“Okay, okay,” Ricky said, holding his hands up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to imply that your traditions were misogynistic, or something.”
I sucked in my bottom lip, dropping my gaze to the timer. Two minutes left. Suddenly, I wished that Tabatha’s engagement hadn’t come up, that Ricky hadn’t pressed me for details, that I hadn’t provided them. Chris’s reaction to the Knocking traditions had been immediate acceptance, and he had merged into our household so seamlessly that Momma had taken to joking that he probably had Ghanaian ancestry. “He looks like a village boy from Obosomase,” she teased, watching him pile his plate with waakye at one of the Naperville Ghanaian shindigs. She’d made her preference for the ethnic makeup of her daughters’ future husbands explicit long ago, down to a ranking system: first, a Ghanaian boy,* then Nigerian （“the alata fo are like our cousins”）， then assorted West African, followed by Black American or the larger African diaspora, and finally, reluctantly, an obor?nyi,* with no consideration for anyone else. Once, during Tabatha’s short-lived fling with a sweet, very eligible bachelor named Adesh, Momma had called me up in hysterics. “You have to advise your younger sister against what she is doing with this boy,” she had said. “Sri Lankan? That is too many traditions!” If Ricky’s first thought about the Knocking was that it was misogynistic and antiquated, then he wouldn’t stand a chance against Dorothy Appiah’s assessments.
I must have been quiet for a long time, because across from me, Ricky sighed. Then, unexpectedly, his hand covered mine. I looked down at it in shock, then back up again, focusing just over his shoulder so I wouldn’t meet his eyes. He hadn’t touched me on purpose in a long time. The places where our skin met burned like live wire. It took all the discipline Ricky claimed I lacked to not pull away.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry. That was rude. You just taught me something really neat about your culture, and I shouldn’t have been judgmental about it. Thank you for taking the time to explain.”
I slipped my hand out from beneath his under the guise of picking up my ob-gyn review, my heart hammering away in my chest.
“It’s fine,” I said, wondering if he could see my hands tremble as I turned the pages. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ricky smile, slow and syrupy, like he knew exactly what effect his little flirtations were having on me. The pretty ones, I thought, are the worst.
“What I want to know, though,” he mused, “is how much you’re worth. Four cows? Sixty yards of cloth? Your weight in gold?”
I huffed, even as I willed my pulse to slow.
“Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t afford me,” I said. “How much time is left on that clock?”
Twelve
It had been two and a half months since my last meeting with Dr. Wallace, a short interim for an audience with someone of her station. But Dr. Wallace had a vested interest in my matching into a residency program. As the face of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, she had fought tooth and nail for every Black student who had walked through the hallowed halls of our medical school over the last fifteen years, and her ability to continue doing so was at least in part contingent on our success in the Match.* So when she called for a check-in meeting, I wasn’t entirely surprised. Besides, I had something else I wanted to discuss.
“I saw that you honored* peds. Congratulations,” she said. “Peppermint?” she offered, waving toward the latest addition to the disaster of her desk: a clear glass jar of mints.
Remembering Ricky’s declaration that I was a Peppermint Patty, I shook my head.
“Thank you,” I said. Dr. Berber, of all people, had given me a glowing evaluation. Angela is always upbeat and ready to learn, it said. Her fund of knowledge is impressive for a fresh third-year.
“Ob-gyn might be harder,” she said. “But you’ll do fine. Keep this up, and I think we’ll be in the clear for your residency apps. Now. About your project.”
I’d finished the first draft of my DVT prophylaxis literature review weeks ago, and it had been sitting, unaddressed, in my PI’s, Dr. Donoghue’s, email inbox ever since. I told Dr. Wallace as much, and she scowled, crossing her arms.
“That’s not good,” she said. “There are some big conference deadlines coming up. Email him again to check in.” She tapped her chin. “What about another project? Just in case this one falls through. There were a few others on that list that I thought looked promising.”