بخش 02 - فصل 24

24

“That man who yelled at me on the street was wrong,” Barbara says. “I believed him because the voice told me to believe him, but he was wrong.”

Holly wants to know about the voice from the game, but Barbara may not be ready to talk about that yet. So she asks who the man was, and what he yelled.

“He called me blackish, like on that TV show. The show is funny, but on the street it’s a put-down. It’s—”

“I know the show, and I know how some people use it.”

“But I’m not blackish. Nobody with a dark skin is, not really. Not even if they live in a nice house on a nice street like Teaberry Lane. We’re all black, all the time. Don’t you think I know how I get looked at and talked about at school?”

“Of course you do,” says Holly, who has been looked at and talked about plenty in her own time; her high school nickname was Jibba-Jibba.

“The teachers talk about gender equality, and racial equality. They have a zero tolerance policy, and they mean it—at least most of them do, I guess—but anyone can walk through the halls when the classes are changing and pick out the black kids and the Chinese transfer students and the Muslim girl, because there’s only two dozen of us and we’re like a few grains of pepper that somehow got into the salt shaker.”

She’s picking up steam now, her voice outraged and indignant but also weary.

“I get invited to parties, but there are a lot of parties I don’t get invited to, and I’ve only been asked out on dates twice. One of the boys who asked me was white, and everyone looked at us when we went into the movies, and someone threw popcorn at the back of our heads. I guess at the AMC 12, racial equality stops when the lights go down. And one time when I was playing soccer? Here I go, dribbling the ball up the sideline, got a clear shot, and this white dad in a golf shirt tells his daughter, ‘Guard that jig!’ I pretended I didn’t hear it. The girl kind of smirked. I wanted to knock her over, right there where he could see it, but I didn’t. I swallowed it. And once, when I was a freshman, I left my English book on the bleachers at lunch, and when I went back to get it, someone had put a note in it that said BUCKWHEAT’S GIRLFRIEND. I swallowed that, too. For days it can be good, weeks, even, and then there’s something to swallow. It’s the same with Mom and Dad, I know it is. Maybe it’s different for Jerome at Harvard, but I bet sometimes even he has to swallow it.”

Holly squeezes her hand, but says nothing.

“I’m not blackish, but the voice said I was, just because I didn’t grow up in a tenement with an abusive dad and a drug addict mom. Because I never ate a collard green, or even knew exactly what it was. Because I say pork chop instead of poke chop. Because they’re poor down there in the Low and we’re doing just fine on Teaberry Lane. I have my cash card, and my nice school, and Jere goes to Harvard, but . . . but, don’t you see . . . Holly, don’t you see that I never—”

“You never had a choice about those things,” Holly says. “You were born where you were and what you were, the same as me. The same as all of us, really. And at sixteen, you’ve never been asked to change anything but your clothes.”

“Yes! And I know I shouldn’t be ashamed, but the voice made me ashamed, it made me feel like a useless parasite, and it’s still not all gone. It’s like it left a trail of slime inside my head. Because I never had been in Lowtown before, and it’s horrible down there, and compared to them I really am blackish, and I’m afraid that voice may never go away and my life will be spoiled.”

“You have to strangle it.” Holly speaks with dry, detached certainty.

Barbara looks at her in surprise.

Holly nods. “Yes. You have to choke that voice until it’s dead. It’s the first job. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t get better. And if you can’t get better, you can’t make anything else better.”

Barbara says, “I can’t just go back to school and pretend Lowtown doesn’t exist. If I’m going to live, I have to do something. Young or not, I have to do something.”

“Are you thinking about some kind of volunteer work?”

“I don’t know what I’m thinking about. I don’t know what there is for a kid like me. But I’m going to find out. If it means going back down there, my parents won’t like it. You have to help me with them, Holly. I know it’s hard for you, but please. You have to tell them that I need to shut that voice up. Even if I can’t choke it to death right away, maybe I can at least quiet it down.”

“All right,” Holly says, although she dreads it. “I will.” An idea occurs to her and she brightens. “You should talk to the boy who pushed you out of the way of the truck.”

“I don’t know how to find him.”

“Bill will help you,” Holly says. “Now tell me about the game.”

“It broke. The truck ran over it, I saw the pieces, and I’m glad. Every time I close my eyes I can see those fish, especially the pink number-fish, and hear the little song.” She hums it, but it rings no bells with Holly.

