“That you can’t talk because you’re meeting up with someone,” one of the girls suggests.
Another girl shakes her head. “No, don’t write anything. Keep him waiting.”
Like the customers behind her in line, I am starting to get annoyed. “Excuse me,” I try again, pasting a smile on my face. “Are you ready to order?”
She glances up. She has blush on her cheeks that has glitter in it; it makes her look awfully young, which I’m sure is not what she’s going for. “Do you have onion rings?”
“No, that’s Burger King. Our menu is up there.” I point overhead. “If you’re not ready, maybe you can step aside?”
She looks at her two friends, and her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline as if I’ve said something offensive. “Don’t worry, mama, I was jus’ aksin’…”
I freeze. This girl isn’t Black. She’s about as far from Black as possible. So why is she talking to me like that?
Her friend cuts in front of her and orders a large fries; her other friend has a Diet Coke and a snack wrap. The girl orders a Happy Meal, and as I angrily stuff the items into the box, the irony is not lost on me.
Three customers later, I’m still watching her out of the corner of my eye as she eats her cheeseburger.
I turn to the runner who’s working at the register with me. “I’ll be right back.”
I walk into the dining area where the girl is still holding court with her friends. “…so I said, right to her face,Who lit the fuse on your tampon?—”
“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “I did not appreciate the way you spoke to me at the counter.”
A hot blush burns in her cheeks. “Wow, okay. I’m sorry,” she says, but her lips twitch.
My boss suddenly is standing beside me. Jeff is a former middle manager at a ball bearing plant who got cut when the economy tanked, and he runs the restaurant like we are giving out state secrets and not French fries. “Ruth? Is there a problem?”
There aresomany problems. From the fact that I am not this girl’smamato the fact that she will not remember this conversation an hour from now. But if I choose this particular moment to stand up for myself, I will pay a price. “No, sir,” I tell Jeff, and in silence, I walk back to my register.
—
MY DAY ONLYgets worse when I leave work and see six missed phone calls from Kennedy. I immediately ring her back. “I thought you agreed that working with Wallace Mercy was a bad idea,” she hammers, without even saying hello.
“What? I did. Ido.”
“So you had no idea that he was leading a march in your honor today in front of the courthouse?”
I stop walking, letting the foot traffic funnel around me. “You gotta be kidding. Kennedy, I didnottalk to Wallace.”
“Your sister was shoulder to shoulder with him.”
Well, mystery solved. “Adisa tends to do whatever she wants.”
“Can’t you control her?”
“I’ve been trying for forty-four years but it hasn’t worked yet.”
“Try harder,” Kennedy tells me.
Which is how I wind up taking the bus to my sister’s apartment, instead of going right home. When Donté lets me in, Adisa is sitting on the couch playing Candy Crush on her phone, even though it is nearly dinnertime. “Well, look what the cat drug in,” she says. “Where you been?”
“It’s been crazy since New Year’s. Between work, and going over things for trial, I haven’t had a free minute.”
“I came by the other day, did Edison tell you?”
I kick her feet off the couch so there’s room for me to sit. “Did you come over to tell me your new best friend is Wallace Mercy?”
Adisa’s eyes light up. “You see me on the news today? It was just my elbow and up to here on my neck, but you can tell it’s me by the coat. I wore the one with the leopard collar—”
