“What? You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve always made sure she has lovely friends. Running with the wrong crowd is not how Xandra rolls,” I insist. Dad shoots me a fierce look that tells me this is no time for defensive language. I can’t help myself.
“I’m not so sure,” Graham says. A heavy silence hangs over the line. We’re each waiting for the other to speak. I stand up from the table and take the phone out to the front porch for some fresh air and distance from Dad’s burning ears.
“Xandra’s acting out at school, sort of trying on a new persona. I think she’s being influenced by Dash.”
“Please, what does Xandra have to push up against other than the occasional bad hair day ’cause no one in ten miles of that school knows how to do a tight braid.” I cannot believe this is what I’m hearing. This certainly is not worth all the fuss over calling Graham back. “Her life is the dream life. All the freedom in the world at Pemberley, none of the responsibilities. Don’t go creating extra issues, Graham, we’ve already had enough. You always were the more dramatic of the two of us.”
“Maybe she’s out of sorts from seeing her mama macking all over some White dude she had never met? Do you think THAT could be it?” I’m stunned speechless. “I thought we agreed we would talk to each other about any relationship we were in before introducing the person to Xandra.”
My eyes are burning with instant tears. “She has met Leo,” I stumble, skipping over yet another failure at our coparenting communication agreement. Section 18A—what to do when dating someone new. From what mutual friends tell me, Graham’s had a not-so-secret revolving door of women since he moved to New York. I figured my first relationship since our divorce was none of his business.
“Yeah, she told me. She met Leo AFTER she saw the two of you all over each other in the driveway. After you had been together most of the summer. Seriously, Nina? Even I didn’t expect that coming from you.”
I close my wet eyes, dropping my head in my hands. I didn’t know. Thinking back now, Xandra was a little tense when Leo came in and I introduced the two of them. She gave short answers to the questions Leo asked and was eager to get out of the house. The moment was certainly out of character the more I consider it. Xandra’s usually a chatterbox. I just figured she was itching to meet up with friends for an end-of-summer hurrah before I took her back east to school. The whole encounter was five minutes, six tops, and Xandra was gone.
“If that had been me going at it with some random chick in front of Xandra, you would have ripped my head off, and you know it.” Graham pauses, letting his proclamation sink in over the line.
“Leo isn’t random,” I utter, barely audible.
“Listen, I don’t know if having a dude in your life is what’s rubbing Xandra raw or if it’s something else completely, who can tell with teenagers.” I’m relieved that Graham has downshifted from copanicking back to coparenting as he shares a litany of additional concerns about Xandra’s behavior that he gleaned from a conversation with her dorm parent.
“Just let me know if she opens up to you, okay? I got to go.”
Dad bellows from the open living room window to the front porch, “Nina Morgan Clarke, what are you doing out there like someone collecting signatures. Get back in this house and tell me what’s going on with Xandra.” He slams the window frame shut, my signal to hustle up and spill. Walking in, I’m struggling how to tell my dad that Xandra saw me kissing a strange man—and that she’s also hanging out with a friend her grandfather considered a no-good ragamuffin from the moment they met last year. I decide to tackle the easier of the two topics and leave Leo out of it.
Before I get through the front door, Fitzroy lays in, “So, what did Graham say? Is Xandra having trouble in class? You know I thought she was signed up for too many activities. She needs to focus on her studies.” Dad is pacing with concern.
“That’s not it, Dad.” I shake my head, caught up in my own worry of how me dating Leo is affecting Xandra and irritation with Graham claiming to know more about our daughter than I do. I used to know what every sigh, nose scrunch, and nail bite meant when it comes to Xandra. Now she’s keeping secrets from me, and I’m forced to rely on Graham to interpret her actions to determine which ones are worth reporting home.
“Graham was calling about some concerns he has with Xandra’s, uh, attitude in school.”
“What kind of concerns could he have? Xandra hasn’t given a single soul a problem one minute of her life. Morgan children do not fool around with their education.” Dad dismisses such nonsense with a wave of his hand. Next to a heavenly singing voice, Fitzroy Morgan’s greatest talent is short-term memory loss when it comes to any past failings of his family.
“Remember Xandra’s roommate from last year?”
“Yes, I remember that roommate, Nina. I remember telling you that I did not see the kind of polish on her necessary to get along in this world.” Fitzroy’s rubbing his hands together, distressed.
“Yeah, well, you may not have been a huge fan, but she and Xandra became pretty tight, so they decided to room together again this year.” The flare of Daddy’s nostrils speaks volumes. Today’s accusation is, Oh no, you did not let that happen. “She’s fifteen, Dad, she can choose to live with whomever makes her feel happy and safe when she’s so far from home.”
“You know I never understood why you sent her away to school when she could easily continue on for high school at Royal-Hawkins. Jeezum pees, Nina. You run the school and could have been watching her to make sure there’s not a thing shady going on.” When Dad rolls out the Jamaican Patois, it means one of two things: he’s reminiscing about his boyhood, or he’s bracing for a verbal standoff.
“Dad, you know I sent Xandra to boarding school for that exact reason, because I’m head of school and I have my eyes and ears on absolutely everything on campus. Xandra wanted to be able to have a normal high school life without being the head’s kid. Besides, Graham and all his siblings went to Pemberley, so I never stood a chance in that debate anyway,” I explain for the millionth time to my father, and really to myself. In my first year of my doctorate program, I didn’t have the energy to fight Clarke family tradition and Xandra’s badgering to apply to Pemberley. They had me beat. But it’s days like today I’m still searching for reassurance that it was the right thing to do by my baby.
Fitzroy met Xandra’s roommate fall of freshman year for Grandparents Weekend. When we reached Xandra’s dorm room, Dad stopped short and stared at the door. Designed on brightly colored card stock was Xandra’s name, as was her dormmate’s, Sha—A Green. Xandra was not in her room, but Sha-Dash-A was, and she informed Dad, with a daring look, that she preferred to be called Dash. Dad smiled tightly and sat balanced on the edge of Xandra’s bed, not taking his eyes off Dash.
Packing up her clarinet, Dash confidently answered questions as Dad peppered them her way. He wanted to know who her people were, where they were from, and what they did, as if our people were Jamaican royalty. Proper behavior and upbringing are valued by the Morgans, and Dad was putting Dash through the paces, politely and seeming genuinely interested. I knew exactly what Fitzroy was doing, determining if Dash was broughtupsy, his old-school term used to describe an expectation of manners.