A nurse comes in wheeling a meds cart. She asks Barbara what her pain level is. Holly is ashamed she didn’t think to ask herself, and first thing. In some ways she is a very bad and thoughtless person.

“I don’t know,” Barbara says. “A five, maybe?”

The nurse opens a plastic pill tray and hands Barbara a little paper cup. There are two white pills in it. “These are custom-tailored Five pills. You’ll sleep like a baby. At least until I come in to check your pupils.”

Barbara swallows the pills with a sip of water. The nurse tells Holly she should leave soon and let “our girl” get some rest.

“Very soon,” Holly says, and when the nurse is gone, she leans forward, face intent, eyes bright. “The game. How did you get it, Barb?”

“A man gave it to me. I was at the Birch Street Mall with Hilda Carver.”

“When was this?”

“Before Christmas, but not much before. I remember, because I still hadn’t found anything for Jerome, and I was starting to get worried. I saw a nice sport coat in Banana Republic, but it was way expensive, and besides, he’s going to be building houses until May. You don’t have much reason to wear a sport coat when you’re doing that, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“Anyway, this man came up to us while Hilda and I were having lunch. We’re not supposed to talk to strangers, but it’s not like we’re little kids anymore, and besides, it was in the food court with people all around. Also, he looked nice.”

The worst ones usually do, Holly thinks.

“He was wearing a terrific suit that must have cost mucho megabucks and carrying a briefcase. He said his name was Myron Zakim and he worked for a company called Sunrise Solutions. He gave us his card. He showed us a couple of Zappits—his briefcase was full of them—and said we could each have one free if we’d fill out a questionnaire and send it back. The address was on the questionnaire. It was on the card, too.”

“Do you happen to remember the address?”

“No, and I threw his card away. Besides, it was only a box number.”

“In New York?”

Barbara thinks it over. “No. Here in the city.”

“So you took the Zappits.”

“Yes. I didn’t tell Mom, because she would have given me a big lecture about talking to that guy. I filled out the questionnaire, too, and sent it in. Hilda didn’t, because her Zappit didn’t work. It just gave out a single blue flash and went dead. So she threw it away. I remember her saying that’s all you could expect when someone said something was free.” Barbara giggles. “She sounded just like her mother.”

“But yours did work.”

“Yes. It was old-fashioned but kind of . . . you know, kind of fun, in a silly way. At first. I wish mine had been broken, then I wouldn’t have the voice.” Her eyes slip closed, then slowly reopen. She smiles. “Whoa! Feel like I might be floating away.”

“Don’t float away yet. Can you describe the man?”

“A white guy with white hair. He was old.”

“Old-old, or just a little bit old?”

Barbara’s eyes are growing glassy. “Older than Dad, not as old as Grampa.”

“Sixtyish? Sixty-fiveish?”

“Yeah, I guess. Bill’s age, more or less.” Her eyes suddenly spring wide open. “Oh, guess what? I remember something. I thought it was a little weird, and so did Hilda.”

“What was that?”

“He said his name was Myron Zakim, and his card said Myron Zakim, but there were initials on his briefcase that were different.”

“Can you remember what they were?”

“No . . . sorry . . .” She’s floating away, all right.

“Will you think about that first thing when you wake up, Barb? Your mind will be fresh then, and it might be important.”

“Okay . . .”

“I wish Hilda hadn’t thrown hers away,” Holly says. She gets no reply, nor expects one; she often talks to herself. Barbara’s breathing has grown deep and slow. Holly begins buttoning her coat.

“Dinah has one,” Barbara says in a faraway dreaming voice. “Hers works. She plays Crossy Road on it . . . and Plants Vs. Zombies . . . also, she downloaded the whole Divergent trilogy, but she said it came in all jumbled up.”

Holly stops buttoning. She knows Dinah Scott, has seen her at the Robinson house many times, playing board games or watching TV, often staying for supper. And drooling over Jerome, as all of Barbara’s friends do.

“Did the same man give it to her?”

Barbara doesn’t answer. Biting her lip, not wanting to press her but needing to, Holly shakes Barbara by the shoulder and asks again.

“No,” Barbara says in the same faraway voice. “She got it from the website.”

“What website was that, Barbara?”

Her only answer is a snore. Barbara is gone.