As Dee ran, the pink case fell from her open backpack, which she had been in too much of a hurry to zip shut. Mimi called out, but her friend was gone. O had already walked away toward the cafeteria, so she went over to pick it up. Running her fingers over the embossed strawberries, she thought the case was indeed sweet, as Dee had said, though it was not to Mimi’s taste. She would give it back after lunch. Tucking it into her own backpack, she headed for the cafeteria.
Blanca waved at her from a table and pointed to the seat she was saving—not easy in the crowded room. “Where’ve you been?” she shouted. “Everybody wants this seat!”
“I’ll be right there,” Mimi called back. “Anything you want?”
“More tater tots!”
Blanca loved food, as she loved any sort of sensory experience, and Mimi often passed French fries, or cherries from fruit cocktail, or cartons of chocolate milk on to her. Now, although empty, her stomach was sore and all she wanted was Kool-Aid. However, she forced herself to take a tray, where the lunch ladies would serve up Salisbury steak and tater tots and a quivering slice of lemon meringue pie. Blanca and the others would happily eat anything Mimi didn’t want.
As she waited in line she watched O, one student ahead of her. The lunch ladies were all black too, and Mimi thought they might smile a special smile at him, as a signal that he was one of them. Instead, when she saw him, the lady serving the Salisbury steak froze, her spoon suspended, the tomato sauce dripping down the gristly piece of meat and onto O’s tray. The lady next to her chuckled. “C’mon, Jeanette, give the boy his steak!” she said as she gave O two spoonfuls of tater tots.
When he had moved on, Mimi heard the Salisbury steak lady say to the others, “That poor boy.”
“What do you mean, ‘poor boy’?” the tater tots lady demanded. “This is a good school. He’s lucky to go here.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean. Do you want your son walking onto a playground where he’s different from everybody else?”
“If he’s gonna get a good education, sure. ’Sides, he’s a new boy. New boys always have it hard at first. He’ll get used to it.”
“Are you a fool or what? It’s not him who has to get used to it. It’s white people got to get used to it! And do you think they will? They’ll give him hell out there—and in the classroom too, I bet. Teachers are as bad as the kids. Worse, ’cause they oughta know better.”
Mimi stood still with her tray, listening. Although she had been served by the lunch ladies for years, she had rarely heard them say anything other than “one scoop or two?” when doling out mashed potatoes. Certainly they had never said anything about one of the students; and nothing like this.
The lady serving tater tots suddenly became aware of Mimi and nudged the other two. “You want tater tots, honey? We got extra here.” She gave her three spoonfuls before Mimi could say anything. “Denise, go on and give her a big slice of pie. The biggest. She’s looking peaky.”
Mimi could not stop them from heaping her tray with far too much food. “There,” the tater tots lady said. “You all right now? You got everything you need?” She held Mimi’s eyes for a beat longer than necessary.
Mimi nodded and pulled away, confused.
Ahead of her, Osei was motionless with his tray, looking around at the full tables. Mimi wondered if he’d heard any of what the lunch ladies had said. She felt sorry for him, standing there wondering where to sit. At least no one was staring at him, and the room didn’t go silent as the playground had before school. Students were always louder when there was food.
For a moment she considered asking him to sit with her and Blanca and the others; they could squeeze him in if the girls crowded together. She suspected that Dee would do that if she were here. But Mimi wouldn’t: she was more pragmatic than Dee. It was an unwritten rule that boys and girls didn’t sit together in the cafeteria; it would cause almost as much uproar as his skin color.
At one table she saw Ian start to get to his feet, but then, closer to O, Casper gestured him over and made someone next to him move and give the new boy his seat. O slid into place and was suddenly locked in with all the other boys like a chess piece on a board. Ian remained half-standing, his eyes shifting from side to side to see if anyone had noticed that he’d been cut off, like when someone speaks but others don’t hear them and carry on their conversation, leaving the speaker hanging. The boys with Ian must have had a sixth sense around him and were carefully engaged in eating or joking or looking the other way. Only Mimi was caught with her eyes on him. He glared at her, and she turned away to hurry to her seat.
“Ooh, you got lucky,” Blanca cooed, popping a tater tot in her mouth. “Look how many you got! You gonna eat that pie?”
Mimi shook her head and pushed the tray into the middle of the table, holding back only a cup of Kool-Aid. Blanca and the others fell on the extra food, even the tough steak. It made her feel ill to watch, and she was afraid to look up and see Ian again, so she kept her eyes on her backpack under the table. Inside was Dee’s strawberry pencil case. It wasn’t zipped shut, and there was a scrap of paper sticking out of the gap. Mimi knew she should leave it; it wasn’t hers to read. But she couldn’t help it: seeing Dee and O with their heads touching over the case made her want a little bit of whatever it was they had, even if it meant looking through her friend’s things. Mimi glanced up: the girls across from her were arguing over how to divide up the lemon meringue pie. She pulled out the piece of paper.
There was a name and address and phone number written on it:
Osei Kokote
4501 Nicosia Boulevard, Apt. 511
652-3970
She thought for a moment. This was the suburbs; most people lived in houses. Mimi knew only one girl who lived in an apartment rather than a house, and that was a girl with a single mother, whose father had left when she was little. Her apartment had been on the poorer side of town. But Nicosia Boulevard was a big road, with offices and fancy stores and new apartment buildings that had marble entrances and valet parking like at hotels. She had heard some of the apartments even had elevators that opened straight into the rooms. If they lived there, O’s family wasn’t poor like the girl with the single mother; clearly they were rich.
She could only imagine Dee had the address written down so that they could meet outside of school. They would never go to Dee’s house—her mother would kill her for meeting any boy, much less a black one. O’s family must not be so concerned. Mimi would have to get ready with an alibi for her—the first of many, she expected. She sighed.
“We’re gonna go jump Double Dutch,” Blanca announced, standing and stretching, her pink top riding up so that her midriff showed—a display that was not an accident. “You coming?”
“Yeah.” Mimi stuffed the slip of paper back in the pencil case, then hesitated over whether or not to zip it shut. Would Dee notice it had been changed? She’d better leave it.
“What are you doing?” For once Blanca was taking an interest in someone else.