The Chosen One Read online

  Jim doesn’t say lawwwd. He says Lord, perfectly pronouncing all of the consonants. Everyone is enthralled. Many of them place their palms over their heart or raise a hand high in the air, moved by his angelic singing. I close my eyes and try to sense something inside as he sings, but I only feel hunger pangs for more cookies. When Jim finishes, the crowd gives him a standing ovation. They clap like they just witnessed Jesus turn water into wine. I stand in front of the bloodred devil chair, plastering on a smile to hide my lack of enthusiasm. I don’t know how Jim does it. I feel ridiculous trying to fake joy. My face drops. A woman standing across from me on the side of the room suddenly whips her head in my direction. She claps wildly, her mouth turned up in the hardest dragon smile I’ve seen all night. Then, several people around her stare also, just like in math class, except this time they all nod their heads in my direction while their eyes glare disturbingly at me. One of them mouths something to me. I only catch the word “coming” and have no idea what she means. They clap harder before flinging their arms to the sky like Hypnotist Jerry. They each return their eyes to me, not blinking until everyone returns to their seats and the room fills with the quiet hum of anticipation again. Am I imagining all this? Surely, random people I don’t know would have no reason to stare at me. I think the pressure of being around so many non-Black people is getting to me.

  An older white woman with sandy-brown hair stands to take the microphone after Jim leaves the stage. I can tell she has a lot to say by the way she hustles to the front of the room. She holds the microphone dramatically in silence while locking eyes with several people in the audience. A few people look away to avoid her searing gaze.

  I look down at my shoes, which are old and worn out. I really need another pair, but I can’t afford it. I glance around at others’ well-manicured shoes. Everyone seems to have such nice things around here. I try to slide my feet under the chair so no one else notices.

  The woman, who I later learn is named Carla, starts speaking very slowly. “Can I share my testimony? Can I tell you about the obstacles God has moved for me?” As soon as she says the word “obstacle,” I am reminded of all the barriers I overcame to get to Dartmouth. The violence, drug addiction, mental illness, and lack of money. I never talk about it, not even with Earnell or Keli. Whenever I think about everything I went through to get here, emotion starts crawling up my throat, like it is right now. I shift uneasily in my chair and try to suck my tears back in, but a few still manage to escape down my cheeks. Maybe I’m self-sabotaging by not getting help and not talking about my problems, I think to myself.

  “I was self-sabotaging,” Carla croons into the microphone. I look up in shock. She seems to be echoing my inner thoughts. “Deep down, I knew what I needed to do, but I felt like I wasn’t good enough. And I wasn’t. You know why?”

  I stare at Carla, mesmerized. How can this white woman with pearls and boat shoes be channeling my exact thoughts?

  She continues, looking directly into my eyes, as if she knows me. For a moment, I swear her pupils spin like Hypnotist Jerry’s. I look away, trying not to get sucked in. “I wasn’t good enough because I didn’t have the Lord in my life. There is only one way you can survive this journey,” she whispers into the mic. “You must answer the call.” I am dumbfounded thinking about the somersaulting letters from earlier that seemed to be referencing this moment. “Answering the call of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has saved my life and it can save yours too,” she says, pointing at me.

  Bryce is thrilled I’m the focus of Carla’s attention. He grins gleefully, pats his heart supportively, and then points up at the sky, less intensely than the watchers from earlier, signifying the presence of his all-consonants-pronounced Lord. The dorkiness of his gesture makes me want to throw up in my mouth. I nod my head affirmatively, as if we are on the same page, and then release myself from the pressure of his expectant gaze.

  Carla finishes her sermon and then asks for new members to identify themselves. I sit peacefully in my red devil chair knowing “new member” does not apply to me as I only came for the cookies and Bryce. Before I can get away, Bryce draws Carla’s attention to me. The thirst in Carla’s face erupts. All thirty-two of her pearly white teeth are visible through her Moses-parted lips. Her eyes soften and she leans toward me while speaking into the microphone. She looks like a cult leader preparing to slather me in Christian snake oil. I want to lower my head in silent shame, but everyone is looking at me now—for real this time. Beads of sweat start gathering on the periphery of my forehead. The sweat doesn’t roll. It holds, right on the line, like soldiers waiting for an order from their commander.

