Bright Purple: Color Me Confused with Bonus Content (2 page)

“I
CAN
’
T DEAL WITH THIS RIGHT NOW
,” I
TELL
J
ESS, TURNING AWAY FROM HER
toward the row of sinks. I finally emerged from the whirling purple stall, but I’m afraid to leave the restroom just yet. Maybe I think I’m going to hurl again. Or maybe I just don’t want anyone to see me—or more honestly, to see us—
together
. I glance at my reflection in the mirror above the sink, instantly trying to erase the expression of disgust that’s carved into my forehead.
Try to look natural,
I tell myself as I smooth back some strands of my long dark hair, noticing that I’m due for some straightening again.
Try to act normal,
I think as I pretend to touch up my lip gloss with this new shade of Hot Cocoa that I just bought at Macy’s.
Act as if stuff like this happens all the time.
yeah, right.

“Sorry,” Jess mutters from behind me. I can feel her watching me now. I wish she would just leave. Just leave me alone! Or maybe she could just vanish altogether.

“My mom is supposed to pick me up at two,” I say as I run water and squirt some pink liquid soap onto my hands. This is a total lie, but it seems necessary. I know that I won’t be able to ride home in Jess’s car today. Or ever again, for that matter. The mere idea of being contained in such a small space with her for more than a few seconds makes me feel nauseous. I continue standing in front
of the bathroom sink, washing and washing my hands, as if I’ve just turned into a germ-a-phobe or developed OCD or something. But the truth is I do feel slightly contaminated just now. I think it happened when my hand brushed against hers when she gave me my purse. It’s as if I became defiled.

“Why
is your mom picking you up?” Jess asks. I can hear the suspicion in her voice and it irritates me. Of course, I’m lying. Who wouldn’t under these circumstances? But I continue just the same, digging my hole even deeper.

“I promised to help her find something for her friend’s wedding,” I say lightly. “Remember Janelle? She’s getting married next month and I—”

“Yeah, okay.” She throws a strap of her backpack over one shoulder, then walks toward the door. I continue washing my hands.

“Sorry,” I say. “I guess I just kinda forgot.”

“See ya then,” she says.

“Yeah, see ya,” I echo, knowing that I never want to see her again. I wish that I’d never met her. Wish that we’d never been friends. I turn off the faucet and feel hot tears coming down my cheeks now. I dry my hands and face on the rough paper towel and stare at myself in the mirror again. Why me? Why does something like this have to happen to me? These bright purple walls and florescent lighting make my normally bronze complexion look like a dark ashen gray, almost as if I’m dead. And that’s just how I feel inside—
dead
—as if someone has just knifed me from behind and all the blood has drained out of my body and I am really not here at all. Walking dead.

Then a couple of girls I’ve never met come into the restroom, and I can feel them looking at me, giggling about some private joke. Maybe they know about Jess. Maybe they suspect that I am like
her too. I turn and leave the restroom, hurrying away, looking for a place to escape to. But mostly, I look to see whether Jess is still hanging around, maybe looking for me, waiting to see whether my mom is really coming to get me, or if it was just a lie. Of course it was a lie. Get a clue, Jess!

But, feeling guilty for lying as well as desperate, I pull out my cell phone and call my mom.

“I thought you were with Jess,” she says with some impatience.

“I was, Mom, but something came up,” I tell her. “Kind of an emergency.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“Yeah. But I need a ride, Mom. Or I suppose I could take the bus.”

“No, no,” she says quickly, just as I knew she would. My mom has this big phobia about me using mass-transit systems. She thinks someone is going to attack me or mug me or rape me or, perhaps worst of all, use some racial slur against me. And so we arrange for her to drive by and pick me up at Macy’s west entrance.

“But I can’t be there for about an hour,” she tells me.

I complain a little, but she insists it’s the best she can do.

“I’m sure you can find something to keep you busy,” she tells me.

