CHAPTER 1
Mom wasn’t gorgeous, but she carried herself with an understanding that she was, and people tended to take her at her word. They’d indulge in a few extra seconds to watch her when she walked by, or hold the door open for her a minute too long, or they’d ferry her drinks at receptions like this one—especially men. No one ever saw Mom’s set, I-told-you-so chin, an inheritance from Gramma, who was gentle and sweet-faced but barbed with the nerve to leave her husband in the 1950s and take her maiden name back. No one saw the severity of Mom’s gaze, as if she were glaring at you over a set of invisible glasses, the way her dressmaker great-grandmother would have scrutinized a garment, her mind drafting a pattern of gathers and tucks. With Mom’s eyes, hair, and complexion the same auburn shade, it was as if she’d been cast out of bronze, not made of flesh and blood like the rest of us. Perhaps her coloring was the unknown of her, inherited from a nameless father.
What people saw of her were the soft things: her dimples, her curves, the tiny zigzag curls of her voluminous mane. They noted the proud way she owned a room, which she could do, being five foot nine with slim, muscled limbs. And more than anything, they talked about how brilliant she was. How accomplished.
I’d been hearing this my whole life, how wonderful and amazing Mom was. So I hung back from it all, loitering in the rear of the chandeliered hotel ballroom by the cheese-ball station. I’d sampled all the different kinds except a loaf rolled in rainbow sprinkles. The “Birthday Party” flavor looked questionable as hell, but why not? Just as I scooped a big dollop, Mom appeared from the crowd of Stonepost College alumni, who unlike the confetti sprinkles were all one color: white.
“Noni, sweetie.” She kissed my forehead while I burned with embarrassment. “The program’s about to start. Let’s head up front.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay right here.” Blending in with the wall while snacking on weird cheese was my superpower.
“I’d like for you to go up with me.”
“Mom.” I sighed. But who could blame me for my annoyance? This felt like the ninetieth reception she’d dragged me to, and her multicity meet and greets were merely stops along the route to where I’d be stuck all summer: Magnolia, Virginia, a town with a smaller population than my high school. Worse, this was my first summer before college and my last summer with my best friend. And what was even more awful was that I had to turn down an internship that I was insanely lucky to get. Instead, I’d be trapped in a rural county in the middle of nowhere. The closest I’d get to an eighteenth birthday party would be this blob of cheese squatting on a Chinet plate. Even though said blob was surprisingly delicious, having to be here wasn’t fair.
A bristly-bearded guy with a nameplate clipped to his shirt got Mom’s attention as I helped myself to more cake-batter-cream-cheesiness. “Dr. Castine, we’re going to go ahead and get things rolling if it’s okay with you.”
“Absolutely. Thank you.” Taking my elbow, she led me to the front of the crowded ballroom. “Sweetheart, I need your help.”
“With what?”
“With opening the program. The development office wants you to introduce me tonight.”
She wanted me to make a public address? Was she kidding? “No thank you,” I said emphatically.
“Noni, I know. It’s last-minute. They just thought it would underscore the meaning of Stonepost’s history. I agree.”
“Mom, you know I get nervous about this kind of thing.”
“I know, honey. But you can’t back out.”
“Back out? I never backed in.”
“Noni, you’ll be fine.” She showed me a folded sheet of paper. “I need you to do this. Please, just this once. Your name’s already on the program.”
Sure enough, there I was, listed in print. “Mom! What the hell!”
“Watch your language.” She spoke under her breath. “This’ll take five minutes. I know you’re anxious, but you’ll be fine.” Before I could protest again, she guided me behind a set of curtains, then clipped a microphone battery pack to my sash. “Just thread this right through your top,” she instructed. I unbuttoned the lace-fronted jumpsuit I’d sewn for my graduation, snaking up the thin cord. Mom clipped the tiny lavalier mic to the collar.
The bearded guy waited outside the draping, instructing, “Just push the lever on the pack to turn it on. The mic won’t sound like it’s amplifying, but it’s working.”
“Can you feel the button?” Mom asked. “There’s a speech for you on the podium.” She wrapped her arm around me. “You’ll do fine.”
I was nervous. I knew I should take deep, calming breaths. But I was also irritated. How could she put me up to this? Instead of sucking in any kind of zen vibes, I pushed short breaths out, like a pissed-off dragon exhaling smoke.
“About that speech, Dr. Castine,” Bristlebeard said. “The version on the podium is ours, with edits.”
