The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond (4 page)

S
ilence as the closet door opened wide.

Mom stared at me like I was a creature from another galaxy.

“Hi,” I whispered.

Athena bounced up off the bed. “I should be going.”

“Yes, you should be going, Athena,” Mom told her.

Athena left and Mom closed the door behind her. Her face looked like she'd been stung by a bee. “What? Why?” she asked.

“I wasn't expecting it to be this color.”

“What were you expecting?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I dunno . . . for it to be lighter. I just wanted to look like you and Daisy.”

Mom plopped on the bed. “You do look like me and Daisy.”

“Not to me I don't.” I paused for a few seconds and added, “And I wanted to be beautiful.”

Mom stood up, came over to the closet, and pulled me up. She put her arms around me and hugged me. “You are beautiful, V.”

“It's just sometimes I wish we all looked the same, Mom.”

Mom held my face in her hands. “There are two beautiful sides to you, the black side and the white side.”

“But all I know is the white side.”

Her face got that stung-by-a-bee look again.

Mom glanced over at my photo wall, stared at the big photo of my father, and started to cry. “Your father, Warren, was the dearest man I ever knew. Sometimes when I look at you, I can see him, especially when you smile. You were his gift to me . . . a part of him that lives on. I wish you had known him.”

So do I.

• • •

I expected Daisy to laugh when she saw me, but all she did was inspect my hair and ask, “What were you thinking? You had such great hair and you probably ruined it.”

“Athena said it would look . . . sun-kissed.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “But what did your inner voice tell you?”

“My inner voice? What's that?”

“That thing inside that warns you,” she replied.

“Oh, that.”

Daisy placed her hand on her hip. “Well?”

“It said . . . maybe this is a bad idea. But I didn't listen and went ahead anyway.”

“And paid the price,” Daisy said.

“Yep.”

Daisy ran her fingers through my damaged hair again. “Huge mistake. Listen to your inner voice, li'l sis,
promets
?”

“Huh?”

“Promise?” Daisy said.

“Promise,” I replied.

Gam frantically called her beauty salon. They were booked solid for the rest of the day, and tomorrow was Sunday. Nine a.m. Monday was the best they could do.

“Kitty stuff, huh?” Poppy asked with a wink.

Why did I suddenly feel like I was the only one in the family who had ever made a mistake?

I wish they would all disappear.

A
gainst the rules, I locked myself up in my room and barricaded the door with my nightstand. I put my earphones in, turned on my iPod, and held Hazel close to my heart. The day passed.

“Pizza's here!” Poppy knocked and yelled. It was almost dark out.

“Not hungry!”

A few minutes later, another knock.

“Go away! I'm not coming out of my room!”

This time it was Mom. “Pepperoni. Get it while it's hot . . . some juice, too. I'll leave it by the door,” she said.

“I hate cold pizza,” I told Hazel as I grabbed the pizza and juice bottle. And much later, when I figured everyone was asleep, I headed to the kitchen to feed my kitty. But on the way back to my room, I heard voices. Mom and Gam were talking in Mom's bedroom. I heard my name, so I stood there and eavesdropped.

“Haven't I always taught Violet about African American history?”

“Don't take this so personally, Justine. This is normal kid stuff. You're making it a race issue.”

As if Mom hadn't heard her, she asked more questions. “Haven't I encouraged her to be friends with Yaz and her family? And taken her to the Dance Theatre of Harlem and Alvin Ailey? And don't we spend almost every Thanksgiving with the Nevilles?”

Mrs. Neville was Mom's good friend from work who's a speech therapist—and black.

“Stop it, Justine.”

“It's not enough, is it? I should be doing more. Maybe we should move back to Seattle so she's not so isolated. It's my fault. She only knows the white side. That's what she told me,” Mom said tearfully.

“It's true, Justine. But it's not your fault.”

“I'm calling
her
again.”

Who was
her
? I wondered.

“You sure that's wise? She never returns your phone messages or answers your cards or letters.”

“She's Warren's mother. I want Violet to know her.”

“She knows where to find you. All this nonsense because her son married a white woman.”

“There's more to it than that and you know it,” Mom said.

“Justine! The accident was not your fault.”

“Yes, it was,” Mom sobbed.

“Hush,” Gam whispered.

Silence followed.

Quieter than a mouse, I tiptoed down the hall to my room, closed the door, and plopped on the bed. The accident was her fault? I'd never heard anyone say that before. What had happened? Hazel nuzzled my pant leg, so I picked her up. “What else don't I know?” I asked out loud.

The accident was her fault? The question repeated over and over in my head. I got up and stared at my father's photograph on my photo wall.

