You Are Free: Stories Read online




  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Admission

  The Land of Beulah

  Replacement Theory

  There, There

  The Care of the Self

  You Are Free

  Triptych

  What’s the Matter with Helga and Dave?

  PRAISE FOR

  You Are Free

  “In You Are Free, Danzy Senna trains her gimlet eye on the intersection of race and family life, and the result is a richly nuanced, often funny, always provocative work of art.”

  —Jennifer Egan

  “Danzy Senna’s stories are beautiful examples of deceptive simplicity, which of course isn’t simplicity at all. The tales are seductive, lucid dispatches from contemporary life, but the undercurrents are electric and strange, and go on working changes on you after the book is closed.”

  —Jonathan Lethem

  “Danzy Senna’s probing and marvelous stories delve into the deepest layers of the human heart and psyche, all while showing us a multicolored, multiflavored, and, most important, multilayed world to which we all—lovers, mothers, nomads, strangers—could easily belong.”

  —Edwidge Danticat

  “Searingly smart and profoundly satisfying. Senna’s people are beautifully rendered . . . they are completely alive in the mind as one reads, they inhabit us: a woman finds herself longing for the sign of material success implied by her child’s acceptance into an exclusive school, and we do, too; another worries about her boyfriend’s apparent failure to notice or remark about the suicide of a colleague, and finds herself questioning her own life with him, and we are completely with her; still another has trouble accepting the divorce of a friend, and the friend’s new woman, while her own relationship begins to erode. . . . These women and men are palpable and so well wrought that one loses the sense that one is reading a book . . . a very damn good book.”

  —Richard Bausch

  “Dispatches from a glorious and terrifying dimension: motherhood. Senna has written about shifting identities before, but this time it’s the divide between being childless and bearing children that makes her imagination crackle. . . . It’s one hell of a book.”

  —Victor LaValle

  PRAISE FOR

  Caucasia

  Winner of the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction

  Winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award

  A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year

  “Lucid and magnificent.”

  —James McBride, author of The Color of Water

  “[An] absorbing debut novel . . . Senna superbly illustrates the emotional toll that politics and race take on one especially young girl’s development as she makes her way through the parallel limbos between black and white and between girl and young woman . . . Senna gives new meaning to the twin universal desires for a lost childhood and a new adult self by recounting Birdie’s struggle to become someone when she can look and act like anyone.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Absorbing, affecting . . . Senna’s dynamic storytelling illuminates personal revelations that are anything but black-and-white.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “The visual conundrums woven through Danzy Senna’s remarkable first novel [will] cling to your memory. There’s Birdie, who takes after her mother’s white, New England side of the family—light skin, straight hair. There’s her big sister, Cole, who takes after her father, a radical black intellectual. It’s the early seventies, and black-power politics divide their parents, who divide the sisters: Cole disappears with their father, and Birdie goes underground with their mother. . . . [Senna] tells this coming-of-age tale with impressive beauty and power.”

  —Newsweek

  “This hugely gifted writer has produced a powerful response to whites who desire reconciliation without confrontation—and to those complacent black pundits of the moment who, looking at an increasingly multicultural America, say, race problem? What race problem?”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Haunting and intelligent.”

  —The New York Times

  “A stunning debut . . . that escapes the confines of race, all the while digging to its complex core.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Extraordinary . . . A compelling look at being black and being white, Caucasia deserves to be read all over.”

  —Glamour

  “Senna brings an accomplished voice to this vivid coming-of-age tale, offering images sweet and sorrowful of a child caught on the fault line between races.”

  —USA Today

  PRAISE FOR

  Symptomatic

  “Extraordinarily original.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “Senna’s debut novel . . . was hailed as nothing less than a contemporary classic, with the author evoking comparisons to everyone from Ralph Ellison to Vladimir Nabokov. Her follow-up, Symptomatic , proves the raves were right on target.”

