The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl (11 page)

Much to my delight, I got accepted into all of the schools. I couldn’t decide between Harvard-Westlake and Brentwood. But I remember that during my Brentwood tour a really cute (probably not, I had horrible sixth-grade taste), white, brown-haired upper-classman waved to me as he leaned coolly on his desk, a pencil in his mouth. That image of coolness and the potential for diverse love interests solidified my choice of Brentwood.

But my mother had toured the schools along with me, and in her eyes there were very few black faces in what seemed like an overbearing sea of white. She feared that my sense of identity would be snuffed out and needed reassurance that I’d be okay. She discussed it with Ashley’s mother and discovered ABC. An acro
nym for A Better Chance, ABC was headed by a short but robust, shiny-scalped black man named Michael who served as the preemptive olive branch between black kids and the private school system. The organization was founded to make sure we didn’t get lost in the private school culture, that kids with less fortunate economic backgrounds or kids who were prone to forget that they were black or Latino would always have a place to simultaneously uplift and ground them. This was music to my mother’s ears.

What excited me the most was that there was an ABC summer retreat, right before I would begin junior high in the fall. A
co-ed
retreat in Northern California?! What a perfect opportunity to find a boyfriend! This was a must for me. Ashley and I prepared, giddy with opportunity.

Except that everyone hated me. With the exception of one girl—who hailed from Inglewood, loved chicken nuggets, and was dubbed “Cheerful Cherie” for her upbeat attitude—nobody thought I was cool. My “uncool” status was established on the bus ride we took up to the Bay. My mother insisted that she, my little brother (nine), and my little sister (six) would ride with us and take a return flight home. Aside from the designated chaperone, she was the
only
parent present. But since my mother was gracious enough not to sit near me so as to fully embarrass me, no one besides Ashley knew that the family in the back belonged to me.

The trip started off hopeful enough. Ashley and I watched as various junior high schoolers of all shapes and sizes and both genders filled the bus. That’s when I saw him for the first time. I tried not to stare as he walked onto the bus. Taller than me, crème-brûlée-colored skin, green eyes, puberty buff—it was lust at first sight. I jabbed Ashley with my elbow.

“Ohmygod, he’s SO fine.”

“Who?”

“Don’t look, but he’s about to walk past us. Don’tlookdon’tlook.”

Ashley looked.

“Him? He’s not fine. He’s cute.”

He walked to the back of the bus.
This is going to be so much fun
, I thought.

Then my little sister got stuck in the bus bathroom and lost. her. MIND. My little sister who grew up to be a cool, calm, and collected germophobe
freaked
out
at the thought of being stuck in the bus bathroom. She started banging on the door, yelling, “I CAN’T GET OUT, MOM! I CAN’T GET OUT!” To which my mother rushed to help her baby girl, while everyone on the bus turned in their direction. When my mother failed to get through to her, assuming I’d know more about bus engineering, she called me.

“Jo-Issa, help your sister! Jo-Issa!”

Ashley fell out laughing as I sunk in my seat, pretending that my name was anything but that which my mother shrieked. Thankfully, one of the young fine gentlemen sitting near the back came to my sister’s rescue and simply and calmly told her to try
turning the knob to the left
. And, presto, the door opened. My sister emerged, with tear-stained eyes, grateful to be let free from the grip of the bathroom monster (a level-one boss, at best). I remained in my seat, mortified.

By the time we arrived at Mills College, an all-girls campus, the color had returned to my face and my hope for the trip had been restored. The campus was beautiful, and I felt like I had fast-forwarded to the college chapter in my life. We got off the bus and I looked up at what must have been the most beautiful dorms on campus, akin to freshly renovated, quaint townhomes. As Ashley and I made our way toward them, we heard hand claps.

“All right, guys, those are the residence halls for college students,” Michael said. “You guys will be staying over there.”

Our heads turned collectively as he pointed to what looked like a haunted, abandoned part of campus that we hadn’t even noticed before. It looked as if it had just emerged from the depths of hell. Ghosts of students past were wailing and circling the dilapidated roofs and breathing fire on the tattered exterior. The disappointment was palpable.

Michael remained cheery. “This is where the international students stay. Make friends! Learn a language!”