  “Now, Echo,” she pours her voice demandingly in my direction. “I’m not a gambling woman, but I’m gonna bet that there must be something in your heart that brought you here.” Yea, the cookies. Carla lifts her hand to the sky and says, “The Almighty must have called you to us.” Everyone in the congregation raises their hands in my direction.

  “Oh dear God,” I say out loud.

  “That’s right,” Carla responds. “Our dear God. Come on up here and answer the call.”

  I don’t move. Carla’s eyes grow dark like thunderstorms. “Bring her up here,” she speaks out into the crowd. Suddenly, I feel myself and the red this-can’t-be-a-good-sign chair beneath me being lifted up off the ground, my worn-out shoes visible for all to see. Embarrassment swallows me whole. I claw the arms of the chair for dear life while they march me up to the stage. They set me down in the front, facing the audience, with Carla standing next to me. The commander gives the order, and the sweat starts to roll. I am too shocked to wipe it, so my Black face drips, displayed for this sea of white faces.

  I plead to the three other people of color in the crowd to please come save me, but they turn away in shame. They know this debacle will reflect poorly on them too. We are all representatives of each other here, a pressure white people don’t have or understand. When a white person does something wrong, it’s just one individual’s perpetration, but when one of us does something wrong, it reflects negatively on all of us. I can handle my own shame at being singled out like this, but I can’t handle the pressure of having it projected onto the other Black and brown bodies in the room.

  “This young woman is lost,” Carla says, still speaking low in dark growling tones. “She doesn’t know who she is, that she is here to serve our Lord. THAT SHE IS A SERVANT OF THE LIGHT! PRAY FOR HER!” Carla starts shouting in a shrill tone. She is possessed, seemingly overtaken by the spirit of her Lord. “Pray she finds clarity,” Carla hisses into the microphone. “Pray she finds the right path. HIS way!” Suddenly several people move to the front of the room, extending their arms out toward me. Their faces are wrinkled in fiery concern. They are praying as if their prayers can save me. I grow increasingly angry. Enraged at these white people trying to force their white Lord upon me. Have they learned nothing from their own history? This is yet another conquest, but they have targeted a breaker of chains who cannot be conquered.

  “Stop it!” I recoil in shock at the force of my own words. “Stop it! I don’t need you to pray for my soul. You know who I need you to pray for is my brother who just got out of prison. And my other brother, who’s schizophrenic. And my dad, who’s still drinking himself to death. And all the people I know who will never be able to realize their dreams no matter how hard they try because the system trampled them. Where was your God when all of that shit was happening? Why don’t you pray for the dismantling of systematic oppression—then we can talk about the state of my soul.”

  I turn my head toward the staring group from earlier, who seem just as shocked as the math class watchers, and I shout, “And why the hell are you people always staring? It’s invasive and rude. Knock it off!”

  I rush out into the brisk fall air toward the Big Green where Matthew and a thousand broken promises lay scattered: the promise that I could catch up, that I could fit in, that I belonged here. The decaying flesh of those promises
sinks back down into the earth and disappears. It all becomes clear in this moment how unevenly the scales are tipped, how gravely wrong Stephen Clark is about everything, and how far behind I am—generations behind. I was naïve to think I could gamble against the house of oppression and win. Negro Brown and her ancestors never stood a chance against these kinds of odds.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I may not have privilege, but I will have Prince Charming, who is white, like the men I see in all the romantic comedies and superhero movies. My attraction to white boys has ballooned since arriving at Dartmouth, and it is squarely at odds with my prolific critiques of whiteness. I never expected to be attracted to white men and I don’t fully understand it myself.

  Prior to being here, I thought I would find a good-looking, but troubled, brown-skinned boy who definitely needed me to save him with my love. We would be unified in the struggle against oppression and grow closer untangling our past traumas and problematic patterns of behavior in relationships, since so few people ever loved us right. Regardless, we would emerge on the other side healed and risen. Two Black, Ivy League–educated phoenixes, deeply in love and soaring high above it all.