  —Elle

  “Disturbing, sensual . . . a must-read.”

  –The Seattle Times

  “Suspenseful, and the anguish her vividly realized mixed-race characters feel when confronted with hostility from both ends of the racial spectrum is, sadly, all too authentic.”

  —Booklist

  “Thoughtful and exciting. Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal

  ALSO BY DANZY SENNA

  Caucasia

  Symptomatic

  Where Did You Sleep Last Night? A Personal History

  RIVERHEAD BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2011 Danzy Senna

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The RIVERHEAD logo is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Riverhead trade paperback edition: May 2011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
<
br />   Senna, Danzy.

  You are free : stories / by Danzy Senna. p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51496-2

  I. Title.

  PS3569.E618Y68 2011

  813’.54—dc22

  2010032721

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Henry and Miles

  “Yes, I’m tired,” she said. “And do you know a funny thing? . . . I’ve never understood anything in my whole life.”

  “All right,” he said quietly. “All right, Aunt Emmy. Now. Would you like to come on in and meet the family?”

  —Richard Yates, The Easter Parade

  Admission

  The letter was unexpected. Cassie stared at it for a long time as she sipped her coffee, trying to decipher a hidden clue, though the language was crisp, the message to the point. They had been invited for an interview.

  You recently completed the first stage of the application process when you attended a tour of the Institute for Early Childhood Development. You have been selected for the second step—an interview. This is for parents only. Please arrange appropriate childcare. Your interview time and date are:TUESDAY, FEB. 18, 2:00 p.m.

  Please call to confirm your attendance.

  Cassie headed across the wet grass to Duncan’s studio, letter in hand. She peered in the window to see if he was working. He was sitting in front of his television eating a mango with a knife. She opened the door and stepped inside. He was watching a basketball game and lurched back in his seat. “Fucking foul! That was so over the line.”

  “Duncan.”

  He turned and looked at her. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “We got an interview.”

  He stared blankly.

  “At the Institute.”

  He squinted. “The Institute?”

  They’d toured the place two weeks ago and already he’d forgotten.

  “The fancy school.”

  “Oh yeah, that.” He turned back to the game. “Speaking of children, where is ours?”

  “Brittany took him to the park.”

  “Well, then, you should be working. This is our window. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  “I know,” she said. “But this letter. What should we do about the interview? They’ve offered us a time and a date.”

  “How kind of them.”

  “Duncan. I’m serious.”

  He turned around slowly, his mouth glistening from the mango. “We aren’t interested, remember? So an interview would be a waste of time. Cody is already all set to go to Wee Things.” He swiveled back to the television.

  Cassie bit her lip and stared at the back of Duncan’s head. It looked egg-shaped and vulnerable from the back.

  It was true that they’d only gone on the tour because she’d said she needed to research the play she was writing. She still had no more than the barest sketches of the characters and situation: a wealthy Los Angeles family, a disconsolate bulimic wife, an eight-year-old girl’s suicide attempt. She had not yet decided whether the attempt would be successful.

  She’d half believed the research excuse herself. But as she’d driven them over to the Institute that morning in the old Subaru—Duncan grumpy that he’d had to put on clothes—she had to admit that she was weirdly, secretly excited.

  Several of the mothers in her playgroup had briefed her on the application process, which was famously mysterious and daunting.

  “You have to be a Spielberg or something to even get an interview.”

  “I heard Will and Jada got wait-listed.”

  The Institute for Early Childhood Development. She and Duncan had moved out west only recently from Providence, Rhode Island; he’d gotten a teaching job, she’d gotten an NEA grant for her next play. They were subletting a house—a friend of a friend’s—in Larchmont Village, a precious neighborhood with a quaint, Mayberry feel to it, though it was on the edge of West Hollywood and the residents were all film industry people. Cassie had already found a school for Cody in walking distance, but she’d applied to the Institute anyway, for research. She needed to know the rituals and mores of the city’s elite. Anyway, the application wasn’t hard, just a square white card with blanks for her and Duncan’s names, their occupations, and their child’s name, address, date of birth, and race. Hillary, a playgroup mother who had applied and been rejected twice, observed with some bitterness that the application was so barebones because the Institute got the rest of your information off the Internet.

