31

EAVESDROPPING AGAIN

After dinner, because Bibi had cooked and Victoria had just gotten off work, Lorna and Laura stayed inside to clean up and made everyone else vamoose. Harris, Ahmed, Victoria, Bibi, and I were sitting on the back patio under the lit-up pergola when I excused myself to get some water.

“Other than that hair, you think she looks half white?” I heard either Lorna or Laura ask.

I stopped dead in my tracks and was getting ready to turn around and sneak back outside before they saw me, but when I thought about the truth I’d learned from eavesdropping on Mom and Gam a few weeks ago, I decided to stay out of sight and hear what else they had to say.

“If I didn’t know you better, I’d accuse you of having just made a very ignorant statement. What is half white supposed to look like, Halle Berry or Alicia Keys? There are many ways to look half white. Some of my biracial students have looked more white, others more black. Most of them have been somewhere in the middle. I had one girl who looked Persian. Biracial comes in just about every shade of skin, and all colors and kinds of hair, from pin straight to nappy. You can never predict what’s going to come out of the mixed pot,” the other answered.

“I know you’re right,” the other twin agreed. “I had a boy in my class who everyone thought was Latino until his black Jamaican daddy showed up on parent-teacher night.”

“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she? With that creamy brown complexion.”

“And so intelligent, just like Warren. It’s a shame he died so young.”

“A shame,” the other twin commented, and added, “I’ll never forget his hundred-watt smile that could light up a room.”

“Wasn’t he always just as pleasant as could be?”

“As could be,” she answered.

“And from the time he could read, always had his nose in a book. Lord, Roxanne sure loved that child.”

“His dying broke her.”

“It did,” the other twin agreed.

What does that mean? I wondered.

“You think she looks half white?” one twin asked again. “I suppose when you consider how dark brown her daddy was . . .”

“I know you’d better hush,” her sister replied.

At that point I tiptoed to the bathroom, switched on the light, and closed the door. I got close to the mirror and stared at my reflection. Shy, shrinking Violet reappeared.

To white people, I’m half black.

To black people, I’m half white.

50% black + 50% white = 100% Violet?

Is that what I am, a percentage?