Jodi Picoult - Shine

Ruth and Christina ate grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup that Mama had made, and watched Cinderella . Christina was the only person Ruth knew who could watch a movie in her house and not have to go to a movie theater. They sat on Mr. Sam’s red leather couch and shared an afghan that Ms. Mina had knitted when she was going through a crafty phase.

When the prince kissed Cinderella at the end, Christina said, “You know, it doesn’t just work like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you can marry a prince if you’re some nobody. You have to have a title.”

Ruth thought about this. “Like a book?”

“I don’t know,” Christina admitted. “But not everyone has one. Maia said.”

Maia said . Of course. “Does she have a title?” Ruth asked.

Christina considered this. “Bossypants?”

A surprised laugh bubbled out of Ruth. Then Christina was laughing, too, and it was the two of them and no one else, like it used to be.

Christina turned to her when the projector started flapping, the film having run its course. “Now what should we do?” she said. “Want to see my new Malibu Barbie?”

We . Was there a better word in the English language?

“Christina?” Ruth said hesitantly. “This is fun, right?”

Christina looked at her sidelong. “Yeah, weirdo,” she said, grinning.

“So when we’re at school, then…are you mad at me?”

There was a pause. “No,” Christina said, but in that hiccup of time, Ruth heard a thousand yeses. “Why would you even think that?”

“Because you act different when it’s not just us.”

“No I don’t!”

“You do,” Ruth said, but now she was second-guessing herself. Was she imagining it? Christina had been nothing short of nice all day. Maybe the problem wasn’t Christina, but Ruth herself. It wasn’t like it was Christina’s job to defend Ruth from Maia; Ruth had to do that on her own. So why was she blaming Christina?

Suddenly she realized Christina was crying. “Why are you being so mean to me?” she said, just as Mama walked in to take away their empty plates.

“Christina?” Mama said, alarmed. She crouched down and gave Christina a tissue from her own pocket to dry her face. “What happened?”

“I don’t want to play anymore,” Christina sobbed, red-faced, not even looking at Ruth.

“Okay, then, you go on up to your room, and I’ll bring you some dessert. I baked fresh blondies. That sound good to you?”

Christina sniffled and nodded, and a minute later, she was gone. Mama folded her arms. “What did you say to upset Ms. Christina?”

The truth? Ruth thought. But instead she lowered her eyes. “Christina’s only my friend when we’re here,” she confessed. “The minute we walk through the door of school, everything changes.”

She expected Mama to get mad at her for lying. After all, it had been nearly six weeks and Ruth had gone on and on about how great school was, how many friends she had made. But instead Mama sighed and took Ruth’s hand. “Baby girl,” she said, “ nothing changes.”

–

Two days later, Ms. Thomas got a student teacher. Miss Van Vleet was in college and would be coming to their classroom only on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. She would help the students who needed extra work with their writing, and she would be teaching some of the lessons. But that first day, her main job was to learn everyone’s name, and she was really, really bad at it.

She called Maia Mara, and Lola Lulu . She mixed up Edward and Lucas.

Ms. Thomas tried to help her by giving her a stack of graded papers to hand out after recess. Miss Van Vleet wandered around the classroom, sometimes asking other students for help. Some of the boys tried to confuse her as a prank, and after that, when she had a question, she went straight to Ms. Thomas.

“Which one is Ruth again?” Miss Van Vleet asked.

Ms. Thomas looked up from where she was marking papers. She glanced around the room to see where Ruth was sitting, and Ruth met her gaze. Instead of pointing, she turned to Miss Van Vleet and hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “She’s the girl with the red sneakers.”

Ruth looked down at her red Keds. There were three other girls in her classroom who had the same shoes.

On the other hand, she was the only Black student.

–

That night, Rachel was being grounded without television privileges because she’d decked a girl for stealing her HoHos at lunch. That punishment wouldn’t have bothered Ruth, who would have happily sat in her room reading, but Rachel had never willingly picked up a book, as far as Ruth could remember. So instead, while Ruth tried to memorize words for her spelling test, she had to block out the sound of Rachel galumphing around the room they shared, trying to find some other way to occupy her time.

“You want me to test you?” Rachel offered.

“Why?”

There was probably a catch. With Rachel, there was always a catch. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her sister; it was just that they saw the world through two different lenses.

“Because I’m being nice. And because I’m bored as all get out.” She reached out her hand, and hesitantly Ruth gave her the list of words. Rachel climbed onto her bed and stuffed a pillow behind her head. “Baby words,” she muttered, reading them over. “Means . ”

“M-E-A-N-S.”

“Corn.”

“C-O-R-N.”

“Argue.”

“A-R-G-U-E.”

“This is stupid,” Rachel said. “You don’t even have to try. Why doesn’t your teacher bump you up a level?”

Ruth didn’t know the answer to that; there were other students who had more challenging words, although she had never gotten less than a 95 on a spelling test.

“Well, I know why, even if you don’t,” Rachel said. “Because your teacher doesn’t think a Black girl can be at the top of the class.”

“That’s not true,” Ruth immediately said, defending Ms. Thomas. “She knows I’m smart.”

“Uh-huh,” Rachel answered, in a way that meant anything but that.

“She doesn’t even see me as Black,” Ruth countered.

Rachel laughed. “Yeah, ’cause she’s too busy seeing you as a charity case.”

Ruth knew that her sister meant this as a dig, but she fiercely believed that Ms. Thomas saw more than just her skin color. She saw a girl who always said please and thank you and who never interrupted someone else if they were talking. She saw a student who was one of the best readers in the class, who loved learning astronomy. She saw a good listener, a willing friend.

She saw someone who was one of them.

Smugly, Ruth told Rachel what had happened that day at school. How Ms. Thomas had identified her.

“You really think the reason she pointed you out by your sneakers was because it was the only thing she could use to describe you?” Rachel asked.

That was all it took-that chink in the foundation, that worm of a question-for Ruth to peek behind the fancy wrapping of the story she’d created in her own mind. The justification, the wishful thinking-it was swept away by the broom of doubt like so much smoke.

Ruth knew she was partly right: Ms. Thomas had been showing a kindness by not singling Ruth out for her appearance. She was trying to be inclusive by not calling Ruth “the Black girl.”

But that was because to Ms. Thomas, to Maia, to Miss Van Vleet-to everyone in that school-Black wasn’t just any adjective.

It was something they’d never want to be.

–

“I know you don’t want to be my friend,” Ruth said by way of prefacing her conversation with Christina in the sedan on the way to school. “But can I ask you something?”