Flirt (22 page)

The Northeast school district was an entirely different world as far as Marley and her friends were concerned. Populated by mostly Latinos, African Americans, and lower-income Asians, that area of the city was infamous for its mounting drug action, violence, and criminal activity. Northeast also had the highest number of teenage mothers in the city. Many times Marley witnessed the young girls walking the streets, looking unkempt with swollen breasts and oversized bellies hanging over their supertight low-riding jeans. Many of them still tried to wear their trendy baby T-shirts. Some of the girls would be pushing a baby stroller with one hand and smoking a cigarette or rubbing her belly with the other. Instead of sympathizing, Marley and her friends drove by laughing and vowing to never look like that when they had children.

Before Northeast High School, Marley had always socialized with the white kids. She felt more comfortable around them. The few black students who attended Marshall Academy seemed to reject her, as if she weren’t good enough for them. The day Nisha Brown told her that she thought she was white, Marley wanted to die. “You think you’re a white girl,” she said, pointing her finger directly in Marley’s face. “You’re
black
, Marley. I hope you realize that one day.”

Deep inside, Marley knew that Nisha was right. She wasn’t
just
white, but with her mother and grandmother constantly reminding her of her “Caucasian heritage,” it was easy for her to
pretend that she didn’t have another side. Her “blackness” just didn’t exist, until she looked
closely
in the mirror.

The summer before the horrifying transition, Marley spent many days tanning on the beach with her friends, talking about Northeast and what the change was going to mean to all of them. . . .

Heather removed her white bikini top and turned to lie on her stomach. Her blond hair was in a messy ponytail on top of her head, and black oversized sunglasses covered her deep blue eyes.

As Marley rubbed the SPF 50 sunblock into her best friend’s already tanned skin, she confessed, “I’m kind of looking forward to going to Northeast this year.”

She felt Heather’s body tense before she responded. “What! Do you know what could happen to us when we get there?” she asked.

Marley laughed and continued to gently massage the oil onto Heather’s back. “Nothing is going to happen to us, Heather. I’m just looking forward to making new friends and seeing what other people are like. We’ve been going to school with the same boring people . . .
all
of our lives.”

“I happen to like those same boring people,” she said without turning her head toward Marley when she moved back to her towel and removed her top. “Those are our friends, Marley.”

“I know, but maybe it is time for me to make some new friends.
I’ve been thinking about how I need to learn more about my ‘other side.’ ” Marley sighed while she searched through the beach bag for her sunglasses. “You know that I’ve always felt different. Maybe now I can feel like I belong.”

Heather finally turned her head toward Marley. She took off her sunglasses and glared. “Marley, please don’t give me that ‘I don’t belong’ bullshit. You have friends that love you. You are on the basketball and volleyball team. You were voted freshman homecoming princess. You are popular, you’re pretty. Come on, Marley, like, stop it already,” she said.

Heather could never understand how Marley felt growing up in the shadows. Her friends were all blond-haired, blue-or green-eyed girls, and they had no idea what it was like to secretly feel like an outcast. No matter how many times she tried to explain it, Marley could never convince them of the deep sense of insecurity she’d felt through the years, even though they had the exact same conversation every day for the entire summer.

Northeast High School was more of a change than they could ever have imagined. The outside resembled much of what the inside would look like when they walked through the steel doors and on through the metal detectors. The hallways were dimly lit, and the smell of mold filled their noses as they maneuvered through the crowd to the classroom.

Northeast was filled to capacity. Each small worn-out desk seated a student. At Marshall Academy, the classes were small
and comfortable and each student received personalized attention from highly dedicated teachers.

As she sat nervously in her seat, Marley glanced around at the surroundings. Huge windows bordered the classroom, but no sunlight shone through to brighten the mood inside the four bare walls. The same dim lights that failed to illuminate the halls were mounted on the dilapidated ceiling. The smell of lemon-scented Pine-Sol reeked from the shabby linoleum floors, and dust covered the bookcase, which held a minimal amount of torn reading materials.