  The Black men here barely look my way, however, except Earnell, who’s more like a brother to me. Rejection from your own kind feels treacherous, like betrayal. If they won’t have me, who will? It’s not that the Black men here don’t date Black women. Many do. They just don’t date Black women who look like me: dark-skinned, nappy-headed, glasses-wearing, and tomboyish. They go after girls with long pretty hair who are brown- to fair-skinned, and who “beat their face for the gods,” as RuPaul would say, meaning they wear a lot of makeup, even though we are in the middle of the woods. I tried to put on lipstick once, imagining it might finally get them to see me, but I felt ridiculous and wiped it off.

  Something in me turns away from my fantasy of the rising Black phoenix after I meet Bryce. I still don’t know if he’s attracted to me romantically, if he has a girlfriend, or if he’s just interested in making sure I get to heaven, but he looks at me like he can see inside me, like I matter. That’s the look I think I’m chasing in my pursuit of white Prince Charming, and it’s what I’ve never had from a Black man who wasn’t related to me, or like a family member in Earnell’s case. I was searching for it in Black men when I first arrived, for some evidence that I was important and visible. Now, Bryce has me looking for affirmation in white men.

  I’m ashamed to admit that I’m trying to find some value in myself through the love of the “oppressor.” I compare myself to the white girls on campus, looking at my Black face in the mirror, dark and disfigured, like all the other unworthy things in the world, and wonder why white Prince Charming would ever pick me? Why weren’t you born a privileged prancer, like Manda Panda? I ask my reflection. I plead desperately, but she doesn’t answer. She never does.

  The complexity of trying to untangle my new desire for white men burns in my psyche. A range of feelings and considerations—guilt, betrayal of Black men, shame, fear of judgment, and confusion—wash over me every time I think about white men romantically. The hardest part is feeling like I can’t talk to anyone about it, definitely not Earnell and Keli, who are both super pro-Black. Keli constantly proclaims she “can’t wait to find her Black king and make Black-ass babies.” They have both picked up on my attraction to white guys through Bryce, and Earnell constantly jokes that he knows I’m “going to end up in an ‘ice cream sandwich’ partnership,” but I don’t feel comfortable discussing it further with them.

  Despite the challenges, I’m on the hunt. Good-looking white boys are everywhere and any one of them could be my Prince Charming. So I keep my eyes peeled: at the gym while pretending to work out on machines that I actually hate; in the cafeteria; and right now, behind a bush next to the math building. I carefully bend the leaves backward and peek as this super-hot boy-man—boy-man: a young fellow who is no longer a child, but is also not a full-blown adult yet—sits on the stairs scanning through a textbook. He must be so smart, I think to myself. I bet he’s a great kisser.

  I am deep in fantasyland when I feel hot breath on my ear. “What are you doing?” someone whispers. I shriek and fall forward out of the bush, right in front of Prince Charming. “Whoa, that’s gnarly,” he says. “Were you in the bushes?” Prince Charming and Earnell, who is the surprise bush whisperer, pull me up off the ground. I am too busy staring into Prince Charming’s green eyes to talk. I smile, awkwardly, mesmerized by being so close. Finally, sooo close.

  “Hello!?” Earnell says while snapping and clapping his hands right next to my ear. “What’s wrong wit you, girl? I thought you liked Nazarene? I told you these white boys are going to be the end of you. Have you learned nothing from the past four hundred years?” Prince Charming looks bewildered like a deer caught in headlights.

  “My great-grandparents were abolitionists, for what it’s worth. And my parents voted for Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and even Al Gore. So yea. Well, uh, I should probably get going. Hope you’re OK and stay out of the bushes. There could be ticks in there.” Prince Charming shuffles up the sidewalk, taking all his liberal declarations with him. I turn to Earnell in playful rage and smack him several times on the arms.

