Страница 47 из 77
“If it makes you feel better, after that, a bunch of us started challenging her,” Russell said. “‘Poetry isn’t math’ was our battle cry.”
It was what Sophie had said to the TA. A sort of retroactive relief—or maybe vindication?—crept over her. She’d had defenders in that class. Wingmen. Even if she hadn’t noticed them. Hadn’t noticed him. The truth was, she didn’t notice a lot of things at school. She kept her head down, wore blinders. It was a survival tactic. Only now did she wonder if it was a stupid survival tactic, like wearing a life jacket made of lead.
“I asked about you, after the class. Got some intel, about you being big city and all,” he said with a teasing smile. “But I never spotted you for more than a blur. Until tonight … I was debating saying something. You were looking pretty fierce, not fit for company.” He gri
“What? Is Ned like your spirit guide?”
He laughed. That big, open-chested laugh. “We lived all over, sometimes moving every year. All the places I lived, The Simpsons was like this one constant. They had it everywhere, sometimes it’d be English, sometimes dubbed, didn’t matter. It was my comfort food.”
“You make it sound sad,” Sophie said. “Living all those places sounds pretty great to me.”
“Things are not always how they seem.”
The look they exchanged was like a road map of the history they’d already traversed tonight. “So what was it really like?” Sophie asked.
“Ever see that movie Lost In Translation?” Sophie nodded. She loved that film. “Like that, over and over. But times a thousand because I’m black in places where they just don’t get black. In Korea, they called me Obama.” He sighed. “Before Obama’s presidency, I was Michael Jordan.”
“Is that why you came to school here?” Sophie asked. “Because you knew what to expect?”
Russell looked at her a while before answering. “Yeah. Some of that. Also, to piss off my parents. They thought I was crazy for coming here, but I thought I was making a grand statement. Like, hey, this is how it’s always been for me so I’m just going to go back for more.” He laughed, a little sadder this time. “Only problem is, they never got that and even if they did, being here isn’t really punishing them. Beyond the expensive tuition.” He threw up his hands. “Well, at least they’ve got a good journalism program.”
“And an excellent liberal arts curriculum,” Sophie added.
“And beautiful big-city girls who talk to themselves about Ned Flanders.”
“Right. I read about them in the catalog,” Sophie said, a little flustered by the beautiful comment. Also by the fact that they’d reached her dorm. “This is me.”
Russell took her hand. It was warm. “Ready to get your Hanukkah on?”
“Okily dokily,” Sophie said.
* * *
The suite was empty. Kaitly
She was trying to carry on the joke of the Rudolph sweaters. But maybe it was a testament to how far they’d come tonight that the joke fell flat.
“Show me where you live,” Russell said softly.
Sophie’s quarter of the suite was like that thing on Sesame Street: One of these things is not like the other. No posters or corkboards with friendship collages. On her bookshelf she had a framed shot of Zora, an old shot of Luba looking glamorous and kind of mean, and a picture of her and her mother on a gondola in Venice. They’d had the same gondolier a bunch of times and he’d taken to calling her Sophia, crooning a song in Italian to her.
Russell was looking at the picture. “That was when my mom was in the Venice Bie
“What kind of art does your mom make?” Russell asked.
“Sculptures. Though not the traditional kind with clay or marble. She works in abstract forms.” She reached to her top shelf and pulled down a small cube, all tangled wires and glass fragments. “Most of her work is on a much larger scale,” Sophie explained. “Like one piece could fill this room. Alas, my roommate Cheryl said she needed a bed so we couldn’t keep one here.”
For a second, she imagined Cheryl’s horrified expression if she had brought one of her mother’s larger, stranger installations. But then she remembered that Cheryl had seemed to admire her mom’s smaller piece. She’d held it a long time the first time she’d seen it, much as Russell was doing now. “Your mom makes sculptures,” she’d said. “My mom organizes bake sales.” Sophie had taken it as a veiled big-city comment, yet another sign of her otherness, but only now did she wonder if perhaps she hadn’t missed Cheryl’s droll brand of sarcasm.
Russell turned the piece in his hand, seeing how the light played into the angles. “My grandmother used to make these things … not sure if you’d call them sculptures or what, out of wood and sea grass. On Saint Vincent. Ever heard of it?”
“It’s an island in the Caribbean, right?” Sophie said.
“Yeah. It’s where my mom’s from. She came to the States for college, met my dad, and never went back. I used to go spend summers on the island with my grandmother. In this little house, painted in island colors, my grandma said, and there were always cousins ru
Russell was smiling at the memory. Sophie smiled along with him.
“Then my father started sending me to camp during the summers: te
Sophie closed her eyes. She could picture his grandmother, a beautiful lined face, hands tough with years of solid work, a stern ma
“Yeah.” Russell smiled.
“Are you going to see her?” It suddenly felt very important to her that he was.
“Flying down Sunday,” he said. “Looking forward to it.” He paused. “And dreading it. You know? Holiday stuff.”