Since he didn’t ask, Dee could not offer him anything about herself. What would she tell him if he asked? That her parents were very strict. That she liked math but pretended not to. That she was surprised at her own popularity at school given the limitations her mother put on her: she could not go to the mall with her friends, she had never had a birthday party—roller-skating or taking everyone to the movies. That she occasionally felt low for no reason. That Mimi had read her tarot cards recently and said things would soon change drastically for her. Dee had assumed she meant the move to junior high in the fall, but now, watching Osei smoothing and roughing up and smoothing the sand over and over, his hand so dark against the pale surface, she thought maybe “soon” was sooner than she’d expected.
Then he glanced up and smiled at her, his face half-turned so that he looked mischievous, and all of the words said and unsaid, the questions asked and unasked, the awkward silences, were swept away by the warmth that surged through her. Dee had never been like Blanca and a couple other girls, putting themselves forward, pursuing the boys and encouraging them to take an interest. Her clothes were not tight and shiny. She did not push out her growing breasts, but hunched over to downplay them. She had not been experimenting with boys around the corner by the gym doors, and had only kissed when they played spin the bottle during recess—and then only twice, as it was shut down by teachers once they found out what was going on. But her response to O was not experimental. This is what I have been waiting for, she thought. This.
It made her do what she had wanted to do since first lining up behind him before school: she reached over and touched his head, feeling the fuzz of his hair follow the curve of his perfect skull.
Osei did not pull back, nor did his smile disappear. He reached over in turn and laid his hand along her cheek. Dee turned her face to lean into it, like a cat being petted.
“You have a beautiful head,” she said.
“And you, a beautiful face.”
Surprise and relief flooded through her. He felt the same as she did; they could relax into each other. Dee understood now that real couples didn’t have to ask each other to go together: they already were together. Asking was babyish, a joke for children. She and Osei had already gone way beyond that.
They remained in their pose, like a modern sculpture of lovers, all heads and smiles and arms extended and interconnected, the outside world excluded. Dee heard Mimi nearby hiss, “Dee, what are you doing?” In the distance, Blanca began to chant:
O and Dee, sittin’ in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love, then comes marriage
Then comes Dee with a baby carriage!
As a whistle was blown they continued to touch each other. Teachers on playground duty blew their whistle when anyone was doing something they shouldn’t: pushing another student, hanging upside down from the monkey bars, throwing sand, climbing the fence. Whenever the whistle sounded, students halted and looked around to see who would get in trouble.
O wouldn’t know about that, but he must have guessed what it meant, for as Mr. Brabant strode toward them, still blowing his whistle, he dropped his hand from Dee’s burning cheek. Dazed, she left her hand on his head for a moment longer.
“Stop that! Get up this minute, you two.” His voice was like a whip cracking. O scrambled to his feet. Though Dee felt resistance welling, it was too awkward to continue sitting on the sand with everyone gathering around and staring down at her. She took her time getting up, though, brushing sand from her jeans, not meeting Mr. Brabant’s fury.
“You are not to touch other students inappropriately. Maybe things are different where you come from and you don’t know any better,” he directed at O, “but at this school boys and girls don’t touch each other like that.” The touching seemed to disturb him far more than any of the kissing he had caught the sixth graders doing all year. Maybe he sensed it was more meaningful, more heartfelt, more intimate—too intimate for a school playground. He turned to Dee. “And I’m surprised at you, Dee. You should know better. Now go inside and hand out the math worksheets.”
Dee had never been suspended or had a detention or been disciplined in any way at school, for she had not needed it. And she was getting off lightly: any other student would have been sent to the principal’s office for a scolding, and possibly a phone call to their parents. Instead she was being given a task she would have willingly done anyway. It seemed Mr. Brabant couldn’t bring himself to punish his favorite student too harshly.
Another time his words and tone would have stung, for of all the adults at school, Mr. Brabant was the one she most wanted to please. But today was different—Dee had found someone new whose opinion she suddenly cared about more. And someone Mr. Brabant was judging. Dee didn’t like his tone. Still, she could not disobey her teacher. The best response, she decided, was to take her time rather than rush to please him. As she began to saunter past Mr. Brabant toward the entrance, she could feel him staring at her, clearly aghast at her new attitude. It made Dee feel powerful.
They waited for Mr. Brabant to punish the new boy the way he needed to be punished. Ian could have shown him what to do: a good old-fashioned crack with a ruler on the black hand that had dared to touch Dee’s cheek. The moment he’d seen them with their arms around each other, a rage had coursed through Ian that he was still finding hard to control. Yet Mr. Brabant simply looked lost—and old, the bags under his eyes more pronounced. His teacher’s pet had finally rebelled and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Ian coughed to break the spell. Somebody had to. Mr. Brabant shook his head, then made a clear effort to pull himself together. Fixing his eyes on O, he stuck out his jaw. “Watch yourself, boy,” he said.
O looked back at the teacher and said nothing. The pause between them seemed to last an eternity, broken only by Miss Lode appearing, breathless. “Is everything all right?” she asked, her voice high with nerves.
“It better be,” Mr. Brabant barked. “It will be, when a certain boy here understands the rules of this school. Right, Osei?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Osei, here we don’t use ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am,’?” Miss Lode interjected, her tone gentle compared to her colleague’s. “We call teachers by their names. You should call him Mr. Brabant and me Miss Lode.”
“Yes, Miss Lode.”
“I can handle him, Diane.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to—” She was saved by the bell ringing.
“All right—go and line up.” Mr. Brabant raised his voice to include all the students surrounding him.
O moved, but slowly—much as Dee had just done—to make clear he was not really following an order, but happening to go in the right direction.
“Did I miss something?” Miss Lode said in a low voice.
“Inappropriate behavior,” Mr. Brabant muttered. “He was touching Dee. Typical.”
Miss Lode looked puzzled. “Gosh. Have you—have you been around many…black people?”
“A whole platoon.”
“Oh, I—sorry, I didn’t mean to ask about that…time.”
“Seeing his hand on her made me sick.”
Miss Lode caught sight of Ian listening and nudged Mr. Brabant. “Right, Ian, go and get in line,” he commanded.
“I will, Mr. Brabant—as soon as I collect the ball.”