Brown Girls

Chapter One.

Elizabeth Malice was a sly little bitch with not a lot of friends.

At least that's what some zit-faced, life-low white boy screamed at her through the window of his pick-up. The pickup was faded blue with mud ingrained in the dusted wheels. Recent and old mud splatters stained the truck on the sides. He had a confederate flag decal in his back window and his licenses plate said: YEE-YEE.

Elizabeth watched as the old truck kicked up dust and disappeared beyond the dirt road in front of her.

Dark--would be the way most people would describe Elizabeth Malice. She fits the term 'dark' in many different ways:

dark sense of humor

dark clothes

dark way of thinking

and...

dark skin

She hated it--her skin. That's what she was taught anyways by her grandmother. Her grandma Eda hated black people--even though she herself was black. Elizabeth's mother, Selene, would always repeat to Elizabeth that:

"Grandma is sufferin', baby. She don't mean what she say. She's got holes in her brain, she don't mean what she say." With unruly pig-tail and hot chubby cheeks stained with hot tears, Elizabeth Malice nodded and decided to go upstairs and take a nap to forget her sick grandma's sharp words.

She remembered moments like that when she would get screamed at by white boys in pick up trucks. Sometimes she thinks she's sick like her grandmother. Sometimes she thinks it's some hidden darkness she feels but, never sees. A darkness more sinister than any slur she's ever heard. A darkness that festers in her soul--her pitch black soul. It's a hatred she can't escape; a hatred that grew with her.

Grandma Malice may have been sick but, she may have been right.

***

Elizabeth Malice worked in a bakery along Main Street. It was Spanish owned and she got the job through her friend Jennifer. Jennifer had rich hazel eyes and fair skin. People who didn't know her would automatically assume she was white. But, her tongue can twist in the Spanish language like nobody else. She has a special talent for arguing--it was something her mother instilled in her at an early age--which landed her a debate scholarship to Hollis University in Maine. She ultimately turned it down because her mother became sick and passed away about 6 months after her diagnosis. It was a brain tumor that wasn't caught early. Jennifer Diaz ended up staying in the small town of Charles, VA to take care of her abuela and her younger brothers: James and Connor Diaz.

Charles, VA is one of those towns that were split down the middle. Not by law but, there was definitely a divide. The Black and Spanish and Asian part of the community usually resides in a part of town called The Quarters. It was originally called The Coon Quarters--it still gets called that by thoroughbred locals and White people when they feel in their element. The microscopic town of Charles is just like any old small town. Where they are more cows than people. Where the most interesting conversation to have with someone is what kind of crop is blossoming this season. Where more than half of its town folk were born in barns or kitchen floors. And on the edge of that town in a part of town no one wants to show their face, Elizabeth Malice works in a bakery with little expectation of her life.

Elizabeth walks in the bakery with a chime. Jennifer's abuela sits quietly by the window and looks out at the sky as it bleeds into purples to pinks to orange. Jennifer's abuela, Maria, was a dancer in the 60s. It was a pretty elite group of Spanish women that would dance all over Latin America and in New York and New Orleans. Maria loved to talk about her time with "her girls" in the dance group. Some days she likes to dance around when Jennifer turns on the radio on the counter. Sometimes, Elizabeth would catch Jennifer smiling at her grandmother. But, this morning Maria doesn't smile like she usually does when she see Elizabeth.