If I Tell

CHAPTER six



Sitting up made my head feel like it might explode, so I rolled over and reached for the phone beside my bed. For the first time, I called in sick to work. At least it wasn’t another lie. Inhaling coffee fumes all day would have made me throw up

I also couldn’t risk Nathan showing up at Grinds and giving me knowing looks. I’d rather die alone in my room than face him. I rolled over on top of a lump and grabbed it, pulling it out from under the covers. Jackson’s hoodie. Mortified at all the babbling I’d done with him, I nonetheless sniffed the hoodie, hugged it, and lay back down, falling back to sleep with my arms around it.

“Jasmine. You can’t sleep all day. It’s way past noon.” Grandma poked her head in my room, but she didn’t come inside. Her voice woke me from a sleepless dream. It could have been hours or minutes later.

“Flu,” I croaked and made a pitiful face. I peeked at the clock beside my bed. It was almost two.

Grandma lifted her nose and sniffed the air. “Flu, my butt,” she said in a most un-old-lady-like way. “Get up.” She closed the door quietly behind her.

I groaned, not wanting to wake up and face myself and what I’d done the night before. I stared at the posters on my wall. Johnny Cash. Janis Joplin. Neil Diamond. They all stared down at me as if asking the same question.

What would Neil do?

Well, for sure he wouldn’t have gotten into such a mess, making out with Nathan and needing to be rescued shoeless by Jackson.

I closed my eyes and tried thinking about the song lyrics I’d been working on for the past few days. Usually writing songs in my head soothed me, but my brain hurt too much to concentrate.

Outside my room I heard the landline ring, and a few minutes later the door opened.

“Your mom called,” Grandma said, stepping through the doorway. “She told me she’s been asking you out for dinner with Simon, and you keep making excuses.” She crossed her arms, pulling her rose cardigan around her tiny body. “I told her you’d meet her and Simon tonight. You’re meeting her at Pasta de Resistance at five.” Grandma leaned against the door. “Get out of bed.”

I lay back. “I don’t want to go for dinner. I feel terrible.” I lifted my arm and draped it across my eyes.

“Too bad.” I didn’t hear her budge from the doorway.

I moved my arm away to glare at her. “Fine. I’m getting up.” My voice made me sound like an angry little kid, and I covered my face with my arm again.

Grandma clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “Lacey also called. She’s got your backpack. She wanted to make sure you made it home okay, which I assured her you did. Now get up and shower before I change my mind and ground you.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go, I’ll go.” I sat up slowly, holding on to my head. I glanced at Grandma. “Headache,” I said.

Usually she preferred old-fashioned cheek turning. She’d rather put on a pot of tea and talk about the weather than deal with stuff like this. Her lips disappeared into a straight line, but it had always been Grandpa’s job to talk to me about serious stuff.

“You were drinking last night,” she said. Great. Suddenly she wanted confrontation instead of tea. Perfect timing.

“Um.” I looked her in the eye. “I only drank a little.” The lie rolled off my tongue as if I’d been lying to her for years. I remembered being a kid and thinking she could read my mind. Except about the pool. She hadn’t read my mind on that one. I’d been thankful for that.

She sighed. “You haven’t forgotten the things you promised Grandpa, have you, Jasmine?”

I rubbed my eyes. I shook my head slowly so as not to hurt my brain. Grandpa wouldn’t have let me get away with any of this. He would have been furious at me for taking advantage of the freedom they gave me and getting drunk.

“Jasmine.” Grandma pressed her lips together again. “I’m not clueless about what goes on with kids your age, but I’ve always trusted you to make good decisions. Safe sex. That’s why I let you stay out late. I don’t want you sneaking around.”

“Grandma!” I did not want to have that conversation. Especially after last night when I’d actually gotten close to a member of the opposite sex for the first time in my life.

“Well, how do you think you ended up being born?” she said in a crisp voice. “Osmosis?”

