If You Come Softly (12 page)

“I used to think my family would accept anybody,” I said slowly. “No matter what color they were. I’m not so sure of that now.” I looked at him and swallowed. “It scares me. I mean, a part of me doesn’t want to find out.”

“If we’re gonna be together, you gotta find out, you know.”

I nodded and turned back to the window. I had not spoken to Anne again. Maybe I was afraid of that too-afraid to find out that she didn’t like the idea of me and Miah together. And what was at the heart of it all-that was the scariest part.

“If they have it in them, to not like somebody because of their color-then I might have it in me.”

Miah moved closer to me. Upstairs, I could hear music coming from Nelia’s office. It was soft music, air mostly, with fragile notes on the edges of it.

“I get scared of that too,” he said. “About myself. That it’s there someplace, ready to spring out—‘cause sometimes-like remember that time those two old ladies on Fifth Avenue?”

I nodded.

“Times like that, I hate white people. Then I have to ask myself, How can I hate white people and love you?” He smiled. “And I don’t know how to answer that.”

We didn’t say anything for a long time. Outside, the snow was coming down harder. I knew I would have to leave soon. And didn’t want to. On days like this, I was afraid to leave Miah. Afraid I’d never see him again. Would I always be like this? Would I always be this afraid?

“Maybe I’ll be a filmmaker,” I said. “Or an artist. I would love to sit and paint for hours and hours.”

“I didn’t know you painted.”

I smiled and looked at him. “I don’t. Once I took a class and I was terrible. But I took it because it was the only class with openings at the summer camp I went to one year, so I was kind of forced into it. I wanted to take tap, but it was full. But I never imagined it-that if I wanted to, I could be some kind of artist. Not until-not until I met you really.”

I picked up his hand and kissed it.

“My sister’s girlfriend is an artist but nobody in my blood family.” I had told him about all of them, about Marc and Susan, Anne and Ruben. Even about Stacey and my twin nieces.

“I wouldn’t be an artist,” Miah said. “At least not a filmmaker or writer. People would say, ‘Oh, he just got that film made because of his father,’ or‘He just got that book published because of his mother.’ Stuff like that.”

“What do you want to be—and don’t say a basketball player!”

He laughed. “That’s what I dream of being—my secret dream. Go pro. Make the NBA. Get Most Valuable Player. Have some basketball shoes named after me. I’d walk down the street and hear little kids saying,‘My mama’s gonna buy me some Jeremiah Roselinds.’ I’d tell them they had to make them burgundy and gray-or whatever they call it—in memory of Percy Academy.”

“Then after you wake up from the dream,” I said. “What would you want to be?”

Miah looked down at his hand. He stretched it out, then made it into a fist, then opened it again. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I look into the future and I don’t see anything else. It’s like it’s this big blank space where I should be. Isn’t that weird?”

“What—that you don’t have any real plans for the future? No, it’s not weird—it’s pathetic.”

“So when do I meet the family?” he asked again. “You know—we can do one of those guess who’s coming to dinner numbers.”

I shook my head. “It’s not only about you being black, Miah,” I said. “It’s about—I don’t know. You’re mine.”

Miah smiled.

“They’d go crazy if they knew how much time we spent together. They’d have you over there down on your knees proposing to me.”

“I’d do that. Carlton be best man. We’d get one of your trillions of family members to be a bridesmaid. It could happen.”

I leaned against his shoulder and smiled.

“You know something, Miah?”

“What?”

“I’d marry you tomorrow. Isn’t that crazy? How much... you know, how much I love you?”

He shook his head and hugged me. And we sat there quietly, watching the snow make its way to the ground.

THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN HE TOOK ELLIE HOME, HE kissed her good-bye at the corner. He had brought his basketball along for the ride and Ellie held it a moment as they stood in the snow.

“Your
other
girlfriend,” she said, bouncing it. It made a dull sound as it hit the thin layer of snow covering the sidewalk.