  “Earnell! Stop ruining my life!” Earnell laughs diabolically, then jets up the sidewalk yelling after Prince Charming, “Wait, come back, Massa! Carol Ann done went and fell in love wit ya. I swear all these negroes have Stockholm syndrome.”

  There are two and a half weeks left until midterms and my grades, like the melting early October ice outside my window, keep sliding. The search for Prince Charming is a welcome distraction, but I know at some point I’m going to have to face the music, which is screeching, whether I’m listening or not. I still can’t bring myself to get a tutor, but I’ve agreed to see a therapist to help me better adjust, untangle some of my past, and deal with the magical delusions I seem to be experiencing. I don’t actually want to do therapy either, but Earnell and Keli suggested it when I told them I was “seeing things.” I’m confident I can fix my grades alone, but I’m not sure I can fix my mind. I know what kind of tricks it plays, the chaos it can cause, especially when I feel ungrounded and out of place. Hopefully after therapy, I’ll finally be normal.

  Dean Harrison also recommended therapy. “One day it just might become one of your greatest assets,” she says decidedly.

  “I highly doubt that,” I rebuff. She then stares at me entirely too long with blank eyes before pouring me a cup of tea. She’s always offering me herbal beverages. “We don’t drink this in Cleveland,” I tell her. “And we’re not in the United Kingdom so there’s no need for all this tea. Hey, this is how they drink tea at the Victorian Tea Club,” I say, laughing and prissily extending my pinky finger. I sip delicately as if I’m the wealthiest person in the world. Is this how Bill Gates drinks his tea also? Why do rich people always have to be so measured? There’s no need for this kind of pomp and circumstance in the trenches.

  “Some say tea is a portal to another dimension,” Dean Harrison blurts out randomly.

  “Who? Who says that?”

  “Some.”

  “Some who?”

  “The who that are some.”

  She gets weirder every time we meet.

  I expect today to be no different. I’m headed to my weekly check-in with her now. I’m ten minutes late, per usual, and sprinting across campus. I’ve never met a Black person so totally out of the box. Dean Harrison has a short bowl cut, wears custom-tailored cream or light orange dresses (only those two colors), and doesn’t understand Black colloquial speech or humor. One time while leaving her office I said, “I’ll holla at you later.” She looked at me confusedly and said, “It is not necessary to yell at me or anyone else now or later. Balanced audible tones are more than suitable.”

  While standing outside her office I finally realize who Dean Harrison reminds me of. This entire time I have felt I’ve seen her likeness and mannerisms somewhe
re, but couldn’t place it till now. Mr. Spock from Star Trek! I feel relieved, satisfied.

  Just as I’m about to knock, her door comes swinging open. “Echo,” she says, “late as always. Please come in.” I sit and she walks directly to the kettle. I shake my head amusedly while my eyes roam around her office, trying to piece this peculiar person together. The space is barren except for a framed quote by Yoda on the mantel that reads “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” I guess she must be a Star Wars fan too. That’s the only thing I can surmise from her decor. I want to ask why she doesn’t have any family pictures or fancy award plaques like the other deans, but I know that wouldn’t be polite.

  She returns and sets a white mug of steaming tea in front of me before sitting on the other side of the desk. She taps the sides of her mug with a small silver spoon, while smiling awkwardly at me and staring. I meekly look back before returning my gaze to the cup. I am shocked to see the light brown beverage spinning counterclockwise. “Huh,” I say quietly. “That’s strange.”

  “What?” Dean Harrison asks. “Are you still in the room?”

  “What do you mean? Why would you ask something like that? I’m sitting right here. Are you blind?”

  I say hostilely to the therapist, Jennifer.

  “Look at me. I’m a Black woman in the middle of nowhere. Of course I’m uncomfortable here. Wouldn’t you be if the tables were turned?”

  I hate when people ask obvious questions: Do you feel uncomfortable in a place like this?

  Like, Is water wet? Duh.

  Her office smells like roses and lavender. If I was a white woman, my office would probably have a similar perfume, I think sarcastically to myself. What an easy life.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, more gently this time. “It’s just hard to get a sense of how you are doing here since you don’t share much.”