Ms. Aiken stood timidly in front of the blackboard and began to take attendance. The stringy-haired woman was one of the few white teachers employed at Northeast. She twirled her fingers around her greasy salt-and-pepper hair and attempted to pronounce each student’s name. She stumbled nervously over the articulation of many of the black students’ names, which caused pandemonium in the classroom.

“Bitch, you don’t know how the fuck to say my name? It’s Kee-on-tay. Say it with me . . . Kee . . .” The expressive young man stood with his arms tightly folded across his chest until Ms. Aiken repeated each syllable of his name. “Tha’s better. You make sure you remember that from now on, bitch,” he said.

Ms. Aiken said nothing in response to Keyohanteay’s disrespectful attitude, which set the tone in her classroom for the remainder of the school year. Ms. Aiken never said a word to anyone about anything.

Marley sat cramped at her desk, swinging her crossed leg back and forth swiftly, waiting for Ms. Aiken to call her name.
She prayed the teacher would have no trouble with the pronunciation, so that she could discreetly raise her hand and allow Ms. Aiken to place a checkmark in her spiral notebook before anyone noticed her. But there would be no such luck. When Ms. Aiken saw Marley’s name, she paused and looked around the entire classroom.

“Muhh . . . ah . . . r . . . lay . . . yah,” she said. Marley shook her head in disbelief. Her name was spelled exactly how it sounds, but Ms. Aiken managed to fuck it up, she thought to herself.

“It’s Marley,” she said.

Ms. Aiken seemed relieved at the simple pronunciation. She exhaled and parted her lips, revealing a small smile. Marley believed she even winked at her, but she rolled her eyes into the back of her head and looked away. Soon after her name was called, loud whistles and shouts started. The boys were giving each other high fives and repeating her name.

“I’m going to hit that, watch!” one boy said.

“
I’m
gonna get that!”

“Marley? Like Bob ‘I Shot the Sheriff’ Marley?” the loudest of the boys finally asked.

The class erupted into laughter when he started to sing the lyrics to the popular reggae song. She was embarrassed by all the snide remarks, but she finally said, “Yes. My mom is in love with him.”

The boys stopped their ranting and calmed down as if they had been waiting for her to speak. And now they were hanging on her every word. While Ms. Aiken rummaged through the
mess on her desk, looking for the assignment, private conversations took place among cliqued-up peers in every corner of the room.

The tallest of the rowdy boys walked over to Marley’s desk, and his friends followed. They made a small circle around her, which intimidated her at first until the tall boy said, “That’s a tight name. I like it. My name is DeJuan.”

Marley smiled, recalling Ms. Aiken’s ridiculous mispronunciation of his name.

“So your moms loves reggae, huh?” he asked.

“Well, she likes Bob Marley, but I’m not too sure about anyone else,” Marley said.

She looked toward the front of the classroom and noticed Ms. Aiken was still engaged, or at least pretending to be. She turned toward the back and eyed three girls staring directly at her and the circle of boys. The girl sitting in the middle shot her a dirty look, and she immediately turned back to the front.

“Are you one of the kids from Marshall?” a boy asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“So how you like Northeast so far?” DeJuan asked.

Marley shrugged. “It’s different,” she said. Marley turned her head toward the mean girls again and noticed they were still watching her every move as if trying to read her lips from afar. She could tell from the look in her eyes that the middle girl didn’t like her at all.

Competition was Asia Brown’s strong suit, and competition is exactly how she thought of Marley. They competed in classes, and even though they were on the same team, they competed
for status in volleyball, basketball, and softball. Asia also competed with Marley for popularity, but most important, she competed for DeJuan Spencer’s affection.

It wasn’t long after that first conversation between DeJuan and Marley that her life started to change. Slowly her old friends faded from the picture and new friends and a new identity emerged. Marley started to dress differently. Gone were the days of preppy-looking white-girl outfits. She started wearing things that accentuated the assets that all the boys in school found enticing. She changed her hair, she started wearing a lot more jewelry than usual, and she started listening to the same music DeJuan bumped in his Chevy Caprice. Marley was having fun discovering her other side. She absolutely loved the new her.

