What's Mine and Yours(56)

There weren’t many new students in Mr. Riley’s English class, although Gee couldn’t be sure. He knew there were white kids, too, benefiting from the program, but they didn’t stick out nearly as much. Besides himself, he counted a Cambodian girl who sat in the last row, scribbling poems in her notebook, and a Salvadorian girl who arranged the long puff of her hair to cover her face whenever Mr. Riley asked for volunteers. Gee, too, hunched over in his chair, drew his hood around his face. All three of them were hiding.

For homework Mr. Riley had assigned the first scene of the first act of a Shakespeare play. Gee had read and reread the lines but understood nothing. He knew he wasn’t alone because they’d spent nearly the whole class period rereading the packet aloud and then translating. Mr. Riley asked questions and answered them himself.

Gee knew Mr. Riley would call on him before he did. The teacher had some kind of thing with him. He called him to the board to take notes more than anyone else; he asked him to read aloud, although Gee made a point of keeping his voice so low Mr. Riley wouldn’t ask again. When he had seen him onstage at the town hall, Gee had been curious about him, this black teacher who seemed so cool while all the other adults shouted at one another. He could see now that it wasn’t poise; Mr. Riley was fake. He smiled at the students even when they weren’t doing anything remarkable; he wore a tie, which few of the other teachers did; in between classes, he lint rolled his blazer and brushed out his waves. He was the kind of man who seemed to always be thinking about who was watching, while Gee liked to think mostly about how he could disappear.

“Will you read for us?” he asked in front of everybody, as if Gee had a choice.

He brought the pages close to his face so that no one could see and raced through the lines.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike

As if we had them not.

His tongue twisted and tangled, but the teacher let him suffer through it.

“Now, what’s Shakespeare saying here?” A customary silence rolled over the room. “Gee?”

Gee felt his bottom teeth slide in front of the top ones. Mr. Riley stared at him, as if he were trying to transmit an answer to Gee’s head. If he knew it, why didn’t he just say it?

“I don’t know,” Gee said finally. Mr. Riley didn’t skip a beat.

“He’s saying you shouldn’t be afraid to shine. Well, not you—all of us.”

Gee felt he should say something, anything, to make Mr. Riley move on. “Unh-hunh.”

“Like a torch. A torch doesn’t exist for itself. It exists for others.”

Mr. Riley waited for someone to pick up the conversation, to offer a thought, but, thankfully, the bell rang, and the class scrambled to leave. Mr. Riley shouted instructions for the next day’s homework, and Gee, his book bag on his shoulders, was turning toward the door when the teacher called him to the front of the room. He handed Gee a folded sheet of loose-leaf paper.

“It’s my address,” he said. “Your mother and I made plans for dinner.”

“We’re going to your house? Is that allowed?”

“It’s totally appropriate. My wife will be there and my daughter.”

Gee wondered now whether he was being set up. “Your daughter? Does she go to Central?”

Mr. Riley laughed. “She’s seven months.”

Gee slipped the address into his pocket and turned to leave. Mr. Riley caught him by the arm.

“You’ve been doing very well these last few weeks.”

“All right.”

“Even if I can tell you’re hoping I’ll skip you. I see you slouching down in your chair.”

Gee said nothing.

“People notice you, Gee. Whether you want them to or not.”

Gee sometimes had the strange sensation he was being recorded, as if this footage would be played back for him later so he could see how he’d acted and decide whether it was right. Mr. Riley talked to him, too, as if Gee’s whole life were a test, or an after-school special, and the objective was to choose wisely, otherwise everything would be lost. Jade was the same way. No wonder the two of them had bonded.

“I’ve got math,” Gee said.

Mr. Riley patted him on the shoulder. “See you Friday night.”



In the hall, students were dawdling and shuffling, trying hard to avoid going to class. Gee headed for his locker and saw Adira there waiting for him. She leaned against his locker, her arms held tight to her chest. He got closer and saw that she was crying. Gee ran to her, and she threw her arms around his neck, her mouth at his ear. A girl had never come at him like that, and Gee was stunned. He tried hard not to think of how she felt in his arms. Something was wrong.

“These girls,” Adira sobbed. “These white girls. They pulled my hair.”

Her hair was tied into two buns, uneven now, drooping on either side of her head. She must have looked so cute before—she always did—in her pink turtleneck and faded jeans, her cream-colored sneakers. She was always putting together outfits like it was the eighties or something.

“They started asking me if my hair was real. They just came up behind me. And I ignored them, but they kept going, so I turned around and said yes, and then they said I was lying, and it was fake, and they started pulling my hair. I caught one of them by the hand, and I pushed her away, and then her friend got in my face and said, ‘Don’t touch her, you black bitch,’ and then they walked away, like it was nothing.”