Rippling over all of those strings came Dee, with her blond hair pulled into tight pigtails braided by her mother, who believed girls should be buckled in for as long as possible. Dee was coming over to tell Mimi to stop, then would take away the ropes and go stand in line next to the new boy. She was going to focus entirely on him. Mimi already knew this was going to happen. She often knew.
She was right: Dee paid Mimi and Blanca only cursory attention before going to stand next to the new boy. Mimi went to her own line, where she couldn’t help watching Dee and the boy. Everyone was watching them. The relentless curiosity made the two seem surrounded by a shimmering aura like the one Mimi sometimes saw behind her eyes when a headache was coming on. In fact, even now her head had that buzzing, attentive feeling that preceded one, like the tension in the air when a thunderstorm is brewing.
Then Dee gave the boy the precious class jump ropes, and they began to laugh, throwing their heads back as if there were no audience but the two of them, performing for each other. It was so unexpected—what student would laugh five minutes into his first day at a new school?—that Mimi found herself laughing too, in surprise, in sympathy, in imitation. She was not the only one—others were also infected, smiling and laughing because they could not help it.
Not Ian. Her boyfriend—for that was what everyone called them now, boyfriend and girlfriend—was standing off to one side, staring at Dee and the boy, a snarl pressed into his face that punctured Mimi’s joy.
I can’t go with him anymore, she thought. I can’t go with a boy who responds like that to laughter. For a moment Mimi thought of the feeling of flying around the flagpole, and of Ian pushing into her with his tongue and hips, which she thought she would not like but did, surprised to find her body responding like a light being switched on. But she could not have someone like Ian turning on that light.
She pondered when to tell him she was breaking up with him. Maybe at the end of the day when she could run home afterward, and pretend to have one of her really bad headaches the next day so she wouldn’t have to go to school. Tomorrow was Friday, after that the weekend, and she hoped Ian’s anger might have burned itself out after three days. Then there would be only a month of school to get through before a summer away from him, and then a new school to lose herself in.
Now that she had a plan she felt better—apart from the stab of jealousy as she watched Dee and the new boy walk through the school entrance, their strides already matched the way friends and couples walk together at the same pace.
Yes, she felt better. And yet there lurked a flicker behind Mimi’s eyes, and the slow grip of a vice at her temples. That would not go away until her head was taken over and she submitted to the pain, like a test she had to pass before she could be light and free again.
Osei surveyed the playground with a practiced eye. He had looked over new playgrounds three times before, and knew how to read them. Every playground had the same elements: swings, slide, merry-go-round, monkey bars, jungle gym. Lines and bases painted on the asphalt for softball and kickball. A basketball hoop at one end. Space for hopscotch and jump rope. This one had two unusual features: a pirate ship with poles and rigging that could be climbed; and a sandpit edged by a clump of trees.
Then there were the kids you always saw doing the same things: the boys, running chaotically, burning up the energy that otherwise made them restless in class; or playing with a ball, always something with a ball. The girls, playing hopscotch or jacks or jump rope. The loners, reading or sitting on top of the monkey bars or tucked away in a corner or standing close to the teachers where it was safe. The bullies, patrolling and dominating. And himself, the new boy, standing still in the midst of these well-worn grooves, playing his part too.
Looking over the kids, he was also hoping to spy something else: an ally. Specifically, one of his own. Another black face or, if that wasn’t available, a brown face, or a yellow face. Puerto Rican. Chinese. Middle Eastern. Anything different from the parade of pink-and-cream suburban Americans. But there was none. There rarely was. And when there was, they weren’t always any help. In his London school there had been one other black student—a girl with Jamaican parents, who never once met his eyes, who stayed as far from him as she could, as if they were two magnets pushing away from each other. She had found her own precarious perch and did not want to get pulled into his struggle to find a safe place. In his New York school there had been twin Chinese brothers who when goaded would use kung fu moves in fights, which hurt their opponents but delighted the onlookers. They also kept their distance from Osei.
He had learned over time to hide what he was thinking as the new boy. His father might be the diplomat in the family, but Osei too was a diplomat of sorts, displaying his skills at each new school. Whenever his father came home from his new job and at dinner told his wife and children about all the new people he worked with and how he didn’t know where to park his car or where the bathroom was, Osei could have said, “That is my day too.” When his father said he forgot the name of his new secretary each time and so called them all “Miss,” O could have said he’d learned that in Victorian England people called all of their female servants “Abigail” no matter what their names were, so that they didn’t have to remember new ones. That he too had to rummage through all the names of adults he had stored in his head and pick out the right one for the teacher standing at the front of the class, since the formality of calling them “Sir” or “Miss” would make them raise their eyebrows and the other students laugh, and set him apart even more. That he too had a new job, which was to be the new boy and try to fit in—or not. But he didn’t say any of these things. He had been taught to respect his elders—which meant not questioning or defying them. If his father wanted to know any specifics about his son’s day, he would ask. And since he never did, O kept quiet.
Today he was facing yet another playground full of white kids staring at him, another bunch of boys sizing him up, another bell ringing the same pitch heard all over the world, another teacher at the head of the line eyeing him uneasily. He had been through all of this before, and it was all familiar. Except for her.