Chapter One
Jo
Surviving as a Black girl in high society is pretty easy, as long as you know the rules.
One: arrive with your pedigree at the ready—your degree from a prestigious university, the smattering of letters behind your name, your association with friends powerful enough to confer you relevance. Announce these clearly enough and often enough that no one asks why you’re here, but with enough humility that you’re not seen as a threat. (Anecdotes that begin withwhen I was in medical schoolormy dormitory in Cambridgeoften do the trick.)
Two: be intentional with your hair. Keep it straight on the days you want to blend in—dealer’s choice on whether you rock a lace front, U-part, or a silk press, because let’s be real, hardly anyone in attendance will know the difference—and only bust out the Afro when you want to stand out. Be aware that standing out might not always be in your best interest, and relish the irony that existing in your unaltered self is considered a statement.
Three: adopt a standard Midwestern accent. Strip your voice of AAVE and go for more Channel 7 News, though you can throw out the occasionalbiiiitttchhhhfor laughs in select social situations.
And, most importantly, number four: never, ever make a white woman cry. Because white women’s tears are salt sowed into fertile land, the fertile land being your friendships, your peace, your livelihood, and whatever else you may hold dear. The cuter and younger the white woman, the more potent the tears. The more witnesses, especially of the straight male variety, the more devastating the impact.
All this to say: I was screwed.
Ashley Biernacki and I stood facing each other in the atrium of international supermodel Renata Kovalenko’s lavishly decorated Gold Coast penthouse, where we had both been invited to celebrate her son, TV actor Ezra Adelman’s, thirtieth birthday, at a party funded by her husband, billionaire CEO of Knydus Technologies Paul Adelman’s, endless coffers. I was here because Ezra was my best friend. Ashley was here because Ezra was her boyfriend. And because karma doesn’t exist, she’d only become more beautiful since our last encounter (sixteen years ago, when she’d called me a gorilla for refusing to let her copy my homework).
“I—I don’t know what you want me to say,” Ashley blubbered. Her high, round cheeks were pink, and the tears that spilled from her large hazel eyes were pretty, like glistening glass droplets. Her effective zone was only about a two-meter radius, plenty wide enough to get me in trouble in the crowded atrium. In the two minutes or so since our unfortunate encounter began, Ashley had managed to transform me from Dr.Josephine Boateng, physician, influencer, and close friend and confidante of the hosts, into an unspecified angry Black woman preying on Somebody’s Hapless Granddaughter.
“Why are you crying?” I asked, baffled. A distinguished older gentleman at my two o’clock huffed, having heardI’ll give yousomething to cry about. I searched my vicinity for an ally, and, finding none, settled on an approaching Ezra, who had put me in this quandary to begin with. “Seriously?”
If I was seeking refuge in Ezra, I did not find it. Ashley was not Ezra’s first girlfriend this year, possibly not his first this month. Handsome heirs to tech empires didn’t really have to do the long-term-commitment thing. But although he’d always been kind of a garbage boyfriend, he’d also always been a pretty reliable friend.
Until today. Today, his expression was cold. I watched, stunned, as he grabbed Ashley’s hand, gave it a squeeze, and used his other to dab her face with a pocket square that I knew cost more than my entire outfit. I’d rather he’d used it to smother me.
Really, though, I should have known. Ashley Biernacki was very cute, very small, and very blond. She possessed the H-bomb of white girl tears, and man, did she know how to wield them. As a kid, she’d employed her little siren’s song regularly, usually after doing something unspeakably horrible to me, and many a beet-faced assistant principal had dragged me into their office in defense of it.
Judging by Ezra’s expression and the heightened whispers around us, history was about to repeat itself.
“I just wanted to say hello,” Ashley said.
Ezra gave her the most tender smile, then turned a hardened gaze to me. It was odd, seeing him look at me like that, like a stranger had slithered into his skin and was glaring at me through his eyes.
“Jo,” he said. “Can we talk?” He tucked his now-damp pocket square back into his blazer, running a soothing hand down a shuddering Ashley’s arm. “Alone?”
The corners of my mouth twitched downward.Here we go.People were watching, waiting with bated breath for my reaction the way one might wait for a circus lion to roar.
But I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. I lifted my champagne flute to my lips, relaxed my shoulders, and gave Ezra what I knew was my most disarming smile.
“Of course,” I said, then allowed the man who I knew was rapidly becoming my former best friend to lead me through the atrium. The crowd parted like the Red Sea around us, making way for their prince and the pariah.
Ezra led me down a quiet hallway in silence. I power walked behind him, trying hard to keep pace with his long strides in my stilettos, and marveled at the breadth of his back. When we first met, he’d been light enough for me to hold in my arms, so thin that when we embraced, I would wince against the daggers of his collarbones. That Ezra—the mop-haired one with a crooked smile and a lack of decorum, that had been the boy whose life I’d once saved. He’d looked up at me through glazed blue eyes and asked me to never leave him, and I’d whispered back, “I won’t,” and now, ten years later, I wondered if maybe I should have sought reciprocation, made him promise never to leave me either.
We reached our destination, the study, and Ezra held the door open for me, a jailer opening a cell door. I walked inside, skimming a hand along a bookshelf. I’d never seen any of the Adelmans use this room, and yet it smelled like them, like sunlight and open windows, sandalwood and citrus. In the center of the room was the bureau Mazarin, as pristine as it had been two years ago when Renata had spotted it in a museum and, in the most heinous display of unconscionable wealth, decided to purchase it right out of its case. I circled it, then leaned against it, facing the closed gold-trimmed ocher curtains. Six hundred thousand dollars and three hundred years of history, all under my bum. I spun the miniature globe atop it as I waited for Ezra to close the door.
The moment it clicked shut, Ezra rounded on me.
“So... care to explain why you’re accosting my girlfriend?” he said.
“What do you mean?” My voice came out high, squeezed out from behind a reed-thin throat. “I was perfectly nice.”
“Of course you were, and that’s why she’s crying,” Ezra said flatly. He raised his hand to his hair to push it back, then, remembering that it was chock-full of product, lowered it again. “Come on, Jo, I know you think I’m moving too fast, or whatever, but you can bother me about that, not her—”
“Is that what you think this is about?” I cut him off in disbelief. “That woman. Your girlfriend. Her full name’s Ashley Biernacki, right?”
“Yes,” Ezra said instantly. And then, finally, he paused. “Wait. How did you know that?”
“Think, Ez,” I said. “Whywould I know that?”
