What's Mine and Yours(38)
There were some who said the initiative started in the county. The city was changing. People were moving closer to downtown; the business council had a five-year plan for revitalizing Main Street; the old millhouses were being converted into single-family homes. Money was coming back to the city, and they had to get ahead of the changes. If they brought together the city and county school systems, they could redistribute the kids—and the taxes—the right way.
There were others who said the mayor dreamed it up. He was a black man who would be retiring at the end of the term, and this would be his lasting legacy: undoing the white flight that had damned the city schools so long ago, especially on the east side, where he was raised. He was hoping for a plaque in his honor, downtown, catty-corner from the Confederate soldiers’ monument.
And still others said it was a long time coming, overdue, what federal law had required for decades. The school board was finally putting their money where their mouths were. They were busing the kids, piloting programs in vocational training, computer science, the arts. It was the chance to transfer your child to a school with new programs that got most parents on board.
The first pamphlets used the words integration and equity. There was a slew of op-eds in the local paper threatening legal action, arguing the problem of considering race in public schools. A band of white parents called it discrimination; they cited the inconveniences of busing. They held living room meetings, papered the storefronts downtown with their hot-pink flyers.
When the pamphlets were reissued, they used the words opportunity and choice, laid out quotas for the number of students on free and reduced lunch in two short paragraphs. The rest of the pamphlets highlighted the new programs, the way to apply for a transfer. It was wildly popular, a trick. But they hadn’t fooled Lacey May.
She hadn’t planned on getting involved, but all the talk of inequality, giving every family a fair shot, rubbed her the wrong way. There were problems in this life, sure, but they were mostly the result of people’s own doing. You could blame the world, Lacey May thought; you could make up arguments, you could blame the past. But it was like blaming a shadow, searching for a reason, when the reason, at the end of the day, was you.
She was making signs at the kitchen table when Noelle finally came up from the basement. She had shut herself down there after they got home from the town hall and skipped dinner. It was dark now and she slipped in, filled a glass of water at the tap. She halved a lemon and squeezed it in, seeds and all. She inspected the signs her mother had made. Our Taxes, Our Schools! Protect Our Kids! Not Our Problem!
“Feeling sick?” Lacey May asked.
“Well, I do want to vomit every time I look at those signs.” Noelle drained the glass and filled another. “You know we live in the city, right? And your friends are trying to keep city kids out of the county schools?”
“The west side is different,” Lacey May said. “Our schools are the good ones. Why do you want it getting ruined? The least you could do is help.”
“No chance in hell.”
Noelle crossed into the living room, where her sisters were watching a vampire show on the TV. Margarita was swooning over the pale-faced lead, Diane watching with Jenkins belly up in her lap. Hank drank a beer in his armchair, winced at all the punching and grunting onscreen. Noelle crouched on the floor to tie up her boots.
“You going out?” Hank asked. “It’s late.”
“I’ll be back before morning.”
“Very funny,” he said and turned back to the vampire show. He had learned to give Noelle a wide berth, and she had learned to expect it. There was a honk outside, and Lacey May charged into the living room.
“Just where do you think you’re going?”
Noelle went on crisscrossing her laces.
“You think I’m some bigot, but I’m a realist. Do you know what that is, Noelle? It’s somebody who prepares for the future by paying attention to today.”
“Thanks for the lesson.” Noelle clomped out of the room, and Lacey May followed her.
“You think you’re so special, that no matter what happens, you’ll be just fine. Well, let me tell you, this is no land of plenty. When you’re grown, you’ve got to fight for everything you call yours, and no one is going to make it easy for you. Nobody is going to help. I wish I had a mother looking out for me! You go around like your future is guaranteed.”
Noelle spun around to face her mother. “Don’t you worry about my future, Mama. I won’t get stuck marrying Hank.” Another honk. “That’s my ride,” she said, and stepped into the night.
Duke was waiting for her in his car, and Noelle crossed the lawn quickly. She was quaking with rage and embarrassment. Her mother had never cared about school, never so much as baked a brownie for a bake sale. But for weeks she’d been hosting other mothers in the kitchen for coffee and folding mailers. She had even signed her name to an op-ed in the paper. Noelle had been grateful her mother had changed her name and that there was nothing there, in print, that tethered her to Lacey May.
Once she was inside, Duke handed her a beer. She kept the open can between her legs as they coasted through the west side toward the highway. When they reached the cover of speed and darkness on 85, she took a sip. It was warm and flat. Duke slid his hand up her leg, brushed his fingers against her groin. She didn’t move against him. She drank until the can was done, then she crushed it, stuffed it into the glove compartment.