  “You have to be Google-worthy,” she said.

  The school was located in the middle of the city. It was across the street from a public school, an old brick building with brightly colored Spanish and English signs posted on the chainlink fence. The Institute looked more like a museum than a school—a sleek modernist building surrounded by a high cement wall lined with brightly colored turrets that stabbed the sky at odd angles.

  “This better not take too long,” Duncan grumbled as they approached the building. “I’ve got work to do.”

  She’d expected a small group of select applicants, but nearly every seat in the auditorium was filled, and the tension in the air was palpable. The crowd, on the surface at least, was diverse—black and brown and yellow and white, gay and straight. Duncan went for the muffins and coffee while she got on line for their name tags and a folder with information about the school. They found seats in the middle of the room. Nearby she noticed a familiar face. For a moment she thought it was someone she knew, but no, it was a famous actress. She nudged Duncan. “Look who’s sitting two rows down.”

  Duncan was leafing through the information packet. He snorted. “Check out the second question here.” He was pointing to a green sheet labeled “Frequently Asked Questions.”

  QUESTION #1: “Is it true that all the children at the Institute are the children of celebrities?”

  ANSWER: “No. Only a modest percentage of our parents are celebrities. We pride ourselves on our diverse community—which includes plenty of people you’ve never heard of.”

  The chatter in the room began to quiet as a small, zaftig white woman in an elegant blue pantsuit and clicking heels walked across the floor to the microphone and tapped it twice. Obedient silence fell over the crowd.

  The woman smiled and spoke into the microphone. She had a vaguely European accent. “Welcome, parents. I’m Esther Vale, director of the Institute. I’m so pleased to see all of you here today.”

  She went on to give a speech about the school’s pedagogy while the giant screen behind her showed images of the Institute children in action: an Asian girl frozen in hysterical laughter on the playground; a white boy with a mop of blond curls wearing safety goggles and staring at fluid in a beaker; a black girl onstage in a ladybug costume, her face alight with a gaptoothed smile.

  The crowd around Cassie seemed to thrum, silently, with excitement and desire. She eyed their rapt faces as they listened to Esther Vale speak.

  “Now I’m going to tell you who should not apply to the Institute,” Esther was saying, a small, bemused smile on her face. “And I’m going to be honest with you. Can I be honest? You should not apply to the Institute if you don’t see the value of our generous financial aid program that allows families of all income levels to attend. You should not apply to the Institute if you aren’t interested in being an active member of our school community. You should not apply to the Institute if you are uncomfortable with nontraditional families—gay parents, single parents. You should not apply to the Institute if you are uncomfortable with your child making friends of different racial and ethnic backgrounds. You should not apply to the Institute if you don’t want your child to have as much art—drama, painting, poetry, sculpture—in their curriculum as they have reading, writing, and arithmetic. If these aren’t the qualities you want in a school, then this isn’t the school for you, and there are plenty of private schools in Los Angeles that will suit your needs.”

  The crowd burst into applause as Esther strode off the stage. They had been
given instructions to meet their tour guides at the front of the auditorium, based on the color of the sticker on their folder. Cassie and Duncan’s sticker was blue and they joined the cluster around their group leader, a petite blond woman.

  For the next forty-five minutes, she led them through the school—peering into classrooms, telling them about the amazing programs the school had to offer and her own children’s experiences there. Duncan jiggled his keys in his pocket and kept checking his watch. Every so often they would pass another group of parents, and Cassie would recognize a face or a name on a name tag. She felt like she was in a dream. There was Julia Roberts, and there was Donald Sutherland, and there was President Nixon . . .