7 Different Kinds Of Smoke



  SEVEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF SMOKE

  A Collection of Short Stories

  By Roman St. James

  ~~~

  Copyright © 2013 by Roman St. James.

  For Crystal ~

  The brightest star in my northern sky

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THE GREENEST GRASS

  SEVEN DIFFERENT KINDS OF SMOKE

  BABBLE

  LEAP FROG

  A VOID OF SORTS

  THE TELL TAIL TALE

  ELEVATION

  THE GREENEST GRASS

  Tasha Evans stared at her face in the mirror and wondered what it would be like to no longer exist. She used to be quite fond of her smooth, chocolate colored skin, which was the perfect backdrop for her glistening, pure white teeth. She used to love her kinky, black hair, twisted into short dreadlocks. She used to be proud of her full, ripe lips, which looked inviting with or without lipstick. But now she had learned to hate it all.

  Tasha had very little time left in this life, and she was still trying to figure out how she would say her final goodbye to her mother, let alone the rest of the family. They had all known that this day was coming for over three years now. But whenever she spoke with one of them – there were only a handful that were still willing to speak to her at all – they seemed to act as though none of this existed and that life was just as normal as it had always been. But it was all anything but normal.

  But shit, she thought to herself, to be honest, her life had never really been normal. She guessed it was normal enough to grow up in Mississippi both poor and black – what some people considered to be two sides of the same coin – but growing up gay was a “whole ‘nuther bowl of grits”, as her daddy used to always say.

  Tasha had always known she was gay. But for a long time she didn’t realize that made her different from other girls. Not until the beginning of 7th grade, when she tried to hold Amber Blackwell’s hand in a darkened class room during the viewing of a safety film, and the boy behind her yelled out, “Look at the two lezbos!” Amber, who had been her best friend until that very moment, started avoiding her like the plague and the rumors started flying. That’s why, a month later, she found herself kissing Earl Owens behind Rooster’s Liquor store.

  Earl was the cutest, most popular boy at school, and while part of her was naturally repulsed by the act, another part of her still found it strangely exciting. And because he was so popular, the act made her popular by association – or at least more recognized. And it started replacing the ‘gay’ rumors with ‘loose’ rumors. Those that liked her called her ‘lucky’, but the jealous ones that were hatin’ called her ‘slut’. But that was ok with her. It allowed her to continue to keep her sexuality a secret. That’s why she didn’t even blink an eye when a bunch of her friends all ran up to her one day to tell her that they had just seen Earl having sex with Sherry Higgins in the back of her momma’s broken down Cadillac Seville, even though Tasha and Earl had been girlfriend and boyfriend for the last three weeks. Of course, she acted upset, to save face. She even confronted him in front of the entire school.

  It was in the cafeteria, during lunchtime. She had come up with the brilliant plan of pretending that Earl had slept with her, too, thereby solidifying the image of her heterosexuality.

  “Earl!” she screamed at him from the other side of the room as she walked up to his table. “Who the hell do you think you are!? Do you think you can just fuck me then turn around and fuck that bitch Sherry, too?” she said, hand on hip and head rolling on shoulders.

  Earl, who was always super smooth and ultimately confident, was caught off guard. He knew that Tasha had never even let him go under her shirt. But if he denied the allegations, it would look like there was something wrong with him, like he was less than the ‘man’ he pretended to be. For a few seconds he just stared. Then he took a long swig from his carton of chocolate milk, looked around to make sure that each member of his posse was hanging on his every word and then turned back to Tasha and said, “Don’t hate the player, baby, hate the game.”

  She simply clicked her tongue, rolled her eyes and walked out to the soundtrack of half the cafeteria laughing at her, but she had accomplished her goal: everyone was convinced that she was sexually active. Straight and sexually active. And, she didn’t have to kiss Earl anymore.

