Born Blue by Han Nolan Read Free Book Online

time. Once a news sta
tion come to the school and did a story 'bout me, braggin' how I be just eleven years old and singin' like I were Aretha Franklin. Mama Shell were sure someone would find out she stole me. She didn't like how they said my age on the TV, and that they asked me questions and taped a bit of me singin'.
    I told Mama Shell to stop worrying, 'cause I didn't even look like my old self no more. Since turning eleven I wore my hair in tiny braids all over my head. Mama Shell would take the braids out every couple of weeks and do them over and it felt like she were running tiny iron rods into my skull every time she took apart a braid. It just hurt to move my hair round after it were twisted for so long, but I loved the braids, and even though Mama Shell were always wanting to do me other hairstyles, I wouldn't let her. I just liked the bitty braids.
    When I turned twelve I went to the middle school, and weren't just my hair I wore different; I made Mama Shell get me different clothes, too. I wanted to show off how I got tits and how I got a nice round ass like the other black girls in my school. I weren't like Mama Linda, all skinny and flat-chested, and I were proud of how I looked. But Mama Shell said I looked just like Mama Linda, dressin' the way I did, which just goes to show how stupid them pills of hers was making her.
    I wore shoes that made me taller than most all my teachers and taller than Mama Shell, and she didn't like that one bit, neither. I wore eyeliner and eye shadow and mascara and hp gloss, and my lips was full and shiny, and
glossin' them up always made me feel I were black. Dressing and looking the way I did, I felt my whole body were black. Were the first time in my life I felt right in my body.
    Mama Shell wouldn't stop fussin' at me 'bout the way I were lookin' and behavin'. She sat me down at the kitchen table one rainy afternoon and said, glaring at me hard, "We got to do something, Leshaya." Her brows were drawn together like she were fierce angry, but she looked so shrunken and pale without her pink makeup and no eyebrow pencil to darken up them blond brows of hers, so I didn't think her anger carried much weight to it.
    "What you mean?" I said. "Do something 'bout what?"
    "I want my little girl back," she said, still looking hard at me. "I didn't bargain for this. You weren't supposed to look like this for a long time yet." She pointed at my chest.
    I shrugged and sat back in my chair. "Cain't help how I change, Mama Shell."
    "If you were my
real
daughter you wouldn't look like this."
    I lifted my chin. "How would I look, then?"
    "My little girl—my little girl..."
    Tears ran down her face. They just squirted out in a instant and ran down her face. Her face got red, too, and it didn't look healthy. I wondered if she needed one of her nervous pills.
    "Where you got your pills, Mama Shell? Let me get you a pill."
    Mama Shell's hand shot out and smacked my face good. "I don't need those damn pills! You keep away from me with those pills!"
    I jumped up from my chair, my hand on my hot cheek, and Mama Shell dove for me, catching my other hand and pulling me toward her.
    Her voice whined. "I want to tell you about my girl, my little girl. I had a little girl once."
    "What you mean? You mean beside me?" I sat myself back into my chair but sat back far enough that she couldn't grab at me.
    Mama Shell nodded. "She had dark hair and eyes like Mitch, but she had freckles on her nose and little Kewpie-doll lips like me, and she was the sweetest, happiest child there ever was." Mama Shell closed her eyes and pinched herself at the bridge of her nose, like that would hold back her tears. She shook her head. "She was so precious. She loved playing Barbies." She opened her eyes and, looking cross, said, "You never loved doing that! All you ever loved was that Doris doll. You never loved me. You never once said you loved me!"
    I crossed my arms in front of my chest and said nothing.
    Were true what