Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

“Be my guest,” he says and hands her a remote control.

A minute later, Adisa is flipping through the cable stations. She stops when she hears a familiar gospel jingle: Lord, Lord, Lord, have Mercy! And then, the camera cuts tight to Wallace Mercy, the activist. Today he is lambasting a Texas school district that had a young Muslim boy arrested after he brought a homemade clock to school to show his science teacher and it was mistakenly identified as a bomb. “Ahmed,” Wallace says, “if you are listening, I want to tell you something. I want to say to all the black and brown children out there, who are afraid that they too might be misunderstood because of the color of their skin…”

I am pretty sure Wallace Mercy used to be a preacher, but I don’t think he ever got the memo that said he doesn’t need to shout when he’s miked on a television set.

“I want to say that I too was once thought to be less than I was, because of how I looked. And I am not going to lie-sometimes, when the Devil is whispering doubt into my ear, I still think those people were right. But most of the time, I think, I have shown all of those bullies up. I have succeeded in spite of them. And… so will you .”

Adisa gasps. “Oh my God, Ruth, that’s what you need. Wallace Mercy.”

“I am one hundred percent sure that Wallace Mercy is the last thing I need.”

“What are you talking about? Your kind of story is exactly what he lives for. Job discrimination because of race? He’ll eat it up. He’ll make sure everyone in the country knows you were wronged.”

On the television, Wallace is shaking a fist. “Does he have to be so mad all the time?”

Adisa laughs. “Well, hell, girl. I’m mad all the time. I’m exhausted, just from being Black all day,” she says. “At least he gives people like us a voice.”

“A loud one.”

“Exactly. Damn, Ruth, you been drinking the Kool-Aid. You been swimming with the sharks for so long, you’ve forgotten you’re krill.”

“What?”

“Don’t sharks eat krill?”

“They eat people .”

“This is what I’m telling you!” Adisa sighs. “White folks have spent years giving Black folks their freedom on paper, but deep down they still expect us to say yes, massuh, and be quiet and grateful for what we got. If we speak our minds we can lose our jobs, our homes, even our lives. Wallace is the man who gets to be angry for us. If it weren’t for him, white folks would never know the stupid shit they do upsets us, and Black folks would get madder and madder because they can’t risk talking back. Wallace Mercy is what keeps the powder keg in this country from blowing up.”

“Well, that’s all very well and good, but I’m not on trial because I’m Black. I’m on trial because a baby died when I was on duty.”

Adisa smirks. “Who told you that? Your lily-white lawyer? Of course she don’t think this is about race. She don’t think about race, period. She don’t have to.”

“Okay, well, when you get your law degree, you can advise me about this case. Until them, I’m going to take her word for it.” I hesitate. “You know, for someone who hates being stereotyped, you sure as hell do it a lot yourself.”

My sister holds up her hands, a surrender. “Okay, Ruth. You’re right. I’m wrong.”

“I’m just saying-so far, Kennedy McQuarrie is doing her job.”

“Her job is to rescue you so she can feel good about herself,” Adisa says. “It’s called a white knight for a reason.” She narrows her gaze at me. “And you know what’s on the other end of that color spectrum.”

I don’t give her the satisfaction of a response. But we both know the answer.

Black. The color of the villain.

–

I HAVE ONLY been to Christina’s Manhattan home once, just after she married Larry Sawyer. It was to drop off a wedding gift, and the whole experience had been awkward. Christina and Larry had a destination wedding in Turks and Caicos, and Christina had said over and over how sorry she was that she couldn’t invite all of her friends down there but instead had to limit the guest list. When she opened my present-a set of linen tea towels, screen-printed with the handwritten recipes of my mother’s cookies and cakes and pies she loved most-she burst into tears and hugged me, saying that it was the most personal, thoughtful gift she’d received, and that she would use them every day.

Now, more than ten years later, I wonder if she ever used her kitchen, much less the tea towels. The granite countertops gleam, and in a blue glass bowl there are fresh apples that look like they’ve been polished. There is no evidence that a four-year-old lives anywhere nearby. I have an itch to open the double Viking oven, just to see if there’s a single crumb or grease stain.

“Please,” Christina says, gesturing to one of the kitchen chairs. “Sit.”

I do, startled to find that there is soft music coming out of the wall behind me.

“It’s a speaker,” she says, laughing at my face. “It’s hidden.”

I wonder what it would be like to live in a place that feels like it is constantly part of a photo shoot. The Christina I used to know left a trail of destruction from the foyer to the kitchen the moment she came home from school-dropping her coat and book bag and kicking off her shoes. Just then, a woman appears so silently she might as well have emerged from the wall as well. She sets a plate of chicken salad down in front of me, and one in front of Christina.

“Thanks, Rosa,” Christina says, and I realize that she probably still drops her coat and her bags and her shoes when she comes into her house. But Rosa is her Lou. It’s just a different person now who’s picking up after her.

The maid slips away again, and Christina starts talking about a hospital fundraiser and how Bradley Cooper agreed to come and then backed out at the last minute because of strep throat, and then Us Weekly photographed him that same night in a dive bar in Chelsea with his girlfriend. She is chattering so much about a topic I care nothing about that before I even finish half my salad, I realize why she’s invited me here.

“So,” I interrupt. “Did you hear about it from my mom?”

Her face falls. “No. Larry. Now that he’s filed the paperwork to run for office, we have the news on twenty-four/seven.” She bites her lower lip. “Was it awful?”

A laugh bubbles up in my throat. “What part of it?”

“Well, all of it. Getting fired. Being arrested.” Her eyes grow wide. “Did you have to go to jail? Was it like Orange Is the New Black ?”

“Yeah, without the sex.” I look at her. “It wasn’t my fault, Christina. You have to believe me.”

She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “I do. I do, Ruth. I hope you know that. I wanted to help you, you know. I told Larry to hire someone from his old firm to represent you.”

I freeze. I try to see this as a gesture of friendship, but it feels like I’m a problem to solve. “I…I couldn’t accept that…”

“Well, before you go thinking I’m your fairy godmother, Larry shot me down. He feels as badly as I do, honestly, but with his candidacy, it’s just not a good time to be connected to something scandalous.”

Scandalous . I taste the word, bite into it like a berry, feel it burst.

“We had a huge fight about it. I mean, like, I made him move into the second bedroom and everything. It’s not like he’s going for the neo-Nazi vote. But it’s not that simple, I guess. Race relations are a mess right now, with the police commissioner under fire and everything, and Larry needs to stay as far away from that as possible or it could cost him the election.” She shakes her head. “I am so sorry, Ruth.”