Then my eyes shifted to our family reunion pictures from past summers. The white faces of Mom's family, my aunts/uncles/cousins, stared back at me. It's always easy to pick me out, the only brown person. Just like in my class pictures.

Next, I looked at the photograph of my dad's mother and father that hangs right next to his. I knew my father's dad had died while my dad was in medical school. He and my father almost looked like twins. Finally, I examined the
her
Mom and Gam must have been talking about, my father's mother—my other grandmother, Roxanne Diamond.

My middle name is Roxanne, after her, but I've never met her or even talked to her on the phone. And when I was little, I used to wonder about why I never got to see her. Whenever I asked, I got answers from Mom like “she travels a lot” or “she's living in Europe.” So, after a while, I just stopped asking. The way no one ever mentioned her name, it was as if Roxanne Diamond was kind of dead.

Even if she is mad at my mom, doesn't Roxanne Diamond at least care about me?

Gloomy clouds got in my mind again and I felt sorry for myself. I had every right to, didn't I?

Daisy's grandparents on her father's side are always sending her cards and presents and stuff, and almost every Christmas either Daisy goes to Connecticut for two weeks or they come to Washington to spend time with her. Plus, Athena spends every other summer in Greece with her grandparents. That's what grandparents are supposed to do, right?

I turned on my computer, and as I'd done a few times before, but not lately, I searched for the name
Roxanne Diamond.

Thousands of results popped up. Quickly, I went to her website. She had new stuff on her pages, mostly photographs. A photo of her at a gallery stared back at me. She looked a lot older than the picture that's on my wall, but it was definitely
her.
My grandmother, Roxanne Kamaria Diamond, the famous artist. Recently, it said, she'd moved back to California.

As I scrolled down her website, I came to some photographs of her when she was a girl and stopped. I gasped. One of the photos looked a lot like me. I went to the mirror and stared at my reflection.

Questions I wanted answers to were on my mind. Why was Roxanne Diamond acting like I didn't exist? Why was the accident my mom's fault? And what other secrets were being kept from me?

E
ver since I can remember, Sunday hikes with Mom are one of those
usually
always
things. It used to be me, Mom, and Daisy time, but between Daisy's job and Wyatt, the boyfriend, she hardly ever comes with us anymore. Today Daisy had to work, so Mom and I packed a lunch and were off to the lake. Because I had so many questions, I was glad we were going to be alone.

I tied a bandanna around my head and put on a baseball hat to keep people from gawking at my orange curls. Tomorrow at nine, my hair would be back to normal, I hoped. With skin so brown, I felt like I looked totally bizarre. I didn't like it—at all.

We hiked for a while, until we got to this huge boulder where we decided to rest. In silence, we watched the blue water ripple on the lake. Mom and I both like quiet. But today I needed some answers.

I took an extremely deep breath before I said these words because I was worried about upsetting my mom. I hate it when she gets that look like she's been stung by an insect. On the other hand, there were things I had to know. I exhaled. “She's an artist.”

“Who?”

“My dad's mom, Roxanne Diamond.”

As expected, the stung-by-a-bee look covered her face. “How did you find that out?”

“On the Internet.”

“Of course.”

“Is she from Africa?” I asked.

“No . . . why would you think that?”

“Because in her pictures she's
usually always
dressed in African clothes and her paintings are mostly of African people.”

“She was born in New York City, V, but she's always been very Afrocentric.”

A cool new word. “Afrocentric?”

“A person who's very interested in the history and culture of Africa and black people. She used to teach African art history, and while she was in college, she didn't call herself Roxanne; she went by an African name.”

“Kamaria?”

“I think so. How did you know that?”

“It's online, too. It means ‘like the moon.' It's her middle name.”

Mom cracked a grin and squeezed my head to her shoulder. “You've done good research.”

“Yep . . . her website says she lives in Los Angeles now.”

“Really? She travels a lot, and she lived in Paris and Berlin and Nairobi for years, but she's always had a house in Los Angeles.” Mom sighed. “She's just different. Artists sometimes are. She's bohemian.”

“Bohemian? Where's that country?”

“It just means she lives an unconventional life.”

Bohemian? Unconventional?
Two more new words. Well, I suppose if they mean the same thing, it's really only one new word. “English, please?”

“She doesn't live an ordinary life.”

“Oh . . . you mean not boring?”

“Yes, not boring.”

“She's pretty, huh?”

“Yes, she is.”

“Did she ever see me . . . ever? Like when I was a baby?”

