Into White Read online

  “I blame Mom and Dad. I read a study about tiger moms; they’re, like, the ultimate helicopter parents. They destroy their kids’ toys if they don’t do their homework. Destroy! Like bite the head off the Barbie, and stab Cabbage Patch type stuff. That’s why their kids wind up at Harvard and Yale and places. The only thing our parents ever made us do was watch reruns of Unsolved Mysteries. Actually, I think they might be certifiably insane.” His eyes darted around the woods, and he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you think we should have them committed?”

  “No, Alex. Where would we go? Foster parents in Montgomery, Alabama, would turn us into Miss Celie and Harpo slaves like in The Color Purple.” I realized I should probably look into that whole sophomore thing. “I have something to tell you, seriously.”

  “Found one!” He bent down to snag a dirty quarter. Since our parents never adequately stocked the refrigerator with anything other than freaking black-eyed freaking peas, we had a running quarter collection game. Quarters are everywhere if you look hard enough. Every day we gathered as many quarters as possible and pooled them together for dinnertime McChickens and the occasional Quarter Pounder. Alex always won. He was a quarter-spotting genius. I swear, the thing could be half-buried a mile up the road and he would say, I think I see a quarter up ahead.

  “I have something to tell you,” I repeated. “Did you hear me?”

  “Did you hear me? I found another quarter,” he said, amazed that I wasn’t more excited.

  At that point I realized there was no ideal time to tell my brother. I decided to rip off the Band-Aid. “I’m white,” I blurted.

  He twirled the found quarter between his thumb and index finger. “It’s a bit bent. Do you think McDonald’s will still take it?”

  “Alex!” I squealed, getting frustrated. “Listen.”

  “All right, all right.” He glided the quarter into his pocket. “What do you mean you’re white? Like white as in white? Or white as in white?” He was dead serious, too.

  “White.” I unbraided my hair and held it out for him to touch. “Here, feel this. Jesus said that my family wouldn’t see me as everybody else does, but maybe you can feel the hair. Try it.”

  My brother looked at me like I had morphed into a green baby alien. His shock was mixed with fear and pity. Like, How are we going to take care of this green baby alien? It’s so little and helpless and insane. He said slowly, “Toya, it’s going to be okay. I think our home life has given you a special PTSD thing.”

  “What’s PTSD stand for?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  He held the back of his hand against my forehead. “Post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m pretty sure our parents, in combination with the hyper-extremist Christian South, have given you hallucinations about talking to Jesus. We should get home so we can do some Britannica research.”

  A few years back, Mom found an almost full set of dingy brown Encyclopedia Britannicas at the Alabama Thrift. It was missing the first couple of volumes, so if we needed to know about arthritis or cancer or Botox, we were SOL. “Oh! I found another one!” He picked up a dirty quarter. “I’ve got enough for a McChicken and a small fry. I’ll tell you what, if you table this white issue until we get home, I’ll give you three-fourths of the McChicken instead of half.”

  He really was the best. “Okay,” I said. “But can we stop by Brookland Mall on the way home to fish the wish fountain?”

  “Sure. Thatta girl.” He petted my shoulders. “We should fish the arcade, too. Some of the little kids walk away without getting their return quarters. What kind of idiot would leave twenty-five whole cents behind?” He shook his head and walked on.

  Brookland Mall was snob central. Any mall with a Gus Von March gave me the I’m-not-worthy heebie-jeebies. If rich old white ladies could choose where they would die, it would be Gus Von March. When the store opened at ten, they bum-rushed the doors with their fancy walkers and hand-carved canes. The day cream was a hundred dollars for the three-ounce carry-on jar; it must’ve soothed their hearts, because it sure as hell didn’t work on the wrinkles. The designer ballet flats had mice faces on them and cost five hundred dollars. I liked those shoes, but I could draw a mouse face on a pair from the Mission Thrift Store for fourteen quarters.

  I didn’t want to go to Brookland Mall, but I knew my words would never be enough to convince Alex. I was going to take my brother to the mall and prove to him that I was white.

