Read Online A Little Change of Face by Lauren Baratz-Logsted - Free Book Online

Oh, right. If my name was Terebinthia Butterworth, I suppose I’d just go by my initials, too.”
    â€œThat’s not what T.B.’s for.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œIt’s for Token Black.”
    Since we were at a party at Pam’s—it was amazing how many big parties Pam threw, given how few people she liked and how few liked her—where the current population consisted of approximately twenty-nine white men and women plus her, it wasn’t all that difficult to guess where she might be going with this.
    â€œUnder the present circumstances, I can see what you mean.”
    â€œNo, you can’t.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œYou may think you see what I mean—Pam told me all about those liberal tendencies of yours—but you don’t.”
    I know it was wrong of me to take offense at someone else’s accurate assessment of the limitations on my experience of such things, but—what can I say?—I was offended anyway.
    I puffed up: “Well, actually…” And I proceeded to tell her about my preteen best girlfriend, the one who came before Best Girlfriend, the one who was black, and about how once her sister had taken us and a carload of her friends—nine of us total, only one other white—to see a movie on the Fairfield/Bridgeport line, and how the movie theater was an every-seat-taken affair and the movie was a comedy and the only two whites in the whole theater were me and that other girl, and how downright spooked I’d felt when I’d been forced to recognize the truth: that some of the things we thought were funny were not perceived by those around us that way, at all, and that some of the things the majority found funny made me feel just a little intimidated. “So, you see—”
    T.B. had the chutzpah to yawn in my face without making any real attempt to cover her mouth. “Oh, yeah, right,” she said, when she’d yawned long enough to stop my self-conscious flow of words. “Y’all had one minority experience and now you know what it’s all about.”
    â€œI wasn’t saying that. What I was saying—”
    â€œLook. Try taking your one lousy little experience and multiplying it by just about every day of your life. I didn’t go to no movie once and have that happen. I am the movies, baby, and TV, too.” T.B. shifted into street talk.
    â€œGee, you don’t look like a movie.”
    â€œWell, I is. I’s the judge and the pediatrician and the prosecutor and—”
    â€œWell—” I stopped her “—you is actually the prosecutor.”
    She started to smile at me, and then made herself stop.
    â€œI’s the local color, I’s the next-door neighbor, I’s the best friend who gets killed so the star can get angry—” dramatic pause “—I’s expendable. ”
    â€œNaw,” I said.
    â€œNaw?”
    â€œAin’t I sayin’ it right?”
    â€œNaw.”
    I shrugged. Well, I couldn’t hear any difference between us.
    â€œIf I ain’t expendable, then what am I then?”
    â€œYou’s the glue. Without you, they ain’t no story.”
    â€œNo shit?”
    â€œNaw shit.”
    â€œIf you stop imitatin’ me—” she smiled “—I’ll let you be my friend.”
    â€œIf you forgive me when I can’t help myself or I just do it, anyway, I’ll take you up on it.”
    â€œWell, I guess we’ll just have to wait ’n’ see how often you do it.”
    â€œHey,” I said, serious again and feeling foolish, but more serious about anything than I’d felt in years maybe. “I’m sorry.”
    And I could tell I didn’t really need to explain, but she pressed me, anyway, her voice soft. “For what, baby?”
    â€œFor everything I had no part in creating, for everything I’ll never change.”
    Still soft: “Me too,