Sun. She’s at the younger end of my generation, with a name like that. Creative, but predating the celebrity insane-name movement, which means her parents were also hippies and most likely young and idealistic when she was born. The Brits, they can tell your social station from asking you the weather, but in African America first names offer not only class and region, but year.
“That’s fine. I’m sure Sun’s just used to the word from being called it.”
“Oh no, Sunita Habersham?” Roslyn asks, laughing. “Sun used to be the biggest Oreo on the compound.”
There’s a lecture. A spiel. I’m certainly not the first to hear it and by the time I do it’s fairly glossy and filled with sentences like “We aim to help mixed children deal with the unique challenge of negotiating African and European hybridity.” It’s a beautiful sentence. I don’t know what it actually means, or how you would do it, or what the end product would be either. “Now we’re actively moving to the next stage. A cultural center, an artist retreat. And a school. For your daughter’s age, it would be a GED diploma, by exam, but we offer teachers from the most competitive colleges and universities to give recommendations. We’re building something that will last. A permanent oasis. When you consider that this whole enterprise started as an annual weekend event just three years ago, you get a sense of the trajectory.”
“How’d you do it?”
“Nobody went home. On the last day of the retreat, nobody went home. And then more came. And here you are.” Roslyn smiles again. The grin doesn’t reach her eyes and it reminds me of the mask-like grins of the principals I submitted to from elementary through high school. Instinctively, I want to know if I’m going to be suspended.
We’re by the Victorian cottages now, with their gabled roofs. There’s more than a dozen in the row, with another row behind it. Beautiful little shotgun homes with intricate woodwork and little concrete block porches. But when you look under those porches, you can see the wheels. Roslyn notices me bend a little to look and says, “All of our teachers are well credentialed, and specifically trained in our method of multiracial balance. If you decide to enroll your daughter, I assure you, nobody will be absconding in the night with your tuition.”
When I hear the word tuition, the rest barely registers. Whatever it is, I’m fairly certain it’s beyond what I can afford. I have $532 in the bank, after buying back the bike and picking up some more furniture from Whosoever Gospel Mission. I will get funds from my father’s cash accounts, but who knows when and how much will be left over. Even to live in the damn shell of a house he left me I’ve had to arrange for some roofers and get an electrician who doesn’t care about codes. I’ll be chilling when the house burns down, but even that payout could take another year. Knowing this, that this is beyond my reach, I blink and the school becomes suddenly desirable. It’s an education out in the trees. It’s small classes with teachers still fresh and not worn down by the friction of reality against their good intentions. It’s probably the least threatening majority black place I could take Tal, and the only one where I wouldn’t have to worry about her destroying everything by saying something offensive. They seem a little wacky, but all teachers are a little wacky. At least the ones I’ve dated. Crazy hippie school out in the woods. Naïvely earnest mulattoes starting a comfy commune. It’s Mulattopia. Tal in tie-dye. It would be so adorable.
“How much is it, can you tell me? Monthly?”
She says a yearly number out loud that’s so insanely high that I laugh because I think she’s messing with me. She smiles again, her perfect teeth on display, and I know she’s not. What kind of halfros have that kind of money? But she keeps going on, saying, “Fellowships and some financial aid are available. Although the forms are still being designed.”
We continue our tour, but only because I’m too embarrassed to say, Sorry, I’m one of those broke-ass Negroes you may have read about. I get Tal as soon as I can break away politely. My teenage daughter’s talking to Sunita Habersham, who after a half-hour to think about it still clearly doesn’t care for me. But she does seem to have a real appreciation for what my X chromosome can create though, because she’s holding Tal’s hand like she’s her aunt.
“We have to get going,” I say into Tal’s ear, give a little tug on her arm meant to move both of us toward the gate.
“What? We just got here. I actually like this place. I can take modern dance. And the boring coursework’s only three hours a day, the rest is electives.”
“We have to go.”
“They offer an after-school Zumba class, Warren. We’re not going anywhere.”
“Tal, please. It’s private,” I whisper. “Look, I can’t afford it. Sorry. We have to go now.”
“Oh, so I have to go to the Umoja School?” Tal asks. Really loud. “I have to go to the black school, where I’ll never be black enough? Where I’ll never truly fit in?” Tal doesn’t believe any of this. Or even if she does, she’s instantly ingested their dogma so well she knows this is exactly how to push these people’s buttons. Tal is a habitual buttonpusher, clearly, and she’s already worked out where their keypad is located. And they hear her, because Tal is nearly screaming now.
Sunita Habersham hasn’t walked away. She looks over at me like I’m the asshole. I am the asshole, but there’s no way Sun could know that. “Finally, I find a place where I can truly be myself and—” Tal keeps going. I try to yank on her arm a litter harder, drag her out. Instead, Sun’s hand grabs my arm first.
“Your daughter hasn’t finished her campus visit. What was the point in coming up here if you’re going to leave halfway through?”
“Sorry, this was a mistake. And also sorry about the thing at the panel; I acted like an insecure jerk. But we have to go. I didn’t know it was private. My error. I can’t afford this right now. Honestly.”
“If it’s really a tuition thing, just join the center. Work for it. That’s why I came to your silly panel in the first place: we need a part-timer in art. I mean, you know, if you don’t think you’re too black for us.”
“See, work, Pops. That’s what being a dad is all about. Working for your kids.” Tal stops Sun’s sniping to contribute.
“That’s it? I teach some classes, and conceivably she can go here for free?”
“Not free, nothing’s free. But I’ll talk to Roslyn. And you’d have to take the Balance Test.” And with that she finally lets go of my daughter, and leans into me.
“Because she really needs to be here,” Sunita Habersham says, her voice hushed but firm. That smelclass="underline" tea and a mouth of honey.
“Did she say something offensive?” I whisper back, but I don’t get a verbal answer. Just raised eyebrows and that wide mouth silently pantomiming, Oh yeah.
“I can take a dance test. I have an audition routine I’ve been working on,” Tal interjects.
“Not dance, honey: balance. The Balance Test. Everyone has to take it.”
I stand on one foot, make a show of it. Balancing shakily, I put my arm out then bring my finger to my nose, giving a little chuckle. Sunita Habersham doesn’t join me. I look at Tal as she turns to Sun and asks, “If he fails or otherwise makes an ass of himself, does that reduce my chance at admission?” and I laugh loudest and rustle Tal’s hair like she’s an adorable four-year-old and that shuts her up again.
—
The first question on the quiz is, Was O. J. Simpson guilty? That’s all it says.