my mouth, and I feel my face flush.

  “Nah,” she says as she begins the final braid. “That’s Jordan’s ish. I’d skip it altogether if it was up to me. For most people, college is just an overpriced social experiment that leads to date rape, alcohol poisoning, and debt.”

  I’ve never even considered not going to college. It’s just always been the goal.

  “What would you do?” I ask, intrigued.

  “Work!” she says, incredulous that I could even ask. “A hundred more YouTube followers on my channel and I can get my account verified for ad sales to save up and buy a real camera. Did you know Steven Spielberg started directing movies when he was thirteen? I’m trying to make a blockbuster about the almost-end-of-the-world where a Black person saves the day instead of dying in the first four minutes.”

  “Like Black Panther?”

  She peers around from behind me, her eyes narrowed and one eyebrow raised in defiance.

  “Smart-ass.”

  “So you ARE going to go to college?” I ask.
>
  “Mama said she didn’t work her fingers to the bone all these years for her kids not to graduate from college, but she’s only paying for in-state tuition. I heard Brooklyn College has a pretty good film program. I’ll apply there.”

  Jordan walks over from wherever she has been hanging out. In the sunset, the shadow of her hair looks like a crown.

  “Great, so white girls are gonna see you and think it’s okay to get cornrows outside of their annual all-inclusive Caribbean-island vacation. This isn’t some fad the Kardashians started, it’s our culture.”

  Unlike Jerry, Jordan knows exactly how deep this topic cuts.

  “It’s her culture too, isn’t it?”

  Janae’s response shotputs out of her. I can tell she’s trying to make a point, but it’s a question I’ve often wondered about. Sometimes I don’t know what I get to claim as my own.

  “Apparently, only when she decides it’s convenient,” Jordan shoots back.

  Jordan bends down in front of me so our eyes are perfectly parallel and our nose tips touch. Her tightly coiled jet-black curls frame her heart-shaped face and full lips. She recently underwent a bit of a transformation (at least, that’s what Janae says), after being selected to attend a young Black women’s leadership conference, all expenses paid, in Baltimore. Jordan returned a few days later with a new natural hair regimen, an unwavering sense of political activism, and a dream of attending an HBCU.

  “Leave her alone, Jordan. It was my idea,” Janae orders, tugging my head back up from where it has inadvertently tucked itself into my neck.

  Jordan sucks her teeth.

  “Pandering to her fragility isn’t helping anyone,” she says to her sister, and pushes past us, accidentally sending Janae’s rig clattering off its perch.

  My stomach lurches up to my mouth and I hop down to grab the tripod and phone.

  “You know I like you, right, Ney?” Janae asks once she has thoroughly scanned her phone and confirmed it is undamaged.

  I nod, meeting her eyes as she flicks the last bit of debris off the lens.

  “But if it comes down to it, I’m always on her side. It’s a twin thing.”

  I nod again. So much for an ally.

  Chapter 4

  I check out my new look in the bathroom mirror. Janae gave me five cornrows. The thickest is dead center, with the others thinning out as they move down either side of my head. Having my hair tied back so tight shows off my eyes and lips. I like it because it’s the closest I’ve ever come to resembling my mother. But Jordan’s words replay in my head, so I face the sink and don’t look up again until I’m back in the hallway, free from my reflection.

  My mom and I occupy the guest room on the third floor. She’s in bed already, not asleep, just lying facing the fan with her back to me. My grandma made the quilt that has been pushed to the foot of the bed; she used all sorts of fabric to sew different-colored fish against a white background like they are swimming through a cloud.

  “Mommy?” I whisper.

  We have this floor to ourselves, but it seems like these days any little noise bothers her, so I try my best to be quiet, even in conversation.

  “Hmm?” she murmurs almost inaudibly.

  “See my hair? Janae did it for me.”

  She turns flat on her back and barely glances at me in her peripheral vision.

  “Mmmm, it looks nice, baby,” she says, already facing the other way again.

  “Hey, Mommy?”

  She doesn’t respond this time, but I know she’s listening. I can see her eyelashes move when she blinks from the wind of her fan.

  “Why did we stop visiting the family?”

  “Your dad thought you were too young for the city. It’s a long story,” she says with a tinge of annoyance, although I can’t tell if it’s because I’m preventing her from falling asleep or because I made her think about Daddy. Either way, I can’t help myself; I need to know why I was never given a chance to know this side of myself.

  “Didn’t you miss everybody?” I ask, trying to understand how she could walk away from such a vibrant place.

  She hasn’t responded after a couple minutes, so I lean over to check. This time she really has drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  —

  Sharing a bed during a heat wave should be illegal.