  Across the street from the mall sat a skinny-people grocery store, the kind where you could taste whatever fit in the little clear cup, and where you got peanut butter from churning a giant vat of peanuts. One of our traditions was to stop in and jam the juice, our secret slang for sampling our stomachs full.

  “You jamming the juice?” Alex asked.

  “No, my stomach’s upset,” I said, holding on to my grumbling abdomen; it always gave away my nervousness. “I’ll wait for you out front.” When he disappeared inside, I plopped down in one of the silver patio chairs. The sun beat down especially hard in Gump-town that afternoon. Small beads of sweat dripped from my chin, so I held my head back and closed my eyes to relax.

  Jesus help me, I thought. It was a prayer I’d prayed many times before. I’d prayed it as a small child, asking my mother for some worthless toy at the Hobby Shop. I’d prayed it in middle school when the hierarchy began to form, and Alex and I realized we were dead last in the lineup. I’d prayed it sometimes without even realizing it—the rope-climb test in phys ed, the PSATs. But the prayer was different now. Jesus was there and tangible in ways he’d never been before. He was absolutely and unequivocally listening.

  “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  I jumped. When I opened my eyes, a college-aged guy with dirty-blond hair, white teeth, and an Abercrombie shirt towered over me.

  I scrambled to get myself together, sit up straight, and pat the sweat off. “Oh. Yes. Yes, it is,” I said softly.

  “Anyone sitting here?” He flashed his teeth again. They bucked slightly big for his face, but they fit in his mouth. I nodded for him to sit. Besides, this presented a perfect opportunity to choose my accent. I figured I should try a twang other than Alabama, because Montgomery folks could spot fake Southern better than Roger Ebert.

  I attempted thick Boston white. “Great idear, let’s tawwk, shuaa.”

  He paused. “Whoa! Where are you from? That’s the strangest accent I’ve ever heard.” I shrugged and wondered whether I should keep talking or run away. “I’m actually really good at this type of thing.” He straightened his back in the way guys do when they’re trying to appear capable. “I’m a theater arts major at the private college down the street. It’s a really exclusive program. I had to audition, like, six times and then they gave me a slot. Do you watch Fox News in the mornings?” When I nodded, he eagerly took his seat. “The lead anchor’s oldest son is in my fraternity cohort. His name’s Marshall and he’s a total douche, but we do Fox interviews, like, all the time. Do you recognize me?”

  This guy was hitting on me. I’d never been hit on by anyone in my life. Maybe it was his teeth, but I can’t say I enjoyed it. It felt like a bit of an invasion of space. He just plopped himself down and started talking about his oh-so-very-important college life when all I wanted to do was have a two-way conversation with the Lord Almighty.

  “Minnesota?”

  “What?” I replied.

  “Is that where you’re from?” I shook my head. “Alaska, like Sarah Palin?” I shook my head and realized I should trust Aunt Evilyn and stick with my own speech. “Seattle?” I frowned. “I’m sorry, I have an idea. Hey! I’ll just go through all the states, and stop me when I nail it.”

  Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut …

  “What’s going on here?” Alex snuck up, holding two clear sample cups of broccoli salad.

  “Who the hell are you?” Abercrombie guy said, jerking his head from Alex to me, then back again, over and over.

  “You
know this boy?” he asked, as if associating with Alex was the most disgusting thought ever. I shrugged and averted my eyes.

  “She’s my sister!” Alex yelled.

  The guy stood up and strode toward Alex. “Lower your voice, weirdo.”

  Alex forced eye contact with me. “Toya, get up, now. We’re going.”

  I gathered my things.

  “Wait, you’re actually with this kid? You don’t look like a Toya,” he said, mesmerized. “This is bizarre. I’m out.” The guy ran off so quickly that he turned into a dirty-blond blur.

  When I finally looked at Alex’s face, it wasn’t anger; it was more like a disappointed dog watching you stuff the last mouthful of a McRib. That was the look Alex gave me in that moment: pure, unadulterated sadness. “Why didn’t you tell him I was your brother?”

  I dug my fingernails into my thigh. “I don’t … I mean. I’m white now. I told you—”

  “Let’s go fishing in the fountain.” He barreled toward Brookland Mall.

