Maizon at Blue Hill (10 page)

“They're getting me where I need to go, sweetheart. Don't you worry. And don't interrupt your schoolwork to put in a call to me. I'll be here.”

I hung up the phone and leaned against the wall, letting my breath out slowly, slowly, slowly....

18

I
really like this book, Maizon,“ one of the girls in my English class said Monday morning. ”I'm really glad you suggested it.“

I nodded, and found a place in the semicircle.

“Comments!” Mrs. Dexter demanded, when we were all settled.

“I liked it,” someone said.

“It was really great. Pecola was so sad.”

“Why was she sad?” Mrs. Dexter wanted to know. We didn't have to raise our hand in her class, but if someone else was speaking, we weren't supposed to interrupt.

“She was a black girl who wanted blue eyes,” I said. “She figured if she got blue eyes, then everyone would love her.”

“That's what's so tragic,” the girl sitting closest to Mrs. Dexter said. “I have blue eyes and not everybody loves
me!”

I rolled my eyes. Mrs. Dexter saw me. “Maizon, you have something to add to that?”

“What was sad, what is sad, is that she thought that. And she thought it because the little white girls she saw had blue eyes and happy lives. And it was tragic that she could never be what they were ... and that she wanted to.” I shrugged.

“It is also sad,” a blond girl named Annie added, “that ours is a society that teaches us that this is beauty. Pecola took media interpretations as reality. She couldn't see her own beauty.”

I blinked. I couldn't believe Annie had caught all this in one reading. I didn't think
any
of the girls in the class would really get what the story was about.

For a moment the rest of the class was silent, as though this were something they had missed. Annie smiled and looked timidly in my direction. I wanted to hug her! She wasn't like the other girls, who saw Pecola as sad for not getting blue eyes. Annie had realized that what was so horrible was that Pecola, a dark-skinned, brown-eyed girl,
wanted
blue eyes.

“Toni Morrison is pretty incredible,” someone else offered. “The way she uses children to show us how adults have screwed up society is amazing.”

We discussed
The Bluest Eye
for the rest of the class. Slowly, I realized that more and more girls had gotten the story. I wasn't sure how I felt. I wanted them to get it, but at the same time I wanted
The Bluest Eye
to be
my
book—a book only
I,
a black girl from Brooklyn, could interpret. I felt cheated and not as bright as I had felt a few minutes ago.

When class was over, Mrs. Dexter asked me to stay after. “I'm thinking of recommending you for the high school literature course next semester, Maizon,” she said. “Do you think you'd like that?”

“I don't know if I'm coming back next semester, Mrs. Dexter,” I said carefully. I had not meant to say anything about this and didn't know what had made me tell her.

Mrs. Dexter looked stricken. “Not coming back? Maizon, that's ridiculous. You're doing so well.”

I shrugged. “I'm just thinking about it. I'm not a hundred percent sure or anything.”

“Well, don't make a rash decision. I'd absolutely hate to lose you.”

I swallowed. For some reason, I didn't expect Mrs. Dexter to react with such shock. I knew she liked me but didn't realize how much.

“I'll really, really think about it,” I said.

“Is anyone giving you a hard time? Is there anything I could do to keep you here?”

I swallowed and pressed my fingers to my eyes. This was hard.

“I just ... I just don't want to be here,” I cried. Mrs. Dexter placed her hands on my shoulders. “I don't belong here....”

“Maizon—”

“I don‘t, Mrs. Dexter. I don't. I don't know where I belong, but it's not here. And I don't know if I'm so mixed-up because I don't know where I'll go after this or because I'm afraid I'll never belong anywhere. I just don't know.”

“Oh, Maizon ...” Mrs. Dexter said, pulling me to her. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm so, so sorry.”

“Please don't tell anybody, Mrs. Dexter ...”

“But Maizon, maybe someone could help you adjust and—”

I pulled away from her and rubbed my eyes. “Please, Mrs. Dexter. Not until I'm sure. Please.”

