A More Deserving Blackness Read Online Free PDF Page B

minimal amount of makeup I’d applied to my face and I looked . . . ordinary.  Curvy, but not as curvy as I used to be, before.  I’d lost some weight in the last two years.  Even still, I couldn’t avoid being curvy unless I wore a burlap sack.  Curvy but ordinary.
                  But Erik charms Trish by grinning when he sees me.  “Bree.  You look beautiful.”
                  I roll my eyes and he just grins at me again.  He looks nice himself, wearing a vintage Bad Company t-shirt over straight black jeans that only accentuate his height.  His eyes are partially hidden behind a pair of graduated brown aviator sunglasses, his black hair spiky and glossed with some sort of product.
                  When Erik offers his arm with a quirky kind of smile, one brow arched over the top of the lenses, have no choice but to take it.  I’m uncomfortable but Trish is humming with delight, and gives me a quick hug before sending me out the door.  Erik drives an enormous red truck, and as short as I am I have to grab the handle and the inside of the door and heave myself into the cab like a disabled hippo climbing out of the water.  Trish actually waves as he backs us down the driveway in his shiny diesel, high hopes shining in her eyes under the sweep of his headlights.
                  I’d told her about the party that afternoon, with a note I’d shoved under her nose while she’d sipped a latte, the bluish light of her computer screen making her lips look purple.  She’d squinted, refocusing on my scribbled writing, and then her eyes had gone round.
                  “You’re going to a party?”
                  I’d nodded and shrugged at the same time, painfully aware that I was already failing, that my level of forced enthusiasm didn’t come anywhere near hers.
                  “That’s great!”
                  Trish had pushed up from the table, slapping her latte down next to the laptop and gathering me in a spirited hug.  Her arms had squeezed around my shoulders and I’d breathed shallowly through my nose.  I couldn’t help but stiffen, though at least I’d forced myself not to wrench out of her grasp. 
                  She didn’t appear to notice though, or if she did it wasn’t enough to snuff her hopeful exuberance.   When she’d pulled back her eyes had been moist with tears.  “You’ll have fun, Honey.  You will.  Give people a chance, okay?  Oh, I can’t wait to tell Mom.”
                  Now, Erik flashes those dimples across the cab at me, and it occurs to me that two years ago, I might’ve found him attractive.  Two years ago, I would’ve been flattered.  But now I can barely muster a smile.  My palms are sweating and my heart rate is elevated and we’re hardly even out of the driveway.  This is already feeling like a calamitous mistake.
                  Erik hesitates just a second, driving slowly down my road and leaning forward to look over me out the passenger side window.  I glance to my right, curious as to what might have put that vaguely disturbed look on his face.  I have just enough time to see a guy in jeans and a holey, plain white shirt, steadily rolling dark brown paint over the spray-painted word on his garage door.  Then Erik frowns, adjusts his glasses, and presses the gas.  The truck surges forward with a ridiculously loud growl, and I glance in the side mirror in time to see the scarlet red E slathered over with glistening wet brown.  It leaves just the word “Murder” as the guy bends down to recoat his roller. 
                  I want him to look up so I can see his face, but he doesn’t. 
                  With an odd sort of frown, somewhere between pity and aversion, Erik steers the truck around the corner, and we’re gone.