DeJuan was one of the most popular boys in school. He wasn’t the smartest, but he was loved among their classmates. When he first started flirting with Marley, she completely blew him off. She wasn’t sure what to make of his actions, and with his wannabe girlfriend staring around every corner, she knew the best thing was not to act, even though she was secretly feeling the same attraction.

Marley ran her finger lightly across the top of the coffee mug and smiled. She laughed nonchalantly, and instead of grabbing Mrs. Palmer’s file folder, she searched through the mess until she found the Northeast High School yearbook she looked through at least once a day. Clouds spread across the sky always
reminded her of DeJuan, and when the rain started to fall, the sound of the water pounding against the cement, the smell of wet concrete and grass all reminded her of the day he whispered softly in her ear and disclosed the news that broke her heart and still breaks her heart to this day.

She quickly flipped through the pages, thumbing past the class pictures, professions of friendship, lengthy heartfelt goodbyes and summer wishes written in feminine bubbled cursive writing that filled each page. A light smile parted her lips when she finally found the picture she was looking for.

There she sat under the senior-class redwood tree between DeJuan’s legs, with all her innocence and identity issues. She was slightly turned toward him, looking directly into his eyes. The look of love was intense. The comments written around the photo confirmed it. “Northeast’s Cutest Couple sitting under the senior tree,” the caption read. Smiley faces and hearts surrounded the photo and bordered the length of the page. “You guys are so cute!” “When is the wedding?” “Perfect for each other,” friends wrote.

DeJuan helped Marley find her true identity over those years, the Marley who hid behind a false character for such a long time. He exposed her to a different lifestyle. A lifestyle that was fresh and exciting. She started going to parties with DeJuan and his friends, hanging out at the local skating rink and spending nights blasting music on the deserted beach. DeJuan showed Marley things she’d never experienced, from soul food, collard greens, and homemade macaroni and cheese to hip-hop, Nas, and Jay-Z, from smoking good weed to good sex. His family
showed her what it meant to have a strong family bond. She went to church with his mom and grandmother every Sunday and eventually learned to let go enough to feel the spirit in a Baptist church. Falling in love with DeJuan and his family was easy and happened fast.

Marley stared at the picture and looked into DeJuan’s dark brown eyes, the same way that she had that day under the tree. Before she became too emotional, she covered her mouth with her hand and laughed out loud. Her hair had been tightly braided that day. Johnita, her new best friend, had talked her into letting her fingers work some magic on her “white girl” hairstyle, and after sitting between Nita’s legs for nearly two hours, Marley had two dozen tiny braids separated by perfect zigzag parts covering her scalp. When people looked at the picture, they immediately compared Marley to the talented pianist and R & B singer Alicia Keys. Today she agreed the likeness was uncanny. As she looked at the photo, memories from what seemed like a lifetime ago flooded her mind. DeJuan was her soul mate, but as quickly as she loved, she lost.

Marley ate dinner with DeJuan and his family every Sunday. Sometimes Chris, DJ’s best friend, would hang around until it was time to eat. DeJuan’s mother, Miss Deidra, always “put her foot” in Sunday’s meal. The dinner table looked like the scene
from the movie
Soul Food
, complete with fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, corn bread, and some special kind of cake or desert. Marley’s favorite was Miss D’s red velvet cake. Marley’s family never ate like that on Sunday—or any day, for that matter. Tara, Marley’s mother, hated to cook.

“What’s your mama’s name, Marley?” Miss Deidra asked.

“Why, Mama? It’s not like you know the lady,” DeJuan said. “Her mama is some uppity white woman. It’s been two years, and she doesn’t even want to meet me,” he added sarcastically.

Marley wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin and sighed. “It’s not that she doesn’t want to meet you, DJ. She is just having a hard time with all the changes I’ve made. You know?” The hair, the clothes, and the friends . . . the
boyfriend
. Marley reached for DeJuan’s hand underneath the table and covered it with hers. “I’m not the same Marley I was last year. They don’t like it. But this—” Marley grabbed the end of one of her braids and held it in the air. “—this is me.” She leaned over and kissed DeJuan softly on the cheek. “She’ll come around,” she whispered.