One of the girls we stood next to shook her head. “Dag. They get the Holiday Inn and we get the Motel 6.” I cracked up laughing. Later, upon recalling this memory, I laughed again at how our frame of reference for “luxury” was the Holiday Inn. The hotel/motel girl introduced herself as Kim. With caramel skin and her hair in a sock bun, which accentuated her beautiful cheekbones, she was tall, thin, and pretty. Next to her stood a girl who had African-American facial features but looked closer to white. She introduced herself in a thick East Coast accent as Taipei. With long, jet-black hair that she wore partially up, she was Italian and black (clearly a mix more common than I thought; see “A/S/L”). She had a cute gap between her teeth that actually looked good on her (I had a gap between my teeth that I hated, mostly because my little brother and sister would parody the Gap theme song with, “Falllllll into Jo-Issa’s gap!”). The most notable thing about her was that she was a lesbian, and I had never met one up until that point. She was edgy and cool. Both Taipei and Kim were fourteen, going into high school.

My best friend, Ashley, who I clutched onto as if for (social) life, was the
only
reason I was able to get in with these cool girls. With her long hair, cocoa skin, puberty boobs, and “chinky” eyes, Ashley
was constantly approached by boys and adored by girls alike. And that girl could dance. She was everything I wasn’t and, as such, she fit in perfectly with the cool girls, despite being two years younger than they were. When our families were first introduced, we discovered that she and I were distant cousins, by marriage. To deepen our bond and solidify the potential for coolness in my own genes, I publicly identified her as my cousin.

As we unpacked our belongings in our respective hostel rooms, we were also introduced to Jennifer, a pretty, petite girl with an infectious high-pitched squeal-laugh, who went to elementary school with Cheerful Cherie. They would both be attending Brentwood, the same private school as me. Up until that point, I hadn’t met anyone else who would be joining me at Brentwood, so I tried to stay close to them. Jennifer was hesitant, but Cherie welcomed me with open arms.

We all gathered together in Kim and Taipei’s room to discuss the program, our schools, and of course,
boys
. We talked about who was cute, who was checking for whom, and our personal relationship statuses. Before I could mention my crush, Taipei spoke up. “That boy with the green eyes is really cute. I think his name’s Jordan.”
Trick, what?! Don’t you like girls?

Ashley and I exchanged glances as I nodded silently.

“Jo-Issa likes him, too,” she blurted.

Taipei turned to me. “He’s cute, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he is fine. He’s a fine
boy
,” I confirmed.

“He’s Italian and black, just like me. Small world.”

Small-ass world, in-fucking-deed. Too small for lesbians to be claiming the most attractive boys at our haunted college, too. But, whatever.
Then it was only a matter of time (hours, even) before the two of them were booed up. That night, at one of our first mixers, they
hit it off and started making out. All week. She had won him, and I dismissed the idea of ever having a chance with him.

The rest of the retreat was unmemorable, until the final dance. It was a semi-formal, but the closest thing I had to that was business casual—my brand of awkward involves fashion faux pas. I wore a long black skirt with a white collared short-sleeve top.
Boom
: semi-formal. I had flashbacks to my sixth-grade dance the year before—where dateless and rhythmless, I wandered about by myself—and decided not to get my hopes up this time around. Ashley was my “date,” but that didn’t mean much as she was constantly being asked to dance, left and right, leaving me to wander as if I were looking for someone in the glass-door ballroom’s completely open space.

Kim, Jennifer, and Cherie were dancing in a group on the dance floor, so I joined them. But Taipei was missing.

“Where’s Taipei?” I asked Kim.

“She’s on the phone in her room. I think she’s breaking up with her girlfriend.”

Girlfriend?
I remembered Ashley mentioning that Taipei’s phone was constantly blowing up but neglected to put two and two together. She had been cheating on her girlfriend with Jordan this entire time. I looked around the party with actual purpose this time. Jordan was on the dance floor having a good time, dancing with girls here and there, but for the most part, he was by himself.