Mrs. Dexter was still for a moment, then she nodded. “You'll come to me before you decide, Maizon?”

“I promise.”

“And you'll really give it a lot of thought.”

I nodded.

“I'd hate to lose you, Maizon. You're one of the brightest students I've had in a long time.”

The schoolwork was harder here. I had spent so many hours buried under the bright light of my desk lamp, studying. In Brooklyn, the work had been easy and I hardly studied at all. But it wasn't any fun to shine here, to get nineties and hundreds on tests. I didn't even care that there were a lot of girls doing better than me here. There sure were a lot doing worse, much worse. But there was a dullness about doing schoolwork here. It didn't matter. I wanted it to matter again like it had at home—in Brooklyn.

I nodded. “I'll tell you when I'm sure, Mrs. Dexter.” But I knew, and knew Mrs. Dexter knew, I was lying. I had made up my mind.

19

H
ey, Pauli,“ I yelled, running across the field, my knapsack bumping against my back. I had been at Blue Hill over a month and a half, and somewhere during that time, the fall had been replaced by winter. The wind had an icy edge to it, and too often, the sky was clouded over.

Pauli stopped in the center of the field and turned. When I caught up to her, I saw the confusion in her eyes.

“You called
me?”

“Yeah,” I said, out of breath. Pauli's uniform was blue, with a blue-and-gray plaid blazer over her dark blue skirt. She wore her hair in a pony tail, which she tossed across her shoulder when she spoke. “Where you going?”

Pauli looked at me for a second, then frowned. “I'm going to return a book to Terry, who lives on the third floor of Chapman. Why?”

The ice in her words matched the cold air. I hadn't expected that. For some reason I thought she'd be interested in walking and talking with me.

“I was wondering. Just wondering,” I said, falling into step with her.

“I'm sure Charli and them had a few words to say about me ... Maizon, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, whatever they had to say doesn't really matter to me.”

“They said I shouldn't stick with you,” I offered, feeling only the slightest tinge of guilt for talking behind Charli, Marie, and Sheila's backs.

“Well,” Pauli said, pulling her pile of books closer to her chest. “You don't really stick with anybody.”

I shrugged. We were walking slowly now. Gusts of cold air cut across my thighs. “I'm trying to decide just where I fit in around here. I feel like I should hang by myself until I get to that point.”

Pauli grinned. She had the straightest teeth I had ever seen. “In other words, Charli and them gave you ultimatums and instead of them icing you, you iced them first.”

I thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Look, Maizon.” Pauli stopped in the center of the field and turned to me. “I don't know what they told you about me being an ‘oreo' or whatever they call me. But when I first came here, I wanted to be on the math team really bad, even if it meant that I'd be the only black girl on it. And they gave me ultimatums too. I mean, I respect each of them for their own little thing: Marie is a straight-A student, Sheila is an incredible speaker, and Charli—well, aside from being a great athlete, Charli is just great being Charli. But I had to find my own way here. Everyone on the math team was white and they were all really nice to me. So they were the first girls I became friends with. After that, I made other friends. Let's face it,” she said, throwing a hand in the air, “this is a
very
white school. I wasn't about to hang with only three people.”

I nodded, because I did get her point ... almost. “What about the holidays, though, Pauli? What about black history month and Kwanza and all those celebrations?”

Pauli rolled her eyes, growing annoyed. “Yeah, well ... that's kind of hard to explain. I mean, my mom is black and my dad is white. When I was seven they got divorced, and my three brothers and I went to live with my father. We only saw my mother during the summer. Now she's moved to Paris and I only see her for two weeks out of the year. My father didn't make it his business to celebrate any of the holidays with us and what I learned of my black history, I learned in school—an all-white school where my brothers and I were the only ones with black blood running through our veins. We were the ‘caramel' kids there, the 'light-bright-near-whites,‘ the mixed bloods, and every other awful name they could think to call us. First I denied the black part of myself to try to fit, then I denied the white part of me. Then I just accepted both. I mean, I
am
black and white ... I can't choose between the two.”