“Keeps me company on the long trip home,” Miah said, grabbing it from her and dribbling it quickly between his legs.

She watched him a moment. Then quietly, she pulled off her gloves, handed them to him, and reached for the back of her neck.

“Here,” she said. “Turn around.”

Jeremiah smiled, feeling the Star of David and the warm chain against his throat. “I’m not Jewish though,” he said, turning back toward her.

She took her gloves back, kissed him again and started heading backward down the block. “I’m going to tell them about you,” Ellie said. “You’re going to meet them. Get ready. I love you.” She threw him another kiss, then turned, ducked her head, and disappeared into the blanket of wind and snow.

Jeremiah watched her. He could still feel her hand on his neck. It felt good and warm and right. “Ellie,” he whispered, grinning. “My Ellie.”

He was too excited to get on the train right away and decided to cut through the park. He felt like he could run a hundred miles-like he could run to Brooklyn and keep going. Soon he’d meet her parents and know this whole other part of her. Of Ellie. His Ellie. Beautiful, beautiful Ellie. Who loved him.

He bounced his basketball slowly for a while, then started running with it, feeling as though he could lift up, fly.

Jeremiah didn’t know that they had been looking for a man. A tall, dark man. If he had known, he would have stopped when the shout came from behind him. But he was tangled up inside his thoughts. Deep inside himself. All around him, the park was white with snow and brilliant but quiet. Empty. And dribbling his basketball quickly along the snow-covered path, he realized how much he loved the quiet. How much he loved Ellie. Yes, he did love Ellie. He would always love Ellie. And now running along the park in the early evening, no one else mattered-not his father and Lois Ann, not his mother’s sometimes sadness, not even the layup he had missed at practice on Friday. Just Ellie. Just Ellie.

Miah bounced his basketball in front of him, his feet moving quickly along the path, so quickly he felt the hard ground inside his sneakers, heard his feet pounding, heard his own breath coming fast.
Keep your body behind the ball,
Coach had said.
Keep your palm above it.
Like Rodman. Like Julius Erving back in the day.
You could be great, Jeremiah. You just have to concentrate. Keep your mind and your body in the game.
And now he was in the game, dribbling fast through the park, the late afternoon sun almost gone now, the patches of snow moving quickly past him. And nothing else but the ball and the feel of his feet against ground. And in the distance, way off in the distance, Ellie smiling from the bleachers and the team waiting for him to score. He had to score.

“Stop.”

But he couldn’t stop. He was too close. He was going for that layup again. This time he’d make it. Two points was all the team needed and he’d make those two points and be a hero, and Ellie would rush to the floor and throw her arms around him. Not caring who was watching. Not caring who saw.

Jeremiah grinned. And in another moment he felt his breath catch deep in the back of his throat. He felt a slow burn of something-something hot and hard against his side. And then he was falling, grabbing for the ball but falling, falling and losing control.

And in the yellow-gold light of the fading afternoon, Jeremiah remembered Ellie smiling up at him, and he remembered his father’s grin and his mother’s laughter. Already he was missing them. Like that afternoon alone in his mother’s room. Again, just like that day, Jeremiah felt a sudden, terrible sadness.

And then nothing at all.

OUTSIDE IT IS WINTER NOW AND BEYOND THESE stained-glass windows, the snow falls and falls. Gently. Now the sidewalk is almost covered. Snow for Christmas. The weatherman promises a white winter. Drape down over us, snow. Cover everything. Like a blanket. Like someone’s hand on my back. Cover my eyes, snow—like Miah always did.

Nelia stands tall and beautiful, her face calm behind a thin black veil. And at the podium, Miah but older, much older, lighter, and with someone else’s eyes. Where are Miah’s eyes? And then, I look back at Nelia and see them, looking at me, light brown, almost green eyes calm inside a dark face, so smooth. Smooth like Miah‘s, her head tilting toward me as if to say,
You loved him too, Ellie. I know.

