chapter 18

“She’s sixteen years old, she’s sixteen years old, she’s sixteen years old, she’s sixteen years old!” Mama, Daddy, the boys, and Grandma sang in a variety of keys.

I blew out the pink candles on the pink-and-white cake. Mama was still ramming pink down my throat. It didn’t matter how many times I told her blue was my favorite color.

“Did you make a wish?” Kevin asked.

I nodded.

“What did you wish for, Jean?”

“Boy, you sho is nosey.” Daddy rubbed Kevin’s head playfully. “You is one nosy son of a gun,” he teased.

Mama cringed at Daddy’s grammar, but she just pulled the candles out of the cake.

“Come on, Jean, what did you wish for? Tell me,” Kevin begged.

“It’s personal. Besides if I tell you it won’t come true.” Actually I’d wished for a boyfriend, but I felt guilty that I hadn’t wished for something like us winning the War on Poverty or at least the end to the Vietnam War.

Mama set a box in front of me. I pulled the pink wrapping paper and white bow off. It was a brand-new Smith Corona typewriter!

“Thanks a lot! It’s super cool!” I hugged Mama and Daddy. “Just a couple of weeks ago, I was saying I wished I had a typewriter. This will help with my English paper on the Canterbury Tales.”

“Open mine,” Grandma shouted, pointing to the huge box wrapped in white butcher paper with a big blue bow on it. I wondered what it could be as I tore into the paper.

“It’s a new stereo! It has separate speakers and everything! Thank you, Grandma!” I hugged her. “You shouldn’t have. But I’m glad that you did!”

“First, new bicycles for Kevin and David on their birthdays, and now this. Business must be booming,” Mama said.

“Evelyn, what else am I gonna do with my little money?”

Kevin and David handed me their presents. David gave me Aretha Franklin’s Greatest Hits and Kevin gave me Stevie Wonder’s new album. Grandma must’ve tipped them off. I couldn’t believe that Kevin had managed to keep his big mouth shut about the stereo. I was impressed. The boy was growing up; he was twelve now.

“Thanks, you all. I have to pinch myself to make sure this isn’t a dream.”

“You won’t have any trouble keeping up with the Joneses now.” Grandma smiled.

“This is better than having a party.”

“I told you you’d come out ahead this way,” Mama reminded me.

“Forget the Joneses,” Daddy said. “I just hope we’ll be able to put all three of you kids through college.”

“I hope they’ll get scholarships,” Mama said, handing me the knife so I could cut the cake. “Our savings won’t be enough.”

David made a sad face. “A mind is a terrible thing to waste, y’all.”

“You remember that and maybe you’ll bring home a better report card next time,” Mama said without cracking a smile.

“If I had came North ten years earlier, I could have got ahead quicker,” Daddy said as I served him a big piece of cake.

“Yeah,” Grandma agreed. “But you done well. You done real well.”

“Mama, Ray, you make me want to scream, the way you’re butchering the English language.”

“Go ahead and scream,” Grandma said. “Knock yourself out.”

Mama ignored Grandma and began scooping homemade ice cream into little bowls.

“Ray, how can you talk about putting our children through college with the kind of example you’re setting?”

Daddy swallowed, looking embarrassed. Grandma scowled at Mama. Kevin gave Daddy a sympathetic look. David shifted nervously like he didn’t know how to react. Why couldn’t she let the man eat his ice cream and cake in peace? I wondered.

“Tell your father what he should have said, Jean Eloise.”

I was quiet. I didn’t feel like siding with Mama so Daddy could look bad.

David spoke up, “Dad, you should’ve said, ‘If I had come here ten years earlier, I would have gotten ahead quicker.’”

“That’s what I said, ‘If I had come here.…’”

“No, you didn’t, Dad, you said ‘If I had came …’”

“Don’t you get smart with me, boy! Don’t tell me what I said. I can’t even open my mouth around here anymore.”

“Evelyn, this ain’t no English class. You’re ruining the party,” Grandma said, groaning.

“Good grammar is important. Like it or not, people judge you based on the way you speak. Now that’s just the way it is.”

“Well, it’s my party and nobody’s here to be judged. We’re here to have fun. So everybody is allowed to butcher the English language all they want to,” I declared.

“Right on!” Grandma clapped.

Daddy walked over to the cabinet and poured himself a taste.

Mama sighed.

“Happy sweet sixteen,” he said, toasting me.

So far it had been bittersweet, I thought.

Uncle Craig had picked Grandma up and taken her home. Daddy had gone out to a tavern for a nightcap. Mama and the boys had cleaned up the kitchen after the party. Gunsmoke had just ended. Matt Dillon had gunned down the bad guys. Me, Kevin, and David were still in front of the TV set.