  “Alex, hey, I’m really … whhhh … I mean, I’m…,” I said, struggling to catch up. I hated myself. Not necessarily for being a backstabbing turncoat of a sister, but because I could never find the appropriate words in difficult situations. Sometimes I tried to fight through the mental block, but the words always came out misshapen and made me feel crazy. Then sometimes I blurted the words, and they felt even crazier. In my mind, my comebacks were clear and concise; in reality they were confusing and frustrating, so more times than not, I chose to keep my mouth shut.

  “Found one!” He spotted a quarter in the Gus Von March handicapped zone. He’d elected to stuff the hurt down deep and move forward. Never a good idea for a guy with a photographic memory. He could remember his second, third, and fourth birthdays, and everything since; so I knew he would recall being dissed by his beloved little sister in front of the overpriced health food store. I had to make him see and quick.

  “You’re totally winning. Hey, can we stop in Gus Von March?” I asked.

  “I hate Gus Von March. The cosmetics counter chicks eyeball me like Alabama’s Most Wanted, and not to mention the lone dude worker. He eyeballs me for different reasons.” He glanced around and whispered, “I think he wants to give it to me.”

  I laughed. “He doesn’t want to give it to you.” But really, I thought he did. “Just for a few quick minutes, pleeaaassse.”

  “You hate Gus Von March just as much as I do. Why do you want to go there so badly?”

  “Uh … I want to see the mannequins for thrift store ideas,” I lied.

  “Fine, as long as we’re in and out.”

  We went for the same slice of the revolving door and crashed into each other, spinning a full revolution and a half before falling out into the store. The cosmetics ladies gawked at us like we had no home training, as my mom would say. Meanwhile, I could’ve sworn the lone dude worker checked out my brother’s butt when he was picking up his book bag. Though to give the guy a little credit, three full inches of Alex’s butt crack were O-U-T out! He and my dad had no butt crack consciousness at all. One time as an experiment, I sat on my bed and rolled my jeans down three inches in the back. Afterward, I decided that there is no way anyone could expose three inches of their butt crack without feeling a breeze.

  As we gathered ourselves and our stuff from the marble-ish floor, the cosmetics ladies and gentleman pretended to look away. But I could still see them peeking through their respective glass cases. One clever middle-aged Lancôme lady held her compact high enough to see our reflection instead of staring dead on; she got an A-plus for effort on that one. Even the piano lady gaped from her piano-lady perch. She didn’t miss a single note of her rendition of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” though she had long abandoned her sheet music. Must’ve had the thing memorized, or maybe it was one of those programmed pianos, and she was there for embellishment. Either way, it was fertile breeding ground for trouble in the prejudiced South, and I was about to add a pinch of Miracle-Gro to their hotbed. Hell, I didn’t make their minds narrow; I was just cultivating the seed that yearned to break soil for sunlight.

  Lancôme lady won for creativity. “Can we stop by the Lancôme counter real quick?” I asked. Alex rolled his eyes and shrugged a disapproving approval. The Lancôme lady put down her compact.

  “Excuse me, ma’am, would you match my foundation?”

  She pursed her lips. “Fine.” She shook a bottle of liquid foundation, unscrewed the top, and wiped a glob on my cheek. “There.”

  Alex laughed. “Wow, lady, are you color-blind?”

  “Actually, boy, I see color just fine. How about you?” She looked like a woman standing over fresh diarrhea.

  Alex tugged my arm. “Let’s go.” He glanced around to see that other people were staring. “Now.”

  Alex, and every other black man in Alabama, had a sixth sense for discriminatory situations. He knew the exact moment to tuck tail and retreat.

  “Wait. I have one more question for the Lancôme lady.” I turned toward her. “What exactly were you doing with that mirror? It looked a little high for a nose powder.”

  She did a quick two-step. “I was … uhh…”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought!” I said, voice rising. Alex looked on in astonishment, since I’d never raised my voice in public. Even now I felt perilously uncomfortable, but I needed to prove my race to my brother, which sounded ridiculous even to me. “You surprised to see a girl like me hanging out with a guy like this?” I tilted my head toward Alex.