  Things went pretty well for her after that. At least, for a while. After the ‘Great Cafeteria Incident’ all the other cute boys started trying to talk to her and offering to carry her books or give her their morning cinnamon bun, now that she was known as one of the few girls in her class that was actually ‘giving it up’. People starting being friendly to her that had never even noticed her before. And she started hanging with Shawntel and Victoria, two of the prettiest, sexiest girls in school. But she was under no illusions. She knew they were both straight as nails, but she got to hug them, play with their hair, even watch them as they changed clothes after gym class. And she got to live vicariously through the guys that lusted after them, chased them and made love to them.

  Tasha would often daydream about what it would have been like to have been born a boy; a boy with broad shoulders, a deep, barreled chest, large biceps and everything else that went along with it. She had always felt like a boy on the inside. From as far back as she could remember, as a little girl she liked to play with boys and she liked the kinds of toys that boys played with. G.I. Joe, Tonka trucks, army men and Stretch Armstrong were some of her favorites. It wasn’t until she started to get over the ‘boys are icky’ stage that she realized that while she no longer saw them as ‘icky’, she also didn’t feel any desire for them. It was the girls that got her attention. Especially the ones that had just started putting on a little lipstick from their Barbie makeup kits or that super-shiny cherry lip gloss borrowed from an older sister.

  Her father called her ‘tom boy’. He was conflicted. He didn’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of her un-girlyness. When Tasha’s mother found out that she was pregnant with Tasha, before that knew whether the baby would be a boy or girl, she had made it perfectly clear to Tasha’s father that this was his only chance. Regardless of how much he wanted a son, if this child turned out to be a girl, he was going to have to be satisfied with that, because she was only having one. Get it while the gettin’ is good, she had said. He prayed nightly that his new baby would be a boy. He even refused to let the doctor tell them the sex beforehand, because he was afraid of jinxing it. It was as though he believed that the longer he prayed on it the better his chances of getting his prayers answered. Standing in the delivery room, he prepared himself for the worse case scenario. And that’s exactly what he got. Tasha – a baby girl. But, disappointed as he was, he had loved her from the beginning. Thus, the conflict. He was glad to be able to play baseball with his daughter and watch her climb trees and play with bugs. But something told him that all was not quite ‘right’ with her. But he never mentioned it to her mother. And her mother never said anything to him. At least, not until years later.

  “Tasha,” called her mother from the kitchen. Tasha pulled herself away from the mirror and joined her mother in the other room. She was rolling dough in the middle of a wooden board.

  “Baby, can you reach up there in the third cabinet and get me that box of baking soda?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “You know,” started her mother as she continued to move the rolling pin across the ever thinning mound of dough, “I’ve spoken to Uncle Willie three times today, and I think he just might show up for dinner tonight.” She smiled, but there was sadness in her eyes.

  “Mom, why are you going through all of that? I told you, I’m fine. I don’t need for Uncle Willie or anyon
e else to be forced into doing anything they don’t want to do.”

  Her mother stopped moving the rolling pin and wiped her hands on a towel.

  “I know baby, but I know Willie. Once you’re gone, he’ll regret that he didn’t take the opportunity to spend some time with you during your final days. He loves you. He always has.” A tear began to well up in one of her eyes and she turned away. “I still don’t understand why this is happening,” she said, her back to Tasha. “I still – ”

  “Mom, I can’t keep having this conversation with you. This is just the way it is. You’ve just got to accept it.”

  “I know, but I –”

  “I’m going to go walk around the neighborhood one last time, maybe stop by and see Shawntel. I’ll be back soon.” She walked over, kissed her mother on the cheek and quickly walked out of the house.

  It had been weird sleeping in her old bedroom. She hadn’t done that in over 15 years. But she had already moved out of her old apartment and sold the majority of her stuff, so it made sense to stay here. Plus, it made her mother happy.