Daddy staggered in the front door, singing “Happy Birthday” at the top of his lungs.

Mama came out of the bathroom in her nightgown with cold cream all over her face.

“Ray, hush up! You should be ashamed for the children to see you like this.”

Daddy ignored her. “Happy birthday, dear Jeanie, happy birthday to you!” He smiled, popping his fingers as he went down the hall.

Mama shook her head, sadly. “You see what alcohol can do to a person. Let this be a lesson to all of you. The key to getting ahead in life is not in a bottle. Mark my words.”

“Mama, is Daddy an alcoholic?”

“Of course not, Kevin. You think I would be married to an alcoholic?”

“Dad just likes to have a good time,” David explained. “Some people get happy in church, other people have a good time by drinking alcohol.”

“How old are you? How old are you? How old are you?” Daddy continued to sing loudly from the bedroom. “I’m sixteen years old, I’m sixteen years old, I’m sixteen years old, I’m sixteen years old,” he belted out.

My brothers covered their mouths to keep from laughing.

The next day I was sitting in the office of my guidance counselor, Mrs. Stuart. I’d seen her before but we’d never met. She was an attractive woman in her thirties with a caramel complexion. She wore her hair in a large afro and was a sharp dresser. I looked at the big clock on the wall. It was ten after two. Mrs. Stuart was ten minutes late. My homeroom teacher had told me that I needed to meet with her to plan my future since I had been accepted into the Junior Honor Society.

I was surprised to hear a white woman’s voice.

“I’m tired of just being seen for my color.” Nurse Horn sighed and ran her fingers through her short brown hair.

I watched as the school nurse followed Mrs. Stuart into the office. I’d been down to Nurse Horn’s office with cramps a few times, so we nodded at each other.

“I want to be seen as an individual too,” Nurse Horn continued. “I marched with Dr. King, I was arrested during Freedom Summer in Mississippi. Pamela, I’m not just any white person.”

“Diane, do you think you deserve a medal?” Mrs. Stuart asked, folding her arms against her rust-colored suit.

“No, I don’t think that I deserve a medal. But I am tired of black people who haven’t paid half as many dues making judgments about me. I want to be judged by the content of my character, like Dr. King said.”

“If you’re black you don’t have to march to pay dues, Diane. You pay dues just by breathing.” Mrs. Stuart glanced at me. “Jean, sorry to have kept you waiting. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

“That’s okay, I’m not in any rush.”

“Pamela, how can things ever change if we don’t get to know each other as people? What did we march for anyway?”

“I marched with Dr. King too, Diane. And I didn’t march just so that black folks and white folks could be bosom buddies. I marched for equal opportunity and justice.”

“Well, as long as the black teachers sit at one end of the teachers’ lunchroom and the white teachers sit at the other end, what’s the difference between today and the fifties? We may as well go back to separate but equal.”

“Look, it was separate but it was never equal. Was it, Jean?”

I shook my head, remembering the picture of the two water fountains in my Afro-American History book.

“White people have made it quite clear that they don’t want to live next door to us. Haven’t they, Jean?”

I nodded.

“Some white people. I don’t appreciate being lumped together with all white people, Pamela.”

Mrs. Stuart continued, “All it takes is for one black family to move into a neighborhood, and the FOR SALE signs go up so fast it makes your head spin. And white folks have made it crystal clear that they don’t want their children to go to school with us. Haven’t they, Jean?”

“That’s true,” I agreed. Nurse Horn looked at me with her soft gray eyes. I didn’t have anything against her, but the truth was the truth. What else could I say?

“Some white people, Pamela.”

“Like Jesse Jackson says, ‘It’s not the bus. It’s us!’ So no wonder we need to separate to figure out who we are as black people. How much rejection can you expect people to take? Right, Jean?”

“Right,” I answered. I mean, Mrs. Stuart had a point.

“So does that mean if I see you sitting with black teachers at a table and I join you, you will pretend I’m not there again?”

“When I taught at a white school over on the Northwest side, I had to sit alone. I had to eat alone … no one gave me the time of day. Sometimes I felt like I was invisible.”

“Is that how you want me to feel?”

“Look, Diane, if you come into the teacher’s room and I’m alone, you can join me. Otherwise, wait for an invitation, okay?”

“I’m supposed to forget you’re black on one hand and then, on the other hand, I’m never supposed to forget you’re black. Is that it?”

“That’s what we have to do. Isn’t that so, Jean?”

For an odd moment, Nurse Horn and I exchanged glances.