“I know, I know. Leave me alone, okay? I’m not having sex.” Especially not with Nathan.

She didn’t take her eyes off me. “Well, okay. But drinking will lead to bad decisions. You’re only seventeen.”

“Almost eighteen.”

Grandma gave me a look, and I shut my mouth. “Lacey is old enough to drink, but you’re not. You know I like her. But if you’re going to get into trouble…”

Grandma let me hang with Lacey because it made both of us feel better that I had friends. Even if they were older.

“It wasn’t Lacey’s fault.” I chewed the inside of my cheek. “I mean, she didn’t make me drink.” Not directly. I sat up and pulled my knees in close, trying to make myself smaller.

“You have a mind of your own. I’m aware of that, but I worry about you. It’s my job. Now up. Shower. Out of bed. It’s not okay to hang around in bed all day.” She paused. “Drinking makes people do stupid things.”

“Like getting pregnant?” I asked.

Grandma crossed her arms and pressed her lips tighter.

“Well, if Mom hadn’t gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t even be here for you to worry about.”

Grandma stepped closer. “That’s not what I mean. We were blessed with you.” She cleared her throat. “If something is bothering you, you can talk to me, you know. Like you did with Grandpa. It’s not like you to drink. Is it?”

“No. Everything’s fine.” I stared past her shoulder at a poster. “It was stupid. I’m sorry. I won’t get drunk again. I hated it. I feel terrible.” I sighed. “I miss Grandpa.”

“Me too.” Grandma’s cheeks reddened. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. She needed to reapply her lipstick; she hated being without it. “Why don’t you talk to Simon?”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

Grandma’s expression changed and she looked almost puzzled. “You’re still angry with him? You two have such a bond. I’ve loved that.”

“You mean because we’re black?” I snapped.

“Well, no.” Grandma hesitated and sat on the edge of my bed. “You’re not just black. You’re white too, right?” She reached out and stroked my arm.

“No, Grandma. You’re white.” I hugged my knees tighter. “I’ve never really been considered white by anyone except you and Grandpa.”

“That’s not true.” Grandma clucked her tongue like a rooster on speed.

“It is. I mean, let’s face it. Tadita is a pretty conservative town. Black people stick together, and white people stick together. I feel like the monkey in the middle sometimes.” I rested my head on top of my knees and struggled against the feelings whirling inside me. I’d never told her or Grandpa about the day at the pool. I never would.

“You and Grandpa always said I needed to accept myself for who I am. But I never knew parts of myself. I still don’t.”

She reached for my knee and held on.

“You didn’t teach me about being black. You didn’t even know how to do my hair,” I said. “I looked like Mickey Mouse for the first seven years of my life.”

Grandma started to laugh, and I couldn’t help it, I joined her. I’d had the worst rat’s nest as a kid. She’d tugged at it and messed around with it and usually put it in pigtails. Two round clumps of coarse hair that sprouted from the sides of my head.

Then she’d tried cutting it really short, Afro style, and I cried about it so much she let me grow it out. Finally she’d started sending me to the black hairstylist in town.

I did my own hair now. I was pretty good at it too. A skill I’d been forced to acquire. Spiral curls were easier with good hair products like the Mixed Chicks gel I bought on eBay.

“Oh, God, your hair,” she said, giggling, and then she sobered up.

“I’m sorry.” She sighed heavily and took her hand from my knee and patted her gray hair. “I didn’t know what to tell you. I just wanted you to be proud of who you are.”

She tugged on her ear. “Does it matter, Jasmine?” she finally asked. “What other people see? You’re half white too.”

“It matters,” I told her. How could it not? “And my father’s family, they never even acknowledged me. Not even when I was a little baby.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. But it’s their loss, you know. We always wanted you to believe that. They missed out. Oh, did they miss out.” Grandma sighed. “You are the most beautiful child. Inside and out.”

I stared at my bed. “That’s easy for you to say.”

