Somewhere Between Black and White Read online

  SOMEWHERE BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE

  By Shelly Hickman

  Edited by Rosa Sophia

  Cover illustration by Shelly Hickman

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Copyright 2012 Shelly Hickman

  One

  “Hey, Miss!” Jose called from his computer when he witnessed Sophie texting. “How come you’re allowed to text and we’re not?

  That ain’t fair!”

  “Jose, stop worrying about me and do your work.” Sophie headed toward the classroom door, in hopes of getting a decent cell signal. The reception in the building was God awful, forcing her to plaster herself to the window in the entryway. Today she had the room opened up due to the heat.

  “Aw Miss, don’t be a hater,” the heavyset eighth grader replied. “It’s because I’m Mexican, right?” That was the students’ favorite thing to say. It’s because I’m Mexican. It’s because I’m black. That’s racist. It was always said in jest, but tiresome just the same. The other thing they liked to say was: That’s what she said. The opening line almost always referred to a lagging computer or a missing file, but pubescent boys are unable to resist making the most innocent comment sexual.

  “I keep looking, but I can’t find it!”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “Why is this taking so long?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  Sophie’s all-time favorite was when she passed out study packets to the students. “I know it’s long and thick,” she’d told them, “but we’ll do this together.”

  “That’s what she said,” a voice called from the back of the room. Never a dull moment.

  Sophie finished sending her text and sighed. “Jose, do you need help? ‘Cause you’re just sitting there.” She made her way across the computer lab.

  “Miss, what do I do next?”

  She peered over his shoulder and saw that he was partway through the Dreamweaver web page they were creating, which required them to share photos and information about a country they would like to visit. Although she provided print instructions daily, Jose’s reading level was so low that she had to walk him through each task. At least he tried, unlike his buddy who sat two chairs over playing video games.

  “Jerome, if you don’t get off that game and finish the assignment. . . .”

  “Okay, Miss, just one more minute. I almost beat this level.” Jerome tapped away furiously on his keyboard. There were a handful of boys in this particular class who drove her insane on a daily basis, but each one of them had her wrapped around his finger. They knew it, and she knew it.

  “Jerome. . . .”

  “Okay, okay, okay!” His absorption in the game continued.

  Sophie reached over and turned off his monitor, causing him to squeal out his discontent like a little girl. “Miss! How could you do that?” She bit her lip to keep from smiling.

  Two things saved Jerome—his affable personality and his disarming grin. To her dismay, he was forever sharing his girl troubles and all sorts of other stories with her—anything to avoid the work. Yeah, he knew how to work the charm, this boy with a lightning bolt shaved into his scalp.

  “Do the assignment,” Sophie ordered, “or I’m pulling you from the computer.”

  “Miss, did I tell you how beautiful you look today?”

  “Psh! Just do it, Jerome.” As she gave the room a once over to see if anyone had questions, she wandered back to her desk to check the school email. Her expectations had been so unrealistic when she took this position. Making the move from fifth grade, she believed that by teaching web design, the students would want to learn because it was an elective. Wrong. She later learned that kids who took her class were the ones who didn’t have the background for guitar, orchestra, or jazz band. There were a few who actually enjoyed her class, but many of them whined and complained as if they were in math or reading. Whatever. It was still far more enjoyable than teaching elementary school. Even if the kids had no interest in the subject, Sophie loved it.

  Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She had received another text from her sister, Evelyn. “I’m fine. Stop being a worrywart,” it read.

  “There you go, Miss,” Jose said. “On your phone again.”

  “Jose, put a sock in it. You know my sister is sick.”

  “Alright, alright,” he conceded and turned back to his work.

  Evelyn had lupus; she had good and bad days. As the older sister, Evelyn didn’t like to let on about it, but Sophie could always tell when she was having a bad day. After what seemed like an eternity of unexplained symptoms that almost debilitated Evelyn when they were young, she was diagnosed in her sophomore year. What made things worse was that she had a husband who expected her to take care of him, rather than the other way around, which Evelyn faithfully did. It frustrated Sophie to no end. Granted, Christian had some sort of mood disorder, but he refused to take meds, making Evelyn’s predicament more arduous.

  “Let me take you to dinner tonight,” Sophie texted. “We can bring something home for Christian.”

  “I’m fine! Another time. Love you,” was her reply.

  Sweat trickled down the back of Sophie’s neck. The air conditioning units were broken again, so it was only a matter of time before the computers started to overheat and lose connection to the server, leaving her in a room full of teenagers with nothing to keep them busy.

  O’Connell Middle School was located in North Las Vegas, and was a bit of a contradiction. It was in a very nice neighborhood, with beautiful landscaping and houses that looked to be three thousand square feet and above. However, forty percent of the attending students were on free or reduced lunch; much of the population was bused in from less affluent neighborhoods, and predominantly Hispanic.

  Sophie prayed that the computers would hang on for the last couple of hours. The thought of having to resort to an alternative plan of action made a knot form in the pit of her stomach. Sure, she could keep some worksheets on hand. She’d tried it a couple of times before, but the struggling students often refused to do anything that required reading. She could barely get them to read the directions for her projects. Every lesson Sophie gave consisted of a demonstration of what the students would be doing, and how they would do it. She spent hours making detailed, illustrated handouts, showing how to do all the things she had demonstrated in class. But they wouldn’t use them. Instead they begged, “Miss, I need help!”