  As Tasha moved through the streets of her old neighborhood, she let her mind open to the memories that the different scenes pulled out of the shadows and into the light. There was the liquor store that her mother used to send her to twice a week with a note, telling the owner that she needed some cigarettes and some beer and that it was all right for him to sell it to her young, under-aged daughter. There was Mrs. Tolliver’s house, who ran a child care business and used to watch her everyday while her mother was at work, until she started kindergarten. There was the pizza parlor where she spent so many afternoons and so many quarters, beating everyone, even the boys, at all the newest video games. And then there was the alley. She actually stopped and stared at it, letting her eyes take in all its details. There was a large garbage can, several small garbage cans, an abandoned car tire and all manner of litter and rubbish. But it looked perfectly harmless. It hadn’t proved so harmless 15 years ago.

  Tasha had been walking home from her part-time job at Jack’s Burger Grill. It was a Saturday night, and on Fridays and Saturdays Jack’s always stayed open till 11pm. Normally, her mother came to pick her up when she worked that late, but on this particular night some friends were supposed to come by and grab her on the way to a party. Right before closing she got a call that the party was canceled at the last minute. She didn’t want to wake her mother, and since she only worked a few blocks from home and it was a nice night, she decided to walk.

  Tasha’s family certainly wasn’t wealthy, but they lived in a decent neighborhood. The population was equally split between black, white and Hispanic, with a few Asians thrown in for spice. There was even a gay couple, two guys, that lived a couple of blocks over. There wasn’t much crime in the neighborhood, and when there was it was usually a stolen bike or car stereo. Most of the people knew each other and occasionally socialized. So walking home alone felt perfectly safe to her.

  She was halfway home when the car first drove by. An older, red Camaro. It appeared to be filled with a bunch of white guys, about Tasha’s age. It made a u-turn and pulled up beside her, slowing down enough to keep even with her pace.

  “Hey baby,” said one of the guys, sticking his blonde head out the window. “What’s up? You want to go to a party?”

  “No thanks,” she said, without slowing down.

  “Come on! It’ll be fun. There’s food, liquor, weed. Whatever you want.”

  “Sorry, guys, but I’m tired. Thanks anyway.”

  Tasha heard someone in the backseat mumble something. She thought she heard the word ‘dyke’. She had been out of the closet for two years now, ever since she began college. She had lived the lie for as long as she could, confiding in no one but the pastor at her church, who just happened to be a woman. The pastor, Pastor Collins, had convinced her that she needed to be true to herself if she were to ever find peace. And that God would be okay with it. But this was Jackson, not San Francisco, so Tasha was nervous. But finally she found the courage. She was surprised how accepting everyone was. Many of her friends told her that they already knew. Even her parents suspected. There were a couple of people from school that no longer wanted anything to do with her, but for the most part she was really happy with her decision. Now she no longer had to tell guys that she was ‘busy’ or ‘involved’ when they asked her out. And she no longer had to pretend that she was just out with a girl ‘friend’ when she was really out on a date. The liberation was inspiring. But still, this was Mississippi, and good neighborhood or not, a person of color, straight or otherwise, always had to be alert to the possibility of running across some ignorant redneck.

  “You sure you don’t wanna come?” said a dark-haired guy from the back seat. “It’s going to be the party of the year!”

  “No, really. I’m sure.”

  “Well fuck you, then!” said the blonde boy. He threw a large cup of soda at her, which struck her squarely on the side of the head. Laughter erupted from the car as it sped off down the street.

  “Assholes!” she screamed at the rear window as soda dripped down her face. She wiped it off with a shirt from her bag as best she could, and kept walking, cursing them under her breath. But as she walked on, noticing how quiet the neighborhood seemed to have gotten, her anger started to turn to fear. She started to get a bad feeling that the boys would come back. She was still five blocks from home, and after looking around to make sure they weren’t behind her, quickly turned into the alley, to take a shortcut. She had almost made it through the alley when headlights appeared before her. There was no engine sound. They must have been waiting there in the dark.

  Tasha turned around, prepared to run in the other direction when the boy that threw the soda at her stepped out of the shadows, blocking her path.

  “Where you think you’re going, you fucking nigger queer? Yeah, we recognize you from school. You think you’re too good for us? Huh?” His face was an evil half-smile, half grimace.