She had no idea what it was like not to know where she belonged. No matter how white or how black I was, it seemed like neither was enough.

“I know. I know it is.” She stroked my arm. “Don’t think I never saw the way some people looked at us when you were growing up. Some of them still do. I know that.” She pressed her lips together. “It still makes me angry. Sometimes I wanted to slap people for their ignorance.”

I couldn’t help grinning at that image. My do-good, volunteer-addicted grandmother slapping people around for looking at me funny.

“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t know what to do. I never knew how to help with the black part. I left it up to your grandpa, and I don’t suppose he did much either. I wish we’d done more. That’s why when Simon showed up and stuck around…” her voice trailed off.

I bit my lip, not wanting to think about Simon. “Remember when you gave me that black doll when I was a kid? That Cabbage Patchy thing.”

She groaned. “You hated it. You threw her in the garbage and pretended it was an accident.”

I bit my lip. “It was different from the other dolls girls were playing with.”

“So were you, I guess. Different.” She patted me as if I were a little dog or cat. “Maybe we should have moved to a place where there are more kids like you. More mixed couples with kids.”

I held my breath, overwhelmed. She’d never said anything like that to me before. Never.

“Well, Grandpa loved Tadita.” Washington was in Grandpa’s blood, he’d said. Especially the wide-open spaces right outside our town. We spent a lot of time hiking the mountains, and even now when I needed to put my life in perspective, a trip to the mountains with a pair of hiking boots did wonders. I should have hiked instead of going to Marnie’s stupid party.

“Grandpa knew as much as I did about being black or African American or whatever the polite term is these days. I don’t know why I thought he’d be any better at explaining than me.”

I smirked. “Well, he made sure I had a great background in blues history. And he got me lots of CDs. Even though he ended up teaching me rock and roll.” I glanced over at my guitar leaning against the wall and the posters of white rock-and-roll stars on my walls. Something else I loved that set me apart from the few black kids I knew in Tadita.

Grandma reached up to cover her smile. The skin on her hand was thin and spotted. “He tried. We both tried.” She lowered her hand, her smile gone. “But really, what did we know about anything?”

“Grandpa was my dad,” I said. “In the ways that mattered.”

“I know, sweetie.” She sighed. “Is that what’s causing problems with you and Simon? That he’s sticking around for the baby? And the man that fathered you didn’t?”

My nostalgic feelings vanished. My headache returned full force. “That has nothing to do with it, Grandma. Trust me.”

She took a deep breath and blew it out. It disappeared like a note fading out.

“Try reaching out to Simon. He’s a good man. He’s good with you.” She stood. “And don’t you dare go out and get drunk again. There’d better not be a next time. Not until you’re thirty.”

She shook a finger at me. “Now. You go have a shower and clean yourself off, and then go and meet your mom for dinner.”

***

Pasta de Resistance buzzed with life. The smell of Italian food and spices mingled with the noise, making my head ring and my stomach queasy. Usually I loved the atmosphere, the loud music, and the clanking sounds of the restaurant, but tonight it was too much.

I stared across the red-checkered tablecloth at Mom’s bloated stomach. It poked out of her loose maternity dress. I’d thought she’d pull off pregnant better. Her normally glowing skin was blotchy. She looked puffy and uncomfortable. Her disposition wasn’t exactly radiant either.

Mom used the back of her hand to wipe sweat off her brow and then glanced at her watch for about the hundredth time. “I can’t believe Simon. He’s always late. I told him 6:30, and it’s quarter to seven already.” She glanced around as if she was about to cry.

Her moods were getting darker as her stomach got bigger. She didn’t usually complain about Simon.

I picked up a glass of water and took a sip. “He’s not that late,” I said and put my glass down.

Secretly I wished he’d leave us waiting all night long. I envisioned him disappearing into thin air, like one of those men who go out one night to buy a pack of cigarettes and never return. Too bad Simon didn’t smoke.

“What would you do if Simon didn’t want the baby?” I asked.