Now Mom was the pissed-off dragon. “Oh, come on.”
“We felt the naming issue…” He spoke quietly while I fought every urge to walk away.
She cut him off. “I’ve omitted the idea from our other receptions, but this is the one event where I feel the audience will be conducive to hearing—”
“The team respects your judgment, but reconsidering…”
“… that I would like to move toward renaming this college after the Black man who founded it?” She spoke in both a whisper and a growl.
“It wasn’t my decision. The board…”
A slow groan leaked from Mom’s parted lips. In theater terms, the “boards” meant the stage. But in college-administration speak, “the board” meant the board of directors, a committee of bigwigs who criticized Mom’s every move. The man seemed flustered. “They felt it’s important to hear your vision for Stonepost College, yes. But this is a fundraiser…”
By now we were in the front of the ballroom, my glob of cheese was in the trash, and Mom looked like she didn’t know who was more maddening: me or her staff member. Closing her eyes, she placed her hand on the small of my back, giving me a little push forward. “Just read what’s on the podium,” she muttered. “Their words.”
I didn’t want to read anyone’s words, but what could I do? Walk away? The truth was, I couldn’t win against Mom. In the end, she always got her way, with me at least. And that’s why I would be stuck in Virginia all summer.
I swear I heard at least one or two old ladies coo “Awww” as I stepped onstage. They saw a cute teen with a perpetual, overgrown adoration for her mother. I saw a mother who stood a few feet away with an unmistakable don’t-screw-this-up glare.
Just read the speech, I told myself. Just read it and get it over with. “‘Good evening, everyone. My name is Noni Reid. Not many seventeen-year-olds have the privilege of living in the house their great-great-great grandfather built.’”
I told myself to treat it like a class assignment, not that I was terribly good at those. “‘But I do. My ancestor Cuffee Fortune was enslaved most of his life.’” My palms sweated like an Olympic athlete’s armpits as I recited how Cuffee constructed a plantation house in central Virginia, in my mother’s janky little hometown.
Okay, maybe I phrased it differently.
“‘So he’d be proud to know that today, his descendants call his legacy home.’” It was all a lie, to me, anyway. What he built wasn’t my home. Our place in Wellesley with the gray siding and beige shutters was home, with my bedroom Alyssa and I redecorated one weekend, painting the walls an electric shade of purple that would’ve made Prince jealous.
But I just stood there talking about Cuffee Fortune. Mom was constantly lecturing me about our historic legacy even though tonight, her belief—that the college’s creation, not just its construction, was owed to Cuffee—was struck from the printed speech with neat lines in red pen. Sparks flew from her eyes, but how could I care about her disappointment when she didn’t care about mine? Presiding over Stonepost College—this was her dream.
Swallowing, I continued. “‘My ancestor was a field hand. But he was also a foreman. Because he oversaw the construction of Stonepost College. And only weeks ago, my mother took the helm of this historic institution. My mother and I, by our legacy, are…’”
As I took a sharp breath, my anxiety took a back seat to sadness. I missed my best friend, and I needed time at home to make things up after our rift. I wished more than anything that I hadn’t been forced to turn down the internship that would’ve shown off my talent, and what I worked hard for. All of this meant so much more to me than a man who had been dead way longer than I’d been living. “‘My mother and I, by our legacy, are…’”
Mom’s eyes bored into mine.
“‘My mother and I,’” I started again. But I couldn’t finish this speech that wasn’t mine. The words wouldn’t come, not with anger in their way. Tears squirted from the corners of my eyes, and my chin wrinkled like a dirty shirt balled up in a laundry basket. How dare my mom make me say all these lies about how grateful I was to go to Nowheresville, Virginia. I had been so excited about my last summer with my friends before college, and even more about landing such an awesome internship. It wasn’t fair that my parents’ divorce and Mom’s new job had to steal it all away.
The tears kept coming. Reaching behind my back, I fumbled but managed to flip the lever, turning the mic off. As I walked off the platform, speech unfinished, awws and coos wafted from the audience. Fine, let them think I was overcome with emotion from Cuffee’s story.
But Mom knew better, and she was furious. Still, she didn’t betray a speck of her anger, not to anyone who didn’t know her at least. But I knew from the tightness of her shoulders, from the narrowing of her eyes as she stood at the side of the stage. Leaning close, I spoke under my breath. “Mom.”
