Small Great Things (25 page)

Suddenly I realize that Kennedy's refusal to mention race in court may not be ignorant. It's the very opposite. It's because she is aware of exactly what I have to do in order to get what I deserve.

I might as well be blind and lost, and Kennedy McQuarrie is the only one with a map. So I look her in the eye. “What do you want to know?” I say.

W
HEN
I
COME HOME THE
night after my first meeting with Ruth, Micah is working late and my mother is watching Violet. The house smells of oregano and freshly baked dough. “Is it my lucky day?” I call out, shuffling off the heaviness of my job as Violet gets up from the table where she's coloring and makes a beeline for me. “Is there homemade pizza for dinner?”

I swing my daughter up in my arms. She is clutching a violent red crayon in one small fist. “I made you one. Guess what it is.”

My mother comes out of the kitchen holding an amoebic blob on a plate. “Oh, clearly it's an…alie—” I catch my mother's eye, and she shakes her head. Behind Violet's back she puts her hands up and bares her teeth. “Dinosaur,” I correct. “I mean, obviously.”

Violet smiles widely. “But he's sick.” She points to the oregano spotting the cheese. “That's why he has a rash.”

“Is it chicken pox?” I ask, as I take a bite.

“No,” she says. “He has a reptile dysfunction.”

I nearly spit out the pizza. Immediately I drop Violet to her feet. As she runs back to the table to continue coloring, I raise a brow. “What were you watching?” I calmly ask my mother.

She knows that the only television we let Violet watch is
Sesame Street
or Disney Junior. But from the studied wash of innocence on my mother's face I know she's hiding something. “Nothing.”

I pivot, staring at the blank TV screen. On a hunch, I pick the remote up from the couch and turn it on.

Wallace Mercy is grandstanding in all his glory, outside City Hall in Manhattan. His wild white hair stands on end, like he's been electrocuted. His fist is raised in solidarity with whatever apparent injustice he's currently championing. “My brothers and sisters! I ask you: when did the word
misunderstanding
become synonymous with
racial profiling
? We demand an apology from the New York City police commissioner, for the shame and inconvenience suffered by this celebrated athlete—” The Fox news logo runs beneath the slightly familiar face of a handsome dark-skinned man.

Fox News. A channel that Micah and I do not generally watch. A channel that would easily be the home of multiple ads about erectile dysfunction.

“You let Violet watch this?”

“Of course not,” my mother says. “I just turned it on during her naptime.”

Violet looks up from her coloring. “The Five-o-Meter!”

I shoot my mother the Look of Death. “You're watching
The Five
with my four-year-old daughter.”

She throws up her hands. “All right, fine, yes, sometimes I do. It's the news, for goodness' sake. It's not like I'm putting on P-O-R-N. Besides, did you even hear about this? It's a simple misunderstanding and that ridiculous fake reverend is shooting his mouth off again all because the police were trying to do their job.”

I look at Violet. “Honey,” I say, “why don't you go pick out the pajamas you want to wear, and two books for bedtime?”

She runs upstairs and I turn back to the television. “If you want to watch Wallace Mercy, at least put on MSNBC,” I say.

“I don't want to watch Wallace. In fact I don't think he's doing Malik Thaddon any good by taking on his cause.”

Malik Thaddon,
that's
why he looks familiar. He won the U.S. Open a few years back. “What happened?”

“He walked out of his hotel and was grabbed by four policemen. Apparently it was a case of mistaken identity.”

Ava settles beside me on the couch as the camera zooms in on Wallace Mercy's verbal tantrum. The cords in his neck stand out and there is a throbbing vein at his temple; this man is a heart attack waiting to happen. “You know,” my mother says. “If they weren't so
angry
all the time, maybe more people would listen to them.”

I don't have to ask who
they
are.

I take another bite of my dinosaur pizza. “How about we go back to only turning the television on to a channel that doesn't have commercials with side effects?”

My mother folds her arms. “I would think of all people you'd want your child to be a student of the world, Kennedy.”

“She's a baby, Mom. Violet doesn't need to think that the police might grab
her
one day.”

“Oh, please. Violet was coloring. All that went right over her head. The only thing she even remarked on was Wallace Mercy's extremely poor choice of hairdo.”

I press my fingers to the corners of my eyes. “Okay. I'm tired. Let's just table this conversation.”

My mother takes my empty plate and stands up, clearly miffed. “Far be it from me to see myself as more than just the hired help.”

She disappears into the kitchen, and I go to put Vi to bed. She has picked a book about a mouse with a mouthful of a name none of her friends can pronounce, and
Go, Dog. Go!
which is the title I hate more than anything else in her library. I climb into bed with her and drop a kiss on the crown of her head. She smells like strawberry bubble bath and Johnson's shampoo, exactly like my own childhood. As I start to read aloud, I make a mental note to thank my mother for bathing Violet and feeding her and loving her as fiercely as I do, even if she
did
expose her to Wallace Mercy's righteous wrath.

In that moment, my mind drifts to Ruth.
Violet doesn't need to think that the police might grab
her
one day,
I had said to my mother.

But honestly, the odds of my child being a victim of mistaken identity are considerably smaller than, say, Ruth's.

