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Those days were behind her. Now she was just a woman standing in a man’s kitchen gifting him a pie and being accused of racism in return.
Geneva had been insistent that they owed Cooper both an apology and a thank you and had wanted to come over herself to deliver them both. Still feeling uncomfortable with her little sister being alone with any man, Siena had convinced her that she was the one who truly owed him both the apology and the thanks. So here she was, regretting that decision wholeheartedly.
Siena regretted just about every choice she’d made this evening, starting with not going for her gun before she’d answered the door. Though maybe she’d have done something even stupider if she’d had a gun in her hand when she’d come face to face with Luis’s angry father.
She didn’t regret telling Dr. Granger what had happened with those boys, but ...shouldshe have expected Luis to get blamed? Now that Cooper had presented her with the question, augmenting Jorge’s emphatic if not entirely coherent argument, she couldn’t help but examine it.Wasit her responsibility to watch out for Luis in that way? How could it be? Dr. Granger was the alphabet-soup professional; Siena was just the closest thing to a parent Geneva had left. Why was itherfault Luis had been unfairly disciplined?
Also, it was pretty fucking rich for Cooper to be blaming her for not being careful about Luisandto be blaming her forbeingcareful abouthim.
That was the first among her chaotic thoughts that seemed important to say aloud. “It’s an invitation for your perspective, but only if you agree that I wasn’t out of line to be careful about you.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Being suspicious of you with Geneva. You say I should have known Luis could be targeted and I should have guarded against that somehow, and I’m telling you it’s the same thing, then, as me being guarded about your intentions with my sister.”
His frown became a scowl. “I don’thaveany intentions with your sister.”
“I believe that.Now. But it sounds to me like you’re saying I should have acted from the start like there was achanceJayce and Henry, and the counselor, or whoever it was who decided the punishment, would throw Luis under the bus because he was the only ... person of color in the situation. You think I should have been more specific about what happened, who and how, so the blame fell fairly. For the simple reason that there was a non-white child in the mix, I should have been aware that racism could happen. That’s what you’re saying. Right?”
The idea that it wasracistfor her not to think of that chapped her ass, but if she pushed that block out of the way, she could see his point. Maybe this was what people meant when they talked about ‘white privilege.’ That term bugged the crap out of Siena; she didn’t feel remotely privileged and never had. To the contrary, she’d say she and her family had a large mountain of whatever the opposite of ‘privilege’ was.
Siena avoided politics to every degree she could. She voted most of the time, at least in the big election years, and when it was time to vote she tried to find a summary of candidates and issues so she could vote her conscience, but she did not want to hear all the endless chatter about how everybody thought they were right and everybody else was evil. All she could see of politics was hate and division.
Everybody had struggles, and every person’s struggle was unique. She tried to keep that in mind and treat people like people, period. She was much more interested in how people behaved than how they thought. Behavior was the only thing anybody could really know about anybody else, and it was the only thing that really mattered to how everybody existed in the world together. If someone had hate in their heart, what did she care, as long as they weren’t hateful in their actions.
It was like at work: she wore a skimpy uniform, the purpose of which was to excite the patrons. If those patrons stayed around longer, drank more, and gave her a great tip because they liked looking at her legs and ass and fake tits, that was the whole point. If they sat there and fantasized about grabbing hold of her ass or taking a bite or whatever, fine. She was totally comfortable with whatever weird thought they had in their head. But if that fantasy left their head and became behavior, if they said something gross to her, or if they touched her, she’d make them pay.Behaviorwas where offense lay, not thought. She was suspicious of men because in her experience they were usually not content to leave their shitty thoughts in their heads except where the consequences were obvious and immediate—like at a casino bar, where giant bouncers stood looming.
But Cooper’s point was rooted in behavior, wasn’t it? Somebody had acted unfairly against Luis, and Cooper seemed to be arguing that Siena’s own behavior, the way she’d explained the situation to Dr. Granger, had opened the door for Luis to be targeted. Huh.