All around us—the sad dark faces with traces of Miah in them. Who are they? Cousins? Uncles? Aunts? Nelia’s face is a familiar one. And the man speaking—his face familiar but vague-not Miah’s face but a face from a newspaper, a television screen. Unflawed. So sure of himself, so calm and poised but the hands—shaking hands, hands with Miah’s fingers.

And in the back, Carlton sitting with a girl who looks like him, but taller, older. A pale woman beside them and on the other side, a tall black man.

Beside me, Marion squeezes my hand. And on the other side, my father, sitting straight, looking straight ahead. Once I asked Miah if he ever forgot he was black.
No. I never forget,
he said.
But sometimes it doesn’t matter-like I just am.
Then he asked me if I ever forgot I was white.

Sometimes,
I said.

Then Miah looked away from me and said,
We’re different that way.

And now, sitting between my pale mother and father, I cannot forget I am white with so many brown and black and gold faces around us.

This part-this gathering was for family, those close to Miah. But Nelia called me—had found my number in Miah’s notebook, with the hearts drawn all around it. “We would like you to come,” she said, her voice choking back tears.

Outside, journalists and photographers wait, wait to catch them—us—Miah’s family—catch us in our sadness. I swallow.
This is my life at fifteen,
I am thinking, staring down at my hands.
Please world, stop this. I am only fifteen.

His father is telling a story about Miah as a small boy. But I can’t listen. All around us there are pictures—Miah in his Percy uniform, Miah with Carlton, smiling, a basketball on the ground between them. Miah with his team from Brooklyn Tech, with his mother and father. Even a small one—Miah with me. The two of us side by side on Percy’s stairs, looking uncomfortable in our uniforms. But I don’t remember who took it. I can’t remember that day.

Someone blows their nose, hard. Beside me, Marion dabs at her eyes.
There is no boy, Marion. Not now. Not anymore.

Marion offers me a tissue, but I shake my head. Let the tears come however they come, Norman is saying. I wipe my hand across my eyes, but they keep coming.

Now Nelia is singing, soft and beautifully about a sparrow somewhere watching over Miah. And, for the quickest moment, I see it-that bird. Coming softly toward me.

 

THIS IS HOW THE TIME MOVES. IT IS JUNE NOW. IN A week, I’ll be eighteen. In the halls and out on the stairs at lunchtime, other kids are making plans for prom and graduation. Prom. Graduation. Then Swarthmore in the fall. Marion and my father had been right—Percy Academy did get me into a good college. When the letter came, Marion held it up proudly. “A thick envelope,” she said. “You know what that means.” Yes, I knew what it meant. All spring the envelopes had been coming-thin ones meant one-page rejections. Thick ones meant acceptances and more paperwork.

There is a plaque outside the gym at Percy. It reads
In Memory of Jeremiah Roselind. Somewhere someone will always be calling your name.

I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, “Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with.” And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, hlink—it’s gone.

In our yearbook, there is a picture of me and Miah—sitting in Central Park—Miah has his lips poked out and is about to kiss me on my cheek. And I’m looking straight into the camera laughing. Two and a half years have passed, and still, this is how I remember us. This is how I will always remember us. And I know when I look at that picture, when I think back to those few months with Miah, that I did not miss the moment.

Marc and Susan are coming for graduation. Ruben is already here. And tonight, we drive out to Kennedy Airport to meet Anne and Stacey’s plane. Then I’ll return with them to California for the summer. And maybe one day Anne and I will talk about that evening on the phone. The first and last time we talked about Miah. That evening—a long, long time ago. When we were friends. When we were close. And maybe, once we talk about it, we’ll begin to understand who we were then. Maybe we’ll move toward each other again. Maybe.

Later, I will go to Nelia’s. She’ll read pages of her latest book to me. In the quiet afternoon, we’ll drink tea and eat cookies and leave the room when we need to cry.

This is how the time moves-an hour here, a day somewhere, and then it’s night and then it’s morning. A clock ticking on a shelf. A small child running to school, a father coming home.