Jodi Picoult - Shine

Maia’s birthday was the second Friday of school, and her mother brought in cupcakes. Each one had a maple leaf poking out of the icing. The leaf was translucent, made of sugar, and was painted with some kind of edible paint so that it looked real. Ruth had never seen anything like it, and she wanted to show her mother and Rachel, so she carefully wrapped hers in a paper towel and tucked it into the pocket of her sweatshirt.

Because it was Maia’s birthday, she was the leader of the recess line that day. Everyone fell into place behind her, snaking down the hallway. From her vantage point farther back in the line, Ruth could see that Maia was wearing her sparkling rhinestone headband. But now, Ruth realized, there were three other girls in the class who had matching ones. They looked like halos.

Ruth turned away and focused her attention instead on the bulletin board that was on the wall. Ms. Thomas had hung up the family portraits they’d drawn on the first day of school, which felt like a thousand years ago. It was easy for Ruth to find hers, because it was the only picture with brown faces.

Well, actually that wasn’t true. Ruth let her eyes hopscotch over the other drawings until she found Christina’s. There was Christina, front and center, with Ms. Mina and Mr. Sam. There was her little brother, Louis. And in the far right corner, much smaller than the other bodies, was a brown woman wearing an apron and holding a plate of cookies. Ruth knew it was supposed to be Mama. Her mama floated there like an untethered astronaut.

Ruth imagined her swimming off the edge of Christina’s page, across the bulletin board, and settling into Ruth’s drawing, where she belonged.

Ruth felt a shove in her back and realized that while she had been busy daydreaming the line had started moving. Ruth muttered an apology to Lola, who stood behind her, and hurried to catch up to the others.

–

To be honest, Ruth had never really thought about the fact that her mama had to cook dinner for Christina’s family and then come to Harlem and cook all over again for her own. Maybe it was Christina’s drawing that got her thinking about this, but that night at home, she found herself watching Mama cook chicken in the pan. As usual, Granny was dozing in front of the TV; she helped out where she could but that was less and less as she got older. “Mama?” she asked. “Don’t you get sick of doing everything twice?”

“What do you mean, baby?”

“You have to take care of Christina’s house and our house too,” Ruth said.

Her mama smiled. “Well, now,” she replied. “One I do for work. The other I do for love.”

Just then Rachel walked into the kitchen and snorted. “It’s still double the dishes,” she said.

Mama gave her a sharp glance. “Then maybe you should start doing your share of chores?”

It was at that moment Ruth remembered the maple leaf candy. “I have something to show you,” she announced. “They were on top of Maia’s birthday cupcakes.”

She dug her hand into her sweatshirt pocket and unwrapped the paper toweling. The leaf, however, had broken into pieces, some so fine they’d turned themselves back into granulated sugar.

“What’s that?” Rachel asked.

“A leaf made of candy,” Ruth answered.

“Okay.” Rachel laughed. “If you say so.”

–

After dinner, Mama told Rachel to take Ruth with her to play outside so she could sit down with Granny in the living room and put her feet up for a hot second. Ruth sat on the curb while Rachel and two of her friends giggled over the older boys shooting hoops in the lot across the street. “You see Joziah?” Denyce said. “He all that.”

Nia popped a bubble with her gum. “I heard he’s strapped.”

“What?” Rachel said. “That’s wack.”

Sometimes it seemed to Ruth that Rachel and her friends spoke a different language.

“He ain’t got no gun,” Denyce said. “He just like to tell people he do.”

A gun? Ruth didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud until the girls all stared at her. “Oh, look,” Nia said. “We shocked your baby sister.”

If Mama knew Rachel was anywhere close to the boys in this neighborhood who got into trouble, she would whup her and keep her locked inside.

“Leave me alone, Nia,” Ruth said. “I’m not bothering you.”

Nia smirked. “So what you sayin’?”

“Hey, Ruth,” Denyce asked. “How’s your fancy school?” She got up from the stoop and sat down next to Ruth. Nia followed suit, sandwiching her on the other side.

“Look at that,” Nia said, grabbing Ruth’s wrist. “I think your skin’s getting lighter.”

“You practically a ghost,” Denyce said, and both girls broke up laughing.

“Aight, you fools,” Rachel interrupted. “Leave her be. It ain’t her fault she smarter than both your brains put together.”

“I’m going inside,” Ruth announced, but she was pretty sure no one cared.

Her mama and Granny were on the couch, watching Wheel of Fortune . “What’s the matter, baby?” Mama asked.

“Nothing,” Ruth said. “I just wanted to take a bath.”

She went into the bathroom the four of them shared. The tub had a crack in it that was the shape of a lightning bolt, and Ruth used to think that the water would run right through Mrs. Nattuck’s ceiling, but since she’d never complained and they bathed every night, that probably wasn’t the case. She ran the water and put on a shower cap to cover her hair and sank down to her shoulders. Then she lathered up soap on her washcloth. Her palms were pink, as pink as Christina’s. She flipped her hand over, to the light brown of her wrist and forearm. Her skin had always been lighter than Rachel’s; her sister had been dark as a berry her whole life. Was that why Ruth was the one who was going to Dalton?

Ruth picked up the washcloth and scrubbed at her left shoulder. She scrubbed so hard she could see the pink bloom of irritation under the brown of her skin.

It hurt.

It was beautiful.

–

On Monday, Ruth woke up before her alarm. She had brushed her teeth and dressed and packed up her schoolwork before her mama even came out of her bedroom. “Isn’t someone in a hurry!” Mama said, but she smiled.

Ruth couldn’t wait to get back to Dalton. Today they would be playing a math game and the winning team would get Halloween candy. She had practiced her times tables all weekend. She would win, and then she would share the candy with Maia and the other girls, and this time they would not just tolerate her, they’d welcome her.

When they reached Ms. Mina’s brownstone and went in the service entrance, Ruth raced up the stairs. She sat on a kitchen stool, kicking her legs, and printed out multiplication equations on a napkin. Ms. Mina came into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. “It’s just finished brewing,” Mama said. “I would have brought it up to you.”

“Oh, I know that, Lou,” she answered. “I was up all night with the baby and my body simply couldn’t wait another second.” She glanced at Ruth, who was now solving her equations. “Well, look at you !” Ms. Mina said. “And I can barely get Christina out of bed!”

But this wasn’t true because at that moment Christina came into the kitchen, wearing a rhinestone headband, to pick up her school lunch from Mama.

–

There were two teams. Ms. Thomas randomly divided the students in half, and set up a buzzer on a desk in the middle of the classroom. One member of each team would face off as she recited a multiplication equation. The first person to hit the buzzer and say the correct answer would get to shoot a ball made of masking tape into one of three baskets. The farthest one was worth the most points. At the end of the game, the team with the most points would win.