So, worried that I’ll run into Jess again, I go into a certain store that she has always really, really loathed—Victoria’s Secret. I wonder about this as I walk around the crowded store. (They’re having their semi-annual sale this week.) I try to understand what exactly about women’s underwear was so abhorrent to her as I pretend to examine a lacy bra that’s about the same color as a yellow fire hydrant. I mean you’d think that a lesbian might get into a store like this, a place where lots of females are trying on skimpy undergarments and . . . Suddenly I feel sick to my stomach again.
What am I thinking?
It’s
hard to believe that Jess used to be my friend! My
best
friend! I lean over slightly, bracing myself against the big round table of size-36 bras as I take in a deep breath and attempt to erase these repulsive thoughts from my mind.

“Are you okay?” asks a concerned-looking sales clerk.

I stand up straight, still clutching the bright yellow bra. “Yeah,” I say quickly. “I just felt kind of faint, you know. Probably low blood sugar or something.”

She nods. “Did you want to try that on?” she asks, pointing to the bra still in my hands.

“Sure,” I tell her, noticing that it really is a pretty good buy. “If you have it in a B cup.”

So off she goes in search of the right size, and before long I am waiting in line to try it on, along with several other bras as well. This sales girl is good. She managed to find several more in styles she thought I might like—all in shockingly bright colors too. She must think I’m a bright freak. Oh well. I’m just killing time anyway, right? That and avoiding Jess. I can’t imagine a safer place to do it. That is, unless Jess has been stalking me and is secretly hiding in here somewhere. I glance nervously down the hall in the waiting area. But I don’t see her. To be honest, Jess would stand out in this crowd. Perhaps that’s one reason I always assumed she never liked shopping here. Jess is not exactly fat, but she is thick and wide and stocky. Great for a soccer goalie, but a store like this doesn’t exactly stock her size. Besides that, she pretty much sticks to sports bras. I figured that was why she avoided this store. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe her aversion was something more.

I study the women and girls who are waiting in line ahead of me. I wonder if any of them are lesbians. Do any of them have lesbian friends? And how does a person deal with such things anyway? It
hurts my head to think about it. Finally, I go into the softly lit room; I think the dim light is supposed to make the bras or your body look better. I take my time as I try on the vibrant selection, and to my surprise the fire-hydrant one seems to fit perfectly.

By the time I wait in line to purchase it, it’s almost time for my mom to get here. Keeping my head down, I hurry down the mall toward Macy’s. But when I’m about halfway there, I question this. Why should I have to keep my head down and act like I’m ashamed? I’m not the one who’s made the shocking announcement. I have nothing to hide. But even as I tell myself this, I am not convinced. I know how people are, how they think. As soon as word gets out about Jess’s sexual orientation, I will be implicated. Guilty by association. My life is over.

“W
HAT WAS THE BIG EMERGENCY
?” M
OM ASKS AS
I
CLIMB INTO HER
V
OLVO
and slam the door behind me. “Did something happen to Jess?”

I try to laugh that one off. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“What?” She turns and looks at me with arched brows. “Is she okay?”

“That depends on how you define
okay
.”

“What?” demands my mom. “What is the matter with Jess?”

My mom and I have this unusually open relationship. Some kids assume it’s because my mom is pretty young for a mom, but I think it’s mostly because it’s just me and mom—my dad split a long time ago. But it’s also possible that this closeness is due to the fact that she’s Caucasian and I’m biracial. As a result, she has spent a lot of time talking to me and counseling me, trying to prepare me for all the “challenges” that she has always assumed would come my way. Fortunately, my challenges (well, until today) have not been all that challenging.

“Do you really want to know?” I ask her, unsure if I can actually say these words out loud.

“Of course I want to know, Ramie. What is wrong with Jess?” Mom stops for a red light, then suddenly turns and peers at me with wide blue eyes. “She’s not pregnant, is she?”

