Genesis Begins Again

When Genesis comes home from school, she goes to her room and pulls out her black button-down shirt she’s had since she was seven years old. She puts it over her head and pulls it back into a ponytail so that the shirt hangs down her back. It makes her feel beautiful, like she has hair like Rihanna. She even feels like her skin looks lighter against the dark fabric. Then she goes to her mom’s bathroom and puts on some of her light foundation so that she looks “light-skinned.” She starts to sing like no one is watching as she imagines herself on stage. In her fantasy, everyone is cheering for her, even her dad, who shows up and smiles at her before he joins her onstage, and they sing together.

Afterward, she is sitting in the picture window and finds herself humming the “Follow the Drinking Gourd” song. It reminds her of a book she read about a family of slaves who tried to escape over the Cincinnati River with nothing except the clothes on their back. She thinks about how terrible it must be to drop everything you have because you can’t do or be what you want.

The next day at school, Mr. Benjamin tells Genesis that Troy is going to tutor her in math. Genesis is nervous to be working alone with a boy, especially one who she thinks is cute. She thinks that her grandma would say “he’d be half cute if he weren’t so dark” (74).

In PE, Genesis meets a girl named Sophia Papageorgiou as they are doing the mile run. As they run together, it becomes clear to Genesis that the girls in the class are making fun of Sophia and calling her names. She doesn’t understand why because Sophia looks totally normal to her with her “regular” nose and mouth and nice brown eyes. Sophia says that the other girls are the worst and that they always think they are better than everyone.

The red-haired girl who made fun of Genesis’s clothes on the first day of school taunts her and Sophia, so Genesis makes strong eye contact with the girl and tries to intimidate her. The girls laugh and mimic her before they walk away. She wonders if maybe she should have just stayed invisible.

When Genesis gets home from school on Friday, she notices her dad’s car in the driveway. He is not usually home this early, so she worries that they are already getting kicked out of their new home after only one week. Mama explains that he’s home because they switched his hours at work. Genesis runs to the bathroom to make sure she looks okay because even though her dad hasn’t been drinking a lot this week, she doesn’t want to give him any reason to provoke her. She finishes and goes out into the living room, where they talk about what history they are teaching her in school.

Later on that night, Genesis smells her dad frying shrimp. She gets out of bed and finds him singing and cooking in the kitchen. As he cooks, she asks why he only sings old songs. He says that when he was a teenager, he used to work at an auto repair shop owned by an old man named Luther. Luther taught him about cars and kept him out of trouble. He always played Motown, so it reminds her dad of happier times.

When they sit down to eat, Genesis asks her dad about his brother Charlie, who died of rabies. He says that Charlie was his best friend. When Charlie was 11 and he was 8, they were playing in an abandoned old attic when Charlie got bitten by a bat. Genesis feels so bad for her dad after he finishes the story, so she smiles at him and tells him he makes the best shrimp. He stares at her for a moment before telling her that she has Mama’s smile. He says that he couldn’t take his eyes off of Mama because she was “simply divine” (95). Genesis asks if she is “simply divine” like Mama, and he just reaches over and covers her hand with his own, but he doesn’t say anything. She decides that she can’t be mad at him because he has so much sadness inside of him about Charlie, so she will just settle knowing that at least she has Mama’s smile.

Genesis asks Troy during one of their tutoring sessions how he got to be so good at school. He tells her that he has to do well in school because his parents are very strict. When he was in 4th grade, his mom made him and his sister read The Souls of Black Folk by W. E. B. DuBois because she wanted them to know that “no matter where we came from, we can still be great” (99). Troy is surprised when Genesis doesn’t know who Du Bois is. She says the only people they teach about during Black history month are Martin Luther King Jr, Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman. Troy explains that DuBois was one of the founders of the NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), a civil rights organization formed in the US in 1909.

Troy says his dad also made them read The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Genesis assumed that because Troy is so smart that his family probably sat around reading Shakespeare. She asks what his parents do, and he tells her that his mom is a chemical engineer, and his dad is a graphic designer. Genesis hopes he doesn’t ask her about her parents.

Later on, Genesis meets Sophia at the library for lunch. She is amazed at how big it is, like a real public library full of computers and tons of books. There are even books with Black people on the cover. Genesis checks out a book called Brown Girl Dreaming.

As they are settling down to read, Genesis asks why Sophia never hangs out with any of the other girls. Sophia says that all of the girls are fake and that all she needs is one good friend, not a “crew” of fake best friends. She tells Genesis that she has five brothers and that her house is loud all the time, so the library is a good place to chill. Genesis asks why Sophia invited her to come with her if she wanted to be somewhere quiet. Sophia says that maybe it is because Genesis is new, and neither of them know each other very well.

Genesis suddenly feels guilty for thinking that Sophia was weird for running by herself that day in PE. She realizes that Sophia likes that they are on an even playing field—no outsiders, just them.

Mrs. Hill isn’t there yet when Genesis arrives at chorus class. Terrance, the same boy who called her “burnt” on the first day of class, calls her their “first international student.” Yvette, another student, stands up for Genesis. Genesis is so happy because a Black girl has never stood up for her.

Mrs. Hill then walks in with a student named Nia. Genesis has never noticed Nia talking to any of the other students and wonders if it’s because she’s light-skinned and thinks she’s better than everyone else.

Mrs. Hill has the class do an imagery exercise where they close their eyes while they sing “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” Genesis finds herself going deep into a memory of when she and her parents were staying in their dad’s friend’s basement after they were evicted last October. Her dad had been drinking and playing a game with his friends, dice and money in his hands, when his friends told him that Genesis looks just like him. He insisted that she is nothing like him. His friends started to make fun of him, joking that if Genesis is ugly, it’s only because she got it from him. They made jokes about how dark his skin is and how “nappy” his hair is, and he threw his bottle against the wall. He yelled drunkenly at Genesis that she was supposed to come out looking like Sharon.

Genesis gets so lost in the memory, she doesn’t realize until she opens her eyes that Mrs. Hill is right in front of her. All of her classmates are staring at her. Genesis is so embarrassed that she asks if she can be excused and runs to the bathroom where she cries in the bathroom stall.

When she comes back, the classroom is empty except for Mrs. Hill. Mrs. Hill tells her that she was wrong; she’s not like Miles Davis but Billie Holiday. She puts a Billie Holiday record on and hands Genesis the headphones. As Genesis listens, she suddenly understands what Mrs. Hill meant when she said to put herself in the music. She finds herself lost in the music, wondering how Billie tells so many stories and captures so many memories in the songs.

Mrs. Hill lends Genesis a Billie Holiday CD to listen to at home.