  Tasha didn’t answer. She just stared at the threatening figure before her. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead as her mind raced to find a quick way out of this situation. She was pretty fast. Maybe she could run past the car before they could even get out. But when she turned another boy was already behind her, and she barely saw his fist before it exploded against her left eye. She didn’t remember much after that. But the words “nigger” and “queer” were echoing thru her head when she came to, along with the sound of a siren. She found herself in the back of an ambulance.

  She never knew exactly how long the boys had beat on her, but the result was a ruptured spleen, two broken ribs, a shattered eye socket, four broken teeth and an assortment of cuts and bruises. Who knows how much worse it would have been if Mr. Sanchez hadn’t come out to see what all the noise was about and run the boys off. A police officer came to the hospital to have Tasha file a report, but no suspects were ever apprehended, even though she pointed two of the boys out at school. Lack of evidence, they said. No corroborating witnesses, they said. Consider yourself lucky that you weren’t raped, they said. It was shortly thereafter that she moved to Los Angeles.

  Tasha turned away from the bright alley and its dark memories, and continued on her walk. She soon came to the building she was looking for, a small brick-fronted house, with blue-trimmed windows and an assortment of colorful flowers in the yard. She paused at the door, took a deep breath, and then pushed the doorbell. The African American woman that opened the door was about Tasha’s age, but with skin so dark it looked jet black. She was also strikingly beautiful, with green eyes, long, jet-black hair that matched her skin and a smile that most people described, for lack of a better word, as enchanting.

  “Hey Shawntel,” said Tasha. Shawntel didn’t speak, but just opened her arms wide and they embraced each other warmly.

  “It’s so good to see you!” said Shawntel when they finally released each other and she stepped back to invite Tasha in. “Can I get you something to
drink? I just brewed a pot of tea.”

  “I’d love a cup of tea, thanks,” said Tasha. While Shawntel prepared the tea she sat on the sofa in the living room, trying to get over the feeling of awkwardness that had been with her since she walked up to the door. Minutes later Shawntel returned with a silver platter loaded with cups, tea and all the fixings. They spent a few more minutes going thru the required ‘how’ve you been?’ formalities. Then there was a brief silence as each sipped their tea and contemplated who would speak next.

  “So,” began Shawntel, “Can you tell me why you’re doing this?”

  “I think you know all the reasons,” said Tasha.

  “No, I really don’t. I mean, T, you’ve created a great life for yourself. You have a great job, you’re healthy, you have a loving family, caring friends. How can you decide to just give all that up?”

  “You know it wasn’t that easy. I thought long and hard about this before I made the decision. What you don’t know is that my life hasn’t been as great as you may have heard.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry that I haven’t kept in better touch with you all these years, and that I wasn’t there for you for some of the things that you went through. But I’m here now. Would you like to tell me what’s been going on with you?”

  Tasha took another sip of her tea and thought about how to begin.

  “Well,” she said, “You know that shortly after the attack I moved to Los Angeles to get away from the memories – and the fear – and finish school. I eventually got my Masters degree in Finance and went on to get a Law degree, as well, and started working for Chilton & Winters.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve heard of them. My company has done some business with them over the years. Aren’t they considered to be one of the most prestigious law firms in California?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “You go girl! It must have felt good to be considered one of the elite.”

  “It did for a while. You know, when I first started there it was a joy to get up and go to work every day. I felt like I was really making a difference, really doing good work, really helping people. And I felt that the firm was as happy to have me as I was to work there. But you know, after 9 years there, I still hadn’t made partner. Most white guys that have pulled in a lot less business than I have make partner within 3 or 4 years. But year after year, they keep telling me ‘maybe next year’. The bottom line is that they are probably never going to make a black woman a partner. And especially not a gay black woman.”

  Shawntel fumbled with her cup before setting it down on the table.

  “So girl, why did it take you so long to leave that place? You’re better than that. And as talented as you are I’m sure you could go anywhere you wanted.”

  “I know, I know. I guess I just got so comfortable there. I made good money and I had good friends there. I guess I just made myself ignore the pain that being overlooked caused, and concentrated on the positive. But after the breakdown, I couldn’t ignore it any more.”

