Jodi Picoult - Small Great Things

I stand up. “Thank you for your…interest in my case. But this is something that I’d have to discuss with my lawyer, and no matter what-”

“What color skin does your lawyer have?” Wallace interrupts.

“What difference does it make?” I challenge. “How can you ever expect to be treated well by white people if you’re constantly picking them over for flaws?”

He smiles, as if he’s heard this before. “You’ve heard of Trayvon Martin, I assume?”

Of course I have. The boy’s death had hit me hard. Not just because he was about Edison’s age but because, like my son, he was an honor student who had been doing nothing wrong, except being Black.

“Do you know that during that trial, the judge-the white judge-banned the term racial profiling from being used in the courtroom?” Wallace says. “She wanted to make sure that the jury knew the case was not about race, but about murder.”

His words punch through me, arrows. They are almost verbatim what Kennedy told me about my own case.

“Trayvon was a good kid, a smart boy. You are a respected nurse. The reason that judge didn’t want to bring up race-the same reason your lawyer is skirting it like it’s the plague-is because Black people like you and Trayvon are supposed to be the exceptions. You are the very definition of when bad things happen to good people. Because that is the only way white gatekeepers can make excuses for their behavior.” He leans forward, his mug clasped in his hands. “But what if that’s not the truth? What if you and Trayvon aren’t the exceptions…but the rule? What if injustice is the standard ?”

“All I want is to do my job, live my life, raise my boy. I don’t need your help.”

“You may not need it,” he says, “but apparently there are a lot of people out there who want to help you, just the same. I mentioned your case last week, briefly, on my show.” He shifts, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his suit and pulling out a small manila envelope. Then he stands and passes it to me. “Good luck, sister. I’ll be praying for you.”

As soon as the door closes behind him, I open the seal and dump out the contents. Inside are bills: tens, twenties, fifties. There are also dozens of checks, written out to me, from strangers. I read the addresses on them: Tulsa, Oklahoma. Chicago. South Bend. Olympia, Washington. At the bottom of the pile is Wallace Mercy’s business card.

I gather everything into the envelope, tuck it into an empty vase on a shelf in the living room, and then see it: my missing visor, resting on the cable box.

It feels like a crossroads.

I settle the visor on my head, grab my wallet and my coat, and head out the door to my shift.

–

I KEEP MY favorite picture of Wesley and me on the mantel of my house. We were at our wedding, and his cousin snapped it when we weren’t looking. In the photo, we are standing in the lobby of the elegant hotel where we had our reception-the rental of which was Sam Hallowell’s wedding gift to me. My arms are looped around Wesley’s neck and my head is turned. He is leaning in, his eyes closed, whispering something to me.

I have tried so, so hard to remember what my handsome husband, breathtaking in his tuxedo, was saying. I’d like to believe it was You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen or I can’t wait to start our life together . But that is the stuff of novels and movies, and in reality, I am pretty sure we were planning our escape from a roomful of well-wishers so that I could pee.

The reason I know this is because although I cannot remember the conversation that Wesley and I had when that photograph was taken, I do remember the one we had afterward. There was a line at the ladies’ room off the main lobby, and Wesley gallantly volunteered to stand guard at the men’s room so that no one would enter while I was inside. It took me a significant amount of time to maneuver my wedding gown and do my business, and when I finally made it out of the bathroom, a good ten minutes had passed. Wesley was still outside the door, my sentry, but now he was holding a valet claim ticket.

“What’s that?” I asked. We didn’t have a car then; we’d taken public transport to our own wedding.

Wesley shook his head, chuckling. “Some dude just walked up to me and asked me to bring his Mercedes around.”

We laughed and gave the ticket to the bellhop desk. We laughed, because we were in love. Because when life is full of good things, it does not seem important if an old white guy sees a Black man in a fancy hotel and naturally assumes he must work there.

–

AFTER A MONTH of working at McDonald’s, I begin to see the paradox between service and sanitary food preparation. Although all orders are supposed to be prepared in less than fifty seconds, most items on the menu take longer than that to cook. McNuggets and Filet-O-Fish fry for almost four minutes. Chicken Selects take six minutes, and weighing in longest in the fry vat are crispy chicken breasts. Ten-to-one meat takes thirty-nine seconds to cook; four-to-one meat takes seventy-nine seconds. The grilled chicken is actually steamed while it cooks. Apple pies bake for twelve minutes, cookies for two. And yet in spite of all this, we employees are supposed to have the customer walking out the door in ninety seconds-fifty for food prep, forty for a meaningful interaction.

The managers love me, because unlike most of the staff, I do not have to juggle class schedules with my shifts. After decades of working nights, I don’t mind coming in at 3:45 A.M. to open grill, which takes a while to heat up before we unlock the doors at 5:00. Because of my flexibility, I am usually given my favorite job-cashier. I like talking to the customers. I consider it a personal challenge to make them smile before they walk away from the counter. And after literally having women throw things at my head in the thick of labor, being berated for mayo instead of mustard really doesn’t faze me.

Most of our regulars come in the mornings. There are Marge and Walt, who wear identical yellow sweat suits and walk three miles from their house and then get matching hotcake meals with orange juice. There’s Allegria, who’s ninety-three and comes once a week in her fur coat, no matter how warm it is outside, and eats an Egg McMuffin, no meat, no cheese, no muffin. There’s Consuela, who gets four large iced coffees for all the girls at her salon.

This morning, one of the homeless folks who pepper the streets of New Haven wanders in. Sometimes my manager will give them food, if it’s about to be thrown out-like the fries that go unsold after five minutes. Sometimes they come in to warm up. Once, we had a man pee in the bathroom sink. Today, the man who enters has long, tangled hair, and a beard that reaches his belly. His stained T-shirt reads NAMASTAY IN BED, and there is dirt crusted underneath his fingernails.

“Hello,” I say. “Welcome to McDonald’s. Can I take your order?”

He stares at me, his eyes rheumy and blue. “I want a song.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A song.” His voice escalates. “I want a song!”

My manager on duty, a tiny woman named Patsy, steps up to the counter. “Sir,” she says, “you need to move along.”

“I want a fucking song! ”

Patsy flushes. “I’m calling the police.”

“No, wait.” I meet the man’s eye and start crooning Bob Marley. I used to sing “Three Little Birds” to Edison as a lullaby every night; I’ll probably remember the words till the day I die.

The man stops screaming and shuffles out the door. I paste a smile on my face so that I can greet the next customer. “Welcome to McDonald’s,” I say and find myself looking at Kennedy McQuarrie.