“Mommy!” Violet demands, and I realize I've inadvertently stopped reading, lost in thought.

“ ‘Do you like my hat?' ” I read aloud. “ ‘I do not.' ”

A
DISA SAYS
I
NEED TO
treat myself, so she offers to buy me lunch. We go to a little bistro that bakes its own bread, and that serves portions so large you always wind up taking home half. It's busy, so Adisa and I sit at the bar.

I have been spending more time with my sister, which is both comforting and strange. Before, I was almost always working when I wasn't with Edison; now my schedule is empty.

“This is nice and all,” Adisa says to me, “but have you given any thought to how you gonna pay for your own lunch down the road?”

I think about what Kennedy said yesterday about filing a civil suit. It's money, but it's money I cannot count on yet—maybe never. “I'm a little more concerned with feeding my son,” I admit.

She narrows her glance. “How much cushion you have?”

There's no point lying to her. “About three months.”

“You know if things get tight, you can ask me for help, right?”

At that, I can't help but smile. “Seriously? I had to give
you
a loan last month.”

Adisa grins. “I said you can ask me for help. I didn't say I'd be able to provide it.” She shrugs. “Besides, you know there's an answer.”

What I have learned this week is that I am overqualified for nearly every entry-level administrative job in New Haven, including all open secretarial and receptionist positions. My sister believes I should file for unemployment. But I see that as dishonest, since once this is settled, I plan to go back to work. Getting a part-time job is another alternative, but I'm qualified as a nurse, and my license is suspended. So instead, I've avoided the conversation.

“All I know is that when Tyana's boyfriend got busted for larceny and went to trial, the court date wasn't for eight months,” Adisa says. “Which puts you five months in the hole. What advice did that skinny white lawyer give you?”

“Her name is Kennedy, and we were too busy trying to figure out how I won't go to prison to discuss how I can support myself while I'm waiting for a trial date.”

Adisa snorts. “Yeah, because that kind of detail probably never occurs to someone like her.”

“You met her
once,
” I point out. “You know nothing about her.”

“I know that people who become public defenders are doing it because morals are more important to them than money, or else they would be off making partner in the big city. Which means Miz Kennedy either has a trust fund or a sugar daddy.”

“She got me out on bail.”

“Correction: your
son
got you out on bail.”

I shoot Adisa a glare and turn my attention to the bartender, who is polishing glasses.

Adisa rolls her eyes. “You don't want to talk, that's fine.” She looks up at the television over the bar, on which an infomercial is playing. “Hey,” she says to the bartender. “Can we watch something else?”

“Be my guest,” he says and hands her a remote control.

A minute later, Adisa is flipping through the cable stations. She stops when she hears a familiar gospel jingle:
Lord, Lord, Lord, have Mercy!
And then, the camera cuts tight to Wallace Mercy, the activist. Today he is lambasting a Texas school district that had a young Muslim boy arrested after he brought a homemade clock to school to show his science teacher and it was mistakenly identified as a bomb. “Ahmed,” Wallace says, “if you are listening, I want to tell you something. I want to say to all the black and brown children out there, who are afraid that they too might be misunderstood because of the color of their skin…”

I am pretty sure Wallace Mercy used to be a preacher, but I don't think he ever got the memo that said he doesn't need to shout when he's miked on a television set.

“I want to say that I too was once thought to be less than I was, because of how I looked. And I am not going to lie—sometimes, when the Devil is whispering doubt into my ear, I still think those people were right. But most of the time, I think,
I have shown all of those bullies up.
I have succeeded in spite of them. And…
so will you
.”

Adisa gasps. “Oh my God, Ruth, that's what you need. Wallace Mercy.”

“I am one hundred percent sure that Wallace Mercy is the
last
thing I need.”

“What are you talking about? Your kind of story is exactly what he lives for. Job discrimination because of race? He'll eat it up. He'll make sure everyone in the country knows you were wronged.”

On the television, Wallace is shaking a fist. “Does he have to be so mad all the time?”

Adisa laughs. “Well, hell, girl.
I'm
mad all the time. I'm exhausted, just from being Black all day,” she says. “At least he gives people like us a voice.”

“A loud one.”

“Exactly. Damn, Ruth, you been drinking the Kool-Aid. You been swimming with the sharks for so long, you've forgotten you're krill.”

“What?”

“Don't sharks eat krill?”

“They eat
people
.”

“This is what I'm telling you!” Adisa sighs. “White folks have spent years giving Black folks their freedom on paper, but deep down they still expect us to say
yes, massuh,
and be quiet and grateful for what we got. If we speak our minds we can lose our jobs, our homes, even our lives. Wallace is the man who gets to be angry for us. If it weren't for him, white folks would never know the stupid shit they do upsets us, and Black folks would get madder and madder because they can't risk talking back. Wallace Mercy is what keeps the powder keg in this country from blowing up.”

“Well, that's all very well and good, but I'm not on trial because I'm Black. I'm on trial because a baby died when I was on duty.”

Adisa smirks. “Who told you that? Your lily-white lawyer? Of course she don't think this is about race. She don't think about race, period. She don't
have
to.”

