"Dee-Dee"

This story, in short form, was shared on a Book Woman Book Club book-mark in 2009.
Let me introduce you to a new-old character, "Dee-Dee",
Yes - she too has a story to tell!  Enjoy!

They were late.  Dee-Dee had planned it that way.  Dee-Dee had invited her friend, Georgia to the Book Woman Book Club meeting.  She held her breath as they walked in the door, and as Dee-Dee had expected...all hell broke loose.  Not the kind of shouting and yelling, or crying and sighing hell that usually broke out from her book- reading sistahs when chaos visited them.  No.  This was a silent acting out.  Eyes threatening and necks rolling. Slapped thighs and stiffening backs.  Cleared throats and eyebrows signaling.  Oh yes....this was going to be an interesting afternoon!

She felt Georgia reaching for her arm with a quick intake of her breath, but Dee-Dee moved on into the room, ignoring Georgia's huff and puff, and sat down in a french-provincial chair.  "Cora's bad taste just goes on and on!", Dee-Dee thought to herself!  Dee-Dee pointed out another gaudy chair for Georgia to sit on and greeted everyone with a "How are my sistah's doing tonight?"  Kadi-jah jumped on her greeting, "Sistahs? What..." but Bessie Davis Hudson cut Kadi-jah off with a "We are all doing fine, Dee-Dee!  I see you brought a friend to the Book Club meeting.  Why don't you introduce her?"

"This is my friend, Georgia.  She's a poet.  I told her we were reviewing poems from I am the Darker Brother and I thought she might enjoy sitting in."  Dee-Dee caught Georgia's pointed stare and winked!
"Well, welcome!  Ladies, let's get started. "  Cora, the host for this days Book Woman Book Club meeting, began to read the poem, "I, Too, Sing America".  Dee-Dee settled back in her chair. 

This silent acting-out had taken place at her wedding.  They all came.  How could they have explained it if they didn't come.  They all knew that she would still continue coming to the Book Woman Book Club.  Dee-Dee's skin was thick.  She had had to grow layer upon layer of skin to survive.  She had grown the first new layer when her family moved to Camillus, a suburb of Syracuse, in the late 60's.  White folks...all the nigger name calling, and spitting and abuse.  Because of that first layer of skin.  Because she was black.  And then she grew that third layer of skin when she went to college.  "Are you white?  You talk like you white." This time Black folks.   Like she had to somehow prove her blackness because she didn't know the dances, or the slang or the Black English.  Oreo, they called her...black on the outside, white on the inside.  Dee-Dee had grown layer after layer of skin over her 54 years of life in America - never feeling at home anywhere.  Not in Black world and not in White world.  She grew layer upon layer of armor.  Some to protect her from white-folks and some to protect her from black-folks.  And when she married Christoper, a white man, and he folded her inside of him with his love.  Not black love or white love.  Love.

"Well, let them be mad!" Dee-Dee thought.  A bunch of these women had marched with King.  They had fought against segregation and had put their lives on the front line for integration.  It was time for the Book Woman Club to integrate.  "Now maybe I should have forewarned Georgia that she would be the only white girl at the Book Woman Book Club meeting!" Dee-Dee admonished herself, but then thought about it again. "No, Georgia just gonna have to deal with this reality, just like the sistahs are going to have to deal with it!"
Dee-Dee tuned into the discussion and ignored Georgia's eyes throwing daggers!