Maizon at Blue Hill (4 page)

“Maizon Singh,” I said. “First name rhymes with raisin. Second name rhymes with ring.”

“Maizon Singh,” she repeated, coming closer. “I'm Dana Charlesetta King. Everybody calls me Charli though. Well, everybody
here
calls me Charli. At home, I'm Dana.”

“Hi, Charli.”

“I was just in Sheila and Marie's room. We saw you out the window. I told them I'd come get you so that we could all be introduced. I figured we could all walk over to the main hall together. I'm pretty orientated out. They make us do this every year. But dinner follows. We all can sit together.”

“Who's ‘we all'?” I cocked an eyebrow at her.

Charli pulled her shades up and rolled her eyes, then looked over her shoulder quickly. “The colored folks, girlfriend. All four of us, now. Well ... actually there's five, but ... anyway.” Charli grabbed my hand. “Leave your suitcase here. It's safe. You won't be needing anything in it anyway. Once you get your uniform, all you'll be needing is a clean body to put it on. Come on.”

“I wanted to see my room and say hi to my roommate,” I said, pulling back.

“Your roommate won't be back until later on tonight. And if you see one room you've seen them all. So see Sheila and Marie's. They're probably cleaning off a spot for you anyway. Talk about slobs.”

Charli was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of the shortest shorts I had ever seen.

“Those are nice boots,” I said, pointing to the black shin-high lace-ups she was wearing with white socks.

“I practically had to cut off a foot to get them. My mother and dad said they looked too rough. Like combat boots. But I explained that I'd only be able to wear them on weekends and holidays anyway, so they let me get them. I'm a junior this year, so I think they're starting to lay off me a bit.”

I pushed my suitcase against the wall and followed Charli, hoping Marie and Sheila weren't as talkative as she was.

“It's sure quiet here.”

Charli laughed loudly, throwing her head back, so her braid bounced against her neck. She looked at me, raising her shades again. Her eyes were dark. She had the longest lashes of anybody I had ever seen. “That's why I'm here, girlfriend. This year I'm going to make some noise! Blue Hill is not ready for Dana-Charlesetta-call-me-Charli-King.”

I giggled. We passed room 210. Bruce Springsteen was singing “Born in the U.S.A.” behind the door.

7

M
arie, Sheila ... Maizon Singh.“ Charli held out her hand and bowed in my direction.

“Hi,” Marie and Sheila said in unison. They were sitting side by side on a narrow bed, looking through a photo album that seemed to be filled with pictures of one boy. I pushed a pile of clothes out of the way and sat on the bed across from them. Half-empty suitcases cluttered the floor, but framed pictures of the boy in the photo album were hung neatly on the wall behind the bed.

“I'm Marie,” the taller girl said, looking me up and down in a way that made me feel like I was dressed wrong. I ran my fingers through my hair and said nothing.

“And this is Cleo, Marie's boyfriend.” Charli smirked, gesturing toward the photographs on the wall. “And that's Cleo,” she said again, pointing toward the photo album that Marie and Sheila were drooling over. “Expect to see a lot of him—well, a lot of pictures. A
college
man.”

“He is so utterly fine, Marie,” Sheila said, tearing her eyes away from the photo album to glance at me. “Hi, Maizon.” She turned the page of the photo album. More bright pictures of Cleo jumped off the black pages. He was cute, I guess, with a big smile and stuffed cheeks like a squirrel.

“Wow! What a body!” Sheila giggled, pointing at a picture of Cleo in his bathing trunks. He was a little on the thin side, to me, with tiny muscles moving down his arms and long, skinny legs.

“We've been going out three months now,” Marie said. “I think I'm in love!”

The three of them squealed and giggled, reminding me of Li‘l Jay. I rolled my eyes. Boys bored the heck out of me.

“Well,” Charli announced, “Peter and I've been seeing each other eight months.”

“Peter's S-T-A-L-E, Charli. He is so boring.” Sheila's eyes lit up when she said this. She looked over at me and winked.