  We have two fans blowing directly on us from both sides and I’m still swimming in my own sweat. My mom is in that deep sleep where her breathing is so steady and slow, it’s barely detectable. She looks peaceful, like for the first time in a while, she has been relieved of the weight of her worry and pain. Whatever happened between her and Daddy must have been really terrible, to make him want us to pick up and leave out of the blue.

  Careful not to wake her, I take my time shifting my body closer to the edge of the bed and let my feet sink to the wood before I creep out the door. The crawl space on the top floor of the house is the least logical place to go to avoid the heat, but I like it up there. Zeke built the mini-attic to store Grandma’s things after she died, but I now go there to be alone and write.

  The small, secret hideout reminds me of the sheet tents I used to build when I was younger; I feel safest when the space around me is tight and enclosed.

  So as not to give away my location, I forego the light and use my phone to maneuver my way around. There is a corner hidden behind some boxes that haven’t been touched in years where I keep my stuff, a carefully assembled duffel bag holding everything I need to survive:

  a notebook and a pen

  beef jerky

  sour Jelly Bellies

  fluffy socks

  Harry Potter books 3, 4, 5, and 6

  seltzer

  I grab a handful of jelly beans from the plastic container I keep them in and settle against the wall. My marble notebook is almost filled with my secrets, like I’m Harriet the Spy. I’ve had it since I was seven, but there are still a couple of blank pages left. It’s hard to imagine that in my lifetime, I might fill more of these books with my thoughts and rhymes. I leaf through the pages and fall back into my memories and words like I’m in a time machine. When I look at this book, I get a warm feeling. My words are like keys that unlock untapped resources within myself. They are my lifeline.

  No new words are flowing and it’s almost one a.m., so I wedge today’s folded church program between the pages and get up, careful to stow my stash back in the Tupperware that protects it from any rodent or bug that might find its way up here and into my secret space. My grandfather vehemently prohibits food outside the kitchen and dining room; it is perhaps his most stringent rule. He boasts to anyone he meets that in all the decades he has lived in this city, he has never had so much as a baby mouse set foot on his property. I can’t be the one to muddy his track record.

  My eyes have adjusted to the dim light, so I decide not to turn on my phone to guide me. A few steps in, I crash down to the floor, taking a box of books with me. I wait to hear my aunt cursing me to the high heavens for waking her and making a mess, but after ten minutes of lying flat against the cool ground, I decide it’s safe to get up and turn the light on. The books are all over the place, but it’s the label on the box that catches my eye: Corinne’s Things.

  The thin pen lines stop and start with blotches of stained ink that run down the cardboard. I came home one day a couple months ago and found a pile of boxes in the front yard being soaked by the automatic sprinklers before we piled them into a car to take to Harlem. I wonder how my mom knew which items she couldn’t live without, even though the life she had known for so long was effectively over.

  When the last book has been stuffed into the box, I tiptoe back, finally ready to go to sleep, but I notice a black book that I missed. I pick it up. It’s a tattered journal with a worn, floppy spine. Inside, my mom
’s handwriting reads:

  Corinne’s Journal. STAY OUT.

  Alone in the attic, the history of my family stares back at me. There’s my grandmother’s wedding dress, satin with a white lace veil, stowed in a clear plastic tub. She’s wearing it in the many wedding photos downstairs, her deep brown skin highlighted by the soft fabric as if she is cloaked in liquid gold. There are a couple of boxes bearing my name in the same smudged writing, and a pile of suitcases covered with so much dust that I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t been touched since my grandfather’s initial migration from Liberia.

  The stored treasure calls to me. To open this book is to violate my mother’s private thoughts and unearth her secrets, but if I don’t, I risk remaining a stranger in my own skin.

  “I am sorry,” I whisper to the sour, dust-filled air, and open the cover.

  Chapter 5

  May 26, 1998

  I picked you up today, a little treat to commemorate the day Raymond noticed me. I’ve been imagining what it would sound like if he ever said my name, and when he finally did, it was as if his tongue and lips had been created for that sole purpose.

  “Yo, Corinne, you goin’ to the dance?” he asked. His eyes glided down my overalls and to my pink Chuck Taylors.

  “The dance on Friday?” I stalled.

  I wasn’t planning to go, but I couldn’t tell him that. I couldn’t admit that I’m eighteen years old and have never done anything social or fun.

  “It’ll probably be wack,” he said, filling the silence between our substitute teacher’s snores from the front of the room. “How come I neva’ seen you outside of class?”

  My heart leapt. He’d been looking for me, expecting me to be at a party or basketball game, all the places I avoid like the plague to keep from being reminded how lame I am.