“What?” her eyes flashed. “What are you talking about? Did he say something to you?”

A waiter walked by carrying a huge tray of drinks, and my stomach rolled in protest.

“Of course not. I haven’t talked to him about it. No, I just meant, you know, what if you ended up bringing up this baby by yourself?”

“This isn’t the same. Your father wanted nothing to do with you.” The wrinkles in her forehead deepened. No Botox with a baby on the way.

I leaned farther back in my chair, putting more distance between us. I changed my mind, wishing Simon would appear. And soon.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that Michael didn’t want a baby. We were so young. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Uh. It had everything to do with me.” I picked up my water glass, sucked up a couple of ice cubes, and crunched them, chewing rudely. How could she think it had nothing to do with me?

“Michael was the same age as you are now, for God’s sake. He had plans. College. Football. We weren’t even serious. I was the one who chose to have you. I knew I was on my own.” She glanced around the restaurant. “And Grandma and Grandpa wanted to keep you so badly too. They told me they would raise you. They did so much better than I could have. But this is different. I’m older now. Simon wants our baby. He’ll be there for this baby.” She leaned back in her chair with her hands folded protectively over her stomach.

“Unlike my ‘father.’” I had an urge to put my head down on the table and close my eyes. I tried not to think about him much. Daddy. Now I’d thought about him twice in one day.

“It’s complicated,” Mom said.

“Not really.”

“He did set you up a trust fund. I didn’t ask him to do that. He did it on his own. He gave you a secure future.”

Yeah, a few years after he married his college sweetheart, the Sperminator must have gotten a dose of the guilts or something. He’d dumped money in an account for me, the one and only time he’d ever acknowledged his part in my existence. All he’d asked for in a letter written to my mom was that I not contact him. Isn’t that what they called hush money?

“So I should be grateful? He paid me off so he doesn’t ever have to advertise his half-white daughter. Or the blond he knocked up. Mighty big of him, I’d say.”

I’d googled him last year in a moment of weakness. He was some sort of business guru now. Used his football scholarship well, apparently, after he’d blown out his knee his final year. He owned property all over the place. The black woman he’d married, his college sweetheart, ran her own real-estate business. They’d had two little girls. A picture of the couple appeared on the home page of his website. Tall, dark, and beautiful. Happy and perfect. Smiling. His profile said they met at college. She’d been in the same year as him and had majored in business. They’d graduated together. Married and had babies right on schedule.

I wondered if she even knew I existed, his half-mocha daughter. I wondered if his kids knew they had a half sister. Half blood. Half sister. Half white. I wondered if they’d care someday.

Mom sighed, and the waiter hovered closer to our table, not even trying to pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping. She flicked her hand in the air, waving him away, and he slowly moved along. She clenched her jaws, her resolve hardening like an old man’s arteries.

“I can’t change what happened or who your father is. I thought we’d dealt with it.”

I snorted. “You thought we’d dealt with it? I’m the one with the father who bought me off with a deposit in a bank account. You had the best father in the world, and you didn’t even tell him. Grandpa Joe would have done anything for you. He did do anything. He became a father to your own child.”

“Hey, ladies, sorry I’m late.”

It figured Simon would pick that moment to swoop up to the table. He looked back and forth at us, his big charming smile fading a little. “Did I miss something?”

“A condom?” I said.

His lips turned down. His eyes had bags under them. Maybe I wasn’t the only one at the table suffering from a hangover.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually didn’t like me anymore, Jaz.” He smiled, but it wasn’t sincere. “But you’re a teenager, so I’ll pretend you do. You look nice. Cute dress. I like that color on you.”

His condescending smile made me sick. I’d only worn the dress to try to please Grandma. I hated it. More now. Simon looked hipper than me in his T-shirt and jeans. A couple of teenage girls at the table next to us actually ogled him.