She fidgeted, shaking her head almost imperceptibly, making it clear she wouldn’t hear me out. It was maddening. “I told you,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to do this!”
Sharp gasps and shocked faces accosted me as I walked away. As I realized why, I wished I could sink through the floor. Why hadn’t I just thought for two seconds? Of course Mom had turned on her mic—as soon as she’d seen me falter, she’d gotten ready to take the podium at a moment’s notice. Sheer embarrassment forced more tears I’d been holding back to drip down my face, and all the snot I’d been snorting up to dribble out. Did I really hot-mic? In front of 150 old people?
But I had a right to be mad! She dragged me to this event, just like she was dragging me to rural Virginia. Pulling me away from my entire life: from my best friend, from my internship, from my very dreams to stand apart from her. Outside the ballroom doors, a couple checking in at the front desk stared at me. So did the clerk, and a bellhop wheeling an empty cart, asking, “Miss. You all right?”
Ignoring him, I pushed open a door to a conference room and slammed it shut. Leaning against the whiteboard, I slid like cake batter on a rubber spatula and ended up on the floor. Why did Mom have to make me stay in the middle of nowhere all summer?
Then I heard her high-pitched voice. Was she here?
She wasn’t. I could hear her on the other side of the wall, as clearly as if she were standing next to me.
“My gosh,” she said, earning chuckles from the audience. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.” More laughter. “But if you’ve ever raised teenagers, you know they can be unpredictable.”
“Like trained bears!” someone shouted. He was met with the audience’s laughter. Because everyone commiserated with my mother, not me.
“Please allow me to introduce myself.” She went on as if nothing happened. “I’m Dr. Radiance Castine, and this past May, I had the distinct honor of being inaugurated as the president of one of the most prestigious liberal arts colleges in the…”
Scrambling up from the floor, I couldn’t escape the sound of her voice fast enough.
CHAPTER 2
This past May, while Mom was having the distinct honor of being inaugurated as the president of a prestigious liberal arts college, I was in our living room in Wellesley, swishing through rows and rows of stage costumes hung up on a portable rack. My hands ran across a touchable kaleidoscope of fabrics: stiff netting, silky satin, plushy velour. I couldn’t believe I’d helped design and create so many garments.
But even with the dizzying textures and hues, the room felt stark and empty. Our furniture had been cleared out. Mom’s art had been lifted from the walls. It felt bare and bittersweet.
I couldn’t wait to leave for Boston University in the fall. And maybe I was prouder of myself for my work on the costumes than anything else I’d ever done. But why was my achievement, and my new beginning, paired with the end of living in the house I’d grown up in? And why did it take away my last summer with my best friend, Alyssa?
“Ta-da!” I brought out her dress for a featured scene.
“Oh my god!” She held it over her jeans and spun around. It was turquoise with a rosette of conch shells arrayed on the shoulder, and a sheer train ruffling behind like sea-foam. “This, like, makes up for me not getting the part as Ariel!” She’d cried about losing that role. That’s why I’d made her dress extra-gorgeous.
“This is so awesome! Thank you!” Alyssa Byrne’s eyes were bright and grateful. I had invited her over for a sneak peek of the wardrobe, as she was playing Miranda in The Tempest. Each spring, the local theater in Wellesley offered a program for high school seniors, called “Bards in the Burbs.” Kids were coached by professional actors and crew for a Shakespeare performance. Alyssa was one of the few students picked. So was I.
And so was Kendall Kovak, a whiz on the light board. She grunted as she riffled through the racks. “I’m surprised your mom let the theater have your place.” When the wardrobe room at the playhouse flooded, my parents had agreed to use our vacant living room as a temporary space, with our house being only a few blocks away. There, the theater’s professional costume designer Mindy and I sewed and stored costumes. Mindy and the show’s director said our family saved the whole production.
“I thought your mom hated theater,” Kendall said.
“It’s not that.” Mom had been taking me to plays a few times over the years. “She just wants me to be some big-time academic, just like her.”
“Dr. Castine is awesome. But if she had her way, Noni would be starting a PhD right now.” Alyssa laughed lightly, adjusting a lavender wig she pulled over her asymmetrical haircut. She’d known Mom for years.
“Exactly. My mom sees this as a hobby. Even though we did it for a grade.” The Bards program awarded class credit for show prep and rehearsal. Now that we’d just graduated, the show run would start in a few days, and we’d get a stipend.
Copyright © 2024 by Kalela Williams.