“She's never seen you in person, but every year I send her pictures of you,” Mom replied, then got that will-you-please-shut-up look. So I did.

But minutes later, when a flock of ducks skid-landed on the lake, I laughed. “Ducks are goofy, huh?”

Mom smiled but not with her eyes, sighed loudly, and replied, “Yep, ducks are goofy.” I could tell she really didn't want to talk, but I still did.

“If you want me to stop yakking about her, I'll be quiet.”

“You don't have to be quiet, V. If I were you, I'd have lots of questions, too.”

Good,
I thought, and continued my interrogation—which means to keep asking a person questions they probably don't want to answer. “Why doesn't she care about me?”

“She cares about you, V.”

If she cared about me, she would want to know me.

“Then how come I never met her and how come she never calls me and how come I don't get to go to visit her like Daisy gets to visit her grandpa and grandma in Connecticut and how come she doesn't send birthday cards or presents and how come—”

Mom pressed her finger to my lips. “It's because of me, V.”

“You mean because she didn't want her son to marry a white woman?”

“Who told you that?”

“I heard you and Gam talking last night.”

“What else did you hear?”

“That the accident was your fault . . . Was it?”

Mom hung her head and stammered, “Y-yes. I was driving.”

“Were you on your cell phone or something?”

“No, we passed a baby furniture store and there was the prettiest crib in the window, so I made one of my famous U-turns. I can still hear him warning me not to when the truck broadsided us and sent us into the telephone pole. Your dad was gone instantly.”

I wanted to get up and run far, far away, but I didn't. “So it really was your fault?”

No wonder Roxanne Diamond was mad. So was I!

“No wonder she hates you!” I blurted out. “If you didn't do that, I would have had a really nice dad! Instead of . . .”

“Instead of what?”

“Instead of just you!” I'd tried very hard not to say that part, but it just flew out and there was no taking it back now.

Mom's eyes filled up with tears. “I made a mistake, Violet. People make mistakes.”

“Not just a mistake, a horrible mistake!”

“I'm sorry, Violet,” Mom said, and started to cry hard.

Usually always
when anyone starts to cry, I feel bad for them, but today I didn't. I was glad she was crying.
I hope she cries enough tears to fill a bathtub,
I thought as I ran to the edge of the lake, peered in, and wished. I wished that she hadn't made the stupid U-turn, I wished that I had a dad, I wished that Roxanne Diamond loved me. I glanced back at her. She was doubled over, weeping. Seeing her like that made me feel sorry for what I had said, and I wished my mom would stop crying. Now.

I went back to where she was still sobbing, sat beside her, and patted her leg.

“I wish you didn't make a U-turn,” I whispered.

“So do I.”

“But it's not like you meant to, not like murder, right?”

She stared at me with eyes that looked like glass and repeated, “Right. I'm sorry, Violet.” Mom took a deep breath and dried her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt.

“I still have some questions. Is it okay to ask them?”

Mom sighed and nodded.

“Is it true that she didn't want him to marry you because you're white?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Some black people feel that way.”

“And some white people feel that way, too.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Good question. Many answers, I suppose,” she replied.

“Why do people have to come in different colors?” I wondered out loud.

“More beauty that way,” Mom answered. “Just imagine if every cat on Earth was a Siamese.”

“And none like Hazel?” I asked, picturing a room filled with forty Siamese cats, each an identical replica of the next. “That'd be extremely dull.”

Mom reached for my hand and held it. “Exactly.”

There was one more thing I needed to know. “Did Gam and Poppy care?”

“About what?”

“About you marrying someone who was black.”

“They were hippies.”

Hippies? That didn't sound good. “What's a hippie?”

“People from the 1960s and 1970s who believed in peace, love, and happiness—that color didn't matter because we're all humans. It was an era. Gam and Poppy both went to UC Berkeley, lived for a while in a commune . . . and I grew up in Berkeley. People of all colors and every religion were in and out of our house . . . No, they didn't care about your father being black.”

“It's too bad Roxanne Diamond wasn't a hippie, huh?”

Mom wiped her tears away and smiled.

I made a wish and took a huge deep breath. “She's having an exhibit of her paintings at the Seattle Art Museum.”

“When?”

“Starts next weekend. There's something called a public reception with the artist on Saturday. That means she'll be there?”

“Yes, that's what it means.”

“And she can't make us go away because anyone who wants to go to that gallery can?”

“Right.”

I took my mom's hand in mine and held it tight. It seemed like a tri-zillion seconds passed before I asked, “Can we go? Maybe she'll like me when she meets me.”

And it felt like an eon went by before Mom finally answered.

“Yes. We can.”