Maizon at Blue Hill (9 page)

“Me either,” Charli said.

“But,” Sheila continued, “it's not like there are all-black boarding schools anywhere yet. So what's left to do? We come here, find a few black people to hang with, and protect ourselves.”

Marie nodded. “It's not even a choice, Maizon. We want to protect you because we've seen what could happen to sisters here. It hurts. But you have to make a choice.”

“What kind of choice?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. I felt like I was being told what to do—and as I've been told a hundred times, I don't take well to authority.

“Pauli made a choice,” Marie said too casually, picking up her roll.

“Well, I'm not Pauli,” I said loudly. Some girls turned toward our table. Some giggled.

“Don't embarrass us, Maizon!” Sheila hissed. “What's wrong with you, anyway? We're just saying we want to protect you.”

“I don't need your protection!” I whispered loudly. “I make my own decisions!”

Charli, Marie, and Sheila exchanged looks. Then Marie nodded slightly. This conversation was the end of something. But I wasn't sure what that was.

We ate the rest of our meal in silence.

16

T
hree weeks later, I got another letter from Margaret. Dear Maizon,

I just want to keep you posted on what's going on here. You still haven't written me. I was thinking maybe you just forgot to. Now I'm thinking you forgot all about me. That's okay. Ms. Dell says you're probably real busy, Maizon, with Blue Hill being such a hard school and all. If you're real busy, don't worry about writing. Best friends don't have to write each other all the time, right? Your grandmother said she got a postcard from you. That was nice that you sent her one. Postcards are nice. I really like them. Li‘l Jay is all over the place now. Mama says she can't keep him in one place. Sometimes I take him off her hands. Since Daddy died, Mama doesn't have so much patience anymore. Ms. Dell . and Hattie and me, we all sit around and talk about you. Did you know that Hattie wrote poetry too? She keeps her poems inside her head. I think maybe you're making a lot of new friends. I hope you don't get a new best friend, Maizon, because I'm not gonna. I hope you remember the promise we made—to be best friends forever and ever. Ms. Dell said sometimes best friends have to go away from each other to find their own way. Then they come back again. I wonder if you'll come back again. I hope you do. I miss you.

Love, Margaret

 

 

I folded Margaret's letter up and added it to the small pile of letters inside my drawer. I had taped the poem Margaret sent me to the top of my dresser. The edges were starting to fray and some of the words were fading. Her teacher, Ms. Peazle, had entered the poem in a contest, Margaret wrote to tell me. If it won, Margaret was going to read the poem in front of the mayor. I whispered the poem, feeling the back of my throat closing up with each word:

The poem seemed strange to me all of a sudden. It was about her father and about me all at the same time. I wondered how she had done that—woven two people around and over each other until you couldn't really tell one from the other.

“It's just talent,” Ms. Dell would have declared, nodding. “That's all it ever is.”

Jealousy. It flared up without me even expecting it. I swallowed, but it was still there. Margaret had something I didn't have anymore. A belonging.

Beside her pile of letters, I had one of my own. Letters I had not sent her. I fingered my stack. Some of the envelopes even had stamps on them. For a moment, I thought about mailing one, any one, to let her know I was alive. But I didn't want her to know who I was here, that ever since our conversation at dinner, Charli, Sheila, and Marie hadn't spoken to me, and even though other girls sat down at my table, the only time I talked at mealtime was when Miss Norman or Ms. Bender sat down next to me. I didn't want her to know how alone I was, how even when we made group trips to the movies or dances or state fairs, there was something missing that left me unconnected, feeling like I was on the outside of Blue Hill somehow, watching. Even when people treated me nicely, there was something, always, always, always missing. Something about being here that left me feeling like a shadow, an outline, not whole. So I closed the letter drawer slowly, sat down and began my history homework. I had gotten an A on my history test.

I looked out the window at the blue hill. The temperature had dropped in the past three weeks and the yard looked cold and empty. Two girls walked across the field wearing the heavy, dark blue jackets with BLUE HILL embroidered across the back in white. Long-dead flowers lay crusting over in abandoned window boxes. In the distance, as Ms. Bender had promised, the leaves on the trees had changed to colors that set the sky on fire.

“Hey, Maizon,” Sandy said, slamming into the room. She was on the cross-country and volleyball teams and worked on the school paper and literary magazine. On weekends she usually went home. We didn't see or talk to each other much. When she asked me questions about my life, my answers were guarded. I guess she took this as a sign that I didn't want to be friends with her, and about two weeks into the school year she stopped asking. I liked Sandy. But I was afraid she'd disappoint me the way Marie and Sheila and Charli had. I didn't want to take chances. I had friends I was sure of back on Madison Street. I'd just have to wait until we were reunited.

“Hey, Sandy,” I said, sticking my head further into my book but watching her-out of the corner of my eye. Sandy took off her jacket and sweats, then grabbed a towel and headed off to the shower.

I stared out the window until she returned.

“It's getting colder out there,” she said. “If you're not used to Connecticut, it could surprise you.”

