From the Notebooks of Melanin Sun (9 page)

No father. No mother. No Ralph. No Sean. No Angie. And it was all
her
fault, but now I couldn't even blame her because she was all I had.

I pulled one of the earphones away from my head.

“You want green beans or peas?” Mama asked.

Dropping the earphone back against my ear, I mumbled that it didn't matter and Mama went back into the kitchen.

If she died, I'd be alone.

I stared at my bare feet. The two smallest toes on the left one curled, the smallest one over the next one. Mama said these were her toes and once she showed me, pulling off her shoe so I could see where hers curled in the exact same way. Like twins. What if I
was
just like her? Even if Angie's kiss had given me butterflies and made me so hard. . . .

These were
my
toes! Me, Melanin Sun, the part of me that didn't have a single thing to do with any bit of her! Or Kristin. It was
them
and
me.
And if she died, our little bit of family would be gone. So we had to hold on to the little bit and maybe stretch it, even if holding on to blood meant losing friends. If she died, I would be the only thing left of us. Me and my stupid, stupid notebooks.

I would be like the beginning of something—but not really, because I'd also be the end with no connection to a past. Like a third-generation slave with no known relatives. I'd be in an in-between world.

Mama came back in. Her lips mouthed
Dinner's ready
and I shrugged again. “I'll eat later,” I said.

She pulled my headphones off me.

“You'll eat
now
,” she said, standing there with her arms folded.

“I'm not hungry
now.
”

“Well, then, you'll sit down with me while I eat.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don't want to look at you.”

Now she was frowning, looking past me, out the window.

“Maybe I've had enough of this. I'm sick of you sulking around this house. I'm sick of the faces, the disrespect—”

“Oh, like you respect me.”

Mama looked at me. “May I finish?”

“I'm not stopping you.”

“Kristin's going to be around awhile, so we might as well start dealing, Mel. I'm sorry if this hurts, if it's hard, but it
is,
and that's the jump-off point.”

“What, EC? You want me to just say, ‘Okay, my mama's a dyke and everything's perfect'?”

Mama raised her eyebrows. “Yes. Basically, that's what I want.”

I looked at her like she was crazy. “No! It doesn't
work like that.
Who do you think I am, God?”

“I think you're the Melanin Sun I raised to be tolerant.”

“I am tolerant. Of everybody else. But here, on this block where everybody knows everybody's business, I don't want to have to fight and dodge people and lie to live.”

“Who are you fighting?” she asked. When I didn't say anything, she said, “Ralph and Sean?”

I pressed my lips together and stared out the window.

Mama exhaled. “So they know.” She leaned back, her arms still folded, and softly hit the back of her head a couple of times against the wall.

“Everybody knows.”

“Is that why you're not leaving the house?” she asked quietly.

I nodded.

“You can't stay inside forever, Mel,” Mama said gently.

I stretched my hands out, palms up, and studied the tiny lines in them. “They think you're a freak.”

Mama sighed. “I don't care what
they
think. I want to know what
you
think.”

I looked at her. “How come it has to be her?”

“I love her.”

“How come you can't just love a man like everybody else? Even a white man if you had to.”

“Not everybody else loves men, Melanin Sun. . . .”

“Like
most
people,” I said.

“Because I'm not most people.”

“Do you hate
me,
EC?”

Mama shook her head. “Of course not, M. You're the closest person in the world to me.”

“But you don't like men.”

“I never said I didn't like them. I'm just not romantically
attracted
to them.”

“But what about my father?”

“I was young.”

“And what about the other guys you dated?”

“
You
hated all of them.” Mama smiled.

“But weren't you attracted to any of them?”

Mama thought for a moment. “Yeah. Some, I guess. But it's nothing like what I feel for Kristin.”

“Is it 'cause she's white?”

Mama looked at me. “No and yes, sometimes. It's complicated.”

“It
is,
isn't it?” I scowled. EC was so . . . so . . . stupid.

“I like the contrast of us, the differences between us—and I like the way we've found our way to each other across color lines. Kristin's amazing to me. I like
her
—everything about her, and her whiteness is a part of her,” Mama said. “Does that make sense?”

“No!”

“I didn't think it would. Look, honey, this may sound lame, but I'd like to ask you for a favor. The next time Kristin is here, I want you to try to get to know her. See us together as people. I'm still EC. She's Kristin. That's all I'm asking of you.”

I started to say something, but Mama cut me off.

“Just try, Melanin Sun. I need you to do that. Can you?”

I shook my head no.

“Can you just do it for me, M?”

I shook my head.

Mama thought a moment. “Who am I, Mel?”

“EC,” I mumbled.

“No. Who am I?”

“Mama.”

“Do you love me?”

“I have to,” I said.

“No you don't. You don't have to do anything. Do you love me?”

I nodded.

“Can you not hate me for one day? Can you love me like you used to for a day, Mel?”

“I do love you. I just hate Kristin.”

“But you don't know her.”

“I hate the
idea
of her, Mama. You know what I mean. Why does she have to be with you? I wish she was dead. I wish she wasn't ever born.”

Mama frowned. “Well, I don't.” She shrugged.

“You hate me, don't you?”

Mama put her hand on her hip. “What makes you think I can't love both of you?”

“ 'Cause she's white and I'm black. 'Cause she's a lady and I'm not! Don't be stupid. You know why.”