  “I’m helping someone right now,” Sophie would say. “Use your handout.”

  “I don’t want to. It’s too much reading.”

  “Miss Cook,” another student would call. “I don’t know how to—”

  “Excuse me; do you not see I’m helping Kashayla? Use your paper. It’s right on the sheet.”

  “No, it isn’t. I already checked.”

  “Did you actually look at the paper?” Sophie wondered. “Or did you look at the ceiling?”

  A puzzled expression was often the response.

  It was a question her mother posed whenever her late father couldn’t find something in the kitchen cabinet. “Abby! Where’s the peanut butter?” he’d call to her mother.

  “It should be on the third shelf!”

  “No, it isn’t! I looked.”

  Then her mother would come to the kitchen, move her dad aside, and pull the peanut butter from the pantry. “Were you looking at the ceiling?”

  Sophie leaned over the small fan she had propped up on her desk and let it blow down her shirt, her thoughts drifting to th
e man in the store the night before. So juvenile, to be preoccupied with someone whose proximity lasted no more than thirty seconds. Nevertheless, memories of the brief encounter called her away.

  Running on fumes after dropping a friend home, Sophie had been relieved to find a gas station in an unfamiliar part of town. When she entered the convenience store, she laughed inwardly at the two teenage boys in the candy section, their belts resting below their butt cheeks. What was the point of the belts? She shook her head, marveling at how they walked around like that. Her hip hugging jeans drove her crazy enough. She sort of missed mom jeans; at least during the nineties she had never felt like her pants were falling down.

  She planned to grab a soda and rounded a corner to see a man standing there, studying the selection. She paid little notice to him until he glanced her way. Warm hazel eyes. An unexpected wave of something—something she couldn’t identify—faintly rippled through her.

  Normally she would have called it your run-of-the-mill physical attraction, but this was somehow different. He was actually pretty ordinary, with dark brown hair that receded slightly in front, forming that little “M” at his forehead. He wasn’t very tall, a bit shy of six feet, with a small build. Not skinny, though—just right for his height. Sophie guessed him to be about her age, early to mid-thirties.

  He offered her a quick smile and returned his attention to the refreshments. Immediately his eyes darted back, as if he recognized her. The smile lingered a few moments before he turned away. She felt uncertain about what to do next; he was standing in the way of her beverage choice. She debated getting a coffee instead.

  He had nice arms. The sleeves of his flannel shirt were rolled up to reveal a small tattoo on his forearm that was some sort of Asian symbol. Realizing that she was waiting on him, he moved aside. “I’m sorry.” He laughed. “Go ahead.”

  “Excuse me,” she said under her breath. He reached to open the refrigerator door for her at the same time as she, and their hands touched. Eyes meeting once again, Sophie was unnerved by her reaction. Why did it feel like she knew him? She was certain she had never seen him before in her life. She ducked in to grab her soda and reemerged. “Thanks.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Have a good one.”

  “You too.” As she headed for the counter, she glanced over her shoulder, making one last attempt to place him. He was still gazing back at her.

  “Bee! There’s a bee!” A girl’s panicked shouting startled Sophie into the present.

  It wasn’t the first time a bee had found its way into the room; the plants in the courtyard attracted them.

  “Okay, just calm down,” Sophie said. “Whatever you do, don’t swat at it.” So what did they do? Anytime the bee came remotely close, they flailed about as if they were on fire, jumping from their seats with annoying screeches. Some of the boys were worse than the girls. “Oh, my gosh,” Sophie exclaimed. “I am too hot and grumpy for this. Leave the stupid bee alone!”

  One of the boys stood up and smacked it with the arm of his hoodie, and the poor insect went spiraling to its demise, twitching on the floor, before the boy stomped on it with his boot. Sophie turned around to see Jerome playing another video game, unaffected by the bee drama, and she decided that this afternoon would require a happy hour.

  Two

  “I’ve got some things to drop off for Mom’s birthday party,” Sophie offered when her sister answered the door. Wearing an oversized buttoned shirt sporting paint stains, Evelyn’s dark hair was pulled back, with a few strands spilling around her face. Even when doing grunt work, she was beautiful. Her sister had always been the gorgeous one, Sophie the cute one. Evelyn, long chestnut hair, dark eyes. Sophie, blue eyes, golden curls.

  Evelyn was painting the living room. Christian, of course, was nowhere to be seen.

  Sophie dropped the bags at her feet. “Are you kidding me? Why isn’t he doing this, or least helping you?”

  “Sophie, don’t start,” Evelyn replied as she pushed the hair from her face. “I enjoy doing it. Besides, his mom wanted to take him to dinner. He’s having a bad day, so I thought he should go.”

  A bad day? He does nothing! Sophie picked the bags back up. “Un-frickin-believable,” she muttered as she headed toward the kitchen. “Why are you doing this now anyway, two days before the party? Couldn’t it have waited for another time, when I could have helped you?”