  “I heard a little something about that. What happened?”

  “I really don’t know,” said Tasha, nervously rubbing her hands over her pants legs. “I guess it was just too much all at once. I had been involved with a woman – a white woman – named Beth. I was so in love with her. We met at a business function and it was almost like ‘love at first sight’. From the moment we laid eyes on each other, there was an air of electricity between us. For the next two years we spent every available moment together. What we had was so rare – so special.” Tasha paused to pick up her cup and then just stared wistfully into it.

  “That sounds really nice. So what went wrong?”

  “Well, I had never met her family. Apparently, they knew she was gay and begrudgingly accepted it, but the unspoken agreement was that they really didn’t want it around them. Kind of a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. But after two years, we started talking about the future. Our future. The time came for me to be introduced to them. Well, they flipped. It was bad enough that I was gay – that part they could almost accept. But black, too? Oh, no. Not for their little Beth.” Anger started to show in her face. “I couldn’t believe that Beth could have grown up in that family and never known that they were racists! But she acted so shocked. It was really a mind-blowing experience. Her family owns Flag Electronics. They’re worth $35 Billion. She’s the only child. She stood to inherit a fortune. Until I came along, that is. Suddenly, she was ex-communicado. And written out of the will. She tried to hang, but it was just too devastating for her. Six months later she was gone. A messenger delivered a ‘Dear Jane’ letter. I drove to her house but it was completely empty and there was already a ‘for sale’ sign on the lawn.”

  “Oh, my God…” said Shawntel quietly, putting her hand to her mouth.

  “I never saw or heard from her again. All her phone numbers were disconnected. I went to her family’s home, but they told me she had left the country. I don’t know if that was true or not, but I got the point. I was destroyed. Absolutely destroyed. I laid down on the couch in my living room one night and for five days only got up to go to the bathroom, and after a couple of days I even stopped doing that. I didn’t eat and I barely slept. I just cried. The office didn’t know where I was and kept leaving messages and sending emails. Finally my secretary and a couple of other attorneys from the firm came by with the cops and they kicked the door in. I spent a week in the hospital before they finally transferred me to an institution.”

  “Jesus…you poor thing,” whispered Shawntel. She looked like she was about to cry herself.

  “They had been force-feeding me for two weeks by the time my parents showed up. It wasn’t that I was trying to die, it’s just that I wasn’t trying to live. I didn’t see any point in it, you know? My life was a train wreck.”

  “What was going through you mind? Did you know what was going on?”

  “I did, at least on some level. I kept asking myself over and over again, why couldn’t I have been born a straight, white man? If so, all my problems would have been solved. No glass ceiling at work and I could date all the white women I wanted to!” She laughed and Shawntel laughed with her.

  “I guess you have a point, but you know it’s not exactly like it’s all sunshine and roses for white guys.”

  “True, but every bad thing that’s ever happened to me has happened to me either because I was black, female or gay. Everything. I know I should have been stronger, but it finally just broke me down.”

  “I see. So, you’re really ready to sacrifice your life for this? To give up everything you’ve ever known? To leave your family in mourning?” asked Shawntel, her voice containing just a hint of condemnation.

  Tasha opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again and bowed her head. After a moment she looked up and her face showed a calm resolve.

  “Shawntel, the truth is that if I didn’t do this, I probably wouldn’t have much of a life for much longer, anyway. I’m not saying that I would ever purposely try to harm myself, but it was only this glimmer of hope that allowed me to mentally pull myself together enough to qualify for release from the institution in the first place. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be dead. Not really. Just…permanently out of touch.”

  “Now see, that’s the part I really don’t understand. It’s like you’re going into the Witness Protection Program over a simple medical procedure. That doesn’t make any sense to me. People have sex change operations every year and they don’t go underground.”

  “Well,” said Tasha a bit hesitantly, “There’s a little more to it than that. Everyone thinks I’m just going in for a sex change operation, but that’s only a small part of it.” She paused and self-consciously took another sip of her tea. “I haven’t told anyone but my parents the full story. You have to swear that what I’m about to say will not leave this room.”

