Our faces had only met once, and we didn't get to exchange many words that day. His eyes bore into me as he spoke quietly, even when I was talking to two other executives. He was handsome.
I pushed the elevator button again. I was naïve and had no idea where this attraction would lead, nor why I was attracted to him, so I had no idea what to expect.
I wasn't like that at all. I had only a couple of boyfriends since high school. Just three, in fact. My first girlcrush was in 7th grade. She was a voluptuous cheerleader and a beauty. She never knew I admired her but even when she looped with the football players and was the girlfriend of a big time drug dealer, I still looked. Of course, my parents were old fashioned and interracial children weren't acceptable in the South. It didn't help that I looked Asian and she looked African-American. I don't think they even knew where to put me on the ethnosemantic scale. I was a different kind of girl. The kind of girl that could speak another language, and could throw a baseball into a curve with the boys. The kind of girl who had a high school job sweeping up popcorn off the movie theatre floor, and had a boyfriend. Not the cheerleader kind, but a kind of boyfriend. Our school was sort of famous in the South because it had about a hundred and fifty kids in each of the freshman, sophomore and junior class. The juniors and seniors didn't have that many, but the one hundred was consistent. Class schedules in high schools weren't standardized, and I was the only girl out of four hundred kids who didn't have a boyfriend at my school. My parents told me I was just a late bloomer. We moved after eighth grade to get me away from the gang situation at my old school and to move to the safe community of my new school and it wasn't that easy.
The girlcrush was a senior, and she was Gwen. We'd fooled around, but she hadn't been my girlfriend. I liked Gwen and turned my crush into a crush, and I was disappointed when she didn't take me back. I didn't know what I expected when I visited her in New York. When we pulled up to the apartment building in the Bronx, I was disappointed and a little in awe that she was living in the middle of nowhere, alone with her little sister, Zoe.
But then came the city life. I was silent in the bus and train rides to school, internalizing the resentment I was feeling at my big city life. I was city smart but I was also a small town girl, and I felt like the big city was out of my grasp. But after that, it was though I got a second chance at human connection in the city. I decided that instead of rejecting the city, I could embrace it. I could embrace the life in the city.
It was because of Gwen that I started to go to museums. I had always wanted to go but I was too afraid to go by myself, and it was one of the few activities my parents were willing to pay for. They paid for movies and music concerts but were too ignorant to think of museums. So when I found myself at the museum, I'd forget about my mom's stupid rules and they would just sort of disappear. Even when I was dating the white boys, I'd gone to the museum with the girls and especially with the black girls. It was actually more comfortable. There were other black people in the group. I was a city girl and I was starting to be okay with it.
But I wasn't okay with the idea of being a girlcrush. I was not the kind of girl that other girls wanted to be. I was a girl that girls wanted to have as their friend. I wasn't accepted because I was pretty, and I wasn't accepted because I was attractive. I was accepted because I was different. I graduated from the small town in the South with a reputation, and was replaced by Allison. She was blonde and pretty, and it was so much easier for her. So when I visited Gwen and she left me with her little sister, Zoe, I didn't know what to do. My apartment was supposed to be eighteen and only eighteen, but they were eighteen and all of them had jobs and I knew they didn't have money to pay rent, even though I really cared for Gwen.
"I'm sorry, Zoe. I know I was supposed to call you." I paused and smiled. She was so pretty, even though she was pretty tough.
"Do you have parents?"
She laughed. "No. I have an aunt and uncle, but they don't really want me. They don't really want Gwen, either. She's the baby of the family and people always think she's so much more appealing to a lady than they are."
"I understand." I didn't really. I wanted to say that I would be there for her but I didn't want to be like Gwen's "aunt." I didn't want to be the girl with black roots that went to visit the poor for free food and clothes. I wanted to be like the girl who went to the poor and gave them more than what she got. I hadn't even met her and already I felt bad, and I hadn't even had a chance to introduce myself. No wonder Allison was so popular.
"I'm sorry to hear about your dad. He was a good man." I wanted to know more about Zoe but I knew that didn't matter. I had to get a job. My survival depended on money. I was selfish, but I needed to keep myself and my friends safe.
I felt myself starting to get sad. I squeezed my eyes shut and shake my head. She was so beautiful, and it wasn't her fault that her parents didn't have much money. I found myself thinking about my parents and how much they were struggling to make ends meet, and I felt like a selfish angel for thinking about the other kids before myself.
