“You don’t even know who he is?”
“I know his name, a white dude my mom toured with when she was performing with a ballet company in Philadelphia.”
“Oh. Mine too,” I say. “I mean, my dad was some white dude, not that he was a dancer. And he wasn’t just some dude. I mean, my mom was married to him. God, sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up.”
She laughs a little at my babbling. “It’s fine. And yeah, I figured your dad was a white dude.” She gestures to my pale-as-hell arms. “Anyway, my parents weren’t married and he didn’t want to be involved, I guess, so my mom didn’t put his name on the birth certificate. She only told me his name last year.”
“That must’ve been so hard on her, doing it all alone.”
“We did okay, but back then it was, I think. And then her company was all pissed that she got pregnant and fired her.”
“Really? Can they do that?”
She shrugs. “They did it anyway. I mean, from the start she wasn’t a favorite. Had to pretty much claw her way into the company, even though she was one of the best dancers.”
“Why?”
She gives me an Oh, come on look and presses her fingertips onto my wrist, her skin even darker against all my pale.
“Oh,” I say softly.
She waves a hand and then wraps her arms around her knees. “She had me and opened up a studio with a couple of friends of hers from college. It’s just been me and her ever since. I think meeting my dad now would just confuse me.”
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I mean, he’s white. He’s a man. He may be a stellar human being, but how would I know? I’m curious, sure. I think about him a lot and maybe someday I’ll look him up, but I think he’d just . . . complicate how I see myself. It’s already hard enough.”
“What’s hard? I mean, about how you see yourself?”
She smiles, but there’s no mirth in it. “Other people’s voices can get really loud. When I was a kid, hardly anyone looked like me and I’d spit back stuff I heard people say at school and at dance. My mom would get so mad. She was really good about building me up, pointing out all the great things about being who I am, about being myself. And it worked. I like myself, I do. But I’m still—?” She presses her lips flat and looks away. “It’s just hard sometimes, that’s all. I get really anxious, like there’re too many things in my head, too much to feel. I’ve always been like that, even before Mom . . . anyway. You wouldn’t really understand.”
I frown because I want to understand. No, I’m not a black girl and my mom’s not dead and I have no idea what that’s like, but I feel this weird tug in my chest, a hook pulling me toward her. Like some foundational part of me, while different from Eva’s experience, does understand. Needs to.
“That’s why I like to color,” she says. “Chills me out, slows down my thoughts, and makes everything make sense. Colors, lines, patterns. No matter how intricate, it’s still ordered, you know?”
“Piano does that for me.”
She nods. “Ballet used to. I loved the method to it, you know? Choreography, positions, technique, the beats of the music. But how I still had all this freedom to—?”
“Make it your own.”
She smiles at me. “Exactly.”
“And ballet doesn’t do that anymore?”
She shrugs and looks away. “There’s a lot of freedom in coloring, too.”
Her answer reeks of bullshit, but I don’t push her. “Sounds like I need to try it out.”
“You do. Preferably on a windy day at the beach.”
“With some peanut butter.”
“Always with peanut butter.” She smiles and rests her cheek on her knee, watching me. “So what about you? Where’s your dad?”
“Oh. He died in Afghanistan.”
Her eyes widen. “I’m sorry.”