Mama sighed. “Just see her as human, Mel. Just walk into one day without being so mad at me.”

“And how do I have to walk out of it?”

Mama lifted her hands. “However you walk out of it.”

“What kind of day?”

“Breakfast, maybe a trip to the beach or a picnic in Prospect Park. Dinner out somewhere.”

“And if I walk away hating her as much as I do right now, will you stop seeing her?”

Mama shook her head. “No, but I won't bring her here anymore.”

I thought of Ralph and Sean. I thought of Angie. “Deal,” I said.

“Deal,” Mama repeated. “Now, since this may be the last time we sit down together as friends, can I have my last meal with you?”

Reluctantly, I smiled and closed my notebook. “Yeah,” I said. “For old time's sake.”

Chapter Seventeen

When I thought
I had finally gotten him and Sean out of my head, Ralph called. I was so surprised to hear his voice on the other end asking about my mother, I stuttered when I told him that she was at the library, studying. Then everything came right back and I felt myself getting mad all over again.

“For who?” Ralph nosed, as though it hadn't been almost two weeks since we'd last spoken.

“For herself. What did you call for?”

“For what?” Ralph said, ignoring my question.

“What are you calling for?” I asked again. He had deserted me. Had left me hanging after all of these years of being homeboys. And now he thought he could just call up and say hey.

There was a pause. After a moment, Ralph said, “I was wondering what you were up to, that's all.”

“Nothing.”

More silence. I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear while I doodled on a pad Mama had mounted on the wall beside the phone.

“You want to hang later, maybe watch a movie?”

I looked behind me at the clock above the kitchen window. It was a little after four. “I was watching TV.” The television was still on in the living room with its volume turned all the way down.

“Oh.”

“How's Sean?”

“His eye is still pretty messed up, but he's okay, I guess.”

“That's good.”

“What you watching?”

“Maybe gonna watch the game.”

“Yeah,” Ralph said, as though I had asked him a question.

“Sean say anything else about my mother?”

“Nah. He didn't really have nothing else to say. His mom said he had to stay away from you, though.”

“Oh. I don't care.” But I did care. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything.

“EC still . . . ?”

“Yeah . . . Kristin.”

“Oh,” Ralphael said. “It's no big deal, you know. Like what goes on with your mother doesn't have to do with anybody else, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I mean . . . thanks.” I swallowed and bit my bottom lip. “Everybody knows, right?”

“Probably. You know how this block is.”

We didn't say anything for a moment. Then Ralph laughed. “You know what my moms said?”

“What?”

“She said she saw EC day before yesterday and she looked happier than anything. Mama said she should go out and find herself a woman if that's what it's all about.”

I laughed.

“But not everybody's saying stuff like that.”

“I don't care,” I said.

“Me either.”

“What else you hear?”

“Nothing . . .” Ralph was hesitant.

“You lie.”

“Mrs. Shirley said . . .”

“What, Ralph?”

“She said someone should call the authorities on EC and take you out of that house 'cause . . . she's . . . she said your mother's . . . unfit.”

“Unfit for what?” I asked. My voice got high suddenly. What the hell was she talking about?

“To be your mother.”

“Oh, she's full of it. Anyway, I wouldn't let anybody take me anyplace. She's still my mom. Mrs. Shirley should take her fat behind out of that window and do something with her own life.”

“Mrs. Shirley's stupid,” I heard Ralph say, but I wasn't listening anymore. I was thinking about Mama and tomorrow when we were supposed to spend the day with Kristin. What if they came for me before then? What if the authorities came tonight and slipped me away from here and made new rules?

“Mel,” Ralph was saying, “I don't care what people say. If anything, they should come take Mrs. Shirley away for spending the whole day in the window instead of looking after her own kids.”

“They wouldn't, though,” I said.

Ralph sniffed. “I got a cold from all that rain, and Mama's not letting me hear the end of it.” He went into a coughing spasm. When he spoke again, his voice was broken up, like there was something stuck in the back of his throat. “If you want to hang sometimes, give me a call. We only got a little time before school starts, anyway. Might as well use it up.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We might as well.”

SEAN

Chapter Eighteen

No one came
in the night to take me away. Mama woke me early the next morning—so early the sky was just beginning to break with the first rays of daylight. I thought maybe she was losing her mind to be shaking me awake at the crack of dawn.

The apartment was cool and bathed in a pretty purplish light. Someone was in the kitchen banging pots around. On my way to the bathroom, I peeked in and saw Kristin there, dressed in a pair of Mama's shorts and a T-shirt, turning down the flame underneath the teakettle.

Last night, Mama had come in alone. But later on, I thought I dreamed that the bell rang and Mama called
I'll throw the keys down.
I hate that fake reality that sometimes exists between sleep and wake. It obscures things. Once, right after Mama told me about her and Kristin, I had a dream that I was living in a house in Connecticut with a man Mama had just married. I woke up waiting for this guy to wake me up to take me shopping and I must have sat on the edge of my bed for a good half hour waiting for him to walk into my room.

“Morning, Melanin Sun,” Kristin said, too brightly for this hour. Too brightly for anything. But today was the day and after it was all over I wouldn't have to deal with her anymore, so I mumbled something that might have passed for good morning.

“So you're not a morning person, huh?” Kristin lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She was still smiling. There was something about her—a mellow something. It put me off a bit.