Siena could see how the idea of ‘white privilege’ applied in this situation, and it was pretty cut and dried—Luis was the only one for whom his race could be a complication, and Jayce and Henry had exploited it because, even at the age of fourteen, they’d known they could. That was privilege, wasn’t it? Having something based on their whiteness that someone else didn’t have based on his lack of whiteness. And, she guessed, her own whiteness had allowed her to be blind to the possible consequences of what she’d told the counselor in a way that Jorge or his son couldn’t be. Not having to think about race because it didn’t affect her was ... a kind of privilege, she supposed. Not a lot ofperksfor her in that privilege, but ... okay. Yeah, she saw his point.
If ‘white privilege’ was a real thing here, did that meant it was a real thing generally? Ugh.
Speaking of regrets, shereallydid not want to be standing in this guy’s gross kitchen, feeling vulnerable, feeling both guilty and wary, and suddenly rethinking her entire worldview, please and thank you!
In the way his expression changed, Siena could see Cooper realize where her thoughts were taking her, and hopefully him as well. When he replied to what she’d said, he did it with only one word, echoing the last she’d spoken. “Right.”
Siena nodded, relieved to be getting to the part where she could push back at him a little. “Okay. I’ll concede that point. All I was thinking about then was my sister and what those little assholes did to her, but okay, I agree it’s fucked up that Luis got more punishment than the others, and I guess there’s only one reason I can think of it happened like that. Idon’tagree that it was my responsibility to be Luis’s advocate or whatever—Geneva is my only responsibility—but I will concede that maybe I could’ve made things better if I had been more aware.” Cooper started to smile, and Siena shot her hand up before his smugness blew his head up like a balloon. “But! I also need you to see that the same thing applies to being a woman in this world. We have to assume men will hurt us, because every single interaction with a man we don’t know—and way too many with men we do know—is a chance that we’ll be hurt. It’sprivilegefor men to be able to walk through the world without being afraid that half the people you meet might want to hurt you or touch you uninvited or say something sexual to you out of the blue. And you’re reacting from thatprivilegewhen you get all up in your feelings about being treated like a possible pedophile when you were a strange man luring a young girl into your house alone.”
That wiped the smile off his face and brought the scowl flying back into place. He’d been leaning back on the counter with his arms casually crossed. Now he stood up straight and let his arms fall to his sides. “Fucking hell! I did notlureher. She was following me the fuck around!”
Siena didn’t allow herself to amp up with him. She stayed calm but assertive. “I know that now. But what do you think it looked like to me then?” A better way to make her point occurred to her. “Racism is bad. Sexual abuse is bad. We can agree on that. Racism is a real danger. Sexual abuse is a real danger. We can agree on that, too, right?” When he nodded slowly, looking like he was preparing to dodge a blow, Siena charged forward. “On the other hand, it sucks to be accused of racism. And it sucks to be accused of ... being inappropriate with a young girl. But if it’s important to guard against those bad things, then it’s also important to see that sometimes we have to act like they’re true even if they aren’t. That’s what caution is—behaving like somethingcouldhappen so you can try to be sure itdoesn’t. Right?”
Now that the words were out, she wasn’t sure they actually made her point—or hell, even made sense. Losing her sense of certainty, Siena took a step back.
But Cooper tilted his head and, after a moment’s consideration, made a thoughtful little chuckle. “Okay. I can’t argue with that. You’re right.” He took a step toward her. “And it sounds like I don’t need to present my closing argument. You get it—the problem with what the school did.”
“Yeah, I see it. I’m still not sure what I could have done to prevent it.”
“Prevent it? Maybe nothing. Racists gonna racist. But we gotta make it tough for them where we can.” He grinned again, this time with full power, and wow. Whoever had coined the phrase ‘devil may care’ must have had a time machine and traveled to the future to see Cooper’s grin now.Reallygood grin.
“Racists and rapists,” she said, unable to keep a grin of her own from responding to his. “Gotta make it tough for ‘em.”
That dangerous grin deepening, he took another step toward her. The kitchen wasn’t large; now he was only a step away. Possibly as close to her as he’d ever been.
“Hey, look at us,” he said, his voice low. “We found some common ground.”
Something in the air around them changed, like a sudden crackle of static. Siena was out of practice, but she recognized it for what it was: chemistry. An acquaintance that had begun in chilly conflict and hardened to icy animosity had, in the past ... half hour? ... warmed to wary gratitude and neighborliness, then maybe budding friendliness.