Pauli was silent for a moment. She looked discouraged all of a sudden, like she had told this story to a hundred different people over the course of her life and not one of them understood.

“I'm ignorant, Maizon. I'll be the first to admit it. In a way I'm like some of the white girls here who want to know all about black people but are afraid to approach them. Charli and them scared me. I didn't want to be told I wasn't ‘black enough.”'

“Who decides
that?”
I demanded.

“I feel like some people think they have a right to. I felt like Charli and them felt that way when I wanted to venture out.”

“Well, I don't know if I'll stick around here ...” I said, when we reached the dorm and rushed inside to the warm lobby. “But if I do, I'm going to make my own way too. It would be cool if all of us could be friends—me, you, Charli, Marie, Sheila....”

Pauli nodded, but something in her face told me it could never happen. I never thought about the choices we had to make before. Probably because I never had to make them.

“It's like I'm stuck between two worlds,” Pauli said, almost to herself. “And sometimes, neither world is very inviting.”

“You think you'll stay at Blue Hill, Pauli?” I asked.

Pauli shrugged. “Where else would I go? Every place is pretty much the same for me.”

“What college do you think you'll go to?” It seemed like a long time ago I was sitting in their room listening to Marie and Sheila go back and forth about colleges. Now I wanted to know what Pauli thought.

“Vassar,” Pauli said firmly. “They have all kinds of girls there. I think I'd be happy in a place like that.” She looked at her watch. “I better go. It was nice talking to you, Maizon.”

“Nice to talk to you, Pauli.”

Pauli climbed halfway up the stairs and leaned over the banister. “I guess I'll see you around, huh?”

I smiled. “Maybe,” I said calmly.

20

T
he turkey ran away. Before Thanksgiving day,“ Sandy sang, slamming her books down on her desk. ”They'd said they'd make a
meal
out of him if he should stay! I can't wait!“

“Sandy,” I reminded her, “Thanksgiving break is two weeks away!”

“I got the bug, Maizon! I got the serious T-H-A-N-K-S-G-I-V-I-N-G bug. I can't wait to get out of here. Why are you studying?”

“Because we have midterms this week and next. I have a history test tomorrow and an English midterm on Thursday.”

“Oh.” Sandy giggled. We had worked our way toward becoming friends, even playing field hockey together. I hated the skirts. They were worse than our uniforms and twice as short. And the field hockey stick must have been made with Pygmies in mind. After the first practice, I didn't think my back would ever be the same. We had to run up and down a field trying to get this silly ball away from each other. The coach promised me I'd learn the game with practice. But I had absolutely no interest and didn't understand why everyone at Blue Hill had to play a sport. The only good thing about it was that the coach said there was only a very slim chance of me ever starting.

We won our first game two weeks ago—seven-four against Concord. We called them Concord Grape Academy and jumped all over each other when the final whistle blew. I couldn't help noticing that I was the only black person on either team. Nobody else seemed to notice though. The girls on the other team gave us victory high-fives without even blinking. I couldn't help getting the spirit a little bit after we won. The coach took us out for ice cream afterward, and we all crowded around two huge tables, giggling and recounting plays in the game. That night, Sandy and I stayed up late talking sports, coming to the conclusion that she'd be a jock when she grew up and maybe, if I was lucky, I'd learn how to run up and down a hockey field in cleats one day.

Sandy was funny and free-spirited. But there was still a cautious distance between us. Sandy was never sure when I'd get in one of my moods and not speak to her and I was always cautious that she'd get with her friends and pretend she didn't know me. We didn't eat together at school. I had taken to bringing books with me to meals and reading through any conversation someone tried to have with me. I didn't want to chance getting close to anyone. It would just make leaving harder.