“Mom!”
But even as I act shocked by her question, I’m thinking it would be highly preferable, at least to me, if Jess
was
pregnant. I seriously think I could deal with something like that.

“Well, you know me. Since I got pregnant when I was only twenty, well, I suppose I just have some natural paranoia about that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, Mom, believe me,
I know.
” Like how many lectures have I had on this subject? Not that she should be worried. I made an abstinence pledge years ago, and I have no intentions of backing out of it anytime soon. Of course, my mom, who is not a Christian, doesn’t really get this. And I suppose that’s the reason she always feels like she has to be on her guard about these things.

“So.” Mom sighs as she proceeds across the intersection. “That’s a relief. But tell me, Ramie, what
is
wrong with Jess? Did she get in trouble with her parents over something? What’s up? Tell me.”

“It’s just so horrible,” I begin, trying to think of some way to say this thing, some way to get the words out without starting to feel physically ill all over again.

“What is it, Ramie?” says Mom with real sympathy. “Oh, please don’t tell me that Jess is—is sick. One of my clients just found out her son has leukemia, the really bad kind. Oh, please tell me that Jess doesn’t have—”

“No!” I snap at my mom. “She does not have cancer.”

“Oh good.” Mom sighs again. “So, what is it then?”

Okay, God forgive me, but I’m thinking I’d prefer that Jess
did
have cancer. Not something as serious as my mom’s client’s son, of course. And I do feel bad about this. I know it just shows that I’m a selfish and horrible person, but at least they have cures for cancer nowadays, don’t they? But can anyone cure gay?

“Jess is a lesbian!” I blurt.

My mom is quiet for about a minute, as if she is taking this in. “Well, that’s not so bad, Ramie.”

“Not so bad?” I practically scream. “Jess is—rather, she
was
—my best friend. We have been best friends for like . . . like, forever! How can she possibly be a lesbian?”

Mom just nods, like she’s still processing this news flash. But I can tell she’s not greatly disturbed by it. I’m sure this is because of two things. (1) She’s a family counselor, so she’s “seen it all,” and (2) She is
not
a Christian, and she thinks homosexuality is all okay. Well, fine. A lot of good it did for me to dump on her like this. I turn away from her and glare out the passenger’s side window. I can’t believe my best friend does something like this and then my mom takes her side. Why couldn’t I have had a Christian parent? Someone who gets me?

Then it occurs to me that Jess
does
have Christian parents, strong Christian parents! It was probably mostly due to their influence, and Jess’s too, that I ever started going to church in the first place and, consequently, that I gave my heart to the Lord when I was twelve. I remember how happy her family was for me. I can also recall about a year later when Mr. LeCroix took Jess and me out for ice-cream sundaes, shortly after we signed our abstinence pledges at church, and I remember how he gave us both our True Love Waits rings. I twist the thin band of gold around my finger and wonder how Jess’s parents are going to handle this. Maybe they won’t. Maybe Mr. LeCroix will put his foot down and forbid it. Maybe he will tell Jess that she cannot be gay, that the Bible will not allow it, and that will be the end of this whole miserable business. Oh, if only life were that simple.

“Ramie.” My mom says my name in that tone that suggests that she’s been talking and I haven’t been listening.

“Huh?”

“I was just telling you that you’re going to have to deal with this.”

“Deal with it?”

“Yes. you need to accept that Jessica is homosexual. And it’s not her fault; it’s just the way she is. People are born that way, Ramie. And the sooner you can accept this, the sooner you can help her with—”

“Help
her?”
I turn and stare at my mother.

She nods. “Yes. Jessica is going to need help with this, Ramie. It’s not easy telling people about your sexual orientation. It was very brave of her to come out to you. That shows she really trusts you, but more than ever right now she needs her friends to support—”

“Forget it!” I firmly shake my head. “I am
not
her friend, Mom. Not anymore. If Jess wants to be a lesbian, well fine, that’s her stupid choice and I don’t have to—”