Daddy offered his thumb to mark the “pro,” and because I wanted him on my side, I withheld vital information, such as nobody said “rap” anymore for “talking.” It was 1987, not 1967.
“Next, ninety-nine percent of Braithwaite’s students attend college. And eighty-seven percent of those students go on to the Ivy League—”
“And one hundred percent of everybody there are pasty-faced honkies. And anyway, Daddy, I don’t know if I want to go to the Ivy League.”
He extended a thumb on the other hand.
“I hear you. The presence of honkies is a big con. But another pro is that you have a fresh start at Braithwaite Friends without worrying about getting beat up. So we’ve got one con and four pros. Let’s turn to Toomer High.”
He put his hands back into fists.
“There are no honkies,” I said. “That should be, like, two fingers.”
“I’ll give you those, then. And you feel very comfortable among other Black students. Let’s give that credit for two more pros.”
Four fingers. My chest felt light. It was going to be okay.
He held out the other fist.
“Now let’s list the cons for Toomer. Your cousin Malcolm is graduating in June and probably headed to Howard, so he can’t look out for you. Con. Last fall, the City public schoolteachers went on strike and have threatened to go on strike again. Con. There’s a crack house three blocks down the street. Con. You got jumped by some unstable lunatic who tried to rip all your hair out of your head. Con. She scratched your beautiful face, too. Con. You got sent to the principal’s office. Con. If I hadn’t pulled out the business card of our family attorney and threatened to sue the school system, you’d have a suspension on your permanent academic record. Con.
“Thus, which school do you think I want my precious child to attend, Braithwaite Friends or Toomer High?”
I looked at his hands and the weight returned to my chest. He’d run out of fingers on the “con” hand.
“This is a complete setup.”
“Ailey, please don’t be mad at your daddy.”
“Too late. And don’t you expect me to play chess anymore. You’re a horrible opponent anyway. Worse than me, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
“You wound me deeply with those statements. And here I thought I was coming up on Bobby Fischer.” He put the empty pipe in his mouth and then took it back out. “Girl, you are just like your mama!”
“I’m ignoring you, Daddy. I might never speak to you again.”
I lay back down, flipping through the book that Nana had given me. It wasn’t a proper romance novel. Nobody ever got busy on a yacht in Greece, but it was good. This was the second time I’d read it, but it had aged well.
“This novel is by a Negro friend of my mother,” Nana had told me. “Miss Jessie Fauset would take tea at our house, whenever she visited the City. She was the assistant to the great W. E. B. Du Bois. Don’t you find that interesting?”
In my head, I gave the characters British accents, like on Masterpiece Theatre. They weren’t like the characters in the book Uncle Root had mailed to me. Back in the late 1930s, he had run into the book’s author at a party in the City, and Miss Zora Neale Hurston had been quite stylish, with a feather in her fedora, and fur trimming her blue duster. Uncle Root and she got to drinking the bug juice she’d brought along, and after a few sips of that, they talked about the best way to fry a catfish—head on or head off—but he had to cut the night short. Aunt Olivia had been shooting Miss Hurston and him dirty looks.
As I read, I forgot I was supposed to be angry, and when my father took his break from making his notes on his patient files, I told him the story. My father told me that Uncle Root had been wise to back away from that situation. No man could sleep soundly lying next to a jealous woman. It just wasn’t possible.
At Sunday dinner, Nana was smug. Private school was what she’d wanted for me all along. Ever since my big sister had attended Toomer High, she’d warned my parents it was not an appropriate place for children from the best families. It had been a lovely institution back when it was the City Preparatory School for Negroes, but those days were long over. She talked past me at the dinner table as if there were an empty seat beside her and told my parents thank goodness they had come to their senses. She pointed a slightly gnarled, coral-painted finger in my direction.
“Belle, you really should be training a more careful eye on her. Her oldest sister already has set a bad example. Lydia couldn’t even get into a good college with those mediocre grades of hers. And then she brought home some ruffian that she married?”