  Evelyn followed her and started unloading cups, plates, and plastic ware. “It’s one room. It’s not a big deal. I just want the place to look nice.”

  “Sit your butt down, Evie,” Sophie ordered in a softer tone. Evelyn plopped herself into a black Windsor chair. “You’re hopeless, you know that? What am I going to do with you?” She waved a bundle of asparagus.

  Her sister gave a weary smile and rested her temple on her hand. “Shut up, brat, and pour me an iced tea.”

  Sophie did so and sat across from her. She gave Evelyn a long stare. How many times did they have to have this conversation?

  Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Sophie, I’m not in the mood for this. Why can’t you just let it go?”

  “Because it’s ridiculous! Look, it’s not like I don’t have compassion for the guy.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Sophie answered in her sweet, but slightly superior manner, lifting her chin just a tad. “But how stinkin’ hard is it to swallow a pill? I mean, seriously. You do everything around here, not to mention support him. Oh, and his mother. Don’t get me started.”

  “I don’t do everything,” Evelyn argued. “And no one is getting you started, Sophie. I don’t want to talk about it, remember?” She rose from her seat, stomped into the living room, and picked up the paint roller she had left in the pan.

  Sophie followed her with her hands on her hips, wanting to say more. As her sister vigorously rolled the sage colored paint on the wall, she suddenly felt guilty for lecturing her. This was a conversation they’d had countless times, often with their mother in the mix. Those were the times Evelyn hated the most, because she felt so outnumbered. Still, nothing ever changed.

  Sophie dropped her arms, turned toward the kitchen, and finished putting party supplies away. Why did something so simple have to be so hard?

  Three

  Instead of grading quizzes like she had planned, Sophie went to the market to stock her kitchen. She had been getting by on way too much junk, and it wasn’t a habit she wanted to feed. Having already gained three pounds, she needed to get back on track.

  She grabbed one of the tiny carts just outside Trader Joe’s and pushed it inside, the distinctive aroma of produce and vitamins welcoming her. She liked it here because of its quaintness. Small chalkboards stood at the ends of the aisles, listing any new or unusual products.

  Fresh flowers and other plants lined the wall next to the entrance, and she steered her cart in that direction to scan the selection. She didn’t usually splurge on nonessentials, but chose some sunflowers. After all, it was her mother’s birthday gathering tonight.

  Navigating a little farther, she threw in a bag of spinach when the wheels of her cart began making a tremendous racket. Once again, she had chosen the defective one. It fooled her into thinking it would be agreeable, then commenced with its rattling and squeaking once it was too much trouble to get another.

  While playing mechanic to her ailing companion, something prompted her to turn around. Just a few feet away stood the man from the convenience store the week before. Unaware of her, he was perusing the cold cuts.

  Suffering the same weird nervousness, she backed into the tomatoes and knocked several of them onto the floor. “Dang it!” She sighed. Bending to pick them up, she glanced over to discover him collecting them, too.

  They both rose to their feet, and an air of recognition came over his face. “Hey. You again.” He grinned and handed her two large tomatoes.

  “Yeah,” she said and put them back with the rest. “Thanks.”

  “Do you
. . . .” He began hesitantly. “Do you live in this part of town?” He eyed her as if he felt that he knew her.

  “Yeah, I do. You?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. That’s pretty strange, isn’t it, that we ran into each other clear over in Green Valley?”

  “Pretty strange.” Sophie became painfully aware of her tattered denim shorts and the bruises on her shins. From the time she was a child, her nickname was Grace because she was forever running into things. She was certain furniture legs lay in wait for her, just so they could catch her pinkie toe. “Anyway, thanks again,” she said, pointing to the tomatoes. “I hate tomatoes. They must have sensed it and assaulted me.”

  He chuckled. “You’re welcome. I’m Sam, by the way,” he said and offered his hand.

  “Sophie,” she replied as they shook. Her hand in his was the most comfortable thing in the world.

  “Sophie,” he repeated. “I like that—it suits you.”

  How would he know what suits me? He doesn’t even know me. She simply smiled without responding, then withdrew her hand. They lingered in silence a few more moments.

  Unaware that their carts were blocking the aisle, they were interrupted by a middle-aged woman wearing way too much make-up. She sighed dramatically. “Do ya mind?”

  With apologies, the two retreated. Sam’s eyes followed the intruder as she passed between them. “Pleasant woman,” he joked once she was out of earshot.

  “Isn’t she, though?” They both shared a laugh.

  Sophie picked up a tomato and turned it in her hands a few times, before setting it down and reluctantly turning back to her cart. “Well, it was nice meeting you. I guess I’ll see ya,” she added, thinking that was an odd thing to say.

  “I hope so, Sophie.”

  She smiled to herself as she went on her way, pushing her noisy sidekick.

  Four

  “Abby, you look absolutely gorgeous!” Edward gushed to Sophie’s mother as he arrived at her birthday celebration. One of Abby’s best friends, he dipped her in his arms and planted a smooch on her lips. “And I’m not even going to say for being sixty. You’re just flat out gorgeous, honey.”