identity on hold

ii. ghetto

I have to remind myself sometimes that Jo actually cares about me. I didn't see her the rest of the weekend.

My week back has been met with pity-smiles and some thoughtful sticky-notes left on my locker. Teachers have put some of my homework on hold. The slight narcissist in me wants to burst out in hysterics during a test or something, just to see all of them get riled up, and maybe pull some fake tears from the more popular girls, and definitely from Ms. Rubio.

Jo brings me an iced coffee, but half of it is melted already, which I complain about just to watch her roll her baby blues and tell me that she's too good to me. "I had to drink two this morning and buy an extra because I forgot about the no dairy thing. Anyway, so you know how I was really excited about prom?"

"Now you're not?" I ask.

"Nope. Even more excited. I just bought a bag that doubles as a flask. We're finna get litty as a titty," Jo says, whooping and swinging an imaginary shirt above her head.

I catch the eye of Shantay Reynolds—the only other black girl in school—who gives an exaggeratedly confused look from Jo to me, and I feel my face get hot with embarrassment. Jo talks so loudly sometimes, and her attempt at black slang is too sad for her to have the kind of confidence she does while using it.

"Speaking of, you need a date."

"Huh?"

"A date. Come to my house after school and we can cook up a plan." She rubs her hands together dramatically.

I don't respond to Jo's comment, because I'm not even sure prom is on my list of things to do. I already have a funeral to go to this weekend.

After Jo spends a minute blabbing about more things I can't bring myself to care about, she checks her phone and gasps, as if she didn't know she would be late for class. This is an everyday occurrence. And after the Big Jo Show, without fail, Shantay Reynolds gives me a look I've only interpreted as "how can you stand her".

Shantay moved here two years ago. People in my class called her ShanTAAAy. Mostly Megan Anderson and Chase Grant Who Plays Sports. Shantay pretended not to be bothered for a while. It always irked me, but I was set in my friend group, and didn't want to change it up. It could've been my subconscious telling me that everyone expected me and Shantay to become "besties", because we shared a skin tone. Even Jo was wary for a while, asking how I felt about Shantay, asking if we had anything in common. Basically trying to pry without showing how threatened she felt.

That lead to the biggest mistake of sophomore year: me telling Jo that Shantay was too "ghetto" for me, and her name was "just proof of that".

Jo was a Big Mouth to fit in before she got kicked off Lion Cheer for bringing weed to States. She Big-Mouthed her way around the school about my comment, adding some bullshit of her own. The rumor turned into me absolutely trashing Shantay's intelligence, and a week later, October 30th, I closed my locker and there stood Shantay, arms crossed all movie-style.

"What you finna be for Halloween?"

"What?"

"Oh, sorry. What are you planning on being for Halloween?" Shantay asked, words chopped, enunciated. She blinked exaggeratedly and popped her gum, imitating a preppy caricature everyone seemed to know. I knew what was coming, and I'd never even spoken to her more than twice before she confronted me.

"I-I don't know."

"Ghetto Princess? You can call yourself Shaniqua. Or Shantaaaay." She clicked her nails on the back of her rhinestone-clad phone and smiled sweetly. I just stood there, staring into the gray of my locker, the realization that I was an asshole creeping into my blood from the center of my chest. "Maybe put hot sauce in your bag or wear a cheap weave, right? Twerk on the tables? Smack your gum like Shantay, get fake nails like Shantaaay."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"Fuck you. You're the worst one. It's bad enough we deal with all them white kids thinking shit about us, but you... you just tell 'em what they wanna hear. You the better black girl cause you mixed, right?"

"Shantay—"

"What does 'ghetto' mean, Francesca? Stupid? Loud? Black?"

I didn't have an answer.

"You a dumb bitch if you think they don't think you just as black as me. At the end of the day, chica, you just as black as me. Oh, and yes, I can read." Shantay dug in her gold sparkly bag and pulled out a crumpled-up paper, tossing it in my face before walking away.

Her latest paper: A-. I got a B on the same one.

I would love to say that day was what launched a friendship between us, but it wasn't so easy.

Jo was mad when I told her what happened. Of course, she was mad at Shantay, not me.

"Okay like, you don't act like that. She's all stuck up. You never said you were the... 'better girl'."

"Better black girl."

"It literally doesn't matter. She's being like, racist against her own race."

My race.

"It's dumb. And she does act like... I don't know. Like a ghetto girl. She dresses like she has a million bucks for school. So extra," Jo explained, rolling a joint on her Physics II book. "Hand me my lighter."

I sighed. "I shouldn't have called her ghetto. And you shouldn't have told the school about it."

Jo rolled her eyes. "You know it's 'cause she is. She's mad that you called her out for it. Don't worry. She's not gonna like, beat you up or anything." That proved to be false two years later, but even thinking about that would probably gather the memory in the form of a black eye.