Jodi Picoult - Shine

Ruth faced off against Marcus first, and was given a cream puff of a question: 3 x 4. She rang the buzzer and tossed the tape ball into the trash can that was closest, because she didn’t want to risk missing completely and they were better safe than sorry. They rotated through two more times, and each time, Ruth won her heat (6 x 6, and the very tricky 8 x 9). Maia was on the other team, along with Christina. Ruth knew it wasn’t charitable, but when Maia screwed up and said 4 x 7 was 24, her stomach flipped with satisfaction.

Finally it was tied, and Ms. Thomas said they had to choose a designated shooter from each team to make a winning basket. It would be sudden death-the person who was picked would throw the tape ball and then the opposing team’s pick would do the same, until one of them missed. Ruth leaned back against the wall, waiting for her team to rally around Edward or Lucas, who were the most athletic in the class. But instead, someone suggested her name.

At first, she flushed with pride-was she being chosen because her team recognized her as an MVP? But then she realized that wasn’t what was going on here. “Yeah, Ruth,” Edward said, nodding. “You know how to play basketball, don’t you?”

Ruth nodded. She did know how -she’d watched neighborhood kids for years. But she’d never actually played the game herself.

“Of course she does,” said Lucas. “Duh.”

Reluctantly, Ruth took the tape ball and sank a basket into the farthest trash bin. Her team shouted and Lucas even gave her a high five.

The designated shooter for the other team was a tall boy named Jack who stuck out his tongue when he was concentrating, which wasn’t often. He narrowed his eyes and let the tape ball roll off his fingertips. He, too, made the farthest basket.

Ruth took the ball again. She was not an athlete. She could barely walk and sing simultaneously during the Christmas pageant at church. There was absolutely no way she could be lucky enough to succeed a second time around. Then she remembered how Mama said there was no such thing as luck, just prayers being answered. So even though Ruth was certain God had more important things on His mind, she called on Jesus under her breath, and made a second basket. A third. Her teammates went wild. Water into wine? Ha, Ruth thought. This newfound athletic skill was a true miracle.

Jack took the ball, bounced on the tips of his toes, and stuck out his tongue. He arched one arm up, but the tape got snagged on the cuff of his sweater and fell about six feet short of the closest trash can.

“We have a winner!” Ms. Thomas sang, above a chorus of Do over! and Not fair! Ruth’s team was hollering, patting her on the back and the shoulder, shouting her name. The teacher took out a bag of candy-Reese’s peanut butter cups and Nestlé Crunch bars and Gobstoppers-and everyone on Ruth’s team was allowed to stick their hand in and take a fistful.

Ruth made sure she got extra Reese’s, then walked to Christina’s desk. Maia was sitting on the top of it, whispering to Christina. “Want some?” Ruth asked, and she held out her cupped hands, letting them choose first.

“Everyone knows why you won,” Maia said.

Ruth lifted her chin a notch. “Because I knew my times tables.”

“More like because of how you look.” Maia tossed her hair. “I don’t want your dumb candy,” she said, and she walked away.

Ruth stared at her. Christina fished through the candy Ruth held, choosing a Reese’s. She unwrapped it and took a bite of the candy, leaving little ridges in the wake of her teeth. “I knew my times tables,” Ruth murmured.

“It’s not you, Ruth,” Christina said. She popped the rest of the candy into her mouth. “She just doesn’t like Black people.”

–

Ruth watched her granny’s hands twist Rachel’s hair, pulling and crisscrossing to magically create the neat cornrows that weaved across her scalp in parallel zigzags. Rachel winced and whined, like always, but the end result was the same: tight, even braids that fell down to her shoulders. “Done,” Granny pronounced, holding up the big hand mirror so that Rachel could see the back. “Ruth?”

Every other Sunday night, Granny washed and styled her granddaughters’ hair. Granny had run her own place for years before it got to be too much for her to stand on her feet all day. Ruth climbed onto the stool, her hair still damp under the towel.

Granny’s hands rooted through Ruth’s hair, her fingernails scraping the scalp in a massage. She took her comb and made the first part.

“Wait-can you put the hood thing on and use the hot comb instead?” Ruth blurted out. “Please?”

Granny laughed, her hands on her wide hips. Ruth had always thought her granny looked like the sail of a ship-heavy-masted, wide, implacable. “Lou, you hear this? Queen of Sheba here wants a press.”

Mama, who was sewing a button onto one of Ruth’s white school shirts, looked up from where she sitting at the kitchen table. “You should be grateful your granny’s doing anything to your hair,” she said. “We’re not running a salon.”

Granny was pulling tighter on her hair. “Ain’t never had no complaints before from my own grandbaby…”

“It’s not you,” Ruth said, hearing Christina’s words beneath her own. “It’s that I want to look more…grown up.”

What she wanted was to look like Maia, with her river of shining hair. But that was about as likely as Ruth waking up in a millionaire’s penthouse. Granny and Mama exchanged a look, and then Mama shrugged.

“Fine,” Granny sighed. “Go get the comb.”

Ruth scrambled to the cabinet where they kept the bonnet dryer and hot comb. Granny set the drying cap over her head and then placed the comb on the metal coil of the stove. After the bonnet cut off, she ran the Super Gro through a section of hair. Ruth tried not to think about how she had explained this to the other girls; how they had looked at her like she was an alien.

She held still as Granny ran the comb through her hair; she’d been burned enough to know the consequences of fidgeting. By the time she was finished, Mama had mended two more shirts, let out one of Rachel’s skirts (“That girl grows like a weed,” she muttered), and darned a sock. Rachel walked into the kitchen to get an apple out of the refrigerator and looked at Ruth. “You goin’ somewhere special?” she asked.

“Just school.”

“It looks good,” Rachel said, as Ruth narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “Like that skater lady. Dorothy Hamill.”

“For real?” Ruth asked.

Rachel took a bite. “Nope,” she said.

“Rachel!” Mama warned, but her sister was already cruising out of the kitchen on a laugh.

“Don’t you listen to her, baby,” Granny said. “You beautiful, inside and out.”

She held up the mirror so that Ruth could see both the front and the back. Her hair was straight and shiny, curving just slightly at the bottom. “You know what would make this even more perfect?” Ruth said. “A headband.”

“So go get a headband,” Granny said. “You got that nice red one you wore at Easter.”

“Some of the girls in my class have the kind that sparkle,” Ruth said, as casually as she could manage. “I wish I had one.”

Mama didn’t even look up from the sock she was mending. “We’re not made of money, Ruth,” she said, and she bit off the thread with her teeth.

–

On Columbus Day, Dalton was closed, but Mama still had to work. Rachel was invited to Nia’s apartment and Ruth tagged along to the Upper West Side to play with Christina. Since Mr. Sam was out, Christina had Mama set up his movie projector, so that she and Ruth could watch the Wonderful World of Disney films that lined his shelves in their round metal tins. He worked in television, and their house was full of treasures Ruth could appreciate, like that, and others she couldn’t-like the framed, signed photographs of movie stars she didn’t know: Doris Day, Jack Lemmon, Steve McQueen.