“At least I have a boyfriend to call my own.”

“You don't have a boyfriend,” Sheila teased. “You have a pet.”

They all laughed and cooed over a few more pictures of Cleo.

Then Marie shut the book and turned to me. “I'm a junior,” she announced. “So's Charli, but I guess she's already told you that.”

“I'm a sophomore,” Sheila said. “Three more years in this place.”

“And you just got here, Maizon,” Charli said, bouncing down next to me. She had more energy than Li‘l Jay. “Buckle your seat belt, girlfriend, 'cause you in for one heck of a ride.”

“Charli. You're slipping,” Marie said, frowning.

“Oh, chill out, Marie.” Charli waved her hand and lay back on the bed. “We're among our own.”

The room was smaller than I had expected, with dark wood twin bureaus at the head of the beds. Heavy gray curtains hung at the windows. The floor had been tiled in gray and white with the white tiles matching the walls. I looked at the pink-and-gray throw rugs at the foot of each bed.

“We brought those from home,” Marie said. “To give this place some color.”

“So you're from Brooklyn?” Sheila asked, folding her hands in her lap. I didn't like the way she said it, like Brooklyn was a place at the end of the map that no one in her right mind would ever go to.

I nodded.

“I've never been there,” she continued. “My family's traveled to New York though. And my dad has a cousin or uncle or something that used to or still lives in Brooklyn.”

“It's bad there, isn't it?” Marie asked. “Lots of killings and stuff?”

“New York
is bad,” Sheila piped in. “Don't you read the papers? They're only written on a third-grade level.”

“Actually,” I said,
“The New York Times
is written at a seventh-grade level. Most of the tabloids are written below that. The
Times
is more informative. No comics though.”

The room fell silent. I had raised my foot up to the edge of the bed and was playing with the penny in one of my loafers, turning it from heads to tails then back again. When I looked up, all three of them were staring at me.

Marie studied her hands. Her fingers were long, the color of dark toast, and she had polished her nails pale pink.

“I'm from California,” she said. “Santa Cruz. Halfway around the world. Have you ever been there?” Her voice was soft and even. It scared me.

I shook my head.

“Ever been to California?” she asked. Sheila and Charli were silent. I looked at Charli. I couldn't tell if her eyes were open or not behind the shades. Sheila's hair was in a million tiny braids that hung down to her shoulder. She pulled one over her eyes and started unbraiding it.

I shook my head. “Never been outside of New York. This is my first time.”

“None of us is on scholarship, Maizon,” Marie continued.

I shrugged. “So? What's that supposed to mean?”

“Ooohee!” Charlie squealed. “This girl's got
attitude!
I like that.”

“I don't have attitude,” I said casually. “I just don't want anybody in my face telling me what they are and aren't.”

“I just thought I'd inform you,” Marie said. “Just so you don't think
all
the blacks here are broke.”

I rolled my eyes at Marie. “My family's not broke. This is an academic scholarship.”

“Whatever,” Marie said, sounding bored. She brushed something from her lap, and for a moment, I got the eerie feeling that she was brushing
me
off.

“Humph,” Sheila grunted, still working the braid. “Wish I was on scholarship. This school is
stupid
expensive.”

“Oh, give it a break, Marie. It's just us.”

“It's just us now, but what happens when we let it go, forgetting who is around us?”

“Let what go?” I asked. Out past Marie's and Sheila's heads I could see the blue hill. The sun was sinking bright orange behind it. A group of girls were fooling around at the top.

“Marie's going to major in language. She has to stay on her toes,” Charli said.

Marie nodded. “I'm interested in the different ways people have of speaking around each other. I'm either going to Harvard, Yale, or Brown.”

“Oh,” I said. “Those are good schools.” I still didn't like Marie, but I wanted to show her that I knew about colleges.

“So are Morehouse, Spelman, and Howard,” Charli said.

“They're not Ivy League though,” Marie said.

“They're
black
league, girl.” Charli raised herself up on her elbows. “Black schools for black people. Get your education and culture”—Charli snapped her finger—“under one roof.”