“Okay, well, when you get your law degree, you can advise me about this case. Until them, I'm going to take her word for it.” I hesitate. “You know, for someone who hates being stereotyped, you sure as hell do it a lot yourself.”

My sister holds up her hands, a surrender. “Okay, Ruth. You're right. I'm wrong.”

“I'm just saying—so far, Kennedy McQuarrie is doing her job.”

“Her job is to rescue you so she can feel good about herself,” Adisa says. “It's called a white knight for a reason.” She narrows her gaze at me. “And you know what's on the other end of that color spectrum.”

I don't give her the satisfaction of a response. But we both know the answer.

Black. The color of the villain.

I
HAVE ONLY
been to Christina's Manhattan home once, just after she married Larry Sawyer. It was to drop off a wedding gift, and the whole experience had been awkward. Christina and Larry had a destination wedding in Turks and Caicos, and Christina had said over and over how sorry she was that she couldn't invite
all
of her friends down there but instead had to limit the guest list. When she opened my present—a set of linen tea towels, screen-printed with the handwritten recipes of my mother's cookies and cakes and pies she loved most—she burst into tears and hugged me, saying that it was the most personal, thoughtful gift she'd received, and that she would use them every day.

Now, more than ten years later, I wonder if she ever used her kitchen, much less the tea towels. The granite countertops gleam, and in a blue glass bowl there are fresh apples that look like they've been polished. There is no evidence that a four-year-old lives anywhere nearby. I have an itch to open the double Viking oven, just to see if there's a single crumb or grease stain.

“Please,” Christina says, gesturing to one of the kitchen chairs. “Sit.”

I do, startled to find that there is soft music coming out of the wall behind me.

“It's a speaker,” she says, laughing at my face. “It's hidden.”

I wonder what it would be like to live in a place that feels like it is constantly part of a photo shoot. The Christina I used to know left a trail of destruction from the foyer to the kitchen the moment she came home from school—dropping her coat and book bag and kicking off her shoes. Just then, a woman appears so silently she might as well have emerged from the wall as well. She sets a plate of chicken salad down in front of me, and one in front of Christina.

“Thanks, Rosa,” Christina says, and I realize that she probably still drops her coat and her bags and her shoes when she comes into her house. But Rosa is her Lou. It's just a different person now who's picking up after her.

The maid slips away again, and Christina starts talking about a hospital fundraiser and how Bradley Cooper agreed to come and then backed out at the last minute because of strep throat, and then
Us Weekly
photographed him that same night in a dive bar in Chelsea with his girlfriend. She is chattering so much about a topic I care nothing about that before I even finish half my salad, I realize why she's invited me here.

“So,” I interrupt. “Did you hear about it from my mom?”

Her face falls. “No. Larry. Now that he's filed the paperwork to run for office, we have the news on twenty-four/seven.” She bites her lower lip. “Was it awful?”

A laugh bubbles up in my throat. “What part of it?”

“Well, all of it. Getting fired. Being arrested.” Her eyes grow wide. “Did you have to go to jail? Was it like
Orange Is the New Black
?”

“Yeah, without the sex.” I look at her. “It wasn't my fault, Christina. You have to believe me.”

She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “I do. I do, Ruth. I hope you know that. I wanted to help you, you know. I told Larry to hire someone from his old firm to represent you.”

I freeze. I try to see this as a gesture of friendship, but it feels like I'm a problem to solve. “I…I couldn't accept that…”

“Well, before you go thinking I'm your fairy godmother, Larry shot me down. He feels as badly as I do, honestly, but with his candidacy, it's just not a good time to be connected to something scandalous.”

Scandalous
. I taste the word, bite into it like a berry, feel it burst.

“We had a huge fight about it. I mean, like, I made him move into the second bedroom and everything. It's not like he's going for the neo-Nazi vote. But it's not that simple, I guess. Race relations are a mess right now, with the police commissioner under fire and everything, and Larry needs to stay as far away from that as possible or it could cost him the election.” She shakes her head. “I am so sorry, Ruth.”

My jaw feels too tight. “Is this why you had me over here?” I ask. “To tell me you can't be associated with me anymore?”

What had I been stupid enough to think? That this was a social visit? That for the first time in a decade Christina had suddenly decided she wanted me to drop in for lunch? Or had I known all along that if I came here, it was because I was hoping for a miracle in the form of the Hallowells—even if I was too proud to admit it?

For a long moment, we just stare at each other. “No,” Christina says. “I needed to see you with my own eyes. I wanted to make sure you were…you know…all right.”

Pride is an evil dragon; it sleeps underneath your heart and then roars when you need silence.

“Well, you can check this off your good deed list,” I say bitterly. “I'm doing
just
fine.”

“Ruth—”

I hold up my hand. “Don't, Christina, okay? Just…don't.”

I try to feel through the chain of our history for the snag, the mend in the links, where we went from being two girls who knew everything about each other—favorite ice cream flavor, favorite New Kids on the Block member, celebrity crush—to two women who knew nothing about how the other lived. Had we drifted apart, or had our closeness been the ruse? Was our familiarity due to friendship, or geography?