again is not such a bad idea,” she said.
Kenya could not argue with that.
* * *
At one end, the Barrett School for Girls looked like a castle, with its stone walls, decorative roofs, impossibly high ceilings, and ancient-looking tapestries. At the other, it was low and sleek, like something in one of the architecture magazines Kenya’s father had collected during a brief phase. In fact, whatever wasn’t old at the school seemed extremely new. The white desks reminded Kenya of spaceships, and many of the rooms had track lighting.
The cafeteria was called a dining room. There you could eat roast chicken for lunch, served up by black women—the only black adults in the building besides the cleaning ladies. As they spooned mashed potatoes onto her plate, they beamed Kenya smiles she was too embarrassed to return. She wondered if they traded smiles with the smattering of other black girls who went to Barrett (twelve by her count the first week). She could not imagine Lolly Lewis, the only other black girl in her grade, who lived in Wynnewood and had gone to Barrett since kindergarten, joining in this conspiracy of greeting.
Each day at Barrett was a new sensory experience for Kenya: chilly stone hallways; clammy modeling clay; picking impossibly sticky long hairs off her schoolbag; a school uniform of scratchy bloomers with a navy-blue dress called a tunic or a gray skirt called a kilt; a rubbery-tasting mouthguard for field hockey; the sound of hand bells; what shall we do with a drunken sailor ; the distinct sneaker-fart funk of the school bus; a gym teacher with a British accent; dreidl ( dreidl, dreidl ); cupcakes for Trinity Howell’s birthday, cupcakes for Katherine Stein’s birthday, cupcakes for Sengu Gupta’s birthday; body on fire with cold as Kenya finally, after two weeks of increasingly irritable cajoling from Mrs. Winston, forced herself into the pool in gym class.
Once Kenya was underwater, she tried to stay as long as she could. The murky echoes, soft shapes, and slow movement suited her. Everyone at Barrett was so nice . The school was so nice . Yet she did not want to come back up to the surface.
Being black on the Main Line was no fuckin’ picnic , her father had said.
Kenya was careful never to say to these new girls that her parents were “divorced,” but she led them to believe this was the case. Divorce, so shocking to her before, was almost fashionable at Barrett. Cynthia Malder and Kristin Shoenbaum were children of divorce. Tuff Wieder and Sharon McCall were children of long-term separation. Mothers were starting interior design businesses and dating old men. Fathers were buying sports cars and dating young secretaries. All Kenya said was that her parents were “not together,” and that she didn’t talk to her father very much. No, she didn’t go live with him and a bitchy stepmother in the summer. No, they didn’t go on vacation.
The fifth graders who attended the Barrett School for Girls had heard a lot of crazy things about the city. They’d heard that kids their age carried knives to school, and that everyone was on welfare. They’d heard that being on the street after dark was a sure way to get mugged. They’d never heard the one about the family where the father was cheating on the mother, the father-not-husband because they were never married, the one where the father suggested that they all live together in a polygamous arrangement. They didn’t know the one that ended with the sleepwalking daughter shooting the mother with the father’s gun; they didn’t know the one that began when the father, trying to keep the daughter out of foster care, said he would take the blame—then disappeared into America with his pregnant girlfriend. Kenya wasn’t going to tell them any of those.
* * *
Sheila said little to Kenya about their new lives. In the void, as Kenya learned to sing in French and play lacrosse, she kept hearing Johnbrown’s voice. The
Kenya could not argue with that.
* * *
At one end, the Barrett School for Girls looked like a castle, with its stone walls, decorative roofs, impossibly high ceilings, and ancient-looking tapestries. At the other, it was low and sleek, like something in one of the architecture magazines Kenya’s father had collected during a brief phase. In fact, whatever wasn’t old at the school seemed extremely new. The white desks reminded Kenya of spaceships, and many of the rooms had track lighting.
The cafeteria was called a dining room. There you could eat roast chicken for lunch, served up by black women—the only black adults in the building besides the cleaning ladies. As they spooned mashed potatoes onto her plate, they beamed Kenya smiles she was too embarrassed to return. She wondered if they traded smiles with the smattering of other black girls who went to Barrett (twelve by her count the first week). She could not imagine Lolly Lewis, the only other black girl in her grade, who lived in Wynnewood and had gone to Barrett since kindergarten, joining in this conspiracy of greeting.
Each day at Barrett was a new sensory experience for Kenya: chilly stone hallways; clammy modeling clay; picking impossibly sticky long hairs off her schoolbag; a school uniform of scratchy bloomers with a navy-blue dress called a tunic or a gray skirt called a kilt; a rubbery-tasting mouthguard for field hockey; the sound of hand bells; what shall we do with a drunken sailor ; the distinct sneaker-fart funk of the school bus; a gym teacher with a British accent; dreidl ( dreidl, dreidl ); cupcakes for Trinity Howell’s birthday, cupcakes for Katherine Stein’s birthday, cupcakes for Sengu Gupta’s birthday; body on fire with cold as Kenya finally, after two weeks of increasingly irritable cajoling from Mrs. Winston, forced herself into the pool in gym class.
Once Kenya was underwater, she tried to stay as long as she could. The murky echoes, soft shapes, and slow movement suited her. Everyone at Barrett was so nice . The school was so nice . Yet she did not want to come back up to the surface.
Being black on the Main Line was no fuckin’ picnic , her father had said.
Kenya was careful never to say to these new girls that her parents were “divorced,” but she led them to believe this was the case. Divorce, so shocking to her before, was almost fashionable at Barrett. Cynthia Malder and Kristin Shoenbaum were children of divorce. Tuff Wieder and Sharon McCall were children of long-term separation. Mothers were starting interior design businesses and dating old men. Fathers were buying sports cars and dating young secretaries. All Kenya said was that her parents were “not together,” and that she didn’t talk to her father very much. No, she didn’t go live with him and a bitchy stepmother in the summer. No, they didn’t go on vacation.
The fifth graders who attended the Barrett School for Girls had heard a lot of crazy things about the city. They’d heard that kids their age carried knives to school, and that everyone was on welfare. They’d heard that being on the street after dark was a sure way to get mugged. They’d never heard the one about the family where the father was cheating on the mother, the father-not-husband because they were never married, the one where the father suggested that they all live together in a polygamous arrangement. They didn’t know the one that ended with the sleepwalking daughter shooting the mother with the father’s gun; they didn’t know the one that began when the father, trying to keep the daughter out of foster care, said he would take the blame—then disappeared into America with his pregnant girlfriend. Kenya wasn’t going to tell them any of those.
* * *
Sheila said little to Kenya about their new lives. In the void, as Kenya learned to sing in French and play lacrosse, she kept hearing Johnbrown’s voice. The
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