  “Girl, this is me. You know how tight-lipped I am. Remember, I’ve known since grade school that you were gay, and I n
ever told a soul.”

  “I know. And that’s why I came to see you today. I wish I would have reached out to you earlier, because even though I haven’t seen you in years, I always felt safe with you. Even when I knew that you didn’t always agree with some of the things I did, I never felt like you judged me. And right now, I really feel the need to connect with someone, someone that I can confide in.”

  Shawntel reached out and gently touched her arm. “You know I’m here for you,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Tasha.

  “Well,” she continued after a short pause, “like I said, this is more than just a sex change operation, though that’s what I’ve been telling everyone. The truth is, not only am I switching sexes, I’m also switching races.”

  “Excuse me?” said Shawntel, her mouth dropping open. Tasha took a deep breath and continued.

  “There’s a new, groundbreaking medical procedure involving gene therapy and manipulation which allows doctors to permanently change the amount and quality of melanin in a person’s skin and hair. Forget all the Michael Jackson jokes you’ve ever heard. It is now possible for a person to change from black to white. And I’m going to be the first one to undergo the procedure.”

  Shawntel slowly sat her teacup down on the table and for a moment just stared at Tasha.

  “I…I…I…”she began, “I’m sorry. I’m just a little shocked. It’s just such a strange thing to wrap your head around. It sounds impossible. I mean, the potential for this to change the world is simply mind blowing. How can something like this be going on and not be on the front page of every paper in the nation?”

  “They’ve been trying to keep it hush-hush, at least until the first successful case has been concluded. Hopefully I’ll be that case. There’s already been some reports that details were leaked to the NAACP and that they are in the process of rallying worldwide protests against the suspected doctors and clinics involved in the research, but they have yet to confirm or deny.”

  “Wow,” was all Shawntel could say.

  “I’ve been so afraid,” said Tasha, her voice cracking and her eyes tearing up, “that someone will figure out that I’m doing this before I can get out of the country. The doctors suspect that the backlash from something like this will put the lives of the first few candidates in extreme jeopardy. So the plan is for me to leave the country right away and have the procedure performed overseas, where they aren’t constrained by American medical regulations and red tape. Then I’ll start a new life there with a new identity. They’ve already made arrangements for me to get a new passport. One of the reasons I was chosen as the first was because with me changing both sex and race, there’s less of a chance that anyone will ever be able to figure out who I previously was. I’m flying into Paris first thing tomorrow morning and the procedure will begin that afternoon. I’ll be sequestered for six months in a secluded country farmhouse owned by one of the doctors. It contains a full lab. That will give me time to recoup and the doctors time to run a series of tests to document the results. After that, I’m on a plane to some unknown destination, where I’ll live the rest of my life as a white man.”

  “Wow” said Shawntel again, “I’m speechless. It sounds so impossible! How did you even learn that this existed? And of the millions of people they could have chosen, why you?”

  “My doctor at the institute, Dr. Ross, is the son of the doctor that pioneered these new techniques. They’ve been doing clinical trials on some of the procedures for the last couple of years, in a piecemeal manner. It was finally time for them to try taking a single human through the complete process and they’ve been searching for the right candidate. When Dr. Ross heard my story he felt I just might be the one. At first, I flat out refused. I just couldn’t imagine never seeing my parents or friends again or how strange it would be to have a completely new identity – to no longer be Tasha Evans. But then, sitting in my room all alone the next couple of days, I realized that I really no longer knew who Tasha Evans was anyway. I had lost connection with my identity.” She stopped and took another sip of her tea.

  “That’s really deep,” said Shawntel, “But I guess I can understand where you’re coming from. But still, it must have been an incredibly difficult decision to make.”

  “It was. But of course, the most difficult part was telling my parents. Pop was pretty stoic, which is typical of him. You know, the strong, silent type. But my mother just cried and cried. They actually had to sedate her. It broke my heart. It really did.” Tasha sniffled and Shawntel handed her a box of tissues from the table.

