Today's Reading
My name was a pretty common Okie name. My high school was in Ada, right in the middle of Indian Country. But I felt like those shitasses hadn't even bothered reading my application or my cover letter. I was honest (mostly); I wanted to learn and grow. Did any of that matter? Not when you were "Indian," apparently. Something we could call ourselves but rubbed us the wrong way when non-Natives tried to foist the inaccurate label onto us.
"E!" Joanna cried. And there it was. The pity. The tone of Why are you doing this? The cry of outrage for putting myself in this type of situation.
I rolled my eyes, bracing myself for the same conversation I'd had a million times. "It's going to be fine," I said, and before she could try to convince me to give up, I walked off to start refilling the napkin dispensers. She followed me around the counter, dodging a few men and their beers.
I was shoving the tiny napkins into one of the silver dispensers when Joanna pushed the others away and invaded my space, leaning against the counter, casual confidence in all her Indigenous glory. Each of her fingers had a silver-and-gemstone ring, and her wrists were stacked with beaded bracelets that jingled as she tapped her chin in thought, drawing attention to her full lips. She was tall and commanding and didn't take shit from anybody. Including me.
"I believe you. You were always the smartest kid in our classes, and you've been dealt some shitty hands. Why don't you wait to apply for these jobs until you finish more of the accounting classes?" she asked.
"I need to be making more money now to pay for those classes." Sarcasm laced my voice as I mimicked her casual stance.
"I could give you a loan." Her exaggerated tone put mine to shame.
"No."
"It's not your fault that—"
"Stop."
Talking about the rejections, I could handle. I was not going to get into it again about my brother, Sage, and the reason I was broke. Joanna knew and I knew that he'd lost my money. Talking more about it wouldn't help me right now. I needed forward-moving action. I reached around her to grab one of the discarded napkin holders.
"Okay, I'm sorry. I just want to help you."
"I know," I sighed, and punched the napkins into their place harder than was needed. "All this would be easier if I was white."
"Why would you say something stupid like that?"
I said it to be flippant, but lights and bells went off in my head like a jackpot win at the slots in the casino. Ding. Ding. Ding. There was a possible solution to my problems.
"Joanna!"
"We have to be proud of who we are and where we come from. Don't buy into the colonizer's propaganda."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I grabbed her shoulders. "Listen to me." The napkins and customers around us were forgotten.
"Fucksake! What?"
"I'm just gonna be white."
"Your dad is white." She looked beyond confused.
"Exactly, so it's not really a lie. I'm just going to check the Caucasian box on the applications."
"Does that really matter?"
"Let's see."
"You also don't have any accounting experience on your résumé." She extracted my hands from her.
"So what? I do all the register balancing here, and I help you and my auntie with your online taxes."
Joanna's face brightened. She finally understood where my mind was at. "I can be your reference." Her smile lit up my entire world.
"Some people have private bookkeepers to handle all their business stuff."
"You're hired. Now it's not technically a lie."
...