Simon completely ignored the obvious tension at our table. He joked and touched Mom a few times as he babbled. I stared through him, hating his handsome face, hating his gift of gab. Hating the way he played her. I knew that he’d already done something to hurt her. With Lacey. I just didn’t know how far they’d gone.

“God. I wish I could have a drink,” Mom said when he finally paused for a breath.

“Go ahead,” I snapped. “It’s not like you’re getting nominated for a Mother of the Year award.”

In the background people talked and cutlery clinked. The silence at our table was louder.

“Hey,” Simon said. “Your mom wouldn’t drink in her condition. She’s going to be a great mom. She already is.” He reached out and stroked her hand.

I wanted to barf.

“How do you know?” Mom asked and pulled away. “I didn’t even raise her.” She pointed at me. “She doesn’t even like me.”

I stared down at the table and forced myself not to apologize or reassure her. I loved her, but right then I didn’t care. Why should I be the only one who hurt?

“That was different,” Simon said. “You were very young. And you’ve always been there for Jaz. You have a great relationship.” I glanced up. He shot a look at me that made my insides wince, but I didn’t flinch.

“Appreciate that you still have your mom around to talk to, Jaz. I miss my mom every single day.”

Mom sniffled. Simon opened his eyes wider, trying to send me a message, but I ignored him. I was sorry his mom had died, but that had nothing to do with my situation.

The waiter stepped into our space. Must be a slow night because he seemed to be enjoying the show. Simon ordered a beer, and the waiter went to get it.

“Hair of the dog?” I asked politely.

“What? The beer? Nah. I’m too old to get drunk anymore.” He sheepishly glanced at Mom. “Well, maybe once in a while, like the night I found out I was becoming a dad.”

Yeah. I’d seen him drunk, his lips all over my best friend.

“Anyways. I heard you were the one having a good time last night.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Nathan your new boyfriend?”

“No. He is not.” I willed him to shut his mouth.

He grinned. “Damien said Nathan had his arm around you at a party, that’s all.” He winked. “Oh, and there might have been some kissing.”

I almost passed out with embarrassment.

“Really?” Mom asked, finally looking interested in something other than her own misery. “Is that true?” She sat up and her grumpy expression softened.

I narrowed my eyes. The last thing I wanted to talk about was Nathan. “Tell Damien to mind his own business. Just because he’s your brother doesn’t mean he gets to spy on me.”

Simon held up his hands. “Hey. Sorry, kid. I was just having some fun with you.”

“Nathan’s that skinny kid who lives with Lacey? Isn’t he a little old for you? He doesn’t seem like your type.”

I scrunched my nose. “I don’t have a type. Unlike you, I’m not addicted to a color.” I reached for my water and took a sip. I did not want to be having this conversation.

“Hey, your mother’s taste in men is awesome.” Simon grinned. “Once you go black, you never go back.”

“Gross.”

“Jaz.” Mom sounded amused. “It’s okay to have fun at your age. Boyfriends are normal. Just be careful.”

I squeezed my eyes closed and covered my ears. “Shut up!”

“Hey.” Mom threw her napkin at my head.

I fumed.

“We’re only teasing.” Her brows furrowed.

“You’ve been mad at me since you found out your mom and me are having a baby.” Simon reached over and folded a hand over Mom’s. She didn’t pull away.

“You’re an important part of the baby’s life, Jaz. A big sister. I’m not going to come between you and your mom.” He spoke in a soothing tone, as if I were a child.

I snorted. He already had. I pushed back on the chair and stood. I turned to my mom. “I could not care less about you or your stupid baby. I feel sorry for it. You’re the worst mother in the world. And, Simon, bite me.”

I rushed from the table. My best high heels flapped on my feet as I scooted past people eating dinner and looking up at me surprised. I fled the restaurant, afraid that if I turned back and saw my mom’s expression, I’d run back to say I was sorry, that I didn’t mean it. But if I turned back, I might blurt out what I’d seen. Instead, I ran. Again.