The Problem with the Other Side by Kwame Ivery

Author:Kwame Ivery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2021-06-23T18:32:17+00:00

Sallie

For the last couple of days, I’ve been sitting with Uly, his sister, and their friends in the Rainbow Relief corner. Our teachers have given us permission to sit there during the second half of our lunch hour instead of sitting in our usual Enrichment room. The Rainbow Relief corner is something Uly’s sister started a couple of weeks ago to help underrepresented kids feel more represented. Can I be honest with you? I so wish my sister had thought of it first. It’s such a bacon idea. The setup is pretty simple: there’s a table with some chairs around it, and it’s all in front of a wall decorated with a rainbow-designed sheet painted by Uly’s friend Marilyn, and the table has a rainbow sheet on it too, and the chairs are painted rainbow. It’s really quite beautiful.

What’s not so beautiful is the way I feel whenever I sit there. I feel like maybe I’m a traitor to my sister. She even told me the other day, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t think you’re a traitor for sitting at that table every day.” I told her, “I’m not sitting there as your campaign manager, I’m sitting there as Uly’s girlfriend. Just like when I’m making calls for you to get on the Knightly News, I’m not making those calls as Uly’s girlfriend, I’m making them as your campaign manager.”

My sister told me, “I don’t even know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

I explained, “Just because I’m your campaign manager doesn’t mean I can’t live!” She rolled her eyes and walked away. Actually, stormed away.

Life at the Rainbow Relief table isn’t always so great either. Uly’s sister always keeps at least two chairs between her and me. And whenever we’re stuck being the only two people at the table, she barely glances in my direction and she looks the way you might look when you’re dining with the Grim Reaper, only more miserable. But she doesn’t look that way when other people are there. And you should see the way her entire mood changes when her friends—mostly black girls—come to the table. She’s suddenly all smiles, all laughs, all talk . . . sides of her I’ve never seen before. As I watch her easily interacting with her friends I find myself feeling jealous of their easy interactions. I find myself wishing I knew the secret knock that would make her unlock her heart and let me in the way I know she would if I was a black girl dating her brother. Sometimes I hear her and her pals talking about things that make me feel like a Greek person sitting in the middle of France. Weaves? New growth? Hot combs? 40s? Old E’s? Naps in the kitchen? DL? Purple drank? But I wouldn’t dare ask them to translate.

As for Regina’s friends, sometimes I think they hate me more than Regina does. I can tell by the way they look at me that they’re not fans.

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