  “Speaking of which,” said Tasha, after dabbing at her eyes, “I really need to be getting back. I promised Mom that I would spend the majority of my time left with them. She’s cooking a big dinner. Pop will be home soon and some other relatives are coming over. I was hoping you could join us.”

  “I would have loved to, but Tommy is appearing in his first school play tonight, and if I miss it he’ll never forgive me. But I’ll be with you in spirit. You know I will.”

  “Thanks. That means a lot.” Both women rose from the couch and again embraced each other warmly.

  “You take care of yourself, Tasha.”

  “I will. You do the same. And tell that handsome boy of yours that I said break a leg.”

  “Will do.”

  Twenty minutes later Tasha was back home. The house was filled with the delicious aromas of her mother’s excellent cooking. She had prepared all of Tasha’s favorites: Black pepper chicken, smothered steak, chitlins, macaroni and cheese, okra, black-eyed peas, dirty rice, mashed potato casserole, mustard greens and, for dessert, German chocolate cake and Mom’s world famous vanilla apple pie. Tasha hadn’t seen her mother do this much cooking since she was a kid, when once a month they hosted a big Sunday dinner and all the nearby relatives would come to break bread with them and talk about the latest family gossip. Those were joyous times. But this night, in spite of the quality and volume of food, the mood was somber. Uncle Willie never showed up. Two of Tasha’s cousins dropped by for a few minutes and one of her nieces called, but that was it. Tasha wasn’t overly bothered by this, but her mother was clearly disappointed. Tasha wished there was something that she could say to help ease her mom’s sadness, but she really didn’t know what she could say that hadn’t already been said.

  Tasha noticed that while they ate her mother spent most of her time with her head down, staring at her own plate. But her father spent almost the entire meal staring at Tasha. It was almost as though he was trying to absorb as much of her essence as he possibly could before tomorrow morning, when she’d be out of his life forever. Tasha tried to lighten the mood with casual conversation, but her parents weren’t very talkative. After dinner they watched TV together for a while. After both her parents fell asleep on the couch, Tasha covered them with blankets and then went to bed herself. After about an hour of not even the slightest hint of sleep, she decided to go to the attic and look through some of her old things, things that she knew she’d never see again.

  There was her old wooden rocking horse, the one she received when she was three and that she used to fall off of on a weekly basis, but refused to let her parents give away. There was a collection of old baby dolls, all of them black. Some of them were missing the odd leg or arm, but all of their heads showed the scars of her failed attempt at the role of ‘hair stylist’. None of their locks were longer than half an inch, and some were totally bald in spots. She laughed quietly to herself when she saw them. There was her old basketball. She felt like bouncing it, but didn’t want to risk waking her parents. She had won a lot of nickels, dimes and quarters playing ‘round the world’ against the neighborhood boys with that ball. There was a box of dresses that one of her mother’s friends had given her when she was 12, but that she had never worn. Time seemed to stand still as she reminisced over these newly rediscovered treasures, and before she knew it, the sun was coming up and her alarm was going off downstairs.

  Her mot
her fixed a wonderful breakfast and while no one said much, feelings of love permeated the room. At the airport, her parents decided not to follow her to the gate. It was hard enough for them to say goodbye at the curb. Her mother could barely speak through her sobbing, and her father had to finally guide her to the car and they slowly drove away, with neither looking back. Tasha was surprised that she herself was dealing with the situation in such a controlled manner. Throughout the process she had remained upbeat and positive about her decision.

  As she stepped onto the plane, she could feel the excitement began to really take hold of her. It was amazing that she was about to start a brand new life in a brand new country! She pulled her “French For Dummies” book out of her bag and got comfortable. As the plane began to taxi down the runway, she looked out the window and instead of seeing the outdoor scene, she caught her reflection in the glass. She stared at her smooth, chocolate colored skin, her glistening, white teeth, her luxurious, jet black hair and her full, ripe lips.

  And then, finally, she cried.