Marie sucked her teeth and walked over to the window. She looked as though she could be six feet tall. Her Levi's were tapered super straight the way I had tried to get Grandma to make mine. But she had insisted my feet wouldn't be able to get through the bottom if she made them any straighter than they were. Marie was wearing a white turtleneck T-shirt. I pulled my shirt away from my chest, feeling little and flat-chested.

“This is the same tired old argument—”

“Tired old argument? You're slipping, Marie.” Sheila and Charli slapped palms, laughing.

“Marie thinks we shouldn't use the ‘tired old language' of black folks and should speak—What's the word, Marie? 'Correctly‘?”

“I think the way we speak says a lot about who we are,” Marie said, turning her back to the window and folding her arms. “People judge you by it.”

“But that is who we
are?”
Charli said, raising her shades. “You better take some courses in the
history
of language, girl, before you start working to change it.”

Sheila nodded.

I wasn't sure I understood what they were talking about. Ms. Dell spoke differently from Margaret and me. So did Hattie. And Grandma and Ms. Dell spoke differently when they were together than when Grandma was speaking to Mr. Parsons.

“What do you think, Maizon?” Charli asked. Someone giggled in the hallway. I pulled my knees up to my chin and stared out past Marie. I liked the sun in Connecticut. It seemed cleaner than Brooklyn sun.

“Language is fluid,” I said softly. “It changes—I mean the way we speak. The way black people speak changes. I don't think one way is right or the other way is wrong as long as you can get your point across.”

Marie sucked her teeth and turned back to the window. Sheila looked at me and shrugged.

“You have a lot to learn, Maizon,” Marie said.

“Then I'll learn it,” I said, feeling a little less afraid of her. “I'll learn
everything.”

Charli giggled and lay back down on the bed. “You two sure are slobs. Look at this room.”

“We're unpacking, Chuck,” Sheila said. She rose and began putting underwear and socks into her bureau.

Marie continued to stare out the window, silent.

“I'm from Detroit, Maizon,” Charli said. “Doctor's daughter.”

“You're from Southfield, Charli. Southfield, Michigan, is a bit of a cry from Detroit.”

“It's a car ride away.”

“Exactly,” Sheila laughed. “A car ride. Which means you don't have to get on a
bus,
like the people in Detroit, to get there.”

“Her family,” Charli said to me, pointing to Sheila, “is one of two black families in Cherryville. You know where that is, don't you?”

I nodded. Cherryville is a rich suburb of New York.

“And because of it,” Sheila said, “I'm headed straight for Spelman—the bestest blackest college on the map! You can have your Harvards and your Yales.”

“I can't believe you're going to waste a straight A average on Spelman,” Marie said.

“I can't believe you're going to waste your melanin on Ivy League!” Sheila retorted, folding a bra and placing it in the top drawer.

I listened to them bicker, liking the way their voices moved through all the quiet. I felt hungry for something. It wasn't food. I didn't know what it was, but knew it had something to do with their arguing and laughter and snapping fingers and something to do with the way the sun was setting outside the window. And even a little bit to do with Bruce Springsteen down the hall shouting that he was born in the U.S.A.

8

W
hen I got to my room, I went straight to the window and pulled my curtains open. The blue hill was almost gray against the dusk. I raised my window and pressed my hand against the screen. It was warm outside. A breeze rushed past and I pressed my face against the screen, trying to catch the last of it. Four girls walked past the dorm, holding hands. I swallowed, wondering if Margaret had already found a new best friend she could walk around with. Home. They would all be sitting on the stoop now—Ms. Dell and Hattie and Margaret and Li‘l Jay—catching the last bit of daytime. I leaned against the windowsill, scraping my nails slowly up and down the screen. Mr. Parsons hadn't lied after all. There were other black girls here. But they were older than me, and somehow dif ferent. Marie and Charli and Sheila. And Charli had mentioned another one too. But there was something about her Charli wasn't saying. I wondered who she was and what it was that had turned Charli against her.