Chapter One

the equation

We had lived in Mt. Airy from the time I was born. The cozy community was far enough from what my father called "North Philly Nigga Shit" and close enough to chic Chestnut Hill for it to feel like a real home. Mt. Airy was a cauldron of cultures, bubbling and brimming until they became one. One common way of speaking. One common style of dress. One common way of thinking. My father believed that Mt. Airy was the place where he and my mother would live as one forever. And they did, we did, for a time.


I remember

I remember my first day of school. My mother stood on the corner of the bus stop waving to me. She looked like an angel, only she was crying. I never thought that angels cried, but when I looked into my mother's face, I knew that God's helpers shed tears from time to time.

I remember that until I started school, I lived in racial oblivion. I was just another shade in my community, just another shade in my family. Then I boarded the school bus heading toward Rush Elementary School in Chestnut Hill.

I remember marching bravely like a big girl, knowing that my mother was watching me. I wanted her to be proud, so I raised my chin like I had seen actors do in a show of bravery. I didn't know, I couldn't know, that that one act, the slight lifting of the chin, would define people's reactions to me forever. Forever. Forever different. Forever an outsider. Forever alone.

I remember that the ride to school was uneventful, yet my mind raced with anticipation. Questions about cubbyholes and midmorning snacks danced in my head as I stared out the window. So fast and furious were my thoughts that I didn't notice the furtive