  “Toya, that’s really mean.” Alex wore the McRib-disappointed-dog gaze again.

  Lancôme lady’s eyes grew to double size. “Toya? You don’t look like a Toya. Is this man making you do this? Security!” she yelled.

  “And just what is that supposed to mean? No! He’s not making me do this! Why would you even ask such a thing? That’s incredibly offensive!”

  Alex grabbed my elbow and tugged, as two big security guys jogged toward the counter. “I didn’t mean anything by it, I mean … Toya?” she chuckled. “You know … and he’s, well.” Her eyes said it all, but not enough to convince Alex, who looked more confused than ever.

  “Do you mean because I’m white and he’s black?” I channeled one of Mom’s screams.

  “Toya!” Alex replied.

  “Well … yes,” she said gracelessly. Alex tilted his head toward the Lancôme lady. “You know, it’s not something you see every day ’round these parts.”

  I knew I could count on good old Gus Von March.

  “What do you mean, well, yes?” Alex scrutinized Lancôme lady’s face for an answer, then he looked at me.

  “I told you, Alex,” I said, wiping the liquid foundation from my face. “I’m white.”

  That moment, the security guards reached us. “Is this man bothering you, ma’am?” Guard number one placed his hand firmly on Alex’s right shoulder, and guard number two placed his hand firmly on his left.

  “Not at all, Officers.” I smiled. “We were just leaving.”

  Done and done.

  A PLAN

  My tiff with the Lancôme lady drained every ounce of mental acuity from my brain. For the next four point something miles, I was zombified. Thankfully, Alex grabbed hold of the conversation and never let go.

  “Toya, do you know what this means? This means God is back and in full effect. You might be one of his New Age disciples, like, the first black female to have a seat at the table. They’ll have to redo the Last Supper! But would you be painted as a white girl or as a black girl? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” He scratched his head like he always did when making sense of the impossible. “How will we get you enrolled in school? Where will we say black Toya has gone off to? Of course, no one would notice, since we’re absent so much anyway. We can just say black Toya’s dropped out or something.” He stopped walking and I slammed into his back. “Toya!” He grabbed my shoulders and hugged me tight. “You’re white!” His laugh echoed through Edge
wood.

  He devised numerous plans of assimilation; he said I could be a barely English-speaking exchange student. “Swedish! Dank-a you vwantta go to da movies after skewl? Swedish is like pig Latin, easy peasy coupled with your towhead. Perfect. What do you think?” He went on without a response. “We should watch Dad’s Trading Places DVD with Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis. She did a pretty good Swedish accent on the train when the guy pretended to be the other guy, you know.”

  I did know. Her breasts bounced like water balloons in that movie.

  “I don’t know about Swedish, Alex. You know that I suck at making up stories as I go. I’ll stumble all over myself and screw it up. What if I’m just white? Aunt Evilyn says I talk white.”

  “Evilyn is the devil’s spawn.” He scowled. “And what does talking white mean anyway?”

  We’d had this conversation many times before. Talking white means something totally different to Alex. He equates talking white with proper English, which he says should never be reserved for only the white community. On the other hand, my idea of talking white is an all-encompassing attitude—more of a transformation than simple vocal inflection. Moreover, to succeed at talking white, a person must embrace the act of being white or it won’t work.

  A few weeks ago, I attempted it. I consulted what I considered to be the handbooks of white females everywhere: Cosmo, Seventeen, and Teen Vogue. I combed those magazines for tips on how to become as white as a natural-born black girl could possibly be. Cosmo and Seventeen argued that I should wash my hair at least once a day. “So be it,” I said. Teen Vogue highly suggested boy shorts underwear instead of granny panties. “So be it,” I said. All three magazines agreed brown mascara was more natural than black, so I followed the instructions to a T.

  My hair started to break off, which I’d assumed was the transition from thick, unruly curls to long, flowing locks. The boy shorts underpants rode up my butt crack so that they turned into bunched-up thongs. The brown mascara made my black eyelashes look like brown recluse spider legs. My bubble really got busted when I marched past Deanté and the other black people perched by first-period biology. He said, “Why you talking like that? You ain’t white.”