I shrugged, looking at the words in my history book, and said nothing.

“I saw Charli just now. They won their game. She plays basketball too. The team's gonna start practice soon.”

“That's nice.”

“Are you thinking about playing?”

I shrugged again. “I might give it a try.”

“I think you'd be good, Maizon.”

“Aren't we
all
good?”

“What d‘you mean by that?”

Behind me, I could hear Sandy pulling on her pants. It was Saturday and we didn't have to wear our uniforms.

“Nothing.”

“You're a hard one to figure out, Maizon.” I turned to catch Sandy shaking her head and smiling.

“What do you mean by
that?”
I asked.

“You're hard to get to know. I mean, we're roommates and people are always asking me, ‘What's your new roommate like,' and I can't really tell them, because I don't really know.”

“They just want to know to be nosy.”

“Maybe some of them. But I think there are girls here who wouldn't mind being your friend.”

“I have friends. I came here to learn.”

“That's the only thing everyone knows about you. That you're smart. My friend Pam is in your math class and she said the teacher asked you to stop raising your hand, because you know all the answers.”

“Pam's just jealous. If she studied, she'd know the answers too.”

“And my friend Gina has Mrs. Winters's science class with you. She said you know everything there too. They call you teacher's pet.”

“Is that what people do, sit around and discuss me?”

“We're just curious.”

“Well, don't be. I'm not an animal in a zoo.”

“Jeez, Maizon,” Sandy said, falling back on her bed.

I turned back toward my desk and leaned on my elbows. “I hate this place,” I said softly. “I don't belong here.”

“Yes, you do.” I could hear Sandy walking toward me and brushed my hand quickly over my eye.

“You, Miss Norman, Charli and them, nobody knows what it's like to leave everybody you ever cared about miles and miles behind and come to a place where every single thing you touch or taste or see is unfamiliar to you. This isn't the place for me. I don't want to worry about who I choose to be friends with or where I sit in the cafeteria.”

“You shouldn't worry about it,” Sandy said, timidly placing her hand on my shoulder.

“But I do worry about it. Marie and Charli and Sheila have been hurt by prejudice and I know I'll get hurt too. I don't want to be the minority. I want to be in a school where that's not an issue. And here, even though nobody really talks about it, it's on everybody's mind. I never had to think about it before and I don't want to think about it now.” I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

“Maizon?” Sandy nearly whispered. “Why do you have to think about it all the time?”

I shook my head and brushed her hand away. “You don't understand, Sandy. And I can't explain it to you.”

Sandy sighed and walked back to her bed. It felt like there were a million miles between us. But the miles weren't about distance, they were about knowledge and experience and pain.

17

H
i, Grandma,“ I said cheerfully. It was Sunday morning. I was dressed in my uniform again, because we had to wear them to church. Service would start in a half hour, which gave me some time to talk to Grandma before walking over to the chapel.

“Maizon! Oh, it's so good to hear your voice.” Grandma sounded far away. I swallowed. I wanted to see her. “How are you, honey?”

“I'm fine, Grandma. I'm having a fun time here and learning a whole lot. Church is strange though. I've never been in a church full of girls in uniforms.”

Grandma laughed.

“It's real different from church with you, Grandma. The sermons are so boring here. And you should see our hymn book. I swear, you'd fall asleep standing!”

“God's there, Maizon,” Grandma said. “Don't fall asleep on His spirit.” Grandma chuckled again, which made me blink back tears. “I'm so proud of you. Everyone keeps asking how you're doing.”

“Tell everybody I'm doing real good, Grandma. I got an A on my history test. And Grandma, guess what?”

I heard Grandma laugh again. “What, my Maizon?”

“Tomorrow, in English, we're going to start discussing The Bluest Eye. Remember that book I was reading last summer?”

“That's nice it's on your reading list.”

“No, it wasn't. But the teacher took suggestions from everybody and that was my suggestion. So we read it. We discuss
everything
here. It's not like it's only the teacher talking. Everyone in class participates. And Grandma, there're some
smart
girls here!”

“You're one of them,” Grandma said proudly.

I want to go home,
I wanted to shout in the phone.
I don't want to be here.
Bluest Eye or no Bluest Eye,
I want to go home!

“Are you keeping warm?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“Are you keeping your hair neat?”

“I always keep it neat. It's grown a little. I might let it grow long.”

Grandma chuckled. “And who's going to comb all that hair you're planning to grow?”

I smiled and shut my eyes tightly, trying to picture Grandma standing in the kitchen cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear while she rolled cinnamon-bun dough out on the table. I wondered if Margaret and Li‘l Jay were coming over to eat her cinnamon buns and listen to her stories of growing up on a Cheyenne reservation.
Grandma!
I wanted to yell.
Please, Grandma,don't hate me if I come home!

“I'm happy, Grandma,” I said. “Thanks for encouraging me to come here.”

“Oh, Maizon,” Grandma said again, “I'm so proud of you.”

“I'll call you again during the week, if I'm not too busy with schoolwork. How're your legs?”