I didn’t have the besties-before-testes, sisters-before-misters values and morals that I hold so strongly to today. Instead, I slowly and nonchalantly started to two-step drift toward him, my butt poked out, until I made contact. He smiled and we began freak-dancing. As we freak-danced to countless songs, the rest of the party disappeared. It was like the school dance scene where Tony and Maria first meet in
West Side Story
, except set to the rapper
Luke’s soundtrack. As we danced face-to-face, he whisper-yelled a question in my ear.

“Do you want to go outside?”

“Yeah,” I nodded.

My heart raced. What were we going to talk about? Had he appreciated my seductive grinding so much that he wanted to break up with Taipei? It would be a first but it was within reason, as Jordan wasn’t the best dancer either. Ashley poked fun at how offbeat his pelvic thrusting was, but I didn’t care; if anything, that endeared him to me even more.

He held my hand and led me outside. We were so close and I was so nervous, I don’t even recall what kind of small talk we made. I do remember him leaning in to kiss me, and me kissing him back. It was my first kiss, much less my first tongue kiss, but I was ready and it was magical. I felt like the nerdy heroine in my own romantic comedy. I got the guy!

After minutes of making out, we went back inside to the party. My face glowing with excitement, I couldn’t wait to break the news to Ashley. As I made my way back to the dance, behind Jordan, I was stopped by Michael, the head of the program. His demeanor was serious as he pulled me to the side in his slim-fitted, tiny suit. I stood guiltily as he mustered a friendly, guidance-counselor smile.

“Be discreet with your actions,” he started.

“What do you—”

“Hhhhh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh!!!” He held his long index finger up and repeated, “Be discreet with your actions. Keep your business private.” He then dismissed me. I was embarrassed, but still on a high from my first kiss. I told Ashley everything and she cracked up.

“Did he really ‘hhhh-tuh-tuh-tuh’ you?”

Other than Ashley, I kept my exchange with Jordan discreet from the other girls.

The next day, on the bus ride home, I sat with Cherie, sharing her Walkman and sneaking backward glances as Jordan and Taipei made out in the back. Why couldn’t they be discreet? I wasn’t mad or hurt, only relieved that Taipei didn’t find out about me and Jordan. Once the magic of my first kiss faded away, I realized how stupid of me it was to kiss him in front of everyone, outside or not.

Months later, Ashley and I went to catch a matinee at Magic Johnson Theatres at the Crenshaw Mall. As we were making our way out, we saw Jordan and Taipei coming in. As Jordan stood by the door, avoiding my eye contact, Taipei came over and said, “Hi.” My stomach clenched as I wondered whether or not he had told her about our kiss. She directed most of the conversation to Ashley and then gave me a snide smile as she walked away. It could have been my imagination, but I sensed that she knew and wasn’t threatened. I may have had him once, but she had him all the time.

I wish I could say I had learned my lesson, but my exhibitionism didn’t stop there. Years later, when I revisited my first love in Dakar, Senegal, to stay with my father’s side of the family, my careless PDA almost got me in serious trouble. One night I convinced my older cousins to accompany me to the club where I first met my first boyfriend, Moise. Club Niani had become super popular since the time we went the year before. Now it was a tourist hub, full of teens. Still, none of that mattered to me. I was excited to be reunited with Moise (more on him in “Halfrican”) and his friends. We had been corresponding via email for a year now and I was so happy they’d be joining us.

He arrived, dressed in his best American gear. We danced for an hour as my cousins sat down, bored, clearly doing me a favor. The club was getting packed, sweaty, and hot. He asked if I wanted to go get some air outside. I got a bout of déjà vu and thought about Jordan asking me the same question years earlier. We walked up the steep flight of stairs that led to the club’s exit. I looked around for my cousins. Not wanting them to follow me, I’d told them I was going to get some air outside really quickly. After Moise spoke to the bouncer in Wolof, ensuring we’d be able to get back inside, we left the club. It was so much quieter outside. We found an even more isolated spot and started kissing. Surely, this was a step up from kissing outside in front of a glass-doored ballroom.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Just as I started getting teenage bold, playfully grabbing his butt, a military Jeep rolled up, honked, and shone its lights on us. Surprised and frightened, I quickly dropped my hands. Moise placed his hands in front of me, attempting to shield me from what he surmised would occur. Both soldiers exited the Jeep with urgency, long rifles strapped to their backs.