Read Online Bright Purple: Color Me Confused with Bonus Content by Melody Carlson - Free Book Online

like this, and I’m really not sure what to do with myself, but I finally turn on the TV and flop down on the couch and watch
Oprah
. It’s something I haven’t done since summer, when I was so obsessed with her shows that I actually begged my mom to get TiVo so that I could record them. Of course, Mom told me to forget it. But I’m one of those people who, if asked what one person they’d like to have dinner with, would probably choose Oprah Winfrey. Oh, it’s not like I tell my friends this, but I really admire the woman. I love her positive attitude and can-do spirit. And I think that she’s a Christian, but I do have one problem with her. I don’t understand why she doesn’t just get married. She seems to love Stedman. And I’m sure they sleep together. So why can’t she just make an honest man out of him and get married? Oh, well.
    Today, Oprah has her best friend, Gail, on and they are talking, it figures, about friendships between women. But I decide to listen,to pay attention so that the next time I make a best friend, if I ever do, I will be more careful. I will make sure that I don’t connect with someone who has any sexual identity issues. I will choose a girl with a steady boyfriend, maybe a long history of steady boyfriends. Not that I’m in a hurry. If anything, I should focus my attention on getting more involved with Mitch.
    They’re showing some scenes of young girls who are best friends and, despite myself, this reminds me of when I first met Jess. If only I’d known then that it was going to end like this. Maybe I wouldn’t have climbed onto the roof that day.
    It was summer, and we’d just moved to Greenville from the university town where my mom had finally finished her master’s in counseling. For my whole life, all I’d known was student-family housing, where we’d lived in this tiny apartment with lots of other families living in identical apartments all around us. Families came and went, along with a bunch of different friends for me, but Mom and I lived there until I was eight, and I guess I figured we’d always live there. But then she graduated and got a job at a counseling center in Greenville, and we moved into a little rental house on Cypress Street.
    Back in student-family housing, everyone took turns watching us kids and I’d never really had a real babysitter before, but for some reason Mom got it into her head that I needed one now. So she hired Shelby to watch me. Shelby was fourteen and addicted to soap operas. So, to entertain myself, I would go outside and climb up a piece of lattice that took me right onto the flat roof of the carport. From there I could access the slanted roof of the house, where I would climb to the top, then straddle the peak and just sit like a queen, looking out over the neighborhood. When I got bored or too hot, I would simply slide down the slanted roof and land in an overgrown heap of ivy. Shelby never had a clue.
    “What are you doing up there?” called a dark-haired girl from down below one day.
    “Sitting,” I called back down to her.
    “Can I come up?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” I called back. “Can you?”
    Before I knew it, she was up on the roof, straddling the peak just behind me. “This is cool,” she said.
    “Yep,” I agreed. Then we talked for a while, and I learned that, like me, she was going into fourth grade too.
    “Are you a different race?” she asked, pointing to one of my bronze-colored arms.
    “No,” I told her. “I’m actually from a different planet.”
    That just made her laugh, and she never did ask me about my skin color again. Oh, I suppose I eventually told her my family history, but I’m sure it was several years later. As it turned out, Jess’s older sister observed us sitting on the roof one day and immediately informed Jess’s mom, who immediately informed my mom. Shortly after that, the babysitter was dismissed and Mrs